Fox Warriors at Seckman Jaguars
Mississippi Magazine regrets going with a few “Quick Picks” again in Week 2’s Friday Night Predictions, though as was the case Week 1, there are extenuating circumstances afoot. We would like to help get the word out about the new Friday-themed media coming from Seckman and other teams in the Dirty Dozen, clearly an effort to help Jeff County’s players and coaches talk to their alumni in a season for which postgame interviews on the radio have gone bye-bye. There’s also the small matter of whether Seckman High will have its stadium repaired and ready for action this weekend, but we’ll hurry to inform readers with an educated guess.
It looks as though Seckman vs Fox – against all odds – WILL kick off in The Valley in Week 2. Seckman High School has not made an official statement to that effect as of early on Thursday, and maybe they’re still too worried about hidden mildew-damage to the press box’s tunnels to come out and confidently confirm that the kickoff is at home, until at least this Friday morning. Seckman’s freshmen and JV kids played at Christian Brothers College, not Seckman’s football field this week. However, there are plenty of hints going around that Fox’s student-athletes are only traveling one town over to play Week 2’s rivalry scrum. The Seckman Jaguars Football Booster club’s Facebook page has proudly invited all-comers to SHS’s “home opener” on 9/6. Coach Nick Baer has strategically chosen not to talk about 2024’s field-flood woes unless he absolutely has to, almost to pretend as if no Seckman ’24 events were hosted elsewhere. Unless the Varsity Jaguars say their field isn’t ready, we have to assume that it is.
The Geek believes that Fox’s breakthrough win over Seckman will come when Arnold catches the slightly-superior Jags in an away-game, maybe with a less-dominating offensive line effort than Seckman usually brings to the gridiron. This time around, of course, you’ve got to think about whether the home-field angle isn’t really worth anything, because Fox and Seckman’s campuses are happy for each other that the stadiums are ahead of schedule, and the Fox Warriors should be as pleased to play in Imperial – after all – as they would be at home.
But in the end, football clubs must create their own advantages. There’s a lot more institutional focus and enthusiasm coming from Seckman than from Fox in the public arena right now, and TGG is not sure that it’s an accident. It’s as if July’s flood had knocked both brands’ video-game “Health Meter” down to 50%, and Seckman’s has already shot back up to 99% while Arnold’s remains at 60% or 70%. Since last Friday, the Seckman Jaguars’ “X” feed has put out close to a dozen Tweets, lauding players with newspaper clips, lauding the underclass kids for their victories, and putting out a podcast of Nick Baer’s excellent new coach’s show. In that time, the Fox Warriors have put out less than 5 total tweets (from either “Football” or “Athletics” pages, and the most “fanfare” provided is a Gateway Sports Venue repost with the C6 District field. Seckman is doing far more to get its kids excited for the season than Fox has been doing. It’s the sort of thing that usually shows up on the field. One team is feeling better than the other.
This preview gives Fox’s coach Brent Tinker a chance to try Oregon’s pregame pep talk that helped to defeat Colorado last FBS season. “They care about hype! We care about winning!” and so on. But college teams have people who get paid to hype the games each week. In a Missouri prep school season, there is no hype unless the community is excited enough to produce it for free. If there’s an atmosphere like no one’s ever seen to buoy the Seckman Jaguars on Friday, it’ll come from the same enthusiasm that produced all those Tweets. PREDICTION: JAGUARS 24, WARRIORS 13
Hillsboro Hawks at St. Louis University High Jr. Billikens
We sense a different “focus” problem for the Hillsboro Hawks in Week 2, even though HHS pigskin has been full of (pee) and (an apple-cider substance) since making its 3rd quarter rally against Country Day last Friday. Blue & White has been righteous, rebellious, and defiant right in the face of MSHSAA’s authority, and Class 4’s defending eastern-bracket champs are ready to tear their Friday Night Lights enemy apart. The only small issue is that it’s the wrong one! Hillsboro has been preoccupied with its contested Country Day score for a “day” too long, understandably so, but the distractions are creeping hard into its prep-time for SLUH.
Just look at this X post Hillsboro Football put out on Tuesday, still trolling Country Day over its refusal to play out the finish of Friday night’s contest on a different day:
Congrats to our 9/10 team on a hard fought 4 QUARTER win over MICDS 34-26. #borobuilt #feedthecats pic.twitter.com/CZVOWgMsin
— Hillsboro Hawks Football🏈 (@HHS_Footballers) September 3, 2024
Get it? A hard “4 QUARTER” win. That’s great, and The Geek would join in taunting the very much winless 2024 MICDS Rams right through Friday…if Hillsboro played Windsor this week. Instead, the Hawks are going up against a contender to win the Metro Catholic League, on its home turf. Hillsboro has not turned around its focus in time to make a serious upset bid in a matchup with nary a slim margin-of-error for Class 4. PREDICTION: SLUH 42, HAWKS 21
Festus Tigers at Francis Howell Central Spartans
Festus High School is also doing its part to fill the void left by Regional Radio, with AD Jason Terrell curating a very good recap-writer to look at each Tigers performance this year. Really, it’s the best content out of Festus Athletics media since The Geek briefly worked there, and includes the bangin’ blurbs on every TD that there’s little time for at Mississippi Magazine.
Black & Gold should have its first prolific scoring night of the year against Francis Howell, which hasn’t done much to cure a vulnerable defense after last season’s 3-7 campaign. We should not anticipate another shut-down defensive effort from the boys now, though, because FHCHS is one of those teams who’ll be able to peck and poke at the few weaknesses in Ofodile’s typically slow-starting D. PREDICTION: TIGERS 35, FRANCIS HOWELL CENTRAL 17
Jefferson Blue Jays at Park Hills Central Rebels
Could it be that the defending Class 3 champions from Park Hills Central are looking a bit v…v…vulnerable after all?!? Park Hills, in the most unreal outcome of MSHSAA Week 1, had to to work extra hard to defeat Owensville 22-13 in a scrum that was actually closer than the final score indicates. The CHS Rebels produced no running backs in the 100+ yard category, and needed an 85-yard kick return and a last-second QB Sneak to put away the Dutchmen, against whom Rebel quarterback Jaxin Jones tallied a meek 75 yards and an interception on 15 pass attempts. Class 3’s Owensville, needless to say, isn’t the Seneca Indians, and it might not even be the “Jefferson Blue Jays” from a competitive strength point-of-view. Owensville lost to Hermann, Sullivan, and St. Clair by a combined 89 points last season.
Rebs coaches have spent the entire week screaming cracks in Flat River windows, annoying Brian Jones and the North County Raiders as they try to practice in spite of the danger-decibel volume of the yelling that’s echoing from next door. Park Hills knows that it had a miserable Week 1 by its standards, the equivalent of Rory McIlroy shooting +4 over par at Joachim Golf Club. (Those modified 6th and 7th Holes are a pain in the neck, for sure, but we think Rory would par those holes and go -4276 under par on the rest of them.) “Rebel Nation” will be excited and anxious in equal measures for its home opener, and going all-in versus JHS.
The worst thing Jefferson can do would be to take CHS’s field like a house-on-fire, with a vibe of “Look! They’re only human! We’re taking ’em down this time!” etc. Wounded champions fight viciously, and there’s no path to a Blue Jays upset if Park Hills Central has a great game. What Jefferson’s players can do is stay patient in the early-going, and wait for the Rebels to try too hard to win, and draw penalty-flags that get inside the heads of Central’s otherwise amazing coaches (it’s been known to happen), and commit some turnovers to set up JHS on a short field. Recall that when a highly-ranked High School team isn’t winning by the epic scores it’s supposed to, they are on a DEFCON-1 alert for fumbles and INTs, as players try to force the issue and get that 44-7 win on the board. Jefferson’s got a chance at a monumental upset, should the Blue Jays be wise enough to pace themselves and hang around for a while. PREDICTION: PARK HILLS CENTRAL 27, BLUE JAYS 9
Louisiana Bulldogs at Crystal City Hornets
What is Crystal City’s best “Hot Sauce” for beating Louisiana on Friday, and moving to a more encouraging record of 1-1? For a running start, the CCHS Hornets need to keep their hands off the CRISCO. Last season at LHS, Crystal City treated the pigskin like a hot potato, and fumbled away any chance to beat the pesky rival Bulldogs. Second, the program needs to be suiting up more kids by Week 2. While the pronouncements of stuffy local pundits seemed to come true when Crystal City was worn down by Class 4’s Sikeston High last Friday, that only occurred because just 2/3 of CCHS’s roster was in uniform. Crystal City’s got the football numbers to exceed many Class 1 foes in ’24…if we can dress them out as planned.
The good thing this Friday is that Louisiana’s hit a low point in its roster numbers, too, and did not appear to have more than 15 players contributing in its Week 1 opener against Scotland County. Louisiana’s D-Line was gashed in the contest, and allowed the victorious Scotland County 4 TDs without any RBs as good as CCHS’s. PREDICTION: HORNETS 28, LHS 8
St. Pius Lancers at Fort Zumwalt East Lions
Danny Degeare makes his maiden start at QB for the St. Pius Lancers, which should give the visitors enough of a boost to compete with Class 5’s padawans at Fort Zumwalt. The Geek isn’t sure, however, whether the Lancers are yet mature enough to win the turnover battle (and thus the final score) in a Large School’s arena of combat. PREDICTION: FZE 23, LANCERS 20
Windsor Owls at Affton Cougars
Affton football puzzles The Gridiron Geek. Many of us grew up following Affton as a contender. What’s this “Lutheran South 40, Affton 8” stuff all about? You should be able to kick over a few rocks and scavenge a stronger Class 4 lineup than the Bananas coaches seem able to do. PREDICTION: ALBINO BIRDS 52, BANANAS 0
Herculaneum Blackcats at Fredericktown Blackcats
Herky’s not in a great place psychologically, and 0-1 Fredericktown’s own lineup-numbers crisis seems to be over for the time being. Still, we think this fight could be a mirror image of last week’s experience for the Blackcats, with a shaky start followed by a solid latter half. PREDICTION: (LOCAL) BLACKCATS 36, (Out-of-County) BLACKCATS 22
Northwest Lions at Mehlville Panthers
Here it is, Lions. Dink this ball over the net against an inferior team, and you’ll be guaranteed the best W-L record of our 3 Suburban League teams, plus one heck of a rowdy, joyful throng for Week 3’s opener in Cedar Hill. PREDICTION: LIONS 28, MEHLVILLE 10
Bayless Bronchos at Grandview Eagles
Grandview opens its conference slate against a 1-0 Bayless team that will toss the football around a little bit, creating the first legitimate test for a Birds of Prey pass defense that was so clumsy, it held the Varsity Eagles back in ’23. PREDICTION: EAGLES 38, BAYLESS 19
Perryville Pirates at DeSoto Dragons
This could sneak around and become the closest final score of Mississippi Magazine’s week for the same reason Grandview-Bayless could be close. Perryville has the first quality passing game Russ Schmidt’s team has seen yet this year, but the Dragons’ newfound strength blocking and tackling has been evident. PREDICTION: DRAGONS 21, PIRATES 18