C4 District 1 Championship Game: Festus Tigers at Hillsboro Hawks
The Geek has taken just about every angle to previews of the Festus-Hillsboro series over the years. Once about 5 years ago, the Magazine even quoted the greatest Pacific Time Zone pigskin announcer of all time (sorry, Keith Jackson), Robert Kekaula: “Momentum is the 13th Man.” On TV the following season, TGG compared Leon Hall and Midmeadow Lane’s rivalry game favorably to traditions like St. Genevieve High vs Valle Catholic, and Kirkwood vs Webster Groves. Of course, that’s about when Valle U. and St. Gen went out and had better, tighter bouts than the Mississippi Conference for a hot minute.
What we’ve never done is compare the Highway A battle to a car race. Doing so would not necessarily seem to hold the Festus Tigers in good stead going into Week 12’s elimination scrum. HHS and FHS weren’t running in the same gears in Week 5, when the Varsity Hawks took full advantage of the Tigers’ numerous self-inflicted wounds to produce a 28-7 lead early in the contest. Hillsboro’s senior blocking corps punished the less-experienced FHS defense, and Leon Hall’s star running back Peyton Brown enjoyed a “Marshall Faulk” breakout as a wide-receiving threat for the Blue & White. The final score “Hillsboro 42, Festus 21” itself suggested a NASCAR race in which R-6 was lapped once perfectly.
Hillsboro and Valle U. are the best 2 teams Festus has had to play all season yet, and the boys taught a master class in how to take catastrophic penalty flags and bobble the bean in those defeats. There’s a far better chance that Festus will blow a gasket and lose by its own hand this Friday, as compared to HHS’s smooth and steady mental outlook going into a big battle. That’s got to be factored into any prediction. FHS boosters would contend that Farmington is one of the top 2 teams Midmeadow Lane has opposed all year, and the Varsity Tigers didn’t take 100 yards in penalties or fumble 3 times in that dominating win. But the Black Knights were in a dreadful midseason lull when that game happened, making it easy for the home team with a patty-cake offense that was nothing like the attack which Farmington used to upset its District last weekend. Black & Gold can only glean-on to its crisp performance against Jackson (for 36:00, anyway) as proof that discipline has gotten better.
But it’s also hard to forget FHS’s few successful turns against Hillsboro’s ’23 defense. Like that Mario Andretti “Turbo” engine that wouldn’t last 500 miles, when the Tigers weren’t just doing themselves in versus the Hawks, the trailing team’s no-huddle offense raced right down the field in 5 plays or less. If, supposing that A.J. Ofodile’s club has learned from the past month’s worth of success what it couldn’t necessarily learn via failure, and if the teams’ number of mistakes is something close to equal in the championship game, could that faster of 2 “cars” – with a solid tune-up – maybe, possibly, finally…?
Aw, heck. Let’s let Matt Damon explain Week 5’s outcome for a moment.
It doesn’t matter what A.J. Ofodile’s exact game plan for the Varsity Tigers may be. There are already things we know for sure about it. Festus will try to overwhelm Hillsboro with one speedy playmaker after another, with new formations and run-after-catch touches coming so rapidly that the Hawks can’t chase the ball around like they want to. Hayden Bates and Avery Edwards – mistakenly called “Amyas” on a Week 7 report this year – are the backfield who can truly “establish the run” on a defense like Leon Hall’s, though Hillsboro’s got the hot receivers in Chase Sucharski and (occasionally) Mr. Brown.
Midmeadow Lane’s roster isn’t the “faster car” except for this comparison’s sake, of course. Ferrari Hillsboro and Ford’s Festus’ WRs are similar in pure track speed, and for the purposes of predicting a District Championship Game winner, it doesn’t actually matter which kids are faster in the 40-yard dash. Also forget what Matt Damon says in the movie clip about Ford’s “wrong driver.” The Festus Tigers have 3 amazing “drivers” this season in QBs Jeremiah Cunningham and Essien Smith, and of course A.J. Ofodile. What we’re saying is that Festus has the souped-up racecar with a shot to overtake that dependable Hillsboro machine, but all of its parts will have to be in very greasy working order.
Black & Gold’s defense is tailor made to stop the Hillsboro Hawks…of another era. With the strength in the trenches provided by names like Rob Turner, Austin Gould, and Mason Schirmer this season, any old-fashioned Hillsboro attempt to control the football for 34:00 and take the game away from R-6 would fall foil to the Tigers’ penetration and tackles-for-loss on HHS running plays. Hillsboro High would be the opponent who had to worry about blowing-out a tire at any moment, subject to careful 15-play drives ending in a flash as a tackle-for-loss turned into a fumble. But this isn’t those Fridays of yore when the Hillsboro Hawks were found plowing up sod between the hashes, hoping to minimize how much of a match turned wide-open. 2021’s classic Highway A Game showed us that Hillsboro pigskin was changing, getting more comfortable in the open field. That HHS Class of 2024 remembers.
Festus can’t just run-blitz everybody, like in the first half of 2016’s only scrap between the schools. If they do, QB Preston Brown will burn the Tigers down the field just like he burned North County last week. Even if the Black & Gold doesn’t blitz anyone, they’ve still got to be alert for Brown’s arm strength. Hillsboro’s best drives used to involve a punishing 4-down running game that got more and more determined as the defense tightened. Today, the Leon Hall kids can score TDs any which way.
HHS boasts some other built-in advantages. Leon Hall’s home team always enters the field of play by marching down the hill to that Guinness or Molson theme song or whatever it is, and the entrance is usually good for about 10 points by itself. PK Nick Marchetti’s powerful tee shots can shut down the Midmeadow Lane kick-return team before it ever gets on the tracks. FHS cannot hope to high-tempo Hillsboro’s defense into the ground with an even faster pace than Week 5’s no-huddle offense. It’s scarcely unrelated news that HC Bill Sucharski is taking his Hawks into Class 5 rumbles in STL, and challenging his Hawks against more high-tempo teams than ever. They’re not afraid of it anymore.
Yet there is one pro-Festus idea (some would say it’s a “Festus Cheerleader’s idea,” although we’ve penned “War & Peace: The Sequel” in honor of Hillsboro over the last 2 years) that won’t let The Geek forecast Week 12 without going back over it. Hillsboro does NOT – repeat, does NOT – want to fall behind in this playoff bout. Mmp-hmmp. Nope. Don’t fall behind in this one, HHS, that’s bad juju.
A halftime lead for the Festus Tigers would change the makeup of Friday’s matchup. Yes, it was a bad blow to the FHS defense (and to morale on campus) when CB Trey Lacey fell frighteningly against the Jackson Indians in Week 9. But the success of a wide-open Hillsboro comeback bid, much like Lamar Jackson’s offense in Baltimore or Brock Purdy’s off-and-on streaks for the San Francisco 49ers, always depends on how well Hillsboro is blocking, and also on the down-and-distance scenarios an opposing defense is able to put quarterback Preston Brown in. We aren’t saying that Hillsboro High can’t execute a rapid touchdown drive to vanquish Black & Gold in the closing moments – it sure did in 2021! But for Midmeadow Lane to wind up missing a handful of “guys,” as Ofodile calls them, on defense isn’t a disaster, since this scrum is more about the whole defense’s rally to stop that Hillsboro “racecar.” If Hillsboro’s veteran OL manages to block the best Festus defensive line in 9 years for 4 frames straight, Sucharski (the player, not the coach) and TE Gavin Hite will have a field day on Brown’s play-action passes. But if Brown faces a fierce FHS pass rush, things get tougher no matter who the #1 CB is.
There’s more worry in HHS’s defense-vs-offense matchup if Festus grabs a lead at any point. Hillsboro has not faced an “RBI Hitter” running back like Hayden Bates since last year’s loss at St. Mary’s. If things start rolling downhill against Blue & White’s defense after having practically 20 games in a row of success, the hosts will have to adjust to an underdog outlook that it has become impossible for HHS to specialize in – impossible for any team that whipped its entire schedule for 2 years running. Hillsboro, against all wisdom, has played such great defense all season that the lack of an “Austin Romaine” playmaker who can bust up a team’s entire Red Zone operation hasn’t really shown up. But it could absolutely show up if the FHS Tigers take a lead, and there’s no epic HHS edge-rush to save the day. Hillsboro’s can’t spend its best Iron Man athletes on an every-snap defense in desperation to stop a Festus ground game with half-of-a-dozen deadly rushers in it. Points are going to be too important, players too tired, and the host crowd’s mood too critical to let Hayden Bates start pounding away.
It’s not kosher to predict an upset loss for Hillsboro High School. Not after the Hawks’ incredible year of defying the “expert” reporters again. This reporter knows well that Hillsboro’s decade-plus domination of Festus football is no accident. But unless the 8-3 Varsity Tigers come out determined to start every drive on 1st-Down-and-25, the District Championship Game this Friday could prove to be Hillsboro’s toughest W of the autumn, if not a heartbreaker that blocks a bit of history as HHS is denied a repeat title. Essien Smith’s Tigers will probably be poised to overtake Leon Hall as of next season, putting Blue & White under pressure to lap R-6 again while the track’s dry. PREDICTION: HAWKS 34, TIGERS 27 (OT)
C6 District 1 Championship Game: Jackson Indians at Seckman Jaguars
The Mississippi River doesn’t flood badly all that often. In fact, this fishing season, The Gridiron Geek stood underneath a 10-foot ledge (by the Herky smokestack) from the upper-opposite part of which he’s caught scores of catfish. But we recall what it’s like when the Mississippi ISN’T way down, like in an ordeal like the Flood of ’93, at least if we’re old enough to. Don’t we?
The way that MSHSAA analysts and Message Board motor-mouths are carrying on about Seckman vs Jackson, you’d think they forgot some very basic things about the sport of pigskin. For instance, Vince Lombardi’s starting point for a preseason lecture: “This is a Football.” (The Green Bay Packers used to yell back, “Uhh, you better slow down coach, that’s too complicated for us!” which replaced Lombardi’s famous grin with a glare.) From “This is a Football” it follows that 2 teams are going to be fighting over it, and that it’s tough for a quarterback – ANY quarterback – to do much in that fight while on his butt.
JHS, playing with its second and third strings a good deal of the time, has racked up about 50 points per game and is allowing only a stingy number of rushing yards in 2023. From a distance, that appears like a Class 6 “racecar” that it’s impossible to stop…or a levee that won’t break. You can’t ball-control scheme against a team with a great rush defense, and once JHS gets the egg, it’s all over.
Yet the ’23 Injuns may owe their rejuvenated offense to coaching tactics, every bit as much as size or talent. Jackson’s offense lines up faster than ever, and executes an Air Raid or Run & Shoot style attack that keeps a blue-collar defense from substituting enough to stay competitive. The only weapon that stops the Jackson offense is a starting-11 of defensive players who are each so multi-talented and dynamic, they can adjust to everything JHS throws at them despite the “Fast-Forward” pace.
Seckman doesn’t have that. But there’s just one other way to slow Jackson down, or even to turn that smooth-as-silk Jackson offense into a liability that hurts the Indians. AND SECKMAN HAS IT. Throw away all those Jackson Indians scores of the past year, and from 4-5 years before that, because none of those points are going to do JHS any good in Friday’s game (“This is a Football”) for the title. Worryingly, the Jackson Indians sustained an injury at QB in the C6D1 Semifinal Game, and conceivably may not be sure who’s going to take every snap – if anyone – in Week 12.
“Bad timing” is not a strong enough term. Not from Jackson’s POV.
Imperial’s pass rush is on fire, bringing down Oakville’s quarterbacks a total of 12 times in last weekend’s 33-0 romp. It wasn’t a fluke accident. Seckman’s Chase Lappe has 10 QB sacks on the season, an immense total against the zone-blocking teams of a Suburban League in which even the Lindbergh “Flyers” are keeping the ball on the ground a lot. Senior DE-LB Daniel Lauter’s speed on the edge has produced 7 sacks in the campaign, while Dean Moeckel and “Layin’ Down The” Law Newman have prosecuted scored another 10 QB sacks, Newman’s from all over the place instead of on the DL.
What a weapon THAT is against the Jackson Indians. Pocket pressure is the one ingredient that can disrupt JHS’s fine-tuned machine and produce a ragged game for 10-0 Seckman to win. The dim memory of that “Flood of ’93” – aka Jackson’s offense looking bad and losing in a title tussle – is preventing pundits from seeing just how delicate a no-huddle system like Jackson’s offense is.
The success of no-huddle teams like Festus and Jackson High serves to distract from the fact that such tactics, after all these years, are still dangerous for the team trying to use them. (“This is a Football.”) Putting it another way, Jackson’s offense has hummed right along for so many scrums in a row that losing-out badly on 3-4 turns could be a shock for the Indians on Friday night at Seckman, and altogether more so because of the visitors’ fast-break type of style with the bean.
Suppose for a moment that Jackson kicks off to begin the championship game, and the Jaguars go on a trademark “quiet” drive between the hashes for something close to 50 yards-gained and a field-goal attempt. Then the Jackson Indians get the ball, and take a sack for 9 yards on the first play. If the Jackson Indians’ first 2 drives take a total of 34 seconds due to Seckman’s opening batch of rehearsed blitzes, suddenly that smooth engine of an offense doesn’t feel so smooth anymore. Even without so much as a touchdown deficit, JHS’s platoon defense could start to worry about getting tired. Also, Jackson High’s well-hidden weak point is when the offense doesn’t work, it looks ridiculous.
It’s a bad deal for a fast-break football team to take a QB sack. The kids are supposed to line up and go again as immediately as possible, but have a hard time doing that because the unit’s communications-director (i.e. the Quarterback) is on his back-side. The coaches are between a rock and a hard place too. If they call for a huddle and a slow-down, then their team is “surrendering” and giving up on everything that it did in practice. If you’re losing yards and keep going fast? It gets even worse.
The best way to make an upset bid is to take a game’s favorite “places they haven’t been before,” and Seckman’s defense is poised to take Jackson somewhere it hasn’t been since last season’s slide down the state rankings. Jackson’s QB had better count to 3. PREDICTION: JACKSON 29, JAGUARS 24
C1 District 2 Semifinal (Round-of-16): Tipton Cardinals at Crystal City Hornets
The Geek was excited to hear scouting reports on the Tipton Cardinals that included the words “big team, not enough speed.” If there’s one scenario in which Mississippi Magazine knows that one of its schools is going to bring lots of speed to the field, it’s when Crystal City is kicking off in an important game at the Sunken Place. Camden Mayes or no Camden Mayes, 2023’s Hornets can fly. Tipton’s become the mystery-contender of this season anyway, so the blog is open to all opinions! Even a nearby newspaper that’s covered the #3 seed Cardinals has been super cloudy on specifics.
It would be dishonest, though, not to report that Tipton’s actual footage seems to erase any idea of an underdog team trudging to Bradley’s Farm for Week 12. Tipton’s got twice or 3x as many numbers as last week’s foil Harrisburg, and that’s not the half of it. THS’s Cardinals have a set of offensive linemen which compares to Jefferson’s blockers, a burly and veteran gang that’s there to get all the dirty work done while a patient Spread Offense makes adjustments and scores its points. No, Tipton’s not as speedy all-around as Crystal City, but these Cardinals are fast enough where they need to be.
CCHS has no chance to win the line-of-scrimmage against the 9-1 Tipton Cardinals. Zero. The best that the Hornets will be able to do is to stalemate the Cardinals at the point-of-attack, and trust that a litany of weapons of the sort that Tipton won’t have on the bus is enough to pull #2 through the tight spots. Circumstances will force a set of CCHS rookie “bigs” into action vs a terrific Varsity line. Realistically, those brave youngsters must try to hold their own, and hope the Hornets can win some other way.
Roster woes help to cast the heroic Hornets as an underdog. Seth Senter, reportedly suspended for another scrum in the playoffs due to MSHSAA NOT SENDING THE GOOD YOUNG PLAYOFF REFS WHO STAY THE HECK OUT OF IT getting ejected along with a counterpart from Harrisburg in the quarterfinals. Mayes’ recent absence, if it stays that way through at least Week 12, will become a dreadful point-of-weakness for Tipton to target, if Evan Wolfe doesn’t have the night of his life.
Crystal City coach Dan Fox fooled The Geek and 3 weeks’ worth of Mississippi Magazine’s complaints with a brilliant game-plan in Week 11. Part of the reason why TGG was so stunned and dismayed by Crystal’s switch to Cale Schaumburg at quarterback was because this blogger has seen quite a few programs try to “switch up” their offense once the season has begun, to try to out-“Fox” upcoming opponents in the playoff bracket. Often, it ends badly. Festus R-6 had an offense that was purring like Patricia the Cat behind Blake Goddard in 2012, and changed everything up at the last minute before unexpectedly losing in an early round. San Francisco’s trick with Colin Kaepernick stands as the exception – the rule is that a winning train must be kept on the tracks. Derailing is a disaster.
But the coach was thinking long-term, looking for something that can keep Crystal City’s offense on the field and controlling the ball when the big plays aren’t coming quickly. Perhaps he’s found it now, if the Hornets’ easy drives against Harrisburg were any clue. Putting the rushers Schaumburg, Raftery, and Eisenbeis all in a bunch practically makes the defense pay attention, clearing the way for Kanden Bolton’s gallops around end and occasional play-action bombs to the Track & Field star. Again, Schaumburg appears to have gotten the knack of the split-back lineup at a 100x faster rate.
Crystal City’s one advantage in Week 12 is that its big plays can be BIGGER than how any of the Tipton Cardinals’ methodical methods impact the final score. If the Tipton Cardinals control the ball for 28:00 out of 42:00, then both teams will probably have about the same number of explosive plays. But if Friday’s time-of-possession battle is even, you’ve got to like Bolton’s chances of having another breakout. Kanden’s had no “Christian McCaffery” nights since the Herky game of 2022. Nolan Eisenbeis’ “Aussie Rules Football” performances have vanished ever since Homecoming.
It’s now or never for either man to go crazy again. There’s no other way to beat Tipton. This is the Friday on which CCHS has to let it all hang loose. Would anyone complain if the winning TD came on a touchdown bomb on 4th-and-20? Or a halfback-option pass from #12? Now is the time, guys.
Crystal City has silenced its critics (namely ME) and established Bradley Farm as a legit football brand and a Week 12 playoff contender. The miracle has already been minted. Crystal’s only real “pressure” this weekend is to avoid an embarrassing score in defeat that would come about if the squad’s foul fumble-itis and mental gaffes from 2023’s regular season come back in just over 24 hours. But the Gridiron Geek is not about to tell CCHS to go out and “protect the ball” to secure its growing legacy in prestigious Sweet Sixteen kickoffs, or whatever. That’s not going to defeat Tipton, and it probably couldn’t produce the close 4th-quarter skirmish that Coach Fox is planning and preparing for.
Nope. This situation demands an Ante-Up Mode, in the brisk fall of an “Ante-Up” season for Crystal City football. Roll the dice, Hornets. Hot 7’s win a shot at state. PREDICTION: TIPTON 31, HORNETS 22
C2 District Championship Game: Lift For Life Hawks at Jefferson Blue Jays
Hello. Welcome to the Friday Night Predictions. We really don’t have a clue about the team visiting Jefferson. Everything else that you might read about Week 12 is baloney, too. Have a nice day.
Whoa, is Friday’s title tilt at Jefferson High hard to predict. Lift For Life is one of MSHSAA’s mystery teams who (outside of rural Class 1 programs like the Tipton Cardinals) seem to all be sharing certain characteristics at the moment. But we’ll get to that in a minute. The Geek can’t turn to the Jefferson County Leader’s blossoming sports page or Griffin Weinberg’s new-and-improved Regional Radio content for tips on a Varsity Blue Jays opponent that few folks have ever seen play. That’s because Friday’s natural story-line is the sort of thing that only shows up in a newspaper, and not anywhere within the stadium or on the field, and not due to any fault of the writers at the Post-Dispatch or anyplace else. It’s easy to get confused about what Friday’s vibe will be like at Blue Jay Way.
Gateway City articles on Jefferson vs Lift For Life will say: “Now the Hawks embark on a scary road trip, into unincorporated Jefferson County, to take on a tough-as-leather opponent and its rowdy crowd!”
Well, sure, Jefferson High’s crowd is rowdy. It’ll be especially rowdy for Friday’s landmark home-field championship game against an STL team that Hermann already proved isn’t invincible. But let’s face it, the idea of Lift For Life Motorized Scooter Company (which already serves the Senior Citizens of 200 counties) going on a “scary, dark ride” in Week 12 would be overblown, since Lift For Life already traveled to Farmington to play a game this year anyway. Besides, JHS is hardly a “scary” place.
The Geek called the Highway 61 rivalry “Highway A” last week to cap off a year of 23,726 errors at Mississippi Magazine. (FWIW the Hillsboro-Festus “Highway A Game” got itself called “61” too.) However, our careless streak at the blog doesn’t change how TGG has gotten to know Jefferson football’s top brass (and its fans, parents, and players) over the years. It would be absolutely RIDICULOUS to say Blue Jay Way is a scary road trip, at least until you see the Blue Jays.
Jefferson’s local “haters” – in The Geek’s humble opinion – see High School Football as one coaching regime vs another as opposed to campus versus campus. It’s easy enough to do that. From a coach’s point-of-view the ’23 Jefferson Blue Jays are still Hillsboro’s “Mini-Me,” but it just so happens that there’s quarterbacks on each team who are great at the Pistol-Option, so it would be dumb for those brands never to look alike on the field. Furthermore, it can’t be because Jefferson’s people aren’t absolutely kind and generous to “outsiders” at every turn. Even when the referees call a penalty on the Varsity Blue Jays, the host crowd’s reaction is more of an “oh, heck” than the usual cat-calls of the refs.
JHS’s great attitude is a blessing in life. But it’s a curse when your best weapon against a powerful team is intimidation, and a little “mystery” of your own. We don’t have a lot of crystal-clear stats on Lift for Life’s squad from this season, other than knowing the L4L Hawks gallop all over the place but can’t complete more than 50% of their passes despite running wide-open a lot of the time. It’s also just impossible to get Lift For Life’s video streams – if they exist – as it was last week at Mehlville.
Why would an Internet-happy locale like South County not have a stream for Week 11? Who knows, but we couldn’t get Cardinal Ritter’s home game against Hillsboro on stream, or so much as a play-by-play report either. Schools who are manufacturing their football rosters out of kids from many different zip codes are clearly NOT fans of putting their games on the air any more than they have to be. We’ll change the subject and let Mississippi Magazine’s readers draw their own conclusions from that.
There is one way the Varsity Blue Jays’ kind, gentle souls could help to get Lift For Life’s kids thinking a little bit before kickoff time. The operative phrase for a JHS upset bid is still “Take them to new places,” but The Geek is also thinking about Lift For Life’s “hidden team” tactics in the context of that Bible passage about what to do if a thief takes your tunic: “Let them have your cloak as well.”
TGG hopes that when Lift For Life (and Cardinal Ritter, and St. Mary’s, etc.) arrives for Friday’s game, there’s a big, bright, shiny press box with about 200 cameras and microphones sticking out all sides of it. Jefferson’s players should smile, welcome their guests, and introduce them to the 6 or 12 radio and media moguls who’ll be there to broadcast the District Championship Game, every which way but on oldschool Satellite TV. Cameras should pop. The drum-line should snap into that James Brown thing performed in “When We Were Kings.” Lift For Life isn’t traveling to a “dark, gloomy” setting at JHS. Conversely, they’re coming to R-7 to play under some VERY sharp Friday Night Lights. And that’s dangerous for teams who’ve been off-the-radar, off-the-grid, and out of the limelight all season.
Could the pressure of Jefferson’s very bright lights – for being right next to Plattin Creek, anyway – cause Lift For Life to fumble things away in the final frame, instead of hanging on somehow like the Hawks could do against Hermann High? Jefferson R-7’s passing game is better than Lift For Life’s, and receiver Nate Breeze is probably better than anyone on the Mystery Team.
We like the Blue Jays’ chances to win another championship n a close 4th quarter. But without more on Lift For Life this year, our pick is just wish-casting. PREDICTION: BLUE JAYS 35, LIFT FOR LIFE 34