The State of Indiana Allegiances.
10 months ago
JustAJ
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Interesting. I’ll take your word for it on rural southwestern Indiana, but I never would have guessed it as a bastion of Boilermaker fans. Once we get up to 100,000 page views a day, I’ll commission a scientific poll of the state to break this down further.
A few quibbles I have:
I think you probably overestimate the amount of territory in which Purdue is the most popular team. I certainly agree that Purdue has some solid level of support everywhere in the state, but based on my experience in the northern half of Indiana, I would think that Purdue’s plurality or majority support would be limited to Tippecanoe County and the immediately adjacent counties, perhaps as far north as Newton and Jasper counties. I spent my childhood in several different towns. One of them was Columbia City, which is about 20 miles west of Fort Wayne. Based on your map, CC would be firmly within Purdue territory, which in my experience was decidedly not the case. Granted, I lived there during the height of Alford-mania, but my sense was that IU fans outnumbered Purdue fans by at least 2-1, and probably more like 3-1. Also, your map, which I understand isn’t done to precision, necessarily, seems to get Purdue territory into Indy’s collar counties. Purdue has solid support in metro Indy, but I still think IU would be the plurality or majority pick in Hendricks, Boone, etc.
If we had good objective data, and created a map in which the colors blend, with IU represented as red and Purdue represented as yellow, I think we would see Tippecanoe and its color counties as bright yellow, blending into a reddish orange in metro Indy and most of the northern part of the state Other than the ND support, which would mostly be in the South Bend TV market), and with a deep red hue to the south and east of Indy, and based on your account, a yellowish orange in the counties between Vigo and Vanderburgh.
As for Notre Dame, I think you are roughly correct on how far south ND’s influence goes, but I probably would shift it to the west. I think ND has more pull than you think in LaPorte County and the region and less in places like Angola and LaGrange.
God, I’ve lived in this state for too long.
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Aug 4, 2011 11:21 AM EDT reply actions
To be honest my northern indiana territory was an educated guess
However I grew up in the gold southwest and the way I went about it was county by county. Gibson, pike and posey are all gold. Knox county is gold so far as the eastern part where it seems to turn red quickly. I don’t know quite as much about vigo but I’m assuming it is gold bleeding to red at the dirty haute. Although I know there is a lot of IU resentment among Sycamore fans.
-Contributing Writer at The Crimson Quarry.
- Follow me on the Twitter for worthless thoughts and IU updates.
by JustAJ on Aug 4, 2011 11:53 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Knox County has to be red
How can it not be when the the 1967 Monroe City Bluejeans coach was Sam Alford? RED!!
by hoosieriniowa on Aug 9, 2011 12:16 PM EDT up reply actions
Northern Indiana
You kind of have to take this with the times, too, and consider generations. In the Fort Wayne area, there’s a lot of older IU fans, my age (38) and up, who grew up watching IU win National Championships and be a bad ass. My kids’ generation has mostly seen IU be bad. There’s at least part of a generation there where neither IU nor Purdue was very good. My kids’ friends all profess Purdue allegiance, because they’ve been good over the last few years.
Generally, I’d call Fort Wayne an IU town, although there’s a strong Purdue base here. I actually live in Huntington, which is gold, mostly because of Chris Kramer (and Sean Kline’s knee). As you spread out south and west of Fort Wayne, into rural farming communities, it’s pretty gold. If you go West of here, into places like Columbia City and Warsaw, it’s still pretty red. And you are correct: LaGrange, Steuben and DeKalb are red.
I, too, need to get out more often. But, this discussion is what make Indiana a good place, in my opinion. I lived and went to school in Ohio for about nine years, and all you can debate there is the grammar in the hagiographies of Woody and Jim Tressel. Good Lord, I hate Ohio State.
by hoosierdaddynow on Aug 4, 2011 3:28 PM EDT up reply actions
Clearly,
This map shows the distribution of Indiana, Indiana State, and Valparaiso fans.
Dallas Clark: Some tight ends catch. Some block. Clark just owns.
by Sir Sci on Aug 4, 2011 1:09 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Just as a way to show a presence in the region
Without using some ugly puke color.
-Contributing Writer at The Crimson Quarry.
- Follow me on the Twitter for worthless thoughts and IU updates.
by JustAJ on Aug 4, 2011 4:48 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Well this can't be true...
The whole state should be red minus one small gold area near West Laffayette. Everyone is an IU fan and inside every Boilermaker is a Hoosier fan screaming to get out. Remember Indiana is offically the Hoosier state not the Boilermaker state.
My team is on the floor. -Coach Norman Dale
The Count of Rush
Should have mostly yellow. It seems a lot of Boilermaker fans have come out of hiding ever since they started winning in basketball, and Hoosier and Notre Dame fans have declined due to the fact of their respective programs not winning as much as they used to in basketball for IU and football for the Fighting Irish.
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