RHendricks9

That makes sense. Honest question, would you sacrifice shorter drives to separate the big schools? Because I was trying to do the opposite by creating short drives without caring about school size.

Better than Brownsburg is a really tall task. 320+ teams couldn’t do it so I wouldn’t say that. I think those sales classes could position themselves in a place to make a difference at state though.

it would definitely take someone smarter than me to effectively restructure it. I just wanted to throw out what I thought of. And five of those six giant schools that you named are already in the same sectional, because it makes sense for that region.

I’m sure those kids work extremely hard. And I think they should continue to do so because I think anything is possible on the individual level. I think even the dying programs could be revived if they established a good culture and used that to build a strong youth program

North Vermillion isn’t better than Brownsburg for the same reason all but Crown Point aren’t better than Brownsburg. Coaching, Culture, access to wrestling clubs and School buy-in

So you’re saying only big schools can have elite athletes? I don’t think that’s necessarily accurate

Plus a lineman going to Iowa which is a HUGE accomplishment and indicates a big commitment to football to get to that level

The best linebacker (John Purdy) and best running back (Luke Hansen) were both state placers. You don’t have to be a single sport athlete to be successful

I don’t know the exact number but I know for a fact at least 3 state champions are multi-sport athletes so they would not be wrestling all year round

It is true that powerhouses change which is why I believe it would be best to build the state tournament in a common sensical manner instead of sending teams unnecessary distances as I referenced earlier.

North Vermillion head coach: Robby Davis, 2x regional qualifier. Brownsburg head coach: Darrick Snyder, state placer and D3 national qualifier. Coaches are not always limited by their own success but their track record especially when one coach has 18 years more head coaching experience. There also is not many RTCs or other wrestling training facilities nearby to Vermillion County but I believed there will be as Indiana and even Illinois wrestling continue to grow.

Out of the 5 biggest schools in in Indiana, Adams Central had more state qualifiers than Ben Davis, North Central, and Fishers. Culture and wrestlers matter more than school size

I did hand-pick the stats, but I also am arguing that school size does not matter and that it is dependent on the wrestlers that go out there. Wrestling provides equal opportunity to all who step on the line.

Each team gets one entry per weight class, so 14. It is not impacted by school size whatsoever.

I don’t think there’s any reason to change the one wrestler per team per weight class. I think the season and offseason tournaments are to decide who is the best from a certain school that year. I would like to see tournaments move towards having more opens like colleges do just so everyone is getting matches, but I think the postseason should remain the way it is. I suspected this was the largest issue in making wholesale changes. There are some things (Brownsburg taking the longest drive possible to a semistate, New Albany and Floyd Central driving over an hour and a half for regionals instead of 20 minutes) that just defy logic.

I don’t think there’s any need to change the current system with 4 per sectional, I just feel like it could be useful for the state to restructure the semistates.

I would like to preface this by saying that I wrestled for a 2A (I use football classes because they make the most sense to me) school in high school. I always had a decent record going into the state tournament because the local competition was so bad. Despite my record I never made it to semi-state. And to be honest I didn’t deserve to, I wasn’t good. With this in mind I have been thinking about how many have called for wrestling to become a classed sport in the IHSAA despite every other individual sports (track, swimming, tennis) in Indiana not being being classed. I have compiled statistics from the state finals that I believe indicate that there is not a class problem. The first of these is that Brownsburg, Crown Point, and Center Grove brought 32 state qualifiers themselves that are going to produce almost as many state qualifiers as any other class before adding the rest of the 6A competitors. The statistics show that the percentage of students in each class is nearly the same as the percentage of state qualifiers they had in Gainbridge. 6A- 30% of students, 33% of State qualifiers 5A- 19% of students, 14% of State qualifiers 4A- 23% of students, 23% of State qualifiers 3A- 13% of students, 14% of State qualifiers 2A- 9% of students, 10% of State qualifiers 1A- 6% of students, 6% of State qualifiers But disparities do start to show when you look at the depth of the runs of each wrestler based on the size of school. The stats for placers, finalists, and champions are as follows: 6A- 39% of State placers 5A- 14% of State placers 4A- 29% of State placers 3A- 11% of State placers 2A-, 5% of State placers 1A- 2% of State placers 6A- 47% of Finalists 5A- 22% of Finalists 4A- 18% of Finalists 3A- 8% of Finalists 2A-, 4% of Finalists 1A- 0% of Finalists 6A- 57% of Champions 5A- 14% of Champions 4A- 29% of Champions It is clear that bigger schools have more success deeper in the tournament. But I don’t think this is something that warrants a monumental shift to classed wrestling across the state. There are a multitude of factors that cause “big school” wrestlers to be more talented than their “small school” counterparts. First is more motivation for specialization. Although it is not unheard of for top wrestlers to also be talented wrestlers, there are also many very talented wrestlers who do not apply their athleticism to other sports which gives them more opportunity to develop their skill. Second bigger schools have more students which means more wrestlers which means more competition. And competition breeds success. This causes the wrestler to wrestle better as well as better training partners. Third areas with big schools are more likely to have wrestling clubs in the area that allow them to get better outside of the season. I believe this is the biggest difference maker. These factors are not necessarily reversible and I don’t believe that’s a bad thing. Big schools have a higher probability of being the teams that are hoisting trophies at the end of the year. The 1A/2A state tournament put on by Southmont is the perfect solution for this. I would love to see this be an in season tournament so the wrestlers can have better in season competition and so that the wrestling can feel like it means more. But this is a phenomenal solution to the “unfair advantage” big schools have. I believe there is a problem that is handicapping some teams in the tournament: The sectional, regional, and semi-state boundaries are absolutely atrocious. The distribution of placers among the semi-states was fairly even across the board. But as the matches meant more there were two clear semi-states that were better than the others. With Evansville even sweeping the final 4 in two different weight classes Placers; Top 4; Finalists; Champions Evansville: 35 (31%); 27 (48%); 17 (61%); 6 (43%) East Chicago: 28 (26%); 15 (27%); 8 (29%); 6 (43%) Fort Wayne: 25 (22%); 6 (11%); 1 (3%); 0 New Castle: 24 (21%); 8 (14%); 2 (7%); 2 (14%) On top of this Brownsburg goes to the semi-state that is farthest from them by driving time (according to Apple Maps). New Albany and Floyd Central are 20 minutes from Jeffersonville yet they drive 2 hours and an hour and a half respectively to get to their regional at Bloomington South. On top of that there is one sectional with 7 teams in it while there is another with 13 teams. That is almost a whole extra round guaranteed for the wrestlers at Jeffersonville sectional. I understand the map-drawing is not easy so I took the time to redraw the entire state series all the way down to the sectional. With every sectional having between 9-12 teams because the average is that there should be a little over 9 teams per sectional. I believe that implementing maps that make more sense and divide state powerhouses will make Indiana wrestling much better than classing it ever could. If assigned seats at state take that much energy out of the crowd, I would hate to see what happened if they only cared about 1/3 of the matches. The sectionals I divided are as follows: North (Notre Dame?) 1. (9) Whiting, Hammond Bishop Noll, East Chicago Central, Hammond Central, Hammond Morton, River Forest, Lake Station Edison, Hobart, Gary West side 2. (9) Munster, Highland, Griffith, Calumet, Andrean, Merrillville, Lake Central, Illiana Christian, Portage 3. (10) Crown Point, Hanover Central, Lowell, Wheeler, Boone Grove, Hebron, Kankakee Valley, West Central, North Judson- San Pierre, Winimac Community 4. (10) Laporte, Valparaiso, Chesterton, Michigan City, New Prarie, Marquette Catholic, Glenn, South Bend Washington, Knox, Laville 5. (10) Culver Academy, Plymouth, Triton, Wawasee, Northwood, Concord, Bremen, Fairfield, Goshen, Culver Community 6. (10) Rochester, Wabash, Warsaw, Columbia City, Manchester, Whitko, North Miami, Caston, Tippecanoe Valley, Northfield 7. (9) South Bend Clay, South Bend Riley, South Bend Adams, South Bend Saint Joseph, Mishawaka Marion, Mishawaka, Penn, Elkhart, Jimtown 8. (9) Northridge, Westview, Lakeland, West Noble, Central Noble, Prairie Heights, Fremont, Angola, East Noble East (New Castle) 1. (9) Eastside, Dekalb, Garrett, Churubusco, Carroll (Fort Wayne), Leo, Fort Wayne Northrop, Fort Wayne Bishop Dwenger, Woodlan 2. (9) Fort Wayne Concordia Lutheran, Fort Wayne Snider, Homestead, Fort Wayne Northside, New Haven, Fort Wayne South side, Fort Wayne Bishop Leurs, Fort Wayne Wayne, Heritage 3. (11) Norwell, Jay County, Southern Wells, Southwood, Huntington North, Belmont, Bluffton, Adams Central, South Adams, Blackford, Eastbrook 4. (12) Peru, Lewis Cass, Maconaquah, Oak Hill, Southwood, Mississinewa, Jay County, Madison-Grant, Marion, Northwestern, Eastern (Greentown), Taylor 5. (11) Kokomo, Western, Tri-Central, Tipton, Hamilton Heights, Anderson, Alexandria Monroe, Elwood, Frankton, Lapel 6. (11) Wes-Del, Yorktown, Monroe Central, Daleville, Union City, Wapahani, Randolph Southern, Muncie Central, Delta, Cowan, Winchester Community 7. (11) Warren Central, Lawrence North, Lawrence Central, Eastern Hancock, New Palestine, Knightstown, Pendleton Heights, Shenandoah, Victory College Prep, Mount Vernon (Fortville), Greenfield-central 8. (11) Connersville, New Castle, Tri, Hagerstown, Cambridge City, Centerville, Richmond, Union County, Northeastern, Rushville, Blue River Valley West (?) 1. (9) Terre Haute North, Northview, Terre Haute South, Greencastle, Sullivan, Cascade, South Putnam, West Vigo, Cloverdale 2. (10) South Vermillion, Parke Heritage, North Putnam, Plainfield, Decatur Central, Avon, Providence Cristo Rey, Ben Davis, Mooresville, Speedway 3. (10) Benton Central, South Newton, North Newton, Tri-County, West Lafayette, Harrison, Frontier, Twin Lakes, North White, Rensaleer Central 4. (9) North Montgomery, Southmont, Fountain Central, Crawfordsville, North Vermillion, Mccutcheon, Covington, Seeger, Attica 5. (9) LCC, Frankfort, Lafayette Jefferson, Rossville, Faith Christian, Delphi, Pioneer, Logansport, Carroll (Flora) 6. (9) Sheridan, Westfield, Guerin Catholic, Carmel, Clinton Central, Noblesville, Hamilton Southeastern, Zionsville, Fishers 7. (11) Bishop Chatard, Scecina, Cardinal Ritter, Crispus Attucks, Arsenal Tech, Christel House Academy, George Washington, School for the Deaf, Cathedral, Park Tudor, Purdue Polytechnic 8. (10) Brownsburg, Clinton Prairie, North Central, Brebeuf Jesuit, Pike, School for the Blind, Western Boone, Tri-West, Danville, Lebanon South (Ford Center) 1. (9) Mount Vernon (Posey), North Posey, Evansville Reitz, Mater Dei, Evansville Central, Evansville Memorial, Evansville Bosse, Evansville Harrison, Evansville North 2. (9) Castle, Boonville, Tecumseh, South Spencer, Wood Memorial, Gibson Southern, Heritage Hills, Tell City, Forest Park 3. (10) Vincennes Lincoln, North Knox, Washington, Pike Central, Jasper, Southridge, Paoli, Mitchell, Bedford North Lawrence, Princeton 4. (9) Brown County, Edgewood, Owen Valley, Center Grove, Indian Creek, Martinsville, Bloomington North, Bloomington South, Eminence 5. (10) Crawford County, North Harrison, Corydon Central, Floyd Central, New Albany, Providence, Jeffersonville, Silver Creek, Borden, Rock Creek Academy 6. (10) West Washington, Salem, Eastern (Pekin), Scottsburg, New Washington, Southwestern, Madison Consolidated, Charlestown, Switzerland County, Seymour 7. (11) Batesville, East Central, Columbus East, Franklin County, South Dearborn, Lawrenceburg, Milan, Columbus North, Jennings County, Oldenburg Academy, Greensburg 8. (11) Shelbyville, Triton Central, Greenwood, Perry Meridian, Beech Grove, Franklin Central, Lutheran, Roncalli, Southport, Whiteland, Franklin Community I would like to reiterate that Indiana wrestling has a structure problem and not a single class problem.

How does scoring work?

Champions 106- Brayden Curtis 113- Alec Viduya 120- Cayden Rooks 126- Graham Rooks 132- Jeremiah Reitz 138- Zach Melloh 145- Brayton Lee 152- Joe Lee 160- Brad Laughlin 170- Tanner Webster 182- Lucas Davison 195- Tristen Tonte 220- Mason Parris 285- Isaiah McWilliams