INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — These are heady times for Indiana high school football.

In a state rooted in basketball tradition, football is more than an offseason diversion. Participation is up, attendance is rocketing and major college recruiters are giving second and third looks to the state’s top prospects. They’re signing many of them, too.

“They are seeing there are many, many quality players coming out (of Indiana high schools),” said Dick Dullaghan, who coached one state championship team at Carmel and seven more at Ben Davis and now runs football summer camps in Indiana, Illinois, Florida, Kentucky and New York. “More of the great athletes in our state are realizing there are more opportunities in football.”

Indiana didn’t have a high school tournament in football until 1973, and even through the rest of the ’70s and early 1980s, attendance and interest in the sport were spotty.

But youth programs starting in the primary grades, summer camps for middle-schoolers and relaxed rules for offseason workouts at the high school level have helped transform the state from its hoops-centered focus. The presence of the Indianapolis Colts and their Super Bowl championship haven’t hurt, either.

“I know that we have (college) coaches coming through our school now from schools that never came through the area 10 to 15 years ago,” Lawrence North coach Tom Dilley said.

Division I coaches are scouting players like Morgan Newton, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound quarterback who led Carmel to its sixth state championship last season. Linebacker Tyquan Hammock of 2A champion Fort Wayne Luers will play one last season in high school before heading to Michigan State.

Zach Martin, a 275-pound tackle at defending 3A champion Indianapolis Chatard and considered one of the state’s top prospects, announced last month he will play at Notre Dame. Fort Wayne Dwenger tight end and safety Tyler Eifert, son of former Purdue basketball player Greg Eifert, also has declared for the Irish. Carmel’s 6-7, 280-pound lineman Brooks Michel has committed to Minnesota; Homestead’s Jordan Barnes, to Michigan.

The increase in talent stems in part from a larger pool of players. More than 19,000 played high school football in Indiana last year, an increase of 32.5 percent since 1987-88, even though the number of participating schools has stayed relatively the same, according to the Indiana High School Athletic Association.

Even game attendance is up dramatically.

In 1983, total attendance for the championship games was just over 18,000. By last year, crowds at the five football championship games reached a record of more than 51,000, almost 5,000 more than the previous record set in 1997.

Coaches attribute some of that interest to the Colts.

The NFL team sponsors a high school “coach of the week” award and quarterback Peyton Manning’s annual “PeyBack Classic” featuring area high schools. PeyBack doubleheaders in the new Lucas Oil Stadium will help kick off the 2008 season on Aug. 22 and Aug. 23.

The Colts “have awakened an entire generation of young footballers and the communities that they live in,” Yorktown coach Mike Wilhelm said.

“Back in the day, people went to the school to watch the boys play basketball on Friday and Saturday night. ... Peyton Manning and the Colts jump-started that same attitude for Indiana football,” he said.