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Each Monday, Fox Sports’s Colin Cowherd has a segment at the start of his second hour named, “Where Colin Was Right, Where Colin Was Wrong.”
I don’t mind sharing where I was right and wrong about my March 6 column’s (…Nerd Stuff) predictions, but I pale in comparison to Cowherd’s delivery and originality.
The results begin in the North where I was running at a 75% correctness clip among the first three sectionals resulting in a domino pattern as one school per Northern sectional moved one more out among the fields I predicted.
I really botched the South though, and I blame that on a poor geographic mind’s eye. I should have looked at the Southern Indiana layout as sensibly as the IHSAA did.
The association got it right, and they also thought ahead of the Sectional 13 and 14 setup when the two Terre haute high schools consolidate in 2029.
With this said, let’s see how I did.
My Sectional 9 guess was Chesterton, Hammond Central, LaPorte, Michigan City, and Munster: a five-team sectional.
I whiffed about what sectional field would be formed with five teams. Aside from LaPorte, however, these guesses were easy. The Slicers, instead, were assigned to Sectional 10. Tiger football fans know it well – home to their second sectional title in program history - but it’s the Slicers who will join Concord, Goshen, and South Bend John Adams.
Warsaw was the domino landing into the Ft. Wayne-laden Sectional 11 comprised of Snider (our football season 2026 home opener), South Side, and Wayne.
Huntington North, a bump-up from its Class 4A home for close to a decade, was bumped… out… of my projected Sectional 11 field that would have the Vikings just a drive on US Highway 24 away from its closest neighbors. They’ll join Anderson in Sectional 12 where I expected Anderson to be assigned.
Suddenly, you’ll see the 75%-80% success rate move toward mediocrity: mostly 50% at best from there because I didn’t look more closely at a map when I made my South sectional predictions.
Sectional 12 will also include Lafayette Jefferson, and McCutcheon.
The toughest sectional from Sectionals 13 through 16, and possibly a sectional that will eat its young in the regular and post seasons is Sectional 13.
Greenfield Central, Indianapolis Cathedral, Mount Vernon (Fortville – the newly crowned Class 4A basketball champs) welcomes the return of head coach Mikle Kirschener. Add New Palestine, and spoiler Pendleton Heights, and you might arguably have one of the two toughest sectionals in Class 5A.
Sectional 14 – Indianapolis Arsenal, and Plainfield were my only two correct predictions for assignment to Sectional 14. They’ll be joined by Terre Haute North and South. Cathedral and New Pal were my two incorrect predictions, but they thrive on the type of competition they’ll face in Sectional 13.
We might see #13 – with five teams – have one of their teams move into Sectional 14 because the merger of Terre Haute North and South will move them to Class 6A (a la Elkhart in 2020). My bet? Cathedral will land here in 2027.
When I read all the conference changes among the IHSAA this year it made me feel like I was back in Northeast Ohio where it seems in randomly selected schools you’ll find most of them have been part of - at least - three different conferences in the last 15-20 years.
Sectional 15 – I was correct on Floyd Central, and on Seymour, but the “Bloomingtons” landed in this sectional. This made more sense because the four schools comprising Sectional 16 are on, or near, the winding Ohio River
Sectional 16 – Bloomington North and South, Castle, and Evansville North round out the Pocket’s 5A schools.
Class 5A football will be a continually tough enrollment class as it has been during the late 2010s, and throughout this current decade.
