Indiana Preps | Between The Lines
It’s a 7-on-7 tournament in June. No linemen. No contact. The score doesn’t go in the record books and the trophy doesn’t get hung in the fieldhouse next to the two state championship banners already on that wall.
But Brownsburg went 3-0 in pool play — beating Westfield, New Palestine, and Cathedral — and closed it out with a 38-21 win over Westfield in the Colts 11-on Championship. And if you watched how they did it, the result told you something worth paying attention to.
The question is how much.
Brownsburg returns junior quarterback Oscar Frye — who threw for 2,505 yards and 29 touchdowns last season, including a 38-31 championship game win over Westfield — along with three-star wide receiver Branden Sharpe and a perimeter skill group that was the best in 6A a year ago. Saturday’s 11-on performance showed that group hasn’t skipped a beat heading into a summer that will determine whether the three-peat conversation is real or premature.
Here’s the honest context. Brownsburg is ranked No. 1 in Indiana’s preseason football landscape by multiple outlets , which means the target on their back has been growing since the clock hit zero at Lucas Oil Stadium in November. Every program in 6A — especially Westfield, which has now lost two consecutive state championships to the Bulldogs — is pointing toward Brownsburg. That’s what back-to-back titles do. They don’t just earn you a banner. They earn you a season’s worth of everyone’s best shot.
7-on-7 has real limitations as a preview. The offensive line — which has been the foundation of Brownsburg’s run game — isn’t out there. Defensive line matchups that define how a 6A game actually flows don’t exist without pads. Head coach John Hart isn’t scripting his offense in June. The complexity of what Brownsburg runs in November looks nothing like what you see at a summer tournament.
But the perimeter game? That translates. Route running translates. Quarterback decision-making translates. Ball placement under pressure translates. And what the Dogs showed on Saturday — going through Westfield, New Palestine, and Cathedral without a loss before handling Westfield again in the final — is that the skill group driving their offense enters the fall intact, sharp, and operating at a level that the rest of 6A has to prepare for.
Frye went into the offseason as one of the best quarterbacks in Indiana and as an Illinois State commit who has nothing left to prove in terms of credentials. What he has left to prove is whether he can do it a third consecutive time at the hardest level in Indiana high school football. Saturday in the Colts event was the first data point.
New Palestine, the defending 5A state champion, was in the pool. Cathedral — one of the most consistent private school programs in the state — was in the pool. Westfield was in the pool and in the final. That’s not a soft bracket. And Brownsburg went through all of it.
The 2026 season opens on the road at Lawrence North — ranked among Indiana’s top programs — followed by a home game against Georgia national power Rabun Gap-Nacoochee on August 28. Hart is scheduling to test his team before the Hoosier Crossroads Conference season even begins. That’s what programs hunting championships do. They don’t protect their record. They find out where they are.
Saturday’s 11-on result isn’t the answer to the three-peat question. But it’s the right first question to ask. And Brownsburg’s answer on Saturday was the same answer they’ve given every time someone asked over the last two years.
We’re still here. And we’re still ready.
Indiana Preps covers high school athletics, recruiting, and athlete development across the state of Indiana.