Indiana Big School Football Champions
Better known for its high school basketball, Indiana high school football has also been a staple of Hoosier weekends for more than 100 years. In 1930, more than 30,000 people jammed Notre Dame Stadium to watch Mishawaka beat undefeated South Bend Central, 6-0. At the time, it was one of the largest crowds ever to witness a high school football game in America. Indiana High School football is still immensely popular, with tens of thousands now packing Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to watch six state championship games over two days in November. The following is a history of Indiana's big school state football championship.
From the late 1800s through 1919, Indiana high school football teams played each other, often playing fewer than five games per year and many times skipping entire seasons. Pre-1920 "games" often featured high school teams playing semi-pro club teams, college teams and even intramural scrimmages. Various teams made state championship claims, but most were unfounded until organized leagues and verified games became commonplace beginning with the 1920 season. By that year, as many as 26 high schools in Northern Indiana — stretching from Fort Wayne to East Chicago — were annually compiling standings and functioning as the state’s first organized football conference. These northern football teams frequently defeated powerhouse teams from other states and were rarely defeated by Indiana teams from outside the league. (From 1921-26, Gary Emerson never lost a game to an in-state team.) It was probably quite safe for the winner of this early super conference to claim the Mythical State Football Championship prior to 1928, and most did. Indeed, when an arranged Indiana mythical state championship game² was played between the north and south through 1930 (in 1923, ’24, ’27, ’29, and ’30) the northern league champ won every time.
In 1926, for one year, the league standings included power teams from around the state, including Evansville Central, Richmond Morton, Indianapolis Tech, Marion and Muncie, all of whom finished behind league leaders Mishawaka and Gary Emerson. In 1927, many of these same northern teams – from Elkhart to East Chicago – officially formed the Northern Indiana Conference (NIC) with its champion going on to dominate the #1 final ranking in the AP & UPI polls, well into the 1960s.
By the early 1930s, the Evansville and Terre Haute areas were also well established as Indiana high school football hotbeds. Clinton (north of Terre Haute) won three titles between 1928 and 1933, and Evansville Memorial, best in the south in 1937, defeated McKeesport, champions of Western Pennsylvania, 21-0, in what some newspapers called the mythical national championship.
Schools in italics now consolidated or defunct.
1920 - Wabash4 & Mishawaka1
1921 - Gary Emerson1 & Gary Froebel1
1922 - Gary Emerson1 (2)
1923 - Gary Emerson² (3)
1924 - Elkhart (Central)²
1925 - Mishawaka1,4 (2)
1926 - Mishawaka1 (3)
1927 - Gary Froebel² (2)
1928 - Clinton³
1929 - Gary Mann²,³
1930 - Gary Emerson²,³ (4)
1931 - South Bend Central4
1932 - Clinton³ (2)
1933 - Clinton²,³ (3)
1934 - South Bend Central1,4 (2) & Terre Haute Garfield4
1935 - Evansville Memorial²,³
1936 - Gary Mann5 (2)
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