DeSoto Dragons: Fascination and Opportunity in Russ Schmidt’s Second Year
There’s no mystery to the process when a respected HC takes on a rebuild. The first year is the orientation year, in which the new head coach instills a theme and a mission statement, and works to trim the excess fat off of the program (and its linemen). You won’t have the lineup that you’re looking for right away, and there’s no going back in time and making the current seniors practice more football and read about more playbooks when they were 11 years old. Year One is about the culture change (and the underclass), Year Two is when a more inspired (but still inconsistent) underdog starts to show life on the field against good teams, maybe even beating a ranked opponent while falling WAY short otherwise, just like Deion Sanders and Jim Harbaugh’s first-year teams at Colorado and Stanford respectively. Year Three is the time when everything is supposed to begin coming together, for real, and it often proves to be the watershed season for a rebuilding coach and program.
Nothing about Russ Schmidt’s first go-around with the DeSoto Dragons suggested a faster timeline. Last year’s 1-9 Varsity Dragons barely averaged 3 yards-per-play, failed to accumulate 1500 team Total Yards, and registered so few tackles-for-loss that coaches did not even bother including the stat in an otherwise thorough STLToday rundown of 2023. DeSoto’s leading receiver Brenton Drummond had 9 catches for 178 yards last season, as the Dragons whiffed on nearly 3 out of every 4 pass attempts. QB Austin Missey’s 3 TDs to just 2 INTs-thrown was a single, but encouraging bright spot. DeSoto’s got a bigger, stronger set of tryouts in 2024 (duh) as Schmidt works hard in on-campus recruiting. Still, aren’t we looking at a 2025 (not 2024) breakthrough for the Dragons, if all goes well?
There are 2 things that make The Geek think “Year Two” could be a little livelier for Joachim Junction, versus the norm of an earnest rebuilding team that scores one big, fat upset win, a 3-7 overall record, and a whale of woulda-coulda-shouldas.
The first is that Schmidt, through force of will, has succeeded in changing the mental outlook of DeSoto’s upperclass football kids right away, not just “his” up-and-coming set of freshmen recruits, who believe in their souls that DeSoto will have a better chance to make Friday Night Lights noise once they’re all grown up. Schmidt spent last season warning DHS kids against feeling too good about their diddy-bump comeback efforts in the 2nd halves of games: “Let’s be honest about the success we’re having. We are scoring our points against backups.” It sounds unlikely that Schmidt’s starting QB would mimic that language while ALSO stealing the show in the Jefferson County Leader’s recent Large Schools preview, with truly inspiring words about DeSoto’s 2024 campaign. But that’s exactly what Missey does in the newspaper’s brief on Dragons training camp, in a tearjerker of an interview that at least makes it feel like DHS is on its way up.
The next bit of encouraging news – though Coach Schmidt may not think of it as “good” news – is that The Geek was wrong about how hard DeSoto’s schedule would start to get right away. Perhaps the new coach didn’t get to campus fast enough in 2023 to take a crack at booking an out-of-conference schedule for the Green Gang yet. As a result, though, DeSoto’s got a 2024 slate that might actually produce a winning record, or something close to it, if the Dragons watch their Ps and Qs. DeSoto ’24 has a winnable debut, a winnable finale, and 4 bouts in-between that the Dragons can win.
DeSoto versus Herculaneum on Senior Night 2024 is a JCTV Bowl. Those helmets! Those colors! The callback to a 1980s-1990s Jefferson County Conference that nobody got kicked out of for stupid reasons, no matter how big or small they happened to be. We wish Herky still had Crystal City and other rivals on the schedule, but HHS-DHS is awesome.
Who’s likely to star for DeSoto against Dunklin when that night comes? We’ve got our eye on 2 Dragon defenders, the lanky senior David Imhoff, and a 5’9″ junior “cannonball” of a linebacker in Eli Thebeau. There are 2 keys to beating Herculaneum and its scrappy offense – 1) Bust up those “Deebo Samuel” reverses, and 2) Grab a turnover on one of Herky’s rare downfield pass attempts. Imhoff was the only DHS back other than Colton Fischer to snag an interception in 2023, and Thebeau was all over the field with 3 sacks and 44 tackles. Them’s both perfect weapons for the JCTV Bowl, however it goes for DeSoto High in the 8 weeks in-between.
Festus Tigers: Powerful Lineup Faces Mighty Schedule in 2024
The Gridiron Geek was ready to gush. This fall’s Festus team represents the most exciting lineup that HC A.J. Ofodile has mined since taking over the helm at R-6 in 2020. There’s a senior dual-threat quarterback, a set of linemen that compares to Hillsboro and Seckman’s groups from the last 2 years, and so many talented backs and receivers that Midmeadow Lane’s foremost challenge is how to utilize them all at once. Ofodile’s defense and ground game both roared to life in 2023, and now it’s time for an even deeper troop of Tigers to win with sharp pigskin on all 3 units. Mississippi Magazine spent a small chunk of April and May (before each local team’s pages were updated for 2024) drafting a preview about how Sullivan, St. Genevieve, and Pacific (our usual out-of-conference rivals) had better watch out. The boys are getting good enough to steamroll a bunch of like-sized guests by 30+ points each, using those bouts to build confidence for the Hillsboro and North County showdowns.
There’s just one problem, and it’s the same factor that could hold Hillsboro back in its quest for 3 consecutive District titles. Both schools are used to facing tough schedules, but this year’s FHS and HHS opponents are so tough that getting to Week 10 mentally and physically healthy will be a tall order. Festus has adopted the kind of slate that a Class 6 contender would be expected to play. As difficult as Pacific and Sullivan were to beat in ’23, those mid-enrollment brands have been replaced by DeSmet and Rolla. If there was a Class 7 in MSHSAA, you bet Coach O would’ve booked the Tigers against it.
Nay, strike that. Coach Ofodile has Festus fightin’ The Incredible Hulk.
Week 1 visitor Rolla is one of the “small schools” on FHS’s fresh slate. Week 8’s trip to Farmington is a C4 vs C5 bout that the Tigers are at least more familiar with, but hardly anyone in R-6 has ever seen a Senior Night opponent with DeSmet’s elite ceiling of performance. Not even the Jackson Indians, at least not the Indians we’ve been watching since 2021 or so. DeSmet + Farmington + Jackson in the regular season’s final 3 weeks is a hell of a gauntlet to ask a potential Class 4 state playoff contender to go through just before tackling the District bracket. Ofodile’s “Russ Schmidt With Excedrin-Migraine” scheduling move could well blow up in his face, unless he’s prepared to treat most of those minutes like some sort of preseason for the Varsity Tigers, standing on the sideline with a bland facial expression while each team’s backups play out a lopsided game, just like Tony Dungy used to do with the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in August exhibitions.
Chickens come home to roost on the gridiron. When the majority of Festus boosters argued for an outsider as the new head coach in 2020, we knew that we were giving up something in return for the massive upside going with Coach Ofodile. He’s never going to base his annual strategy on beating Hillsboro and North County, not even in District play, except as just another hurdle for FHS. If, for example, the North County Raiders parlay a significantly easier schedule into a #1 District seed above Jefferson County’s “Hulk Fighters of 2024,” the Black & Gold could be an unlikely underdog in Week 12 due to the power of home-field advantage in a local rivalry. That goes double if 5 punishing games in a row lead to injuries, like what happened to another promising FHS lineup in 2019.
The harshest thing about Midmeadow Lane’s obstacle course is that it’s not just filled with elite opponents. It’s also tricky. Fall’s schedule could hit the Varsity Tigers hard at their weakest points when they least expect it. The Geek believes that if there’s one problem with FHS’s starting lineup (there may not be one), it’s that the defense may not produce enough of a pass rush to slow down QBs like Preston Brown of Hillsboro. Austin Gould, last year’s sack leader by a mile, was one of the few Tiger linemen to graduate this May. Middle linebacker Mason Schirmer is a Division 1 prospect who’s trying to earn a scholarship further away from home than Cole Ruble, or Brown’s big brother Payton at SEMO. But he can’t cover the whole field and blitz opposing QBs at the same time. Schirmer is more likely to play goal-line fullback than line up as a pure edge-rusher for Festus this season. Essien Smith is a “bomber” of a QB and not an “Ess”-pecially consistent passer on short throws, which obligates Festus to play exceptional pass defense and try to keep the other signal-caller’s completion % below 55% too. That’s going to be easy enough against teams like Rolla High, which is known as a power-running team closer to Hillsboro’s old style than Jackson’s high-flying football. Once the leaves turn, however, and the boys have dispatched with the rebuilding squads at Windsor and DeSoto, there’s going to be a cavalcade of awesome rival QBs (and WRs) who will test the very weakness TGG is concerned about. There is no way to stop Preston Brown without putting pressure on him.
Can the Black & Gold win 7+ out of 9 games and qualify #1? Yes, but it’s going to be a rollicking (Rolla-ing?) rumble. How does FHS cope with a full schedule of “Godzilla” for the first time?
Try enough depth to sink Atlantis…twice. Ofodile has built a Class 4 roster that’s so littered with talent at every spot, even the coach himself has to admit it. (“We feel like we have everything we need from a physical tools point of view,” said Ofodile to the Jefferson County Leader last week, and that’s as close as you’re gonna get to a classy HC saying “We’ve got game.”) The offense features another terrific set of tailbacks, from the light-footed workhorse Avery Edwards to steady colleague Leuntae Williams, to a backup with nice speed in Nemo Ford, to Kamden Yates…who is, well, a Yates. But that’s a traditional measure of a High School team that doesn’t account for how FHS’s line play will look against DeSmet. It abides more hope to realize how FHS is comparable to Class 6 this time.
Does Jackson have 5 really good WRs again? Festus can match and raise that, and still have a set of “platoon” kids to focus on safety and cornerback. Trey Lacey is fully recovered and ready for action, Jeremy Davis-Mayes is an upperclassman award winner, and Hunter Bates (in this new world of Coach Ofodile using some Iron Man kids) may or may not finish the season with as many interceptions as TD catches. Do the Rolla Bulldogs expect to push Black & Gold around with the brutes who nearly upset Camdenton in 2023’s Class 5 playoffs? Not against a D-Line of Rob Turner, Connor Rush, and Isaiah Desmarius among others. There always seems to be a 4-Star linebacker on a team like DeSmet, but there might not be a better MLB in MSHSAA than Schirmer, who could run for some TDs too.
This may sound strange, but the Hillsboro game falling in September once again could be a blessing. They can all hype DeSmet and Jackson’s quarterbacks, but there’s no better QB in Tri-State pigskin than Hillsboro’s All-State QB Preston Brown. If the Tigers need constant blitzes to pressure the pocket and give an amazing cast of defensive backs a chance, we’ll know if-and-after the boys allow a big night for Blue & White without any sacks-against. It would let HHS know what kind of defense is due from FHS in a District rematch. But we want to see that pass rush under a microscope early-on.
Hillsboro Hawks: State Runners-Up Take On Marquee Teams of St. Louis
Did we say Festus has a crushing schedule in 2024? Gosh, never mind. Hillsboro can make a case that the Hawks have the hardest slate in the region south of STL, harder than Park Hills Central’s, and more filled with elite opponents than Seckman’s ledger of Suburban League foes. Put simply, the Class 4 runners-up are facing Godzilla, Joan of Arc, and He-Man. And then there’s the tough opponents.
Brown’s blue battalion opens in Week 1 against Country Day, a Class-3-to-Class-5 promoted private school that loses to Jeff County’s teams about as often as it sees Haley’s Comet. Then there’s Week 2’s matchup against St. Louis University High of Class 6 and the Metro Catholic league, a team that lost to Cardinal Ritter by exactly 13 points last year (sound familiar?) and which features kids named “Wingo” along the boundary. The Geek may not only have to see Hillsboro lose in Week 2, but TGG may have to see Hillsboro lose knowing that Trey Wingo is happy about it. That’s a lot to take.
Washington is a more common “Hillsboro”-style rival for Week 3. But the Varsity Blue Jays had a bad season last year and still fought Helias Catholic to a 66-point shootout in the 2023 playoffs. Will conference visits from NCHS and FHS feel like – wait for it – a relief after the opening 3 games? Crazy to say, but at least HHS knows those opponents, and has built up confidence against them.
Hillsboro fans might only be happy FOR (and not “about”) Lee Freeman getting the HC chair at Windsor this season. They know that Windsor will become a more dangerous long-term opponent with Freeman at the helm, knowing first-hand how many scoreboards (and minutes) HHS swallowed up with the football under CLF’s watch in the 2010s. But in the short term, Windsor’s copying of Hillsboro’s tactics, implied in hiring a Flexbone option purist like Freeman who used to steer the Blue & White, will just create an easy “mirror-match” for the Hillsboro Hawks, against a WHS organization that’s trying to spend 5-10 years and become just like Hillsboro. It can’t happen overnight. For now, Hillsboro is just a team doing the same stuff on a much higher level, and having Windsor’s turn to host Hillsboro falling in Week 6 is a good break for Bill Sucharski’s charges, who will enjoy a lay-up at just the right time after the gauntlet of August and September.
It’s also good that Sucharski is coaching the Hawks, and Freeman the Albino Birds. Both men are probably right where they need to be. Freeman held on to Leon Hall’s tradition of pushing the Blue & White kids as hard as possible in late summer, preaching that only 110% effort at all times would produce a championship lineup. That’s the old-fashioned attitude, and it has its pros and cons. One of the “cons” is that when a club’s hardest out-of-conference games occur early in the season, and the coach puts all kinds of blood-and-guts into the rhetorical quest of winning them, the kids can lose confidence with defeats at a time when their bodies are already starting to fatigue. Freeman knew not to make a big deal out of trying to beat SLUH during his time by the stables, but Hillsboro’s kids weren’t encouraged to look at the season as a marathon instead of a sprint, either. Sucharski didn’t scream and yell when Hillsboro High lost unexpectedly to North County in the 2021 postseason, and moreover, he didn’t blister his Hawks’ butts for getting tired in Quarter 4 against Fort Zumwalt last year, as a typical coach from Hillsboro or Farmington or Park Hills would have. Sucharski’s even-keeled style following losses, and his willingness to let HHS round itself into shape in September paid off last year. It will again if the Hawks focus on themselves in Weeks 1-3.
We think that Week 8 can be a handy watershed for Hillsboro in ’24, since that’s when the Hawks may already be riding a 4 or 5-game win streak, and when Brown is likely to have developed the right rapport with his new supporting cast. Chaminade, the Varsity Hawks’ host on October 18th, was highly vulnerable to hot-shot running and passing attacks last season, laboring to beat Vianney and Gateway Tech. If Hillsboro is as reloaded by Halloween-time as we foresee, the champs might just be one tough win (vs PBHS in Week 9) away from taking all kinds of momentum into their next District title defense.
Sucharski told the JCL in August that Hillsboro’s offensive line is bigger than it was last year, which doesn’t mean HHS ’24 will mimic the awesome line play of last season’s All-District corps, but it does mean that the Hawks’ coaches have found some “ups” instead of only “downs” in Leon Hall’s roster turnover. The excellent skill player Keiten Pipkins is back for a senior campaign, and we’re all excited to see Aiden Roland on defense after the then-junior led the team in sacks, and compiled 50+ solo tackles during Blue & White’s electrifying run to the 2023 Show-Me Bowl. That could give Hillsboro an edge-rushing presence that Festus (and potentially North County) can’t rely on in 2024. But the better news is that Roland, previously un-hyped as a rusher on offense, broke out with a lovely 40-yard touchdown carry at Hillsboro’s preseason Jamboree. If Roland proves to be as good at moving the chains as he’ll undoubtedly be on the 5-man blitz, Preston Brown will have a security blanket to take some of the load of carries and total-yards production off of the NDSU commit. That’s mucho-importante, because if Brown gets to October 100% healthy, Leon Hall could rock & roll all over again.
Windsor Owls: Going Up, But Hold That Elevator Noise
The Gridiron Geek may very well owe Windsor coach Jeff Funston an apology. When it comes to what exactly happened in Imperial this spring, well, it depends on who you talk to.
We gave Funston all kinds of grief as WHS’s head coach in 2023, ever since he doubled-back on the NCAA tactics that gave Windsor’s offense life in 2022, and went with a half-baked, hastily-organized version of a Triple-Option style attack instead as of last season. People knew that The Geek was being honest about Windsor’s seemingly bad decision, because we usually brag on teams that install fancy 11-vs-11 running games in their Friday Night Lights playbooks. It’s a treat to see the laboratory of “pure” football games played to win, without the big-money interests that make almost every offense conventional on Saturday and Sunday, and the “Paul Johnson” Flexbone offense plays a big role in Friday’s special gridiron tactics, especially in the Midwest. Still, we just thought it was the wrong playbook at the wrong time for the Albino Birds. Then the Windsor school board hired former Hillsboro HC Lee Freeman while demoting Funston to assistant, and suddenly, it all made sense!
The Geek said that Windsor had to choose one path or the other, instead of thinking that the Flex is just another offense that can be short-order cooked to fit a contingency. Crazy enough, Windsor didn’t make the Flexbone-phobic decision that most do. They’ve decided to go all-in, hiring Freeman to teach the Flex as religion to everyone on the WHS campus over 6 years old.
If Funston knew this was going to happen, then his decision to start adopting Hillsboro’s old style of offense doesn’t look so terrible. You’ve got to crack some eggs to make an omelet, as they say, and the overarching goal of any Varsity Owls head coach at this point is to raise the bar for their ailing program, in a long-term sense. It was rough last year, and it’ll be rough starting out with Freeman in 2024, and yet there’s a feeling of relief that the Albino Birds finally have an identity of their own. Hillsboro doesn’t really play Paul Johnson football anymore. It can be all Windsor’s now. Funston, like Herculaneum’s last HC (and the guy in the Morgan Freeman prep school movie), swiftly agreed to his “demotion” to remain as an assistant for Freeman, more evidence that this was a cooperative move thought out in advance between tenured and new coaches.
But there were also rumors during Windsor’s offseason, whispers that WHS also offered the job to other candidates…candidates who would have scrapped all of the fancy new option plays Funston already installed for the Owls last year, and started their own rebuilding project from scratch. If there’s any truth to it, then does it mean WHS is flying by the seat of its pants without a plan?
Probably not. People are individuals, and individuals together make up a School Board. There was probably just one guy who wanted to hire another head coach at Windsor, scared of the “boring” (beautiful) Flexbone offense as so many (ignorant) people are. They might have told someone they were searching beyond Freeman, and the word got around among bored boosters in summer. However it worked out, it worked out, and with Coach Freeman on board the Windsor Owls are moving in a logical direction off of what they accomplished last year, come hell or high Rock Creek water.
QB Luke Patterson will be happy that a dual-threat quarterback “professor” like Freeman is on hand to help build on the signal-caller’s 73 carries last season. But the QB would like to play in a close game in his senior year. The Geek is worried about Windsor suffering from “Elevator Team” syndrome again due to the polarity of very strong opponents next to weak ones on the Albinos’ 2024 slate, with nary a team on the level that WHS would gain from squaring-off with right now.
If Windsor blows away the awful teams like Affton and Bayless, and loses to every major-league opponent 60-12 again, Patterson’s team could have very few tight games between Week 2 and Week 10 with which to prepare for a probable 4-5 seed game in the District Q-Finals.
We’re not saying it has to happen that way. But each new MSHSAA schedule is good for 2 years. It would be best for Windsor pigskin if some of the giants on its schedule slip down a little bit, while some of the absolute patsies get a little better. Otherwise, Coach Freeman might start hearing a “DING-swooooosh” elevator sound on his ringtone.
He wouldn’t be in a mood for that, at least not after running a training camp in this weather.