Indiana High School Football (2019)

[rico]

53 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

Thanks for sharing Rico.  Exactly the type of thing I was hoping to get when i started this thread.

No problem bro.  I will expand on it a tad.  I know people involved with Bremen, Tippecanoe Valley, Jimtown, Whitko, and Eastbrook.  They rave about how Johnson built that Pioneer program.  The new coach picked right up...now let's see if the tradition continues.

[5fouls]

The link below contains 247's rankings of the Top 40 players in Indiana for the class of 2020.  The list touches on a couple of the points in my original post.

• There are 7 Indiana players in the national top 1,000, and only one in the top 400.  I know Texas, Florida, and most of the other southern states dominate these rankings, but that still is a little lower than I expected.  With 50 states, the 'average' per state would be 20 in the top 1,000.
• Of the 40 that are listed for Indiana, only FOUR are at schools south of the Indy metro area.  Clear indication that the football talent (and thus team strength) in the state resides in the Indy area and northward.  However, a big shout out to one of those 4 from the South,  #12 on that list.  IU commit Caleb Murphy plays for class 1A West Washington.   Small school kid (West Washington's enrollment is less than 300) will be playing with the big boys in the Big Ten.

https://247sports.com/Season/2020-Football/CompositeRecruitRankings/?InstitutionGroup=Highschool&State=IN

[BobSaccamanno]

The 2021 football class in Indiana has a number of guys with pretty high rankings.  

[rico]

15 hours ago, 5fouls said:

The link below contains 247's rankings of the Top 40 players in Indiana for the class of 2020.  The list touches on a couple of the points in my original post.

• There are 7 Indiana players in the national top 1,000, and only one in the top 400.  I know Texas, Florida, and most of the other southern states dominate these rankings, but that still is a little lower than I expected.  With 50 states, the 'average' per state would be 20 in the top 1,000.
• Of the 40 that are listed for Indiana, only FOUR are at schools south of the Indy metro area.  Clear indication that the football talent (and thus team strength) in the state resides in the Indy area and northward.  However, a big shout out to one of those 4 from the South,  #12 on that list.  IU commit Caleb Murphy plays for class 1A West Washington.   Small school kid (West Washington's enrollment is less than 300) will be playing with the big boys in the Big Ten.

https://247sports.com/Season/2020-Football/CompositeRecruitRankings/?InstitutionGroup=Highschool&State=IN

Question.  How many traditional football power houses exist south of the Indy area?  I ask because I honestly don't know.  Probably an exaggeration but it seems up here you can always count on FW Snider, FW Dwenger, FW Luers, Penn, and Hobart to have fine teams with talent.  

[5fouls]

18 minutes ago, rico said:

Question.  How many traditional football power houses exist south of the Indy area?  I ask because I honestly don't know.  Probably an exaggeration but it seems up here you can always count on FW Snider, FW Dwenger, FW Luers, Penn, and Hobart to have fine teams with talent.  

The two Columbus schools are always solid.  Columbus East has won a couple of state titles in the last 10 years.  There is good football played in Evansville at the 3A, 4A, and 5A levels, and a couple of teams have made some deep runs recently.  Evansville Memorial has been to the state finals the last two years and won one.  But, overall the Evansville schools are not quite as good as their northern counterparts.  The other large schools down south, New Albany, Floyd Central, Jeffersonville, BNL, etc. are mediocre to bad most years.  Basketball is definitely king in this part of the state, with baseball ahead of football as well.  In the lower classes, the same schools dominate the competition down here year in and year out, but usually flame out quickly in the state tournament

As far as talent, the three biggest names from down here recently have been Ben Braunecker who went to Forest Park and now plays for the Bears, Gunner Kiel, who went to Columbus East and Rondale Moore, who played at New Albany his first two years before transferring to national power Trinity in Louisville.  Go back a few years and Jay Cutler played at Heritage Hills.   So, until Moore makes it to the NFL, Southern Indiana essentially has one current NFL player (Braunecker).

[rico]

15 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

The two Columbus schools are always solid.  Columbus East has won a couple of state titles in the last 10 years.  There is good football played in Evansville at the 3A, 4A, and 5A levels, and a couple of teams have made some deep runs recently.  Evansville Memorial has been to the state finals the last two years and won one.  But, overall the Evansville schools are not quite as good as their northern counterparts.  The other large schools down south, New Albany, Floyd Central, Jeffersonville, BNL, etc. are mediocre to bad most years.  Basketball is definitely king in this part of the state, with baseball ahead of football as well.  In the lower classes, the same schools dominate the competition down here year in and year out, but usually flame out quickly in the state tournament

As far as talent, the three biggest names from down here recently have been Ben Braunecker who went to Forest Park and now plays for the Bears, Gunner Kiel, who went to Columbus East and Rondale Moore, who played at New Albany his first two years before transferring to national power Trinity in Louisville.  Go back a few years and Jay Cutler played at Heritage Hills.   So, until Moore makes it to the NFL, Southern Indiana essentially has one current NFL player (Braunecker).

Thanks for the info.

Although Warsaw historically sucks at football, the conference they are in is a meat grinder.  Goshen, Concord, and Northwood are football schools.

[5fouls]

Interesting story on some major conference realignment going on in Southwest Indiana over the next couple of years.

https://www.courierpress.com/story/sports/high-school/2019/06/22/how-southern-indiana-ads-made-decisions-joining-siac-pac/1531269001/

 

 

[btownqb]

East Central and Col East are both in the south and are as good of programs as anyone in the state. Past that in the south you have Brownstown, Col North, Reitz, Mater Dei, Southridge and Memorial. Gibson Southern is a hotbed right now. They haven't been around nearly as long as the rest. 

Some of it is there are simply more schools in the northern part of the state. The Region, FW, Southbend area... compared to Evansville. Big different in numbers of schools... that's why all the indy schools go south for their semi states. 

[rico]

1 hour ago, btownqb said:

East Central and Col East are both in the south and are as good of programs as anyone in the state. Past that in the south you have Brownstown, Col North, Reitz, Mater Dei, Southridge and Memorial. Gibson Southern is a hotbed right now. They haven't been around nearly as long as the rest. 

Some of it is there are simply more schools in the northern part of the state. The Region, FW, Southbend area... compared to Evansville. Big different in numbers of schools... that's why all the indy schools go south for their semi states. 

I would say a lot of it is that there are more schools in the north.  Take the next county south of me, Wabash.  Small county population wise, but yet it has 4 high schools.  Nothing big, but 4 none the less.  Most of the "farming" counties around me are like that.

[5fouls]

2 hours ago, btownqb said:

East Central and Col East are both in the south and are as good of programs as anyone in the state. Past that in the south you have Brownstown, Col North, Reitz, Mater Dei, Southridge and Memorial. Gibson Southern is a hotbed right now. They haven't been around nearly as long as the rest. 

Some of it is there are simply more schools in the northern part of the state. The Region, FW, Southbend area... compared to Evansville. Big different in numbers of schools... that's why all the indy schools go south for their semi states. 

I mentioned the Columbus schools and Evansville schools earlier.  They are solid programs, but other than Columbus East, none of them are championship contenders year in and year out.

East Central, like the Evansville schools, is good, and did win the 4A championship a couple of years ago, but I would not call them elite.  They have also benefited, as has everyone in 4A, that Cathedral and New Palestine have been playing up due to success factor.

Let's see if Southridge and Gibson Southern can sustain.  For Southridge, I saw a rumor that Montgomery was not going to play football this year.

Brownstown is consistently good, but unfortunately, the competition in the Mid-Southern conference holds them back.  It just does not adequately prepare them for the rigors of the state tournament. Charlestown is the only other program in the conference that consistently puts a conference championship caliber team out there.  North Harrison had a couple of years where they challenged, and Silver Creek had one where they almost challenged, but most of the time the Brownstown / Charlestown matchup is the de-facto conference championship.  In a given year, Brownstown usually plays 6-7 games that are totally not competitive.  That usually hurts them in the latter rounds of the sectional or the regional.

On another note, which position are you coaching this year?

[Steubenhoosier]

I taught and coached in th Columbus school system way back. At that time, East was the powerhouse and North was an afterthought. Glad to see the Bulldogs improving.

Both Martinsville and Seymour used to have good programs, as well as Castle way south. We always struggled against those teams 

[5fouls]

3 minutes ago, Steubenhoosier said:

I taught and coached in th Columbus school system way back. At that time, East was the powerhouse and North was an afterthought. Glad to see the Bulldogs improving.

Both Martinsville and Seymour used to have good programs, as well as Castle way south. We always struggled against those teams 

Seymour's entire athletic program has been pretty ugly over the last 15 years or so.  Baseball team has been decent, football has had more downs than up, and basketball has been frankly pretty bad.

Don't know too much about Martinsville.  They are a little too far north for me to follow.

[btownqb]

1 hour ago, 5fouls said:

I mentioned the Columbus schools and Evansville schools earlier.  They are solid programs, but other than Columbus East, none of them are championship contenders year in and year out.

East Central, like the Evansville schools, is good, and did win the 4A championship a couple of years ago, but I would not call them elite.  They have also benefited, as has everyone in 4A, that Cathedral and New Palestine have been playing up due to success factor.

Let's see if Southridge and Gibson Southern can sustain.  For Southridge, I saw a rumor that Montgomery was not going to play football this year.

Brownstown is consistently good, but unfortunately, the competition in the Mid-Southern conference holds them back.  It just does not adequately prepare them for the rigors of the state tournament. Charlestown is the only other program in the conference that consistently puts a conference championship caliber team out there.  North Harrison had a couple of years where they challenged, and Silver Creek had one where they almost challenged, but most of the time the Brownstown / Charlestown matchup is the de-facto conference championship.  In a given year, Brownstown usually plays 6-7 games that are totally not competitive.  That usually hurts them in the latter rounds of the sectional or the regional.

On another note, which position are you coaching this year?

Fullbacks

[btownqb]

2 hours ago, 5fouls said:

I mentioned the Columbus schools and Evansville schools earlier.  They are solid programs, but other than Columbus East, none of them are championship contenders year in and year out.

East Central, like the Evansville schools, is good, and did win the 4A championship a couple of years ago, but I would not call them elite.  They have also benefited, as has everyone in 4A, that Cathedral and New Palestine have been playing up due to success factor.

Let's see if Southridge and Gibson Southern can sustain.  For Southridge, I saw a rumor that Montgomery was not going to play football this year.

Brownstown is consistently good, but unfortunately, the competition in the Mid-Southern conference holds them back.  It just does not adequately prepare them for the rigors of the state tournament. Charlestown is the only other program in the conference that consistently puts a conference championship caliber team out there.  North Harrison had a couple of years where they challenged, and Silver Creek had one where they almost challenged, but most of the time the Brownstown / Charlestown matchup is the de-facto conference championship.  In a given year, Brownstown usually plays 6-7 games that are totally not competitive.  That usually hurts them in the latter rounds of the sectional or the regional.

On another note, which position are you coaching this year?

East Central is a big time 4A program. Top 5 4A program overall. 

Reitz is as well. And Memorial has 3 state championship appearances in like 12 years and 2 titles. They're s top 5 3A program(up in 4A for success factor). Southridge is a top 5 2A program (in 3A for success factor). 

Brownstown short comings in the tourney I'll get into tomorrow. Betting the horses right now. Idk exactly what class you'd put us in... but we're a top 5 2A-3A team. 

[rico]

Here is another small school power house that doesn't get talked about much....hard to believe I used to drink beer with the coach some 30 years ago.

http://indianahsfootball.homestead.com/files/logsEastbrook.htm#loaded

http://pastfb.homestead.com/tny/Eastbrook.htm#loaded

[btownqb]

Just now, rico said:

Here is another small school power house that doesn't get talked about much....hard to believe I used to drink beer with the coach some 30 years ago.

http://indianahsfootball.homestead.com/files/logsEastbrook.htm#loaded

http://pastfb.homestead.com/tny/Eastbrook.htm#loaded

Yes EB for sure top 5 2A program. 

[btownqb]

On 7/24/2019 at 6:19 PM, 5fouls said:

I'll admit that I am not nearly as big of a high school football junkie as I am basketball, but during the season, I still find myself on most Friday nights during the season attending the games at the school my kids attend.

It's still several weeks before the high school season starts, and I'm not sure how active this thread will be, but even with no games going on, I think there are some interesting topics that can be discussed.

• Is Indiana, specifically the Indianapolis area, an underrated hotbed of football talent?
• North versus South.  Virtually all of the powerhouse programs in the state are located in the Indy metro area and northward.  This is the case in all 6 class levels.  What are the reasons for the disparity?  
• Program contraction.  It's becoming an issue.  There are more programs folding due to low numbers and expense than there are programs being added.  I was at a game last season where the opposing team dressed less than 20 players (and it was not a 1A school).
• Is a 6 class system the best approach (versus 4 classes in other sports)?  The 'plan' is for classes 1A-4A to have 64 teams each, class 6A to have 32 teams, and class 5A to make up the difference.  Contraction and success factor has skewed those numbers slightly, but those numbers generally hold true.

Anyway, as I said, several weeks until the season starts, but thought we could have some conversation before then.  Once the games begin, it would be interesting to hear about the teams in your area, even if you do not attend the games.  Who are the teams to watch?  Any elite talent?, etc.

As he does with basketball, John Harrell has a great website that I use to keep up with what is going on.  A link is provided below.

  https://indianahsfootball.homestead.com/

 

What does powerhouse program mean exactly? 

1A- Linton(2A last 2 years), LCC(2A right now), Sheridan, and Pioneer are the cream of the crop. 

2 North

1 South

1 Indy

2A- Southridge (3A success factor), Mater Dei, Luers, Eastbrook, Jimtown (have been way down recently), Brownstown (3A past 8 years, should be moving down... have won 5 sectionals and 1 regional in 3A), Ritter, Tri West. 

3 North 

3 South

2 Indy

3A- Memorial, Chatard, Heritage Hills, West Laf(I guess), if you're going to include them.. you have to include Gibson Southern, Andrean, Brebeuf and Guerin (new money), Mish Marion

3 South

3 North

3 Indy

4A- Lowell, Northwood, Dwenger, Roncalli, Cathedral, Reitz, East Central. 

2 South

3 North 

2 Indy

5A- Col East, New Pal, Snider, Bloom South, Zionsville, Mishawaka. 

2 South

2 Indy

2 North

6A- WC, BD, CG, Avon, Carmel, Penn, basically the whole MIC expect Pike. 

5 Indy

1 North

 

 

When you break it down.. there isn't THAT big of a discrepancy when you look at it class by class. Indy schools play in the south and that's usually when the southern schools struggle in the regional or semi state. If the Indy schools went north.. it would look different. 

[Steubenhoosier]

1 hour ago, btownqb said:

What does powerhouse program mean exactly? 

1A- Linton(2A last 2 years), LCC(2A right now), Sheridan, and Pioneer are the cream of the crop. 

2 North

1 South

1 Indy

2A- Southridge (3A success factor), Mater Dei, Luers, Eastbrook, Jimtown (have been way down recently), Brownstown (3A past 8 years, should be moving down... have won 5 sectionals and 1 regional in 3A), Ritter, Tri West. 

3 North 

3 South

2 Indy

3A- Memorial, Chatard, Heritage Hills, West Laf(I guess), if you're going to include them.. you have to include Gibson Southern, Andrean, Brebeuf and Guerin (new money)

3 South

2 North

3 Indy

4A- Lowell, Northwood, Dwenger, Roncalli, Cathedral, Reitz, East Central. 

2 South

3 North 

2 Indy

5A- Col East, New Pal, Snider, Bloom South, Zionsville. 

2 South

2 Indy

1 North

6A- WC, BD, CG, Avon, Carmel, Penn, basically the whole MIC expect Pike. 

5 Indy

1 North

 

 

When you break it down.. there isn't THAT big of a discrepancy when you look at it class by class. Indy schools play in the south and that's usually when the southern schools struggle in the regional or semi state. If the Indy schools went north.. it would look different. 

Dwenger has been moved up a class, I think, due to success.

Shouldn’t Lafayette Central Catholic be in there?

The Mishawaka schools have been good as well 

[btownqb]

31 minutes ago, Steubenhoosier said:

Dwenger has been moved up a class, I think, due to success.

Shouldn’t Lafayette Central Catholic be in there?

The Mishawaka schools have been good as well 

I categorized the schools by the class they are in enrollment wise or where they will be in the future years.  I have LCC listed in 1A. I knew Dwenger was up. And you're right should have put Mishawaka schools in there. I will adjust. 

[rico]

12 hours ago, Steubenhoosier said:

Dwenger has been moved up a class, I think, due to success.

Shouldn’t Lafayette Central Catholic be in there?

The Mishawaka schools have been good as well 

Hey Steubby, how is Angola looking this year?  Hasn't Dwenger been a thorn in their side?

[Steubenhoosier]

2 hours ago, rico said:

Hey Steubby, how is Angola looking this year?  Hasn't Dwenger been a thorn in their side?

They were hit pretty hard with graduation last year. They do have one kid back this year who has committed to Purdue as a safety--unusual for such a small school.

They should be good, but not sure as good as last two years. They won't have to worry about Dwenger anymore, as the Saints have been moved up a division.

[5fouls]

Project ourselves into the year 2049.  What does high school football in Indiana look like? 

Does it have a future, or will the concussion related fallout continue to push youth away from the sport?

Will liability fears and/or costs make it too much of a risk for school districts to allow the schools to field teams?

 

 

[Steubenhoosier]

Luers confirmed to be a 2A school. 

Lack of success at the 3A level and falling enrollment numbers.

[Stlboiler23]

23 hours ago, Steubenhoosier said:

They were hit pretty hard with graduation last year. They do have one kid back this year who has committed to Purdue as a safety--unusual for such a small school.

They should be good, but not sure as good as last two years. They won't have to worry about Dwenger anymore, as the Saints have been moved up a division.

Yep Ryan Brandt. They actually want to use him at outside linebacker instead of safety. 

[rico]

40 minutes ago, Steubenhoosier said:

Luers confirmed to be a 2A school. 

Lack of success at the 3A level and falling enrollment numbers.

And I would imagine they are in the same sectional as my Whitko Wildcats.