DeSoto Dragons
TGG’s relationship with the DeSoto Varsity Football Dragons has been by far the most contentious of any to weigh on Mississippi Magazine. We shudder to think of the contempt some of DHS’s boosters would have for Jefferson County’s only local pigskin blog if it had ever criticized one individual DHS student-athlete over the years. Which it hasn’t.
The Magazine’s ire was directed at self-defeating prior coaches like DHS skipper Chris Johnson, and a “Doach” (new word, but we’ll get to it later) nicknamed Bluto Zanax who trolled Mississippi Magazine comment threads. Yet there’s always someone that thinks slugging a reporter (or a referee) is the answer to a school’s awful W/L record. Heck, DeSoto’s boosters once even bribed some rent-a-cops to accost The Geek for arriving early to do pregame interviews, for a scrum in which Festus (you guessed it) clobbered DeSoto High School.
But that’s another tale for another day. The Geek can hear DeSoto’s new do-it-all Varsity football coach and administrator right in his ears, giving your author a loud, lacing lecture of exactly the sort DeSoto’s boys got in their first go-’round with the coach this June:
“YOU WILL SIT IN THE FRONT OF THE CLASS YOUR SPORTS WRITING OFFICE. YOU WILL BE POLITE AND ENCOURAGING. YOU WILL DO WHAT OUR TEACHERS YOUR READERS ASK YOU TO DO, AND YOU WILL TREAT EVERYONE ON THIS CAMPUS IN THIS FOOTBALL CONFERENCE WITH HONOR AND RESPECT.”
Darn skippy. Coach Russ Schmidt must have gotten the DeSoto job.
Want some better news for DeSoto High? Schmidt has been a mission since arriving at Joachim Junction, taking bold steps to reshape the Dragons from Day 1. In fact, the former Midmeadow Lane CEO seems to have bull’s-eye pinpointed the ailing program’s worst problems already, and he’s been applying a soft touch with a firm hand in vintage CRS style.
DeSoto and Perryville’s players don’t naturally grow up shorter, smaller, and slower than their Class 4 counterparts. They are selected from a group of volunteers that isn’t much bigger than a Class 1 tryout squad, because football loses to the school’s other sports in recruiting the biggest, best athletes from campus to play. The problem of would-be Varsity workhorses passing on a Friday Night Lights opportunity has caused entire states worth of student-athletes to be unfairly put down, as when a Boston blogger explained a 62-0 New Jersey win from a state-vs-state game by saying, “New Jersey’s kids grow up focused on football.” Yeah, they usually do. What was left out was that the New Jersey school had all of its biggest, baddest athletes on hand in helmets, while the Massachusetts team’s best otherwise available “quarterback” was too busy pitching for a bunch of baseball teams. The tallest “tight end” was busy playing basketball, lacrosse, or other prestigious northeastern sports. Boston’s team wasn’t exactly out-focused 62-0, but no amount of focus beats a strong tryout corps. DeSoto suffers in the same way, at least when compared to 3 out of 4 conference rivals.
Schmidt has opened up dialogues with coaches and team leaders in DHS baseball, basketball, Athletics, and the proud DeSoto Dragons wrestling team. Newbies from the rasslin’ stable and other sports auditioned for DeSoto football on Jamboree Friday. It’s just a few bodies here and there, but it’s a great start.
The former Festus head is doing something about the “doach” issue that plagued DHS’s catch-as-catch-can coaching staff under the abusive Johnson. Doach-es are “coaches” who are really just Dads (or Uncles) hanging around only so long as some combination of their family members toil for the Varsity. Schmidt has axed DeSoto’s assistant “doach” tradition by signing new names from the successful teams at Joachim Junction. Because a track or wrestling coach isn’t necessarily any better at prep football’s Xs & Os than the playbook-delegator Schmidt, the skipper is taking a risk that DHS’s coaching staff will be called too inexperienced in Friday night tactics. But let’s face it – DeSoto’s “tactics” have been a catastrophe for the last 3 years. Any change that piques the kids’ interest is a blessing.
Then there’s the QB dilemma. DeSoto’s ranking fell into the pits of Class 4 when the Dragons turned up after COVID without anyone with the skills, aptitude, or desire to be starting quarterback. Things began to get better at QB before Schmidt arrived this year; Junior quarterback Austin Missey attempted 98 passes for DeSoto last season, and his ugly statistical line was overshadowed by the fact that by the end of 2022, Joachim Junction was at least getting the bean in the air and scoring some touchdowns. But when you consider the Festus Tigers’ prolific offense under Schmidt’s watch, it starts making even more sense why DeSoto made this spring’s bold hire exactly when it did.
Schmidt does know Xs and Os when it comes to the QB position. In fact, Schmidt has a keen sense of how to get schools into playoff contention with or without a traditionally skilled quarterback, improvising with new ideas when necessary. The former FHS starter Andrew Hayden was a swift, sure-handed Jack-of-all-Trades in Friday night football, but his bugaboos included pocket-passing and developing a quick enough release. At DeSoto, Hayden might have ended up playing WR or defensive back like so many other talented arms. Schmidt tossed “pocket passes” out of the Tiger offense wholesale, installing a Delaware Wing-T “waggle” playbook in which Hayden flourished in a long winning streak. Schmidt was also behind giving Cole Rickermann a chance as a sophomore, a decision that continued paying off even as the coach moved on to help HHS build a champion.
We anticipate a nice effort from DeSoto’s seniors, who experienced the high volume and low trust of 2021’s locker room as sophomores, and who’ll notice a rapid change in attitude with Schmidt in charge. But don’t expect the veteran head coach to attempt to produce any superficial W/L records right away. The Dragons got such a lay-up in Week 1 of last year that CRS is probably glad to see DuBourg’s roster finally rounding-into shape for 2023.
The most frustrating thing about a Russ Schmidt team in rebuilding mode is the tough situations CRS will schedule DeSoto into. Schmidt was known for taking the Festus Tigers into the searing sun of an August afternoon scrum in STL, or deep into the wilds of Poplar Bluff, to compete in David vs Goliath matchups that he thought would help Midmeadow Lane improve in the long run. Once this year’s slate is in the books, DHS boosters who’ve already cursed The Gridiron Geek and all of his friends will sit sadly in the visiting bleachers of Class 4 and Class 5 powerhouse teams, wondering how-oh-how the Dragons could ever beat one of the premier out-of-conference schools booked on a Schmidt schedule.
Then, before you know it, it’ll happen.
Festus Tigers
A rejected comment on Mississippi Magazine last November read, “What the ****? Do U even no N.E. Thing about theez teems or wut???” and was signed by “Grudge Holding Sports Writer Replaced By The Geek.” No, really, it wasn’t signed by anyone, but it did seem quite possible that the comment was from a Festus citizen (stupid drunk folks don’t get to be called “Festus Tigers fans” on Mississippi Magazine) since our biggest offseason flub was on the FHS Class of ’24.
There aren’t 30+ seniors dressing out for Festus High this autumn. The number is actually closer to 20, thanks to still more roster attrition that Mississippi Magazine whiffed on. In fairness, it is NOT easy to keep up with the Varsity roster for a team like Festus. This is the image that’s been frozen on Festus Athletics’ roster page for years:
The team’s HUDL profile is relatively clean, but the Black & Gold’s roster there is an enigma, with most of the boys listed without jersey #s, profiles, or measurable stats. For instance, one “Noah Apollo” may have transferred to Festus after not getting much play as a sophomore on Oakville High’s upstart team, but we only believe that because Oakville has had MSHSAA football’s ONLY “Noah Apollo” according to what scant information is available. Alma mater’s MaxPreps “roster” resembles a B-cast from a mob movie:
The Geek is all for women in Varsity “boys” sports, but you’d think we would have noticed our senior wide receiver Caitlynn Brown by now. It’s also amazing that Festus has a nose guard the size of Ted Washington, and still averaged giving up more than 5 yards-per-carry last season.
Don’t worry, all of the laughter is out of love. Midmeadow Lane’s newest AD Jason Therrell has inherited the same pesky problems that former AD Eric Allen had (other than being pals with so many DeSoto born rent-a-cops).There’s no budget for a Sports Information Director with an ex-Mizzou assistant coach already on payroll. TGG is most upset with himself for not making better use of Friday night programs at Tiger Stadium, usually the best (and only) way to find out exactly who’s in the Black & Gold lineup as of Week 1.
There’s no chuckle when you consider the nature of FHS’ roster thinning under A.J. Ofodile. For some reason, many of the Tigers’ promising big bodies have caught the last (very sturdy) boats to Brazil, while skill position hopefuls simply flock to the HC’s summer tryouts. As of August, the presumed Grades 10-12 roster includes (gulp) less than 5 known commodities on the offensive or defensive line. An Iron Man squad under a coach like Russ Schmidt would be all set with studs like Robert Turner and Mason Weinhouse playing both ways on the line. But an Ofodile team needs 10+ linemen to succeed.
It would be a shame if poor blocking and tackling hurts Black & Gold’s chances this season, for those big old skill-position tryouts have born fruit as a new crop of Friday speedsters prepares for a banner year. Hayden Bates looks like exactly the beast that Ofodile thought he might turn into as a senior tailback. Festus’ successful Jamboree Friday was another confusing bout of “ghost” jerseys and unknowable players, at least for those of us watching on YouTube. But at one point, The Geek thought he saw Jeremiah Cunningham lined up at QB with Essien Smith lined up next to him for an option play.
THAT, padawans, is known as Thunder and Lightning in an offensive backfield.
Lo and behold, the 2023 Festus Tigers appear to have a pretty deep corps of linemen. You have to play 3 strings as a Class 4 team at the Jamboree, and yet FHS continued to garner compliments on its size, strength, and conditioning up-front long after the starters had rotated out. Off campus, we still have little or no idea who most of the kids are, but TGG suspects that they’ve come up from the underclass ranks, sophomores and freshmen of the type who’ve been boosting Crystal City in its worst-to-first quest.
We’ll trust to (Noah) Apollo that Festus has the numbers to cope with injuries up front. Meanwhile, the Black & Gold finally has itself so many fast playmakers that a minor injury at WR, DB, or even RB would simply give another lad a chance to step in and perform. Ofodile’s fast-tempo offense is going to punish teams with runs-after-catch this season, if only his QBs remember to throw wide-open flat passes.
What about the QB conundrum? Will Coach O continue to alternate Smith and Cunningham as he did last season? FHS will be favored to win at least 6 out of its 9 regular-season games, and the common logic is that a single starting QB becomes a key “caretaker” for any winning team. On the other hand, The Geek recalls watching the Arizona Cardinals tear-up the NFC East with a dual-QB combination of Kurt Warner and Matt Leinart. TGG is on record saying that last year’s .500 FHS season was not the offense’s fault.
Warner and Leinart’s 1-2 punch made perfect sense due to Kurt’s canny knack for the 2:00 drill. Festus runs a no-huddle offense or a sugar-huddle offense no matter which QB is in the game. But if there’s a real issue with the Cunningham-and-Smith strategy, it’s that Black & Gold is a platoon team that suits up 23 starters including the kicker. If each QB is only playing on offense and only playing QB, he’s getting about 25% of the playing time that a D1 prospect on a traditional prep team would be expected to get. Kids are so excited to play quarterback that neither youngster has made a big deal out of that, but it’s noteworthy that another dual-QB tactic could hinder Festus’ top talent in their overall contributions.
Ofodile knows what he’s doing. Any skipper who has rebuilt a strong front-7 after a rash of no-thank-you’s can find a way to utilize his most dangerous threats more often in ’23. The good short-term news is that this Friday’s hot, tiring atmosphere could benefit FHS in its attempt to snap a weird, wild losing streak versus St. Genevieve. Stay tuned for more on Week 1’s weather angle in the Friday Night Predictions.
Hillsboro Hawks
The Geek fooled around and previewed the 2023 Hillsboro Hawks in the last 2022 Power Poll already. Seriously, if readers want to just click on that page, it’s a nifty run-down of everything.
But it would be rude to let this article go without a Blue & White section. Heck, we can’t do that to last autumn’s Class 4 District Champions and undefeated-vs-public-schools team, or any of Mississippi Magazine’s dirty dozen for that matter! So here’s a few notes on a very “different” (if same) HHS schedule in ’23.
This season’s scrums will be nothing like Leon Hall has ever seen. Sure, the Friday Night Lights teams will still squib-kick most of the time, and the fastest kid in opposing colors will still run waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay around the far side of the field trying to get the edge. Hot chocolate will still scald your lips, PA announcers will still stumble and fumble, and cheerleaders’ chants will become scratchy white noise in the background as the 4th quarter looms. It will be a High School season, altogether not unlike we have known them all in the old valley by the stables.
Yet at the same time, there’s no going back from the groundwork Head Coach Bill Sucharski has already laid down over the last 2 seasons. Hillsboro’s reaction to giving up points won’t be the same as it used to be.
Lee Freeman’s method of surviving a blue-collar effort on defense was to hold onto the pigskin…at ANY. COST. Freeman’s teams might allow 5 TDs on 10 total possessions, but score 6 touchdowns by using every single down and scenario to try for a break-away running play, and otherwise bleeding the game clock so that opposing QBs were under pressure for the whole 48 minutes. The Hillsboro Hawks of the 2010s would rather run Midline Option on 4th-and-8 from their own 20-yard line than simply punt and relinquish the ball, and never ever used a “Spread” formation until faced with Hail Mary circumstances. Freeman’s idea was that if Blue & White rushers were racing for 1st downs for about 30:00 of a game, whatever your team did in the other 18:00 wasn’t going to secure a W. Much of the time, he was right.
Sucharski knows what the old “Navy” style can do. But he can’t keep a QB as talented as Preston Brown from attacking defenses through the air in 2023. Hillsboro’s big-play potential came from its D1 threats last season, but it will come from a myriad of tricky looks and long-bomb bravery from the flashier offense of 2020s Hawk football. Teams will ironically have to try to control the ball with long drives against HHS’ green defense, hoping to limit Brown’s attempts and scrambles, just like an opposing Spread QB.
Who’s a good enough rushing team to take a game away from Hillsboro’s offense in ’23? Not the Festus Tigers, who might wind up having that “100-spot” scoreboard duel with the Hawks that we daydreamed about back in 2021. North County doesn’t have RB Jobe Smith to grind out wins anymore, though we’ll wager that Fort Zumwalt, Cardinal Ritter, and PBHS will provide the sternest run-game challenges again.
Hillsboro will be a “matchup” team in 2023, a Varsity crew that can swing above its head or lose to a steep underdog due to opposing styles “making the fights.” Grandview, believe it or not, would make a pesky upset bid against HHS this fall, since the Eagles’ awesome OL would simply try to do what Hillsboro’s offensive lines spent decades doing to faster and deeper lineups in victory. But you probably couldn’t put an All-Star cavalcade of I-55 Conference skill players together and beat Mr. Brown in a battle of finesse.
Windsor Owls
TGG was viewing a game from atop Windsor’s visiting bleachers when he turned around and saw Rock Creek splitting a small meadow, flowing through submerged boulders and fallen trees. “Gosh, that sure looks like a solid fishing spot,” said the supposedly “focused” pigskin writer to some amused Festus Tigers boosters. “If it wasn’t already kickoff time, I’d want to go rustle up some gear and give it a shot.”
When this summer’s heat ebbed, it was time to follow up. The Geek found Rock Creek under a bridge by Windsor’s campus, but it was just a shallow flat, filled with shiners and sunfish, that went forever in both directions. Honing-in on the memory of those bleachers and the water behind them, TGG then tried to get behind the bleachers, the football field, the baseball diamond, and even the parking lot. But there was absolutely no way through the dense, thorny thickets and prison-yard fencing. Finally, a lonely WHS faculty member recognized The Geek. “I know what you can do, buddy!” he said. “Just get off the bridge on the road there to fish Rock Creek. Heck, it’s so shallow, you could stand anywhere you wanted to!” Ugh.
Sulking back to the bridge, The Geek cast glumly at a root-wad for an hour. Total catch: 3 sunfish and some shiners. “Well,” he thought, “if I tell this story on the football blog, then at least the Windsor kids will laugh at my epic fail at a sport right on their home turf.” TGG also decided he could offer a fishing tip straight to the Albino Birds – if you find a secret path through the woods (every campus has one) then Rock Creek is worth a try for any bored student-athletes on lunch hour. No grown-up has ever made it to Rock Creek behind the bleachers in the last 62 years, so the fish won’t spook, and there can’t be any litter on the sand bar.
But on second thought, nevermind that too. If you told the 2023 Windsor Varsity Football Owls to go fishing on a sand bar, they’d probably sit down and start drawing-up pass plays in it.
This year’s Windsor Owls will be the most potent, up-tempo, exciting team that fans from east-side Imperial have watched since the very, very best performances of the Derek Williams era. Magazine readers are already familiar with Windsor’s premier receiver A.J. Patrick, who’ll be a senior in 2023 along with about 20 other Albino Birds. But they should also know about junior WR Claytin Blassingame, who had opponents playing the Blame Game with around 200 total yards on less than 20 touches in his sophomore season. (TGG has a hunch that his name is pronounced “Clay-Ton Bla-sing-ah-me,” but we’ll find out when Regional Radio stutters its way through Week 1.) Windsor’s returning WR corps is deep in height and numbers.
Great painters need plumbers in the end, and Windsor High finally looks safer in the trenches with a bevy of experienced big men on hand in 2023. OL/DL Steven Wolf appears ready for a season that could rival Austin Gould’s at Festus after leading WHS in sacks, and netting a team-best 50+ individual tackles as a junior. Windsor’s size, strength, and numbers on the inside won’t be outclassed by an MRAC foe this year, even though most of the Hillsboro line is coming back.
Anthony Fletcher also goes into his senior season at QB. When a school runs the “NCAA” offense like Windsor so often does, an experienced QB equals Ws.
Jeff Funston has done a fantastic job with the ‘Birds, though there is one serious problem that could plague the HC’s improved roster in ’23. Windsor’s schedule sets the Owls up to go through the frustrations of an Elevator Team, with nothing but lopsided games going one way or the other.
Elevator Team syndrome is something most sports fans know even if they don’t know that they know what it is. A typical example is the golfer who’s too good for his club tournaments, but not quite good enough to go professional. In team sports, the Premier League’s Elevator teams are familiar to anyone who’s watched an episode of “Ted Lasso.” Fictional AFC Richmond is too good to play on the 2nd tier, but it always labors in the 1st tier. Windsor’s schedule has teams on it who’re vulnerable to a blow-out Owls victory this year, and that’s a good thing, but those teams are almost too hapless for an opponent’s own good, relegating WHS’s top string into 24:00 duty. DuBourg and DeSoto, for example, may not provide stiff challenges in Weeks 4-5, as Windsor has temporarily out-grown the DeSoto Dragons insofar as this campaign. But the North County Raiders, Hillsboro Hawks, and St. Clair Bulldogs are almost sure to deliver at least 2 whippings to Windsor in the 3 tilts to follow, followed by a Senior Night mismatch against Cuba which could feel downright dumb if the Cigars don’t get their act together soon. Windsor needs some type of close games to prepare for the playoffs, and they may only come if WHS fares heroically as an underdog. That’s more likely to occur in the league battles. putting even more of Windsor’s emphasis on Weeks 3 and 6.
Will 2023 be the most airborne year of Mississippi Conference ballgames in history? Festus is going to open-up and fire, and Hillsboro will turn its cannon-arm loose more and more as the Hawks face opposing TDs and pressure. Windsor’s offense looks like potential dynamite, and DeSoto’s hired the county’s own QB Whisperer to turn the Dragons’ passing game around.
Heck, a running back like Hayden Bates could get lonely for all the attention on WRs and TEs this time around. But never fear – the aerial circus of Mississippi Conference pigskin in ’23 will make big rushing nights stand out even more.