There is no non-partisan logic to ranking the Festus Varsity Football Tigers ahead of the Seckman Jaguars or Hillsboro Hawks this summer. Seckman’s got the largest crew of 1st-string seniors ever seen on an Imperial campus, surpassing even Joel Critchlow’s championship Windsor squad from decades ago. Hillsboro has been expected to soar in 2022 ever since the HHS Class of ’23 clashed bravely with brands like Christian Brothers College as a frosh team in 2019, without the already-promoted Jaxin Patterson or Austin Romaine on the gridiron.
This year’s edition of Black & Gold just doesn’t compare on the core particulars. There are less than a dozen seniors on Midmeadow Lane’s preseason roster, and Peyton Besore may be the team’s only senior O-lineman with a chance to play significant snaps. Cole Rickermann, arguably the best QB to last more than a single year behind center since Eric Cahoon, has graduated and moved on to Lincoln University. Powerful athletes Kaian Roberts-Day and Eric Ruess, the heavy anchors of FHS football in 2021, are now practicing with Baylor and Murray State respectively.
But look deeper, and my oh my, do the Festus Tigers have serious potential, for this season and in the next to follow.
The program’s Class of 2024 numbers nearly 30 players, 12 or 13 of whom will give Festus High its biggest, meanest, deepest gang of blockers and tacklers since the state-playoff lineup of 2008. Massive 300+ lb. juniors Bradon Hanlon and Austin Reese will anchor a DL that includes talented Dante Bridgett at DE opposite 6’2″ 240 lb. upperclassman Xavier Gould. Quinn Tilley is another long edge defender at 6’2″, a senior who provides a handy defensive end-slash-linebacker option after notching 19 tackles as a backup last year. The junior-class OL contingent offers plenty of beef on the hoof, with Hayden Eckstein, Reydyn Lynch, and Eli Williams nearly topping the scales at a combined 800 lbs. Reese and Hanlon may be added on “Jumbo” offense packages to give the Black & Gold close to a full ton of weight at the line-of-scrimmage.
2022’s linebacking corps has a chance to be special. Returning senior Carter Cupp led the Tigers in tackles last season. Swift Eli Ortmann wasn’t far behind, leading the squad with 4 sacks and 14 tackles-for-loss. Gavin Grass will continue to be the area’s “Pat Fischer,” overcoming meager size as a quick, fearsome LB, so long as his senior season is a healthy one. But if you’re looking for another NCAA-like physical specimen behind the D-line, sophomore Mason Schirmer checked in at 6+ feet of height and 200+ lbs. as a Middle School graduate last August, before gobbling 27 total tackles as FHS’s lone freshman starter on defense.
Tri-City readers could be waiting for the other shoe to drop in this preview, because Midmeadow Lane lost a preponderance of pure point-scoring skill with the spring graduations of Rickermann, Roberts-Day, wide receiver Issac “Stickum” Stucke, and the groundbreaking Emily Holt at PK. Boosters may have felt last November’s 13-7 playoff loss at Hillsboro was a bad omen for a ’22 team destined to play great defense and nonetheless lose a gaggle of low-scoring games without 2020-21’s triumvirate of stars moving the football. But there remain many crucial building blocks with which the Tigers can conjure an impressive offense by this fall, not just for the 2022 season, but onward into 2023.
Landen Bradshaw and Landen Yates will carry the egg, and each tailback has already proven to be capable of sprinting through front-7s. Arhmad Branch returns as the #1 WR following an amazing debut season of double-digit TDs and 1000+ receiving yards. New faces will diversify the backfield, including the triple-sport fullback Hayden Yates, and Farmington-to-Festus transfer Jeremiah Cunningham, a junior QB who’s already been noticed by Division 1 scouts.
Cunningham is a fascinating-if-weird fit as a contender to take snaps for FHS this autumn. Lest anyone think Festus recruiting has turned “dirty” by plucking D1 prospects away from rival schools, the truth is that the newcomer’s Varsity record would be the last place a head coach like A.J. Ofodile would look if they were hoping to hand-pick a transfer to replace Cole Rickermann’s aerial game. Cunningham only attempted a few passes against Varsity defense as an heir-apparent for the run-oriented Black Knights. That doesn’t do much to fill a gaping black hole on the Festus Tiger depth chart, as 2022’s entire ledger of competing QBs have produced virtually zero TDs through the air in live action.
But whoever the QB is, he’ll probably be able to run like a gazelle. Cunningham was outstanding as an A-back in Farmington’s 28-20 win at Midmeadow Lane last October. Park Hills Central keyed on Cunningham and held the then-sophomore to minimal yards in the next game, but he still managed to complete a long pass and gallop on a scintillating kick return, uncanny resilience for a Varsity padawan. Meanwhile, Rickermann’s frosh backup Essien Smith displayed “Meep, Meep”-level burst against senior defenders in garbage-time last season, though the thrilling youngster is even less-established than Cunningham as a passer. At the least, Smith’s sophomore campaign at QB could include sharp change-of-pace series as a Read-Option threat, which in-turn may allow Cunningham to play defense.
The Black & Gold will boast its best rushing offense since Ofodile arrived in 2020, with Branch as a finger-wagging weapon when opponents try too hard not to lose the LOS to an intimidating front. That’s a solid foundation to build on. Good defense and low-scoring makes 30-yard drives feel like a blessing and not a bummer. There will be less pressure on the Festus offense to score points quickly than there’s been for several years, a nice angle considering the roster turnover at quarterback, wide receiver, and tight end.
What could go wrong? FHS can’t possibly play Seckman or Fox this season, but that doesn’t mean a junior-laden team won’t be overshadowed by top-ranked neighbors, or by a challenging schedule. Festus High School will face the Jackson Indians in a Week 9 out-of-conference game that seems designed to give the boys an ego-check prior to the Class 4 playoffs. Midmeadow Lane has a neat relationship with Jackson High football, and the Tigers tied JHS 1-1 in a fun Jamboree skirmish 2 seasons ago, but meeting the Class 5 powerhouse for a regular-season contest is a different animal. It’s no issue to expect to lose 35-14 on a low stress, musical-chairs occasion like Week 9 of a Mississippi Conference season. Conversely, though, it’s dicey to think that you might lose by 60 points and then have to begin trying to mount a playoff winning-streak 6 days later.
Then there’s the Week 2 visit from Valle “University,” a fantasy-come-true booking that Mississippi Magazine readers are giggling and nudging each other about. How will The Geek handle a “Valle U. vs Actual High School Team” kickoff, now that the “Actual High School Team” is none other than alma mater?
Just look at the scoreboard. Festus High vs Valle Univers…ahem, Festus High vs Valle Catholic. Teams of roughly equal size and speed, playing what should be a pretty good game on a Friday night. Perfect! This is exactly what should have happened all along. To a large degree, it really doesn’t matter how or why Valle football dominates all other schools with anything less than 7x its class-enrollment. Division killers are bad because they’re division killers, not because there isn’t more than 1 valid way to organize a prep team. North Dakota State Bison fans get indignant much like Valle U. boosters do when anyone suggests that week-after-week and year-after-year of “NDSU 48, Towson 3” isn’t really doing anybody good in the long run, but football is designed as a competitive sport, not an exhibition. “48-3” for 10 weeks in a row means that nobody really gets to play. If NDSU joins the FBS ranks as it should, then the Bison will still be a terrific team, but they’ll also learn something about themselves as players are supposed to.
Suppose a magic comet touched down over the Tri-Cities and made Festus, Jefferson, and St. Pius kids better at football than their neighbors. If the players were subsequently promoted to Class 6, surely some parents concerned with an unbeaten W/L record would complain that MSHSAA was “punishing” student-athletes who didn’t ask for help from the heavens. But by letting boys play close games against CBC and SLUH, instead of breezing to lower-tier championships, we wouldn’t be punishing the “magic comet” teams, just introducing them to a sport called football. That’s why Valle U., St. Mary’s, and other booster-bases are still looking at MSHSAA’s class-promotions all wrong. The Geek is sure Valle’s students have dreamed wistfully of taking-on Festus or Hillsboro while another boring 4th quarter against No Chance Prep played itself out. Now that the Warriors are playing a genuine Class 3 schedule, that daydream is a reality.
The bad news is that Week 1’s “dream” match-up of Seckman and Valle U. creates lousy timing for the Festus Tiger offense in Week 2. Cole Ruble and his senior-studded squad are likely to plow over the pesky Warriors for short gains throughout a grudging August contest. If Valle’s defense gives up 35 points and loses to Seckman, they’ll find much more of a comfort zone against Ofodile’s less-aggressive blocking scheme the next Friday, even when running-up on another big OL. Equally worrisome is that Valle U. is laced with senior contributors and could hit the school’s all-time peak of gridiron power in 2022. Class 1 would be 100% buttered toast if Valle were still facing tiny schools in the playoffs.
2022’s defensive backfield rhymes with “Lollipop Guild.” In short, the unit could turn out to be very short. All the tough, physical defense in the world won’t help if each opponent has a ready-made game plan of throwing “50/50” balls to the outside and trusting that all of the Tigers’ “coin-flip” chances at a pass-defense come up tails. Landen Yates makes a stud CB who should only improve as a junior, but he’s only 5’8″. Fellow CBs Michael Batee and Trey Lacey are well under 6′ and 160 lbs. Henry Roux is the reliable veteran and Essien Smith has “pick-6″ written all over him, but neither is a promising option at safety against towering WRs in a Hail Mary scenario. Ofodile will NOT start the 6’1” Cunningham at safety unless the QB is beaten-out for the starting signal-caller role.
Finally, if the Festus offense can run a million times better than it can throw this season, that’s a mental adjustment for the FHS coaching staff, and potentially for the QB. Ofodile has never coached anything close to a “Wishbone” or “Veer”-style team on any level. Suppose that a Smith-and-Bradshaw option play was the only thing Midmeadow Lane had going for it some Friday. Would a skipper who’s earned his stripes through the air be willing to Niumatalolo-ball his way to a victory?
Cunningham’s social media promotes as many vids of the junior throwing balls at prospects’ combines as it does clips of his prolific A-back reel from Farmington. It’s unlikely that Cunningham’s family consists of “snowplow parents” who picked out a new football school on a Tri-State map – it would have had to be a very small, very unimaginative map. Yet it’s worth thinking of the “opposite sketch” scenario to get a handle on the FHS newcomer, who appears happy to be settled with a wide-open team this season. What if Cunningham had been faced with moving from Festus to Farmington in his junior year? Given the Black Knights’ play selection at Tiger Stadium in Week 8 of 2021, it’s easy to think the part-time baseball hurler would have “balked” right off the mound, or at least off the U-Haul.
Cunningham’s desire to be a full-time QB with balanced skills is MORE than welcome at Festus High, in fact a fan base that’s been spoiled by Cole Rickermann is relieved to hear of it. But on the other hand, Coach O has recruited himself 40+ upperclassmen and intends to win another championship in the next 2 years, a goal that holds sway over any “style-points” from a 4-wide offense.
The Tigers’ saving grace could be Ofodile’s philosophy of the passing game, which is subtly different from those of other coaches who prefer to open-up and fire downfield. In a MyMoInfo interview given just after taking the helm at R-6, Ofodile strongly implied that old-fashioned rushing is still the ideal way to beat a team, then added that downfield passing is his “equalizer” whenever a defense cannot be blown off the ball at the LOS. That’s a maverick outlook among “NCAA”-style offensive coaches, who typically argue (through a smirk) that run-heavy play calling is the temporary “equalizer” for underdog teams, but that it also leads to bad habits, dull recruiting, and a hard ceiling on the program’s success.
We may have gotten the wrong idea about Ofodile’s methods in 2020 and 2021, due to factors like the excellence of #12, Kaian Roberts-Day’s multitasking, and Landen Bradshaw’s prior injury woes. At points during Coach O’s first 20+ games as skipper, the Tigers have been without significant push on the OL, missing a reliable 1st-down rushing attack, and lacking a home-run threat in the backfield. Rickermann either had to nail a receiver in the hands on 3rd down, or else. No coach prefers to manage an offense that way, but with so many underclass linemen on board, the Black & Gold’s hand was forced by circumstances.
Thankfully, the QB with the greatest career stat line in FHS history (66 combined touchdowns and less than 15 turnovers!) was pretty good at nailing receivers in the hands. It’s a pity Rickermann won’t get a chance to helm 2022’s squad, which should be in 2nd down and 5-or-less yards to go a lot more often with an improved, experienced OL leading the way.
Whoever replaces #12 will enjoy the benefits of a more complete supporting cast. That means that the story of the Tigers’ season is far more likely to be about another winning record, and less likely to be a sad lament about last season’s seniors having moved on. Seckman High should be so lucky in 2023.