My View/Your View: Irish Still Look Like They’re in a League of Their Own

How good is Cathedral’s football team? Can anyone beat the Class 4A Irish this year?

I mean, can anyone in Indiana high school football get ’er done? So far, only Cincinnati St. Xavier (Ohio), ranked nationally throughout the season, has been able to slow Cathedral’s momentum, winning 19-10 on Sept. 5.

Keep in mind, the Irish were coming off back-to-back wins over perennial Class 5A powers Carmel and Warren Central to start the season. Certainly emotional wins, I’m guessing. The Irish have been ranked No. 1 since Day 1 and they obviously strengthened that statewide support with those impressive victories over the currently top-ranked Greyhounds and the Warriors, who were also ranked No. 1 at one point earlier this season.

Cathedral also ranks No. 2 in the Sagarin Ratings, by a slim margin - 101.66 to 97.84 points. That’s in all of football, no matter the class.

The RivalsHigh 100, which is compiled with the help of the Rivals.com network of high school site publishers and recruiting analysts, ranks Cathedral No. 62. No other Indiana football team is ranked, not even Carmel, which has not lost since that 7-3 opener to the Irish. And PrepNation.com ranks the Irish No. 6 in the Midwest Region.

Carmel and Warren Central, like Cathedral, go into this weekend’s action favored to advance through regionals. Ditto for Center Grove, the defending state champion in 5A.

The Irish, who meet New Palestine at North Central Stadium, are two wins away from competing for a second straight state championship.

New Palestine, a team I saw earlier this season, lost to unbeaten Batesville, a 3A team that’s really good and plays No. 1 Bishop Chatard this weekend. Chatard’s only loss came against, guess who? Yep, Cathedral.

Getting back to New Palestine. The Dragons, who dominated Batesville in the second half after a mistake-filled start and wound up losing by 14 points, has their act together. They are 10-2, winners of eight straight games.

Still, my take is that they would need to play a perfect game, then cause and take advantage of some Cathedral mistakes if they are to have a legitimate shot of winning their first regional in 4A.

That’s just how good I think Cathedral is, and many others share that feeling.

I think that Bishop Chatard, a one-dimensional team that runs the football so well, will be hard to derail, though if it is to happen, then Batesville might have the best chance of anyone the rest of the way. And I think that Carmel, so far a bend-but-don’t-break team, has a very good chance of playing one of its Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference rivals, either Warren Central or Center Grove, for the state championship.

Cathedral, too, has been known to bend ever-so-slightly at times defensively, but the Irish, who allow 13.6 points per game, have a high-octane offense that scores at a 36.6-points-per-game rate.

Along Cathedral’s way to an 11-1 record this season, the Irish smashed Birmingham Rice of Michigan on the road 35-7. That’s the same program that just happens to be the winningest school in Michigan High School football.

Not surprising, as most football fans know, Cathedral holds the same distinction in Indiana high school football. Cathedral has won 646 games in the school’s 91-year history. The Irish have played in 10 state championship games, winning seven times, including two of the past three years.

So back to that earlier question: Can anyone beat Cathedral?

They don’t play the Colts, right?

Mark Morrow is an online columnist for VYPE High School Sports Magazine, Central Indiana. He can be reached at mediamarko@sbcglobal.net or by leaving a comment.