Seckman 50, St. Louis University High 41
Who says a 1-loss team can’t make a statement in the Q-Finals? Seckman High School – in a narrative that Mississippi Magazine consciously soft-pedaled on Thursday – probably had the worst opening-round playoff draw of MSHSAA’s eastern half with a date against visiting SLUH, the defending champion of Class 6, District 1. Saint Louis U. High may’ve posted only 3 regular-season wins this season, but to think the Junior Billikens couldn’t turn an average W/L record into District gold would be to ignore everything that happened at this time last year. SLUH scored more TDs against CBC in ’22 than in 2021’s regular-season bout with the Cadets, and threatened to expose the retooling powerhouse St. Mary’s by manufacturing a mid-game rally before falling 42-10 to the Show-Me Bowl champs.
SLUH’s game plan against Seckman was cannily drawn. The visitors played bend-but-don’t-break defense in the 1st half, compensating for a disadvantage in pure muscle by putting Seckman in a “High-Risk Category” for fumbles. Everyone who has watched Army West Point play a Power-5 rival knows a power-rushing club that’s dominating the game can still fumble on the opposing goal line and allow an outcome-changing scoop and score. Perhaps the simplest terms will make the point even better – it’s tough to rush 60 times in a row and never bobble the blasted ball.
But the tactic also led to the downfall of SLUH in ’22, for the Jaguars turned their 3-yards-and-dust conundrum into a weapon as the scrum wore on. Saint Louis U. High didn’t quite have the horses on defense to defend 60 rushing plays and still mount a worthy containment-and-pursuit effort in the 2nd half. QB Cole Ruble’s fakes began to draw tired linebackers 2 steps in the wrong direction, and #14 took-off running the right direction toward SLUH’s end zone on explosive plays. Seckman scored on Ruble’s rumbles of 44, 44, and 25 yards in the final 24:00, while it was the Junior Billikens, not the Jaguars, who succumbed to the turnover bug against a play-making defense. Austin Tilley came up with 2 enormous interceptions for SHS. The junior Jaydon Ashlock and senior Noa Isaia were absolute monsters, combining for 16 solo tackles while Isaia sacked QB Marco Sansone twice and recovered a fumble.
Seckman and C6D1’s #2 seed Marquette haven’t played many opponents-in-kind in 2022, making it difficult to get a bead on the Jaguars’ prospects to win this Friday. But just when The Geek has been warning his readers that prep football is more of a team sport than even the NFL, and that Cole Ruble’s mark as the best rushing quarterback in MSHSAA may not amount to a hill o’ beans against SLUH, Marquette, or CBC, the Jags’ playoff District has metamorphosed into something akin to a National Football League bracket. Size, strength, and speed advantages exist in NFL match-ups, but they’re subtle, easily overcome by a handful of nice performances on an opponent’s end. In the same sense, Missouri’s Class 6 division (or at least District 1) of this year appears to be completely devoid of prohibitive size-and-speed mismatches, especially now with 4 teams left to duke it out. Christian Brothers College is probably the team in Class 6, Division 1 with a “performance ceiling” high enough to simply blow away the entire Eastern bracket in some years, but with CBC’s defense showing a few cracks, 2022 isn’t one of them.
The important thing in an NFL-style bracket of parity is to have a formula for winning that can work no matter where a given pundit might rank your individual players. (That’s what Kurt Warner means when he says an NFL team is “having success.”) Seckman’s statement-win from Week 10 not only established that the Jaguars can win a District championship by controlling the ball and snagging T/Os, but was good enough to potentially affect Marquette’s game planning for Semifinal Friday. The Mustangs now know that it’s a fool’s errand to play conservatively against Cole Ruble’s offense and wait for the Jaguars to fumble. They may also choose not to risk a wide-open strategy vs a defensive unit that’s got Class of 2023 and Class of 2024 contributors playing at the top of their form.
St. Pius 39, Grandview 7
Speaking of Kurt Warner, would we ever have thought a local High School kid would return from a multiple fractured bones faster than NFL teams have welcomed HOF’ers back from similar spills? SPX starting QB James “The Constitution” Smith wasn’t supposed to take the reigns for Hill Valley again until at least Week 11, according to experts like Jim Powers who actually watch St. Louis-area teams instead of just collating scores & stats. But the courageous teen returned to action against a die-hard Grandview Eagle side that actually played better than a healthier Birds of Prey roster fared vs the Lancers in September. Smith passed for 306 yards, tossed 4 TD passes with 0 picks, and signed the Declaration of Independence held a 21-0 lead at halftime. No taxation without representation!
SPX is playing in a thin District as of Week 11, but has a big, fat nut to crack in #1 Duchesne. The exciting news for St. Pius is that with Crystal City eliminated and Brentwood having proven diddly-squat since late August, an upset victory on Friday would hoist Hill Valley into the favorites’ role in the District Championship Game on November 11th. However, there’s about a 15% chance of St. Pius X taking down a private school that’s not quite as focused on academics.
Maybe it’s St. Pius head coach Dan Oliver whose program shares key characteristics with Festus High. A.J. Ofodile’s philosophy is that if an opposing team cannot be budged in the trenches, then you’d better learn how to throw the pigskin over their heads. That’s probably what Oliver was thinking when he had Smith drop-back and fire again and again on Friday in spite of injury concerns. SPX can upset Duchesne…but not with Dabrein Moss playing fullback.
Grandview’s performance shows that the Eagles will be flying again soon. Grandview is graduating less seniors than any Jefferson County team outside of CCHS in spring ’23, and loses essentially zero student-athletes who handle the football as a main hobby. Austin Blankenship will be hard to replace…but there will be more TDs scored in Eagle-ville in 2023.
Louisiana 28, Crystal City 24
Once the Crystal City Hornets’ final drive had ended 0.5 yards from a TD on Friday, a CCHS receiver walking to the sideline did a full 360-front flip in frustration, landed on his haunches, and began shedding tears.
The Gridiron Geek wanted to jump through his TV and do the same…with a simple monkey-roll of course.
Just like that, a watershed campaign is over, and far before anyone anticipated. Crystal City ran smack into a fire-breathing #6 seed in Louisiana that played almost a perfect game, never fumbling or throwing an INT (and punting only once) while attacking the Hornets at their weakest point, power-rushing around end against Jacob Loveless and other undersized freshmen in the opposing front-7. But as in the scrum against Russellville, which also ended with CCHS perched on the goal line with what ought to have been a winning TD drive, Crystal City’s circumstances added to heartbreak as the team did everything it needed to do to win in the closing moments. Loveless’ frosh contingent somehow shook-off fatigue to stop LHS twice with the clock running down, QB Cyle Schaumburg found Camden Mayes and Kanden Bolton for spectacular downfield catches, and the Hornets used their final time-out of the elimination bout to set-up what should have been a 2-play series from the 2-yard line. Instead, FB Caden Raftery carried the ball on a surprise 1st-down dive play, which recalled Herculaneum’s fatefully bad decision that lost a scintillating upset-bid to Hillsboro in 1991. Raftery got 1.5 out of 2 yards – the worst way a season can end.
Week 11 “consolation” articles aren’t often necessary when a 90% of a team’s roster is coming back again. Otherwise, TGG would be posting a sad post-mortem on the Grandview Eagles as well. Senior CCHS stars Cyle Schaumburg and Hayden Reynolds have made too many bright plays on the gridiron to be morons, and only a moron would graduate from Crystal City’s Class of 2023 and think “Gee, I’ll never have a playoff winner here.” Schaumburg and Reynolds are original pioneers of Sunken Place pigskin in the 2020s, who rebuilt a whole program and its reputation for excellence with nothing but hard work, dedication, and leadership. They’ll be winning playoff games for the next 10-20 seasons, because football recruiting has risen to untold heights at Class 1’s smallest campus due to the duo’s handiwork.
But in Crystal City’s particular case, healing from Friday’s defeat quickly is critical for the team to fulfill its epic promise in 2023. Sunken Place had more than what could’ve been an historic postseason-W taken away when the clock (and time-outs) ran out against Louisiana, which should incidentally be a dangerous rival for Brentwood this week. Crystal additionally lost 1 or 2 weeks of practices, and up to 96:00 of live-experience in the postseason. That hurts. The singular way back is for CCHS players to forgive themselves and get focused before even trying to play again.
We won’t torture Crystal’s padawans with any “there’s a lot to be proud of” tripe. Rather, TGG insists that anyone who’s not already proud of CCHS’ Friday Night Lights effort this autumn is either too dull to care or wasn’t paying attention. Crystal City has gone from winning 2 games and losing 18 times in 2019-20 to going 8-2 and seeding #3 over SPX and Grandview, with a regular-season record that was merely 1 disputed officials’ call away from being a perfect 9-0. It wouldn’t be quite as special if Crystal football wasn’t technically “down” right now, with a ton of frosh-sophomore starters and another offseason of weight-lifting badly needed before CCHS can become a state contender. It’s stupefying to think that the Hornets have gotten to this point with the youngest starting lineup in the county.
Crystal City will compete next season with mobile OL and DL veterans who’ve boosted their size and strength, a generational senior class, an extremely fast junior quarterback in Nolan Eisenbeis, and a sophomore group that’s got a gigantic head-start on other 15-year-olds in MSHSAA thanks to its diaper-dandy exploits of the early 2020s. CCHS’s schedule won’t change, meaning that next year’s team will have a schedule that seems too easy, not too hard. Postseason play may not be a thing for CCHS in Week 10, let alone another bout with a dangerous spoiler.
But there’s one problem that no amount of on-field talent can solve. Crystal City head coach Daniel Fox is still coaching the Hornets like they’re long-shot underdogs instead of winners, and there can be no dismissing how Fox’s decisions hamstrung the more skilled team in Friday’s loss. TGG thought of Mr. Miyagi again as Louisiana executed several short-field drives in a row – “Left side safe, right side safe, middle of road…get squash just like grape.”
Fox gave CCHS half of a chance to win in Week 10. He called for 4 or 5 kickoff attempts of 10-12 yards, the first of which the Hornets recovered but then fumbled right back to the Bulldogs. Any prep coach would trade 1 lost-ball on a kickoff if their offense got to play on a 50-yard field for 4 quarters after that. Crystal’s play-calling left only the team’s ground game to punish Louisiana’s shaky defense, even though the Schaumburg-to-Bolton connection was dynamite just waiting for a wick. Fox rarely punted or tried to put Louisiana in a punting scenario by making LHS go from its own 35, removing a key weapon from the fold in Bolton’s electric special-teams threat.
Lastly, the skipper made a classic blunder of strategy to rob his boys of exactly half of their chances to win and advance with a walk-off touchdown.
11 seconds left. No timeouts. Multiple downs to go, if only you use them. Calling a sprint-out play for Cyle Schaumburg or Nolan Eisenbeis might have produced the winner on a short pass or a run, and either QB would’ve had the sideline or a throw-away handy with which to stop the clock. Of course Crystal City’s best play is a double-option up the gut with Raftery plowing straight ahead – but CCHS could have ran that on the next down with less to lose. Instead, the Hornets fatefully cast aside 1 of the team’s most crucial 2 downs of the season.
It’s not because Coach Fox is a “moron,” any more than the ’23 graduates poised to enjoy watching the fortress they’ve built blast-away invaders in what could easily be Crystal’s finest season since the 1960s. Coach Fox may not win very many “Coach of the Year” awards due to local publications being tied into the conference ledger, but Mississippi Magazine will go ahead and call the brilliant Fox its “COTY” this season – there shouldn’t be any debate!
Rather, though The Geek has talked himself sick trying to convince CCHS otherwise, the program is still coaching on Fridays as if its kids need to surprise their “favored” opponents to win games, even though Crystal City has now become the favorite on a solid majority of dates. For instance, the only rationale behind running the Raftery-up-the-middle play with 11 seconds and no time-outs left is that Fox was trying to get inside the head of Louisiana’s coaches, figuring that because THEY knew what HE knew and would be expecting a pass-attempt on (what should have been) the FIRST play, he would double-cross and surprise LHS’s defense by calling the campaign-risking run play first.
There would’ve been no need for Vasilli’s bottomless pit of mind-reading in The Princess Bride if the Dread Pirate Roberts were a 5-foot-5 commoner without superior fighting skills. Has Crystal City’s long-suffered era of losing so infected the Hornets’ coaches that they’re still looking across the field and seeing the Dread Pirate Roberts? The only thing Pirate-y about the Bulldogs on Friday was that they stole a win from a superior roster. Cyle Schaumburg was hot in the 4th quarter – hotter than Princess Buttercup. His last play as a Hornet was a successful bootleg for a TD that never happened. Fox, at all costs, still won’t credit himself for building a good team that doesn’t need surprises.
None of it will matter right away. Crystal City could give opponents a 25-yard field and still go 6-3 in the regular season next year. But we’d love to see how CCHS rivals do on a standard, regulation 100-yard field on which to play football, in games CCHS can win the old-fashioned way instead of relying on Moon-shot gambles. The Varsity Hornets will begin soaring up the Class 1 rankings again as soon as Fox’s coaching staff stops out-foxing itself.
Festus 61, Sikeston 14
The Geek decided to stay home and watch MSHSAA TV with relatives on Friday night, which turns into a reporter’s challenge when trying to cover a dozen teams…but it brought back some happy memories.
Regional Radio has been improving over the past few Fridays, and even play-by-play man Nathan Gertz is learning how to use the News Pyramid instead of telling listeners the least-important details first and the most-important details later. (Typical Gertz radio call in Week 1: “The game is tied! St. Pius has 4th down and 1! They hand the ball off! That’s to number…umm. Number, umm. I think that was #26 on the carry. I’ll try to dig up his name. These umm, these rosters that I’ve been handed don’t have any Number 26s listed, so there must be some mistake, and we’d like to apologize for that. I’m sure the very first thing on our listeners’ minds right now is who just carried the ball for the Lancers, but you know, it’s still Week 1, and the volunteers here are trying their hardest to get things organized for the season.”
(long pause for fans to shout at the radio)
“Annnnnnd the Lancers got a 1st down and then took a penalty but scored on the next play.”)
The (excellent) single-announcer call of SPX vs Grandview on Friday didn’t come with the all-important area scoreboard, and we don’t have a “Dave & Busters” setup to stream 10 quarterfinals at once. Several FHS graduates in the room waited with bated breath as Regional Radio’s half-time show finally reached the scoreboard segment and got-around to reporting the Tri-Cities’ scores. That’s when the half-time anchor pulled a Noel Picard.
Picard was a French ice hockey commentator from the 1970s who would say confusing things such as, “We have some final score. Toronto, 2.” and “Whoa-Ho HO! Dis fight gonna CLEAR BOATABENCHES!” Not that TGG is old enough to have been a St. Louis Blues fan in the 1970s – thank goodness – but hardly a Blues watch-party between 1987 and 2003 went without an older person in the room shouting, “We have some final score, Toronto, 2! Ahh ha ha!”
Regional Radio finally got around to reporting the Festus game at halftime, much like The Geek in this epically-long tale. But the announcer, who sounded like he was struggling with some papers, said exactly this:
“Festus…leads…Sikeston…in the 3rd quarter…EIGHT…to SIX.”
Festus leads Sikeston eight to six??? That was more confusing – and far more worrisome – than either “Toronto, 2” or “CLEAR BOATABENCHES.” Festus played its worst offense of the season against a rare blue-collar version of the Jackson Indians last weekend, but if the Tigers were trashed again by a defense as poor as that of 1-7 Sikeston, then surely Coach Ofodile wouldn’t suffer the indignity of going for a 2-point conversion in the 3rd quarter, just to lead Sikeston by 2 points instead of 1 tally in a blooper-bowl that would’ve been as difficult to watch as to coach.
Panicked, we looked up the score on KFMO. Festus FORTY EIGHT, and Sikeston 6, in the 2nd quarter. That sounded a lot more like it. Good job, Black & Gold. Sorry about that. Back to regular programming.
Friday’s highlight reel illustrates what Coach O may have in mind for a formula to beat NCHS in Week 11. Wide receivers Arhmad Branch and Landen Yates were tackled-up by a Jackson squad that – come hell or high water – always seems to find NCAA-level cornerbacks to put on the field. But against a Class 4 defense in the quarterfinal round, the pair was unstoppable on runs-after-catch, turning several easy snags at the line-of-scrimmage into touchdowns and Red Zone chances for FHS. North County can hurt the Tigers on the ground with senior Jobe Smith carrying the rock, and Bonne Terre’s passing game is threatening to hum like a Beatles tune again with another Kekec – Kooper this time – catching footballs For The Benefit Of Mister K, and also for the benefit of the Raiders. Yet with Landen Bradshaw, Yates, Branch, Hayden Bates, Jeremiah Cunningham, and Essien Smith available to score touchdowns for R-6, the Tigers could overwhelm the Raiders with TDs-per-play no matter what Jobe does.
As for Ofodile’s plan to beat Hillsboro in a potential District Final? That might involve more magic hand-motions under the Sign of Orion at 2 AM. But hey, the “zodiac method” worked great for our special teams back in 2020! Believe.
Marquette 49, Northwest 0
It’s hard not to feel a sense of relief after this one, even in Cedar Hill. Back to the drawing board.
Herculaneum 28, Bayless 24
TGG is thrilled to report on another Dunklin R-5 playoff win, but there’s no drowning-out the alarm bells ringing after the Blackcats let Bayless have its best game since losing to Grandview 32-30 in September. Coach Blane Boss’ postgame interview betrayed that the ‘Cats have developed some GHS-like injury problems up the middle, hurting Herky’s run-blocking effort and the team’s run defense all at once. Herculaneum is now an underdog against University City.
But there’s still a chance for Herky to prevail, even without beating the Varsity Lions at the line-of-scrimmage. U-City is vulnerable against a finesse offense, and was actually trailing the undersized DuBourg Cavaliers after 12:00 on Friday. In similar fashion, the ’22 Lions defeated a light-on-its-feet Jennings lineup 33-10 mostly because the Jennings QB threw 5 interceptions and no touchdowns. Jackson Dearing has been bitten by the turnover bug several times this season, but he’s never been quite that reckless … and Lucas Bahr may be returning after sitting-out Week 10.
HHS still has an historic District Final bid in its sights, and if it happens, it could look more impressive than expected relative to what nearby schools are doing, thanks to a few more upsets and heartbreakers in Week 10…
John Burroughs 17, Jefferson 14 (OT)
…like this one. For all of The Geek’s protestations that Flexbone teams are still subject to the standard Gridiron Gods, the Jefferson Blue Jays have an awful lot in common with their big-brother Hillsboro Hawks, as each team tends to fall woefully short in the playoffs – no matter how many triumphs the team recently scored in regular-season play – until exactly the right roster comes along, whereupon the school becomes a dangerous animal in the state playoffs.
Whether or not Leon Hall proves to have the “it” team in 2022, JHS is in a nice position for ’23 with the nucleus of yet another dynamic offense returning next season.
Gateway STEM 26, Windsor 20
There’s good and bad news from this “heartbreaker.” Windsor at Gateway was essentially a contest to see who would get the snot knocked out of them at St. Mary’s this weekend, and WHS doesn’t need that aggravation after proving that the Owls can compete with big-time programs in fits and starts. Windsor is officially the Mississippi’s sleeper in 2023.
Poplar Bluff 30, Fox 0
Red & White rushes for just 125 yards in another setback for the Fox Warriors. But the lineup’s 2-8 record is nothing to be ashamed of when facing teams in the top-half of the Suburban League. Like going 3-9 in an SEC season, it probably means you were still fairly good overall, but didn’t beat Mississippi State or reach a bowl game.
North County 54, DeSoto 12
Hades is gettin’ a little chilly, but the DeSoto Dragons are making progress with the egg in hand. Even if you don’t count the 2 touchdowns against North County as meaningful points, DHS scored 2 TDs in both games against solid teams to end its 1-9 season, and that’s a livelier look than the club’s “obligatory” drives vs DuBourg in August.