There's Plenty Of Changes, But It's Finally Football Season
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Roger Grossman, Lake City Radio-
It’s football season.
The Times-Union previews of the area teams have been published. At the radio station, I’ve been standing at the big picture window waiting for a big yellow delivery truck to bring us the 2015 Lake City Media Football Guide.
You’re gonna need both the TU’s previews and the football guide to know what’s happening in football this year, because it looks VERY different than it did last season.
At the high school level:
• Triton and four other schools defected from the Northern State Conference to join a brand new league. LaVille, Knox and Culver went with the Trojans to form the new Hoosier North Conference.
The premise of the move was that Triton was competing in every sport except the sport that gets the most attention: football. The Hoosier North will include schools of similar size, which the NSC use to have but not anymore.
The problem: Triton’s road games are no longer in Bremen and Elkhart, but in Royal Center (Pioneer) and Medaryville (West Central). Medaryville, for those of you who are wondering, is a 62-mile drive west of here in southwestern Pulaski County. Add North Judson and Caston to that and it just worries me that fans of Triton football, which has never been a big fan draw, will not care that much even if the new league does lead to more winning for Triton.
And on top of the new conference, there is a new coach at Triton. John Johns told the Triton Athletic Department back in July that he was moving back to the Lafayette area, so wrestling coach Ron Brown is taking over the team. He’s been an assistant for the Trojan football team too, and a lot of good football minds, including former head coach Rod Younis and current basketball coach Jason Groves are helping out.
The remaining members of the NSC (New Prairie, Bremen, Jimtown and Glenn) latched on to the Northern Indiana Conference, which split into North (big schools) and South (small schools) divisions.
• The Three Rivers Conference begins Friday with two new members, as Peru and Maconaquah join into that league, bringing its membership to 10. They did something really interesting with the schedule in the TRC. The Week 9 matchups are to be determined. They decided that they want the last game of the season to determine the conference championship and be between the two best teams.
They divided the conference into north and south divisions, and that last game of the regular season will pit the best of the north against the best of the south. I love the concept and hope it works and catches on.
Tippecanoe Valley is also under new management. Scott Bibler announced that he was going to stop coaching to try to work more closely with at-risk kids in the community, and I applaud that. On short notice, athletic director Duane Burkhart found Fairfield assistant coach Darin Holsopple. He takes over a program that was pretty good for a long time, but went 1-9 last season, and he’s has had only about a month to try to lay the foundation for the future of the Vikings.
• The Northeast Hoosier Conference disbanded and re-formed minus Homestead and Carroll, who outgrew the rest by leaps and bounds over the last decade. Homestead and Carroll are now in the Summit Conference with the Fort Wayne city and parochial schools, while the remaining members added Leo and Huntington North to become the Northeast 8 Conference.
And there are more changes to watch:
• Wawasee plays its first football game in three years without the pitch-and-catch combo of Gage Reinhard and Clayton Cook Friday against a new opponent, Griffith.
• Warsaw fans saw Phil Jensen abandoned his patented punishing running game for the spread offense last season, and this year he’s going a step farther by pushing the tempo in between plays. And his son Michael is back in football and takes over at quarterback.
Football is back, and we can’t wait.
And Friday night we don’t have to wait any longer…[[In-content Ad]]
It’s football season.
The Times-Union previews of the area teams have been published. At the radio station, I’ve been standing at the big picture window waiting for a big yellow delivery truck to bring us the 2015 Lake City Media Football Guide.
You’re gonna need both the TU’s previews and the football guide to know what’s happening in football this year, because it looks VERY different than it did last season.
At the high school level:
• Triton and four other schools defected from the Northern State Conference to join a brand new league. LaVille, Knox and Culver went with the Trojans to form the new Hoosier North Conference.
The premise of the move was that Triton was competing in every sport except the sport that gets the most attention: football. The Hoosier North will include schools of similar size, which the NSC use to have but not anymore.
The problem: Triton’s road games are no longer in Bremen and Elkhart, but in Royal Center (Pioneer) and Medaryville (West Central). Medaryville, for those of you who are wondering, is a 62-mile drive west of here in southwestern Pulaski County. Add North Judson and Caston to that and it just worries me that fans of Triton football, which has never been a big fan draw, will not care that much even if the new league does lead to more winning for Triton.
And on top of the new conference, there is a new coach at Triton. John Johns told the Triton Athletic Department back in July that he was moving back to the Lafayette area, so wrestling coach Ron Brown is taking over the team. He’s been an assistant for the Trojan football team too, and a lot of good football minds, including former head coach Rod Younis and current basketball coach Jason Groves are helping out.
The remaining members of the NSC (New Prairie, Bremen, Jimtown and Glenn) latched on to the Northern Indiana Conference, which split into North (big schools) and South (small schools) divisions.
• The Three Rivers Conference begins Friday with two new members, as Peru and Maconaquah join into that league, bringing its membership to 10. They did something really interesting with the schedule in the TRC. The Week 9 matchups are to be determined. They decided that they want the last game of the season to determine the conference championship and be between the two best teams.
They divided the conference into north and south divisions, and that last game of the regular season will pit the best of the north against the best of the south. I love the concept and hope it works and catches on.
Tippecanoe Valley is also under new management. Scott Bibler announced that he was going to stop coaching to try to work more closely with at-risk kids in the community, and I applaud that. On short notice, athletic director Duane Burkhart found Fairfield assistant coach Darin Holsopple. He takes over a program that was pretty good for a long time, but went 1-9 last season, and he’s has had only about a month to try to lay the foundation for the future of the Vikings.
• The Northeast Hoosier Conference disbanded and re-formed minus Homestead and Carroll, who outgrew the rest by leaps and bounds over the last decade. Homestead and Carroll are now in the Summit Conference with the Fort Wayne city and parochial schools, while the remaining members added Leo and Huntington North to become the Northeast 8 Conference.
And there are more changes to watch:
• Wawasee plays its first football game in three years without the pitch-and-catch combo of Gage Reinhard and Clayton Cook Friday against a new opponent, Griffith.
• Warsaw fans saw Phil Jensen abandoned his patented punishing running game for the spread offense last season, and this year he’s going a step farther by pushing the tempo in between plays. And his son Michael is back in football and takes over at quarterback.
Football is back, and we can’t wait.
And Friday night we don’t have to wait any longer…[[In-content Ad]]
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