There are going to be some hurt feelings by the time we get to the end of Week 2’s Jefferson County Power Poll. There’s no doubt about that. The region’s absolute best teams roared through MSHSAA’s brackets at the end of last season. To begin this year, our county’s lowest-ranked bids DeSoto, Northwest, and Windsor High School have debuted by winning their Week 1 scrums with lively, solid football. Jeff County’s teams who lost in Week 1, like Herky, Hillsboro, and St. Pius X, either underachieved (clearly in Herky’s case) or were hosed by circumstances and bad luck. As a result, there are literally zero Varsity Football programs from Jefferson County to “rank down” this Week 2. There are only schools to rank up.
They say “What goes up must come down,” but in the 2024 Power Poll’s case, whoever goes up has to kick somebody else down. The Geek won’t weasel out of the challenge by casting a bunch of teams as “tied,” or by leaving #12 out of it.
But for the first time, our Power Poll has become an honest-to-goodness POWER POLL. It’s no longer just a ranking of 12 teams with a few genuine “power” rungs at the apex. 2024 may prove to be the first local pigskin season in memory where there are zero actual bad teams, only the noble friends & associates of our area’s many championship-trophy tycoons.
If your Alma Mater climbs up the JCPP this season, it means they are among the best of the best inside a flourishing hotbed of Missouri pigskin. But if they’re ranked in double-digits, bear in mind that the #10 through #12 clubs of the Power Poll are no longer Mississippi Magazine’s “weak sisters” or anything close. They’re in a brotherhood of outstanding football teams.
#1 – Hillsboro Hawks
There was no such trope as Virtue-Signaling when Crispin Glover portrayed “Layne” in “The River’s Edge.” Glover kind of invented it. Sports folk are great at Virtue-Signaling in 2024, which is why B-level college football announcers say, “I ate dinner with this fine young citizen last Tuesday, and the National Football League’s general managers ought to know…” while the incomparably better Brent Musburger says in the same situation: “That’s Jones, a Tight End. He’ll play on Sundays.”
The Geek was going to do some Virtue-Signaling of his own this Hump Day, by ranking the Hillsboro Hawks a solid #1 in the Power Poll, while not acquiescing to Hillsboro actually having “lost” its contested game against Country Day in Week 1. Why, Mississippi Magazine wouldn’t hear of it! Football scrums are supposed to last 4 quarters, and when MICDS drove away and declared itself the “21-14” winner of Blue & White’s opening contest, Hillsboro High was fresh off of mounting a 3rd-quarter comeback! Hillsboro isn’t really 0-1. Nobody should be ranked down for an illegitimate loss. We won’t do it. VIRTUES!
The truth is, though, that 2024’s Hillsboro Hawks don’t need our sympathy. They only need our acknowledgement. With or without those mythical “4 Quarters” that could have been played against Class 5 last weekend, Hillsboro pigskin is now building a record – against the best public-school and private-school teams – that’s now the envy of eastern Missouri.
Think about this. In 3 meetings with the private-school powerhouses Cardinal Ritter, Lutheran North, and Country Day since last season, Hillsboro High has scored 69 points and allowed 67 points. HHS has the only lopsided win in any of the 3 bouts, and has not lost cleanly to a recruited MSHSAA lineup since the least-recent game in the series (and only once-in-4 if you count 2022’s St. Mary’s referee row as a ‘contested outcome’). Meanwhile, don’t even get us started on Hillsboro’s record against public schools in the same time span. Hillsboro’s loss to Kearney won’t affect a regular-season W streak still active.
Mississippi Magazine sees one big, fat issue with Blue & White’s preparation for Week 2’s kickoff at SLUH, and so unless the vibes change that are coming from Leon Hall (and fast), we’re going to have to predict that the class of Class 6 beats Hillsboro by a substantial score this Friday. (It may appear as if the Hawks are playing Country Day or Cardinal Ritter all over again, but without the same roster-wide level of focus and intensity.) But even that gives Hillsboro another loophole for holding on to its #1 regional status, next to Park Hills Central in the Rebels’ smaller division. After getting ripped-off by an unscrupulous foe and MSHSAA alike on the same holiday weekend, the Varsity Hawks can (or should) go into Friday’s SLUH scrum loose and easy, performing with House Money, so to speak. We won’t consider demoting a gang of Show-Me Bowl kids unless they start 0-3.
#2 – Seckman Jaguars
Seckman performs the first top-level “bonk” of the Power Poll this season, knocking the “41:00” Festus Tigers down to #3 with a 40-14 win over Parkway West of Class 5. To call the Varsity Jaguars’ debut “impressive” would be understating things once again (raves for SHS after Week 1 are becoming a habit!), as Brady Ambrose proved to be everything he was touted to be over the summer. Ambrose rushed for 250 yards and had an 80-yard TD run to seal the deal in the 4th quarter. Critically, however, HC Nick Baer also has 5’7 senior fireplug Ben Lewis scoring in the Red Zone, using Ambrose as a decoy.
There aren’t as many QB rushes to be had from Seckman this season. Cole Ruble and Tommy Gibbar have each moved on. Still, it’s just amazing that Seckman just keeps producing great running attacks and play-action passes in clutch moments, defying the turnover of one starting QB to the next throughout 2022-23-24. That’s called building a winning tradition.
#3 – Festus Tigers
Has there been such a team as Festus 2024 ranked as the Power Poll’s #3? Not that The Geek can recall. Midmeadow Lane may be stricken by the curse of having fielded its best roster in a generation, only to find that the entire county has also gotten better all around them, like a smaller-scale version of Team Argentina men’s basketball. It was hard enough for Alma Mater to break into local headlines with Friday’s dull 20-6 victory over the Rolla Bulldogs. Goodness knows, it’ll be tougher to get to #1. Hillsboro’s 29-28 squeaker over FHS last fall reveals that 3 of our Dirty Dozen are good enough to play in Show-Me Bowls.
There’s been some bad Week 2 forecasts (not for lightning!) going around on YouTube, though, and so we hope that Festus and Hillsboro padawans each find this very blurb on #3 this week. Live Stream STL’s “Upon Further Review” podcasters cast Week 2’s FHS and HHS rivals Francis Howell Central and Saint Louis U. High respectively as the same level of opponents, a silly error considering how easy it is to look up FHCHS and SLUH’s recent records. The Junior Billikens of SLUH lost 19-13 against DeSmet in last November’s district finals. Saint Louis U. High scored nearly 50 TDs on the season. The Francis Howell Central Spartans lost 7 of their last 9 contests in 2023, and were blown out in their only playoff game. SLUH is 0-1 starting out in 2024, but that loss came by the score of 56-21 versus Chicago St. Ignatius. That’s like SEMO losing to Clemson 56-21. By contrast, Francis Howell Central opened with a 35-19 loss to Liberty of Wentzville, allowing 500+ total yards in the process.
Festus has a reasonably hard road trip to make. But the Tigers won’t get into the “Godzilla-Mothra-Predator” gauntlet of their schedule for a while. Meanwhile, our local media might be reckless enough to get Hillsboro and Festus kids chirping at each other over the final scores of supposedly “alike” matchups in Week 2, which would not only be a misunderstanding of both programs’ degree-of-difficulty going in, but a further distraction for Hillsboro in trying to put Week 1’s agony out-of-mind.
#4 – Fox Warriors
Fox’s ho-hum 34-6 win over Mehlville doesn’t give us much to go on for the FHS Warriors yet. However, we think that under the circumstances, Arnold’s kids will be just as happy as Imperial’s student-athletes if/when The Valley opens for business right on time, and Seckman is able to host this Friday’s cross-town clash. Fox can vault over Festus in the JCPP with a victory.
#5 – Jefferson Blue Jays
It looks like everyone in Jefferson’s new conference – except one team – had a successful Week 1 debut.
Week 2’s QCC Shopping Network Standings
Grand View Grapple Gear (0-0 in league play, 1-0 overall)
Jefferson Food Bays (0-0, 1-0)
Perry’s Villas (0-0, 1-0)
Sam Vincent’s Indian Churns (0-0, 1-0)
Bayless Shoe (0-0, 1-0)
Cuba Cigars (Limited) (0-0, 1-0)
Blackcat Furs & Accessories (0-0, 0-1)
#6 – Northwest Lions
Is the blog developing a soft spot for the Northwest Lions, ranking Cedar Hill too highly based on just one win? TGG has cheered (and even cried) for Northwest over the last few years, to be sure.
Remember, though, that the JCPP is a measure of a campus’ pure pigskin power, not a “success meter” based on each team’s wins against the relative difficulty of Classes 1 through 6. Northwest-CH prevailing over such a solid Large School program as Sullivan High in Week 1 is comparable to Vanderbilt winning its first game of its SEC conference slate. Class 6 coaches plan to have teams who’re good enough to whip just about any Class 1 or Class 2 squad, and Northwest (for a change) has debuted showing that kind of form in 2024. When that happens, you’ve got to let them cash that check. It’s enough that we’re presuming Northwest would still find ways to fool around and lose to Class 2’s Jefferson kids at this juncture.
#7 – Crystal City Hornets
We’re giving Crystal a mulligan – mostly – until we see how many athletes head coach Adam Sims really has available to suit-up this September. But with the Power Poll’s teams collectively at their strongest ever, the rule of 2024 is to speed up or get passed.
#8 – St. Pius Lancers
The Geek whiffed on a record-setting play by St. Pius junior Jack Michaud on Friday. Michaud snagged an interception from Caruthersville’s QB deep in the Lancer end zone, and raced for 107 yards and a score, beating Ryan Ruble of Grandview’s previous Missouri state record for a Pick-6 touchdown gallop. Michaud’s is a stumblin’, tumblin’, rumblin’ run to paydirt.
Below is a time-stamped YouTube version of the play, and (before that) a partial press box view of the Lancers’ rally from their own end zone to make it a 28-20 game. We can’t say much for the first view of the play in comparison to the lower one, though the first one comes with all the joy of Varsity Lancers in the end zone going “Hey! We got it! Let’s go!” as opposed to saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad self-pity of the Caruthersville announcer, who hates seeing the opposing TD scored.
#9 – DeSoto Dragons
DeSoto has yet to post its first win over a MSHSAA public school for HC Russ Schmidt, but there’s a good chance that it will come on Friday against Perryville.
#10 – Grandview Eagles
Bayless becomes a legit opponent for Grandview this weekend after a debut 38-24 win over Dupo, besting Illinois in the same easy fashion DeSoto did. However, the stiffer Week 2 foe than expected gives GHS ’24 a chance to run right up the JCPP.
#11 – Windsor Owls
The Affton Cougars were drilled 40-8 by Lutheran South’s pedestrian team (not to be confused with Lutheran North’s recruited team) in Week 1. Windsor’s about to go 2-0 under HC Lee Freeman, and yet our Top 10 just doesn’t have a spot for them.
#12 – Herculaneum Blackcats
So here we are. Somebody has to go #12, and it’s not a Herculaneum Blackcat team that The Geek thinks is anywhere close to the county’s smallest, slowest, or least athletic outfit. Herky has simply had the worst offseason of all 12 teams, the worst Week 1 of all 12 teams, and the only 0-1 record in its conference. Meanwhile, the coaches just won’t stop screaming.
Dunklin’s administrators thought up the “How To (Not Really) Kick Out St. Pius” scheme of 2024, casting blame and bitterness toward a coaching staff and players who probably had little to do with it, other than chirping about St. Pius X’s illegal substitutions once. Then the Blackcats blew a substantial lead against a fledgling Varsity Owls unit on Friday.
Herculaneum has itself a potential “get-well game” against Fredericktown this week. The Geek’s advice is for Herky’s coaches to speak softly to the referees, and to their own Blackcats too, because only a tense, anxious performance would wind up with Fredericktown’s other Blackcats having a chance to win. But we know the bummer way in which schools can respond to a blown opener sometimes. It’s up to HHS to draw on some of that old smokestack-toughness and buckle up for the ride.