Crystal City 12, Gateway STEM 8
Hmm, what an ugly score with which to lead-off a Friday recap with a bunch of perfectly pretty final scores in it, and some elite performances too. With the Tri-City school St. Pius X having laid an egg for 3 consecutive frames against the most injured I-55 team since Grandview got down to 10 healthy players in 2016, is Mississippi Magazine stuck for good news on our “super-locals,” except for one W from a seemingly boring game at CCHS?
That would almost be true in some way. But we have never been too sad to put Festus (or Grandview) losses at the top of articles in the past. We’ve even put those defeats on top of the recap scroll when there was a chance it could upset some folks.
There are 2 reasons why Crystal City goes on top this Week 5. First, the Festus Tigers and Grandview Eagles – with regret – did not simply lose games to their rivals on Friday and Thursday respectively. The Varsity Eagles and Tigers self-destructed, as the former club continues to make every opposing QB look like Tom Brady during the Randy Moss years, while the boys from Midmeadow Lane seal a reputation as the most nervous, error-prone, squirrely-est midseason brand in all of Class 4. Readers don’t need to hear The Geek whine about all that, at least not until after everybody has something to cheer for.
Reason #2? That, we should all cheer about. The Crystal City Hornets have gone missing since August, when the school suffered through its Jamboree, then allowed Chaffee’s latest Wiffle-Ball roster to march down the field in Quarter 1. Perhaps everyone was thinking it but nobody wanted to say it. The Geek soon noticed that Facebook shares, interactions, and peppy remarks from Crystal City boosters were in short supply, compared to 2022’s epic buzz for a team that was 3-7 in the prior campaign. Was enthusiasm for the Varsity High School Hornets on the wane, thanks to a couple of summer’s sophomore transfers, and a slippery and stupid loss to Louisiana in Week 2? Why were seniors fumbling on every snap like it was 2019 again, instead of just blowing out every “Confluence Prep” on the schedule? Why wasn’t 3rd-down-and-10 an absolute nightmare for rival quarterbacks facing Kanden Bolton and Camden Mayes’ defensive backfield? Where were the Hornets’ explosive plays from scrimmage, and last but not least, where, oh where was that b****in’ CCHS defense that Mississippi Magazine’s readers were promised?
Then came Crystal City’s performance against Gateway STEM.
THERE IT IS!!!!!! THERE THEY ARE, HERE IT IS, and HERE. WE. GO. TGG cares not one iota that the score was 12-8, 5-1, or Pi-to-whatever. Gateway STEM was out on its feet with the score still tied at 0-0, ready for a CCHS Hornets’ TKO flurry that came as late and deliberate as a Floyd Mayweather knockout.
The Geek saw a 4th quarter in which the scoreboard was tied 0-0, and yet the larger school had virtually zero chance to win, and maybe knew it. Crystal City did everything, and TGG means everything that had to be done to turn a season around, kicking and screaming, and secure 1st-place standing in District 2.
Nolan Eisenbeis overcame injury to play his best-ever game at QB for the Hornets. Nope, there weren’t any exceptional passing-game stats for #12 – he was hardly called upon to toss the bean at all. But he’s finally “looping” into the hole like an option quarterback should, not stopping, starting, and looking for straight lines to the goal-line. Dan Fox’s coaching staff had clearly laid everything on the line to Crystal City’s offense during a week of practice, not just in its choice of a currently limited quarterback who runs like the devil, but determining that the Hornets were NOT going to fumble and NOT going to have any more busted plays, even if that meant the play-calling became even more cautious. “Prove you can get 4 yards at a time without giving the game away,” coaches seemed to be saying, “and then we’ll start trying to score fancy touchdowns again.” The CCHS offense spent the entire game body-punching the Class 4 Jaguars, but still managed to fill the bill, pouncing for 2 quick touchdowns against a tired Jags lineup in the final frame.
Meanwhile, the same defense that gave up 4 TDs to 2022’s shut-out victim in Week 4 was night-and-day different on Friday. Crystal City defenders were ALL OVER THE PLACE against Gateway STEM, swarming the QB and snagging interceptions. And for those of our readers who streamed the CCHS-Gateway game live on YouTube, a question – did you see that pocket pressure? Luke Holdinghausen’s front-7 was in a Class 4 backfield so fast after the snap that half of Gateway’s pass attempts looked like screen-passes. DE Caden Raftery has been credited with only a gaggle of “tackles for loss,” but Mississippi Magazine believes that the entire Crystal City defense gave itself “Eisenbeis syndrome” on the statistics sheet, chasing quarterback Anthony Rayner out of the hash marks so quickly that Rayner’s “rush attempts” were actually just “instant scrambles,” and might’ve gone down as sacks instead of merely T4L. Even the last-ditch Gateway comeback attempt gave the Sunken Place defense awesome optics, as Rayner performed several miracles just getting the ball aloft while in the grasp of CCHS’s pass-rushers. Receiver Kobe Hayden caught a would-be throw away toss at the 30-yard line, scampering into the Red Zone to help Gateway avoid a shut-out, though Crystal City’s defense had long since made its statement.
Throw away the milk cartons. Crystal City’s real power has made it to the gridiron in ’23. Now comes the fun part – figuring out just where Bradley’s Farm stands in the race for a Class 1 Final Four berth.
There are no unbeatable teams in the current #2 through #9 slots of Class 1, District 2. Tipton High is the contender that The Geek whiffed on in summer, and the presently #3 rated Varsity Cardinals probably won’t lose another time until facing Adrian (not Rocky) in Week 9. But they’re 7 points behind Crystal City High in the standings, and they struggled to beat Orchard Farm, a program that could scarcely conquer the dreadful DeSoto Dragons of last year. St. Vincent is currently #2 in the standings due to a heck of a 49-7 defeat of Perryville. But if the Hornets hold serve against 4 more opponents following Friday’s jump up to 4-1, St. Vinny’s cannot take the championship game’s home-field rights away from Crystal.
That is, without Crystal City regressing to its Week 2 form, and losing to Louisiana or another blue-collar team in the semifinals. But it’s looking less and less likely that that’s going to happen.
Hillsboro 42, Festus 21
A.J. Ofodile’s teams have a reputation for being fast, flashy, and physical. That’s why the 3-2 Festus Tigers have garnered so many “speculative” C4 rankings from Class 4’s reporters in 2021, 2022, and even this season. But after the Hillsboro (and Valle University) losses of 2023, there’s no getting around it. Ofodile’s inconsistent teams are getting a reputation for self-inflicted wounds.
FHS took so many critical flags, made so many bone-headed plays, and schlepped away so many chances to compete with Week 5’s rival that even the 5-0 Hillsboro Hawks might have been let-down in a way by another roaring MRAC win. Chase Sucharski’s squad likes to beat the Festus Tigers – by making plays. Arriving at Midmeadow Lane to watch Black & Gold kick itself in the butt is another deal.
Festus R-6 took 2 penalties against Hillsboro…before the opening snap! Having backed up 20-plus yards on its first possession, even a nice 3-play series for 25 yards wasn’t enough to keep Leon Hall from taking the football and going to work. Horribly, the boys’ very worst unforced errors came at the worst possible times, exemplified by a roughing-the-passer call near the Hawk goal line that ruined Festus’ initial comeback bid and set-up a 21-7 Hillsboro lead. Later, the Tigers manufactured more momentum with the ball, threatening to close an early 4th quarter deficit to just 35-21…but another penalty brought back that TD too.
Ofodile may have known that his kids weren’t ready for prime-time just yet. The head coach’s pregame chat with Regional Radio included a curious take out of the ice hockey coach Mike Keenan’s pep-talk arsenal, with Coach O saying that he told Black & Gold penalties and turnovers would happen in an emotional scrum, and that the key was how student-athletes on each side reacted to it. That’s a “reverse psychology” ploy that might have worked on a team that doesn’t have the Saint Vitus Dance when lined up prior to its false starts…ahem, lined up before its plays. When the hosts drew 90 penalty flags in the 1st half, Hillsboro’s kids knew how to “react,” alright. They played 10x as disciplined, and scored 2x as many TDs.
The Festus schedule of Weeks 6-9 is unforgiving. North County, which looked like the single potential patsy FHS would play over the next 4 weekends, is coming off a fantastic upset bid against Mount Vernon, and must feel great compared to the doldrums of Week 4. Festus’ own doldrums make NCHS even more of a trap.
As for the Hillsboro Hawks, heroes of our annual Highway-A Game (and District Championship Game hosts, excepting a total fluke) will get a well deserved break against the dregs of a thin conference over the next pair of Fridays. But even as the Blue & White takes its customary dip out of the headlines in late September, the only thing keeping Hillsboro from mounting the JC Power Poll’s #1 spot with honors is Seckman’s 27-14 statement victory over blood-rival Fox High School, ironically the second of 2 big wins for the Jaguars with misleading final scores.
Head coach Bill Sucharski’s got Hillsboro playing its most dynamic brand of pigskin since…ever? In fact, the undefeated Hillsboro Hawks and Jefferson Blue Jays of 2023 are fast becoming the “Dr. Evil and Mini-Me” of eastern Missouri football this season, crushing all competition by using the good ol’ Paul Johnson plays that brought each program to the dance to begin with, but also putting a pair of quarterbacks in better position to throw, and letting great WRs go wild.
Do you know anyone who predicted this would happen, way back when we started Mississippi Magazine? The Gridiron Geek has a close, personal friend who did.
Perryville 48, Grandview 14
Ugh. This one hurts. This one really hurts. TGG hasn’t criticized a single, solitary coach or player at Grandview High since Birds of Prey coaches mishandled the camaraderie at a COVID-19 game in 2020. Mississippi Magazine often feels like Grandview is “our” football team, not as an above-all rooting interest, but because Winchester Avenue has treated The Geek like one of its own, and because years went by before anyone else reported on the Varsity Eagles each week. GHS is a program whose milieu the website helped to create, just like how The Gridiron (sometimes) Geek got to brand St. Louis CITY “The Archies” for FanDuel.
Grandview HC Jason Kimminau worked under Dave Dallas to build a frighteningly good team out of nothing. It was nothing short of a miracle. But there’s nothing miraculous about the 2-3 Birds of Prey’s “fowl” underachievement in 2023. Kimminau, or somebody, has to undo a terrible curse before it’s too late.
This year’s Grandview Eagles may have the worst pass defense that TGG has ever seen, at least relative to the team’s size, skill, and potential as an overall unit. QBs like Rilaynd Graham of the Perryville Pirates are stepping into a candy store when they take the field against Grandview, which is leaving WRs and running backs alike wide open all over the football field. It’s not as though Grandview is playing a conservative style, and the QBs are hitting well above 50% of their pass attempts within a short range of the line-of-scrimmage. GHS is allowing an opponent’s receivers to run free everywhere, making 20-yard and 30-yard passes feel automatic for any rival offense with a pulse. Graham is a solid signal-caller for Perryville’s improving club, but there’s no such thing as a football lineup that becomes the 2007-08 New England Patriots all of a sudden. (Not even the PATRIOTS did that.) Perryville’s passing game went about 2-out-of-50 in a 5-touchdown loss to St. Vincent. It was on fire at the Pirates’ Homecoming vs Grandview. Like the Festus Tiger defense of this time last campaign, the Winchester Avenue kids are giving their opponents’ QB vitamins.
GHS’s opposing WRs are running so wide-open that even when the quarterback gets too much air under the ball, it’s going to be caught and ran with. Perryville is a credit to perseverance and hard work as an upstart MSHSAA Class 4 team, but its Homecoming broadcast’s audio track alone started to annoy TGG on Thursday, because of how many long and medium-range passes were wide open for a Perryville side that couldn’t even run the ball very much against the Eagles. Perryville’s home-run passes were always followed with the yells from the Homecoming crowd, from happy Dads (“YEE-HAW!”) to all the lady teachers (“WooOOOOooo!”) to Cheerleaders (“EEEEEEEEEE!”) as the Pirates snagged more long-balls that anyone who has suffered through PHS pigskin could dream. Finally, The Geek decided to close his eyes and listen for the “YEE-HAAAA”s. There were, as you might imagine, quite a few more yodels (TDs) to go.
The most frustrating thing about Grandview’s confused and hapless coverage isn’t that GHS used to be one of the I-55’s best defenses against the play-action pass, though it’s insane to think of how 2018’s “Varsity” Eagles held Jefferson to 25% on 8 attempts without having dressed-out a single senior. Chock-full of seniors (and solid edge-rushers) in ’23, Grandview’s kids can’t cover “Smoke on the Water.”
What’s worse is that the Eagles are not, we repeat, NOT getting bested by better speed by WRs and TEs running downfield. It isn’t a syndrome of GHS having a massively big team up front that’s slow in the open field. Grandview has had defenders in front of, behind, and on all sides of pass routes. Regretfully, there’s no award for having some kids out there watching. They’re lost in pass coverage, sometimes giving up on a play before it’s over as another long TD is taken.
You have to have a sense of humor. Grandview hosts Herculaneum next weekend, and while Herky was all-kinds-of-brave going against St. Pius X on Friday night, Dunklin’s head coach Blane Boss sadly told Regional Radio after that the Varsity Blackcats sustained even more injuries in Week 5, and that the ‘Cats could be down to less than 20 healthy bodies in Week 6. That’s not an opponent which screams “world-class passing game,” so maybe the Eagles have a break.
But would having TOM BRADY on the field help Herky’s aerial game at all? Maybe so. If the Grandview Eagles don’t get their Xs and Os unscrambled on defense soon, Boss can tell his quarterback Mac Waddell to drop back, take a quick look around, and throw an easy softball to whoever he wants. “EEEEEEEEE!” and “YEEEE-HAW!” ringing from the visitor’s section will tell the rest of the story.
St. Pius 41, Herculaneum 0
Herky’s outcome at Hill Valley reflects the paradox of Dunklin R-5’s football season perfectly. The Herculaneum Blackcats are NOT, we repeat, NOT going through a “same old” syndrome in which HHS does reasonably well versus out-of-conference summer opponents, then crashes and burns against the I-55 Conference. In fact, Herculaneum is pulling off the rare feat of getting better as a unit while the lineup itself goes through injury attrition that’s so severe, we don’t want to talk about it.
The small-picture image was awesome against SPX. Herky hung around for 3 full quarters, standing behind St. Pius just 14-0 going into the 4th quarter, and clowning TGG’s prediction that Lancer quarterback James Smith would emerge from the halftime dressing room with a bag of Sunflower Seeds. It’s the big picture that threatens to prevent Varsity Blackcats from notching any more Ws this fall.
Reporting the injuries won’t stop fans in St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, Columbia, and parts west from opening up MSHSAA’s state-wide scoreboard, saying “well, there goes Herculaneum losing to its conference schedule again” and closing it. That’s a crying shame, because we know that Dunklin R-5’s daring late-summer success absolutely was not some kind of mirage. Flip the scenario over, and imagine that somehow, HHS had its Week 1 lineup for the games happening right now, but had also relinquished the starting-11 for Weeks 1-2 due to disciplinary suspensions. Herculaneum would’ve tanked vs WHS…but would be giving I-55 teams hell.
You can get hurt in a football game by having a breezy and careless attitude, but teams also take-on injuries when kids are trying to do too much instead of trusting the playbook, and their teammates. Has HHS been trying too hard to out-play the dire predictions of The Geek and other local analysts? Possibly, though it would help Herculaneum’s backups-turned-starters to know that NO team, not even Hillsboro or Festus, would ever be picked to win under these circumstances.
Grandview vs Herculaneum is a Week 6 kickoff that both schools sorely needed. GHS won’t have to defend more than 10-20 passes at most, and yet the casualty-ward Blackcats could hang around (again!) utilizing some well-timed long bombs. Felines pigskin will be back, and “2024” isn’t a far-away date for which to wait.
Seckman 27, Fox 14
The Seckman-Fox scrum goes down in the scroll thanks to being less of the “Houston vs Tokyo” Rollerball rumble that TGG predicted, and more of another day at the track for the fantastic Seckman Jaguars. The Geek feels a lot of gratitude over Fox scoring a mop-up style TD to make a 27-7 score a tad more respectable, because combined with other “close game” predictions for Oregon-Colorado and Grandview-Perryville, TGG almost struck-out like “Casey at the Bat.”
But even if Fox had scored another consolation TD at the end, there’d be nothing about a 27-21 final score to erase another BIG statement from Imperial. We’ll do our best not to “hex” anyone’s potential 9-0 regular season by chirping about it constantly, but Week 7 opponent Pattonville scored only twice in the opening frames against hapless Mehlville on Friday night. Seckman’s coast is clear!
Marquette 49, Northwest 10
Cedar Hill folks are probably tired of consolation field-goals. But the Lions getting on the board against Marquette isn’t the story. What’s news is that Northwest allowed a comparable number of points and yards against Marquette as the Seckman Jaguars of the 2022 postseason. Against any starter + backup combination of the Mustangs, that’s great progress for a winless team.
Now to get the offense rolling a little more – maybe. Week 6’s opponent Oakville only defeated Mehlville 19-9 in Week 2, so the Lions should get a lot of turns.
Windsor 29, DeSoto 6
After all that, the Windsor-DeSoto scrum turns out how The Geek originally predicted it, way back in the middle of August. Windsor has finally got a fuller contingent of A-backs running around the field, and no longer looks like a weird hybrid team created when a kid combined the wrong 2 playbooks on Xbox.
The Varsity Owls’ option attack is not what The Geek feels a coaching staff with truly high ambitions would have put-in for the swift Albino Birds of ’23, but darn tootin’, it’s an offense, and we’ll see how it works against Hillsboro very soon.
Jefferson 70, Bayless 14
HAPPY END NOTE! Umm…except for those JHS sophomores who allowed 2 touchdowns to the I-55’s likely last-place school. They’re about to get some extra bear-crawl and tackling-dummy work at practice on Monday, and they know it.
We could see a rash of “sick headaches” knock a bunch of the Blue Jay underclass out of Week 6 practice duty…but even the school nurses will tell ’em to go suit up.