Indiana big school football champions

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.

From the late 1800s through 1919, Indiana high school football teams often played fewer than five games per year and many times skipped entire seasons.

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.

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.