2024 MN High School Football thread

No they don't. It's not uncommon for the best teams in the state for wrestling to be in the same section and only 1 makes it to state.
Top two individuals advance to state for each weight, but you can bet if football got the top two to state that hockey, basketball, wrestling, and every other team sport would follow. It works for football, but would be a hard sell for other sports that play their tournament over 3 days.
 

These are Section decisions and I'm sure they get a decent deal for bringing all those people to Fargo. If not in Fargo then they are played 6 miles east in Dilworth, or at Concordia, Moorhead HS, or Moorhead State. I believe the Halloween Blizzard and frozen fields is what led to this annual tradition. Detroit Lakes and Thief River Falls played there for section championship in 1995.
I was able to play in the Section Championship at the FargoDome in 1995. We were getting a few inches of snow that day and it was really windy/cold. It would have been miserable to play outside in those conditions.

I believe there was a game or two scheduled for Concordia or Moorhead but they moved them to the dome so the last game played on that day started at like 10pm.
 

Pretty much all of the Section Finals then State Quarters & Semis shifted to the HHH Dome in 1991. They were having games all throughout the day, 5-6 days a week through November.

I remember going to see Faribault vs Lakeville in the middle of the afternoon, mid-week for the AA-Sec 1 Championship..
Quite a few games were played in Vermillion at the Dakota Dome and Cedar Falls at the Unidome.
 




The Halloween blizzard was in 1991. The Fargodome opened in late 1992.
In addition, the Halloween blizzard didn't affect Fargo-Moorhead. I was a freshman in college up there at the time, and we only heard about it.

And by Thanksgiving, it had all melted. And what people forget, is that the day after Thanksgiving, the day of the Prep Bowl, the Twin Cities got hit with another huge blizzard that people would probably still be talking about today, had the Halloween storm not happened.

I think the near-permanent move to the Fargodome may have happened in 1996. That was the winter that preceded the huge flood that decimated Grand Forks. Not sure how early in the fall/winter the snow started.
That was my freshman year at UND. A decent amount of snow during the winter, but I remember bitter cold, and there was a huge snow/ ice storm around Spring Break that did added a lot of precip at the tail end of the thawing season. About a month later the entire campus was evacuated. Luckily I had all As at the time, so I got a 4.0 without having to take a final!
 

Anyone see any 6A upsets coming? I've got # Lakeville South over #2Anoka, #5 Prior Lake over #1 Mounds View and #3 Edina over #2 Eagan.
 

Anyone see any 6A upsets coming? I've got # Lakeville South over #2Anoka, #5 Prior Lake over #1 Mounds View and #3 Edina over #2 Eagan.
Not sure Edina over Eagan would really qualify as an upset since Edina is the higher ranked of the two and already beat Eagan once this year. But I guess purely in terms of seeds it would be a case of the lower seed winning.

Champlin Park taking down North might be one of the improbable ones on paper that could happen but the ones you mentioned are probably the 3 most likely cases where the lower seed might beat the higher seed this weekend.
 

Not sure Edina over Eagan would really qualify as an upset since Edina is the higher ranked of the two and already beat Eagan once this year. But I guess purely in terms of seeds it would be a case of the lower seed winning.

Champlin Park taking down North might be one of the improbable ones on paper that could happen but the ones you mentioned are probably the 3 most likely cases where the lower seed might beat the higher seed this weekend.
Yep, I was just going by seeding. I also find the North-Champlin game intriguing. I hear, which I assume to be true, that Champlin Park has had some key guys return from injuries the past couple weeks.
 



Yep, I was just going by seeding. I also find the North-Champlin game intriguing. I hear, which I assume to be true, that Champlin Park has had some key guys return from injuries the past couple weeks.

I’d say that Minnetonka and Shakopee are the only teams I’d put money on to win this week.
 

I've been watching EP football since Grant started in the late nineties, missing very few games.. This year's team with three losses hasn't put it all together.....yet , bit I have seen some subtle favorable changes of late. I don't think they will be outmuscled this Friday like they were at Shakopee. I don't think they will be unprepared for a passing game from Maple Grove, unlike the Edina game. The mental mistakes evident in the Wayzata loss largely have been fixed. This Friday's game could be a real slobberknocker. Maple Grove has the horses for sure, and depth, but does the old ball coach have the ability to get his team up for a big one so his team can go on a revenge tour later in the playoffs? I don't know but I'm going to the game. Lets see who is fired up. #1 seed against the #4.
 

I've been watching EP football since Grant started in the late nineties, missing very few games.. This year's team with three losses hasn't put it all together.....yet , bit I have seen some subtle favorable changes of late. I don't think they will be outmuscled this Friday like they were at Shakopee. I don't think they will be unprepared for a passing game from Maple Grove, unlike the Edina game. The mental mistakes evident in the Wayzata loss largely have been fixed. This Friday's game could be a real slobberknocker. Maple Grove has the horses for sure, and depth, but does the old ball coach have the ability to get his team up for a big one so his team can go on a revenge tour later in the playoffs? I don't know but I'm going to the game. Lets see who is fired up. #1 seed against the #4.
Grant started in '93, just sayin.
 











No, he coached at Forest Lake until 1992.
Forest Lake fans and others treated him pretty badly from what I heard many years ago. It appeared that the players couldn't handle hard work and change for a while.
 


I've been watching EP football since Grant started in the late nineties, missing very few games.. This year's team with three losses hasn't put it all together.....yet , bit I have seen some subtle favorable changes of late. I don't think they will be outmuscled this Friday like they were at Shakopee. I don't think they will be unprepared for a passing game from Maple Grove, unlike the Edina game. The mental mistakes evident in the Wayzata loss largely have been fixed. This Friday's game could be a real slobberknocker. Maple Grove has the horses for sure, and depth, but does the old ball coach have the ability to get his team up for a big one so his team can go on a revenge tour later in the playoffs? I don't know but I'm going to the game. Let’s see who is fired up. #1 seed against the #4.
EP loses by three touchdowns. Y’all ball coach historically has had better players than everybody else those days aren’t gone.
 

With each class being seeded now at the state tournament, Do we know where the lines are for North and South?

Is it set by sections, for example 1,2,3,4 are north and 5,6,7,8 in the South?
Those are just numbers to show what I was meaning.
 

Forest Lake fans and others treated him pretty badly from what I heard many years ago. It appeared that the players couldn't handle hard work and change for a while.
I played for Grant at FL.

My personal opinions of the man aside, the issue the school had with him was he left in the 80's on a leave of absence to coach under Gagliardi at St. Johns. I'd heard he more or less assumed he would be the heir apparent there (because of his last name), but John didn't retire, and Grant had to come back to FL in 1989. He asked for another leave in 1992 and the board said no (justifiably so), so he went to EP.

I can't speak to his first stint at FL (pre-leave), but the 1989 team his first year back was definitely bad. The 1990 team was good - lost in the section final to Anoka who ended up undefeated AA champs. The 1991 team went to state. Not sure about the 1992 team, but I think they were good as well. So the whole hard work thing is BS. I could go into more detail, but I probably ought not.
 

With each class being seeded now at the state tournament, Do we know where the lines are for North and South?

Is it set by sections, for example 1,2,3,4 are north and 5,6,7,8 in the South?
Those are just numbers to show what I was meaning.
I believe it's Sections 1-4 South and Sections 5-8 North.
They seed 1-4 South and 1-4 North and then Flip for semifinals, so you could have two teams from the North or South in Prep Bowl. Not a true bracket. Sample below is 2A State.

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EP loses by three touchdowns. Y’all ball coach historically has had better players than everybody else those days aren’t gone.
The pundits all agree that its going to be a blowout in favor of MG. As my old ball coach from the late sixties used to say, a former Marine, that's why you suit up and play the game. Should EP lose I believe it will be Coach Grant's first four loss team since he came to EP. Can someone confirm this? I remember Lakeville when they had Callendar had Grant's number, losing twice in one year, and Grant lost two in a row when Dan Fisher went down with an injury, but I don't ever recall a four loss season.
 

The pundits all agree that its going to be a blowout in favor of MG. As my old ball coach from the late sixties used to say, a former Marine, that's why you suit up and play the game. Should EP lose I believe it will be Coach Grant's first four loss team since he came to EP. Can someone confirm this? I remember Lakeville when they had Callendar had Grant's number, losing twice in one year, and Grant lost two in a row when Dan Fisher went down with an injury, but I don't ever recall a four loss season.
3 losses in 2022 and 2019 is all I could find.
 

No they don't. It's not uncommon for the best teams in the state for wrestling to be in the same section and only 1 makes it to state.
Coon Rapids had a very solid wrestling program in the 80's. We never had a shot of getting out of our Section with powerhouses like Anoka, Forest Lake, St. Francis and Cambridge also there.
 

I played for Grant at FL.

My personal opinions of the man aside, the issue the school had with him was he left in the 80's on a leave of absence to coach under Gagliardi at St. Johns. I'd heard he more or less assumed he would be the heir apparent there (because of his last name), but John didn't retire, and Grant had to come back to FL in 1989. He asked for another leave in 1992 and the board said no (justifiably so), so he went to EP.

I can't speak to his first stint at FL (pre-leave), but the 1989 team his first year back was definitely bad. The 1990 team was good - lost in the section final to Anoka who ended up undefeated AA champs. The 1991 team went to state. Not sure about the 1992 team, but I think they were good as well. So the whole hard work thing is BS. I could go into more detail, but I probably ought not.
My mistake. Grant left FL after the 1991 season (class of 1992) to go to EP. Fall of 1992 was his first year at EP.

The 1991 season was the only time FL made it to state in Football.

 




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