#1 – Seckman Jaguars
It’s ironic that a Mississippi Magazine comment would accuse TGG of producing a single-team cheerleader’s blog that roots against our 11 other schools in secret, right when the first Jefferson County Power Poll of a year is due to post. The coaches, boosters, and players (from a dozen schools, not one) who have written-in to praise The Geek’s fairness over the years are dear to us. The website’s Jefferson County Power Poll is not cut from your typical variety of a High School football ranking; Mississippi Magazine pretends that all 12 of our teams are bidding in a tournament together, not divided by Class or District but simply mano-a-mano. Such a Power Poll would certainly spark foul words between fans who hailed from a less open-minded and understanding readership. As TGG and Jefferson High School principal Alex Rouggly once agreed, it’s the community’s tiny cast of haters who are fighting City Hall.
We’ve got a confession to make – there’s no point in trying for a “fair” (or a “geeky”) Jefferson County Power Poll in Week 2. Not enough pigskin has been played yet, and a “computer”-style ranking would favor a different team on top, like Hillsboro, or even Fox or Festus, because those teams have gotten it done in the postseason since 2020. The mighty Hillsboro Hawks are working on a double-digit winning streak over public schools. Yet the ’23 season’s debut was also a special time in which county teams roared in defiance of a skeptical media, and that feat deserves more than a computer’s likely choice at #1.
How about a #1 who thrashed a thorn in Jeff County’s side? Seckman’s unreal romp over Valle University was a spectacle that TGG was starting to think he would never get to describe on any blog, anywhere. Hillsboro and Fox scored 100 combined points via versions of Midline Option on Friday, but their winning scores were hardly unexpected. Festus is proud to defeat St. Genevieve, yet faces an even tougher task against the town’s “A-Team” in Week 2, and there wasn’t anything eye-popping about the score of “FHS 22, STG 7” at halftime.
Seckman’s “34-0” halftime score over Valle U., meanwhile:
What does Week 1’s glory mean for the SHS Jaguars “going forward,” as all the spike-buck head coaches like to say? It occurs to The Geek that coach Nick Baer’s critics have now turned out to be sharply, precisely, exactly wrong, as Seckman getting even beastlier on offense without the former QB Cole Ruble shows that Baer’s program did as much for SEMO’s new phenom as Ruble did for the Jags. Ruble didn’t carry a crappy program to regular-season success by scoring 500 playground TDs. The best running QB in MO pigskin flourished in part thanks to an SHS offensive line that grows more fearsome every fall.
We wanted the Jaguars to put some early-season Ws in the bank. After cashing the checks from Friday’s stunner, the SHS kids can probably take some start-up loans and farm out their next 3 wins if they want to. University City has been getting annihilated by burly large-school lineups for years (including Seckman), and only the Northwest Lions and Mehlville Panthers will stand in the way of 4-0. However, with the Jags facing a competent Class 6 program in MHS following Week 2 and 3’s cupcakes, Baer will ask his happy athletes to work on solid execution and staying penalty-flag free, hoping to peak just in time for a critical midseason visit from the Fox Warriors.
#2 – Hillsboro Hawks
Hillsboro is among the schools breathing a sigh of relief, and not just because Friday’s offense manufactured as many nice TDs against Sikeston High as a backfield led by Jaxin Patterson might have. HHS coaches were worried about Hillsboro’s growing enrollment numbers, and the chances that MSHSAA’s preseason (barely preseason) Class berths would assign Hillsboro to football’s Class 5 bracket. That would mean that MO’s top ranked Iron Man team had to fight Show-Me Bowl level platoon teams like Jackson just to get to the state postseason. Not very fair, and not what the Hawks’ fans prefer to see.
Instead, the Missouri association has – you guessed it – bowed to tradition again when it comes to setting up most of Class 4. Hillsboro, Festus, and North County are once again District rivals in C4D1, though Cape Girardeau Central has grown into a C5 bid that the CHS Tigers actually won a title in last year.
It’s also strange that Farmington High was mentioned as a possible 6th team to add to the Mississippi Conference as of 4-5 years ago, and now, the Class 5 Black Knights aren’t in a District with FHS or HHS, let alone a conference.
It’s going to be a 2-team District race if North County ’23 doesn’t get its act together soon. But the Buccaneers usually do. Meanwhile, the Hawks get an opportunity to show that this year’s lineup can hang with last year’s lineup with a series of games against teams that the Blue & White whitewashed by 3+ touchdowns in 2022.
First up will be the Cape Girardeau Central Tigers, who looked dodgy to the broader public after beating St. Charles High School (not vaunted St. Charles West) just 35 to 33 in Week 1. However, the Pirates’ junior QB Jordan Rowe produced 350 of 400 yards and essentially all of the scoring for St. Chuck, making us think CHS’s dominance of St. Charles County hasn’t vanished, rather a special kid – just one for now – emerged for Cape’s annual foil.
#3 – Festus Tigers
The Varsity Tigers’ well-matched Week 2 bout at Valle U. is like water in which elephants swim and bugs drown. If you’re gonna get into a matchup like that, you had best be prepared to get all the way into it. Xs and Os aren’t much fun on a Power Poll, so we’ll save the hardcore Valle-prep for Friday’s prediction.
Meanwhile, does the Class 4, District 1 draw scare FHS with the prospect of another “One-Game” postseason, such as the years when Hillsboro meets R-6 immediately after cupcake wins for both teams, and the higher (or occasionally lower) seed must be vanquished to earn any kind of exciting date with an STL brand? It may be better to think in terms of what happens to Hillsboro or Festus (or North County, should the Buccaneers rebound from losing weakly in Wk 1) once the District Championship Game is over. Class 4 has been wiped free of division-killing private schools for the most part, but Lutheran North is ranked #2 in Class 4 after defeating Hazelwood Central 54-0 in Week 1. If there’s a “St. Mary’s” type of bid hiding in 2023’s eastern field, with or without referees who abide their requests to pick up flags, move balls 30 yards at a time, and put TDs on the scoreboard just for the asking, it could spell trouble for any MSHSAA Show-Me Bowl hopeful before the District trophy is in a case.
There’s reason to hope for fair fights when the time comes. TGG’s forecast that “private schools like Valle U. and Duchesne don’t look like division-killers in 2023” has borne out so far as each team lost in a blow-out on Friday. But visiting fans who expect to see Valle University bow quickly to Black & Gold this weekend still have another thing coming. 2022’s Lutheran North Barnstormin’ All-Stars looked plenty beatable vs SCW in last year’s playoffs, though a #2 ranking from St. Louis writers who know the team well is a tad-bit chilling.
Coach O does have himself 5 out of 7 home games to coach after the Valle trip, followed by more kickoffs at Midmeadow Lane thanks to the thinned District draw without Cape Central or Farmington in it. It could help to make up for a mosquito-bitten Homecoming Game played last season, when the Tigers hosted just 3 home games and had to fit ceremonies into all of them.
#4 – Fox Warriors
Fans of the science-fiction flick “Rollerball” (the 1970s anti-establishment one, not the “MTV” remake with NFL jocks and rappers) know that 2 skaters or bikers are free to go opposite ways around a Rollerball track. But all it means is that there’s going to be that much more mayhem, especially since the game was Designed To Demonstrate The Futility Of Individual Effort.
Fox and Seckman are going to be like Rollerball skaters who’ve gone opposite ways around the track. SHS has such a breezy schedule over the next 2 weeks that the Jaguars’ sophomores will feel rewarded for having yelled so loud as the Varsity crushed Valle U. in the first 24:00. The Fox Warriors, by contrast, must welcome Lafayette-Wildwood in Week 2, play host again to the Lindbergh Flyers (who defeated – gulp – Chaminade 34-7 to start the 2023 season), and then travel to face the Ritenour Huskies in Week 4 before meeting the Jags.
The Geek doesn’t care if Fox High arrives at 1-3 while Seckman goes 4-0 with another record point-total. What happens when Rollerball skaters speed up all the way around opposite tracks, and then collide…with 48:00 yet to fight?
TOK-Y-OH! GAM-BAR-E!!! TOK-Y-OH! GAM-BAR-E!!!
#5 – St. Pius Lancers
St. Pius X’s schedule looks just peachy with a 1-0 record in the bag (some would say it should be a 2-0 record) and only a somewhat improved Bishop DuBourg lineup to worry about in Week 2. However, what could have been fantastic fun in the postseason could be ruined by one lousy berth, and not merely for the Lancers, but for 3 of our favorite local small-school teams.
MSHSAA has slotted St. Pius, Grandview, and Jefferson into the same Class 2 District this season, which can’t help but set up some type of intrigue over how many Power Poll teams will battle each other this November. But the Missouri association has also allowed the private-school tycoon Lift For Life a berth in Class 2, District 2. Lift for Life has been among the least consistent of private campus teams that punch above their weight class, but there’s no doubt that Lift For Life’s assembled team at its peak can devour C2D2 like a Langolier.
#6 – Crystal City Hornets
Crystal City’s draw in Class 1 is more flat-out weird than it is prohibitive of a District title. The Varsity High School Hornets are in a District of almost 90% public schools and an honest private-school program in St. Vincent. The noteworthy bids for #1 include CCHS, St. Vinny’s, Russellville, Louisiana, and Fayette. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Hornets, Indians, and the other Indians fighting it out as the top-3 seeds, with Louisiana as a spoiler.
That’s where it gets strange, though. 9 teams are drawn into each Class 1 District in 2023, as MSHSAA uses a version of its “Class 6” bracket system to determine a state champion. If Crystal City High does the improbable and lifts District hardware, the Hornets will already be one win away from a Show-Me Bowl berth, just like Fox went straight to the semifinals as a Class 6 District winner 3 years ago. But getting through the District will be a longer ordeal.
MSHSAA has put out almost no information on how a 9-team single elimination bracket is supposed to work. The Geek has covered more international events (and small High School tournaments) than you can shake a laptop at, and has never heard of any such thing as a 9-team single knockout format. If everyone tried to play Round 1, a team would be left out. If the top seed receives a bye instead of playing in Round 1, a total of 4 other winners would leave 5 teams. MSHSAA would run all the way to Xmas with “byes” trying to make that work.
As best as TGG can tell (from the very fine print of the MSHSAA handbook), every team but the #8 and #9 seeds in a Class 1 District will get a “bye” in the brackets, with the cellar-dwellers to compete in a “Play-In Game” to see who challenges #1 on Week 11. That’s not an unfair format, and it gives 1000s of small-town sports writers exactly what they’ve asked of MSHSAA for 50,000 years in a row…letting 2 lowly seeds play a close, meaningful playoff game.
#7 – Jefferson Blue Jays
QB Kole Williams was the Blue Jays’ big man in Week 1 with nearly 250 combined yards and a bunch of early TD punches thrown against ailing Fredericktown. R-7 supporters have to be thrilled that WR Nate Breeze is performing as advertised, shining on passing downs, punt returns, and even Jefferson’s pass-rush. Keeping with today’s theme, though, The Geek is most excited about a Weeks 2-4 schedule that gives Matt Atley’s nascent lineup a perfect step-ladder of difficulty, leading up to a cross-town rumble on 9/15.
#8 – Grandview Eagles
The Week 2 Grandview opponent Bayless appeared to have had a Week 1 game against Principia cancelled due to storms, meaning that the Bronchos took on 0 injuries and got to turn instantly to preparing for GHS on Friday.
That’s an unlucky break on a schedule that otherwise sets up well for the Birds of Prey. However, the Bayless tailback Mark Patton, who ran all over the inexperienced GHS kids in 2022, is now a BHS graduate.
#9 – Windsor Owls
Perryville’s awful debut against Oakville seems to suggest little hope for the PHS Pirates against Windsor in Week 2. But the Owls are going to have to start putting their “on paper” potential into practice. Otherwise, this year’s Perryville lineup is deep enough to wage another pitched battle into Quarter 4.
#10 – Herculaneum Blackcats
Herky’s next opponent Fredericktown is in a shambles right now, and presents a lovely chance for HHS to get to 1-1 after nearly humiliating a Mississippi Conference team again in Week 1. But the Felines have once again been drawn into a crushing District of Park Hills, St. Genevieve, and Kennett.
#11 – DeSoto Dragons
We’ll learn more about the new DeSoto Dragons this Friday…especially if Russ Schmidt’s club can get to halftime without surrendering a Turbo Clock against Sullivan. It would help to know more about Bishop DuBourg’s larger roster too, though, before passing judgement on DeSoto for Week 1’s overtime episode. The Geek finds it unfathomable that DuBourg is as poor as it was last year while also scoring 5 times against the Mississippi. The Lancers, however, have such ball-control ability that we may only see flashes of DuBourg’s offense in Week 2 compared to last weekend’s wide-open tilt at Joachim Junction.
#12 – Northwest Lions
Cedar Hill hosts 0-1 Parkway South following last week’s noble effort against a Show-Me Bowl level cast. That’s close to a genuine ray of sunshine for a team that began, endured, and ended the season with only let-downs in ’22.