Festus 31, North County 0
It was about an hour to go until kickoff on Friday night when The Gridiron Geek thought of something terrible. There were half of a dozen Week 6 games in which Dirty Dozen schools were taking on out-of-county opponents, and Mississippi Magazine had fooled around and predicted victory for our hometown teams in ALL of them. In fact, many of Week 6’s previews forecasted Jeff-Co’s kids winning by 2 touchdowns or more. The county has swept its outside rivals on more than one occasion, but the long odds suggested that at least one of Thursday’s “best hopes” prognostications would fall apart with somebody losing, and that others of the contests wouldn’t be as lopsided in favor of our padawans as a perfect world would have had it. Jefferson was the single victim, falling to the Perryville Pirates in an impressive show from a PHS program that’s nevertheless taken an easy detour when it comes to “Class 4” scheduling. Crystal City’s “Class 4 scheduling” issue is that the CCHS Hornets seem to be up against a Large School every week, though the Hornets survived with a dicey W against guest Roosevelt. Cuba briefly drew level with St. Pius X in the 3rd quarter. But elsewhere, TGG was pleased to see that some Mississippi Magazine squads were playing better than we thought they would, like DeSoto pulling away with a statement win at (not your momma’s) Fredericktown after 2-frames-and-change of fierce road action.
Oh, and then there was the 2024 FHS Homecoming Game, in which Mason Schirmer and the Festus Varsity Football Tigers calmly, patiently, and politely wiped North County off the field.
Didn’t we just compare Midmeadow Lane’s defense with Seckman’s? Scratch that. Maybe it’s time to start comparing Seckman’s defense to Black & Gold’s instead of the other way around. North County made a counterattack after Luke Wacker’s first field goal of the season put Festus ahead 10-0 in Quarter 1, but before you knew it, senior LB Owen Gardner had batted an NCHS pass high in the air, and Schirmer came down with an INT that set the tone for a Mississippi Conference title romp. THAT WAS THAT for Noah Lashley and Bonne Terre’s athletic offense, which did not get another chance close to the FHS end zone until the boys had that trophy well in hand. Festus has now allowed ONE meaningful TD in a mind-blowing 19 quarters, dating back to Week 2’s win.
A.J. Ofodile has turned over a new leaf to go with his new league hardware. For the first time since taking over the helm, Coach O is using more Iron Man players in key places than Hillsboro, North County, or Farmington, and the Tigers’ best cogs are thanking their HC with amazing 2-way performances. Schirmer was a beast out of the backfield on Friday, taking a hit from an NCHS defensive lineman and staying on his feet for a critical Red Zone conversion to help build a 17-0 halftime edge. Jeremy Davis-Mayes and Kamden Yates are wreaking havoc with and without the rock. Sophomore defensive end Antonio Pinkston’s fundamentals and run defense are each honed to a level well beyond his years, and his presence frees up the Tigers to rotate the ’24 squad’s awesome offensive line into the other spots in the front-7. As a result, the OL is still fresh enough to produce a crazy 8+ yard rush average.
Today’s not a day to whiff on the Festus Tigers’ top story though. What is that? Oh, it’s not a _big_ deal. It’s EVERYTHING.
Essien Smith is starting to throw the football. He is starting to throw the football accurately, confidently, and consistently, even when under pressure in the pocket. FHS boosters have waited such long years for Smith to become an elite passer that it was difficult to keep up hope that his aerial game would blossom in 2024, not because it doesn’t have the potential, but because Festus High has transformed into a power-running team anyway, and a Varsity lineup can only pluck so many porcupines at a time. Instead, all they needed to do was wait for a championship setting. Smith rose to the occasion like the Mississippi league’s best signal-callers of the past, recovering from an ugly down-and-distance jam to throw a perfect TD ball on a 1st-quarter series that reminded spectators of somebody named “Rickermann.” The Festus R-6 passing game was further ignited by sophomore QB Parker Perry’s star turn, when Live Stream STL’s excellent announcer Matt Bates foretold that Perry would throw a 95-yard touchdown bomb standing on his own goal line, merely 2 plays in advance! So much for Perry not contributing much to the Tigers’ 2 most important conference wins. (“I want your Powerball numbers when this is over,” said Bates’ color man.) The best thing about Coach O’s Smith-Perry combination at quarterback is that Perry can run almost as well as Smith, keeping a rival’s defense on its toes even when the “passing specialist” helms the team. The bonus that no one anticipated is that Smith has begun passing the bean like a senior version of Mr. Perry.
Trey Lacey’s catch-and-run for a tremendous TD on Perry’s throw was a symbol of Lacey’s triumph over a scary neck injury in 2023. FHS’s Division 1 “cornerback” snagging TD passes, meanwhile, is a sign that Ofodile is evolving right along with his 6-0 team.
Fox 49, Northwest 7
Fox’s offense finally rounds itself into shape, just as Northwest’s better defense blows a gasket for the first time all year. That’s the end of our “football” recap of the Fox Warriors vs Northwest Lions on Friday night. This time, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.
The Geek is livid that there was NO broadcast of the Fox-Northwest clash of any kind, not a voiceless video stream, not a radio call, no pregame hype, nothing. The blog’s breezy forecast of there being plenty of streams to choose from on MSHSAA TV and so-on was dead wrong. Live Stream STL, unconscionably, chose the EUREKA AT FENTON game over Arnold’s historic contest.
The 2024 Fox Homecoming Game – played against the school’s forever-rivals – was a Dark Match. It was performed for a nice, but still relatively small crowd on hand, and will be summarily forgotten about due to lack of evidence that it ever happened. It was Orange Cassidy versus “Pretty” Peter Avalon on AEW’s YouTube channel at 11 PM. It was Sunny Beach wrestling Bill “The Goon” Irwin in a Concession Stand Match, designed to let people stretch their legs, prior to a main event in Madison Square Garden.
No, wait. No it wasn’t. Those “Concession Stand” WWE matches were still on Satellite TV.
What the heck, guys? Seriously?!? On one hand, we have to call out Fox’s program for not realizing that the game (at the very least) needed to be streamed on MSHSAA TV’s virtually free regular-season service. Crystal City of Class 1 does it every week. We know that a Class 6 athletic department has the resources to do it. If Fox has the mindset that keeping its kickoffs “private” is the way to encourage ticket-buyers, well, that’s throwing an awful lot of good in the garbage can for trying to sell 12 more tickets. If FHS is anything like the OTHER “FHS” at Midmeadow Lane, there’s people in JAPAN trying to watch Homecoming and see the kids’ ceremonies. They won’t fly over here and go to a game that isn’t streamed on the internet. They’ll eat some sushi instead.
There’s blame to go around, though, and we can’t help but think the local media has missed a larger narrative while hurrying to put all of Regional Radio’s old fun stuff back together again. We just can’t afford to ignore any of our rivalry dates in this part of Missouri, because they have been DISAPPEARING. Herky and Crystal City (and Jefferson and St. Pius) choosing not to play anymore has made The Geek legitimately worried that Festus and Hillsboro’s school boards will find some way to disavow each other and quit meeting under Friday Night Lights. The fact that Fox and Northwest are playing again is good-enough on the teams themselves; bloggers (like me) can criticize Arnold for not putting its team out there more, but the media should have taken care of that for Northwest’s visit. Gosh, if Mizzou and Illinois play each other on Saturday again, we sure hope that somebody puts it on TV.
Seckman 27, Pattonville 13
Pattonville becomes the first team to bother Seckman’s wonderful defense in 2024, popping off with a long touchdown pass AND a 60+ yard TD run during an eventful 1st quarter, a frame in which Imperial’s unbeaten kids also scored twice. The vaunted SHS defense settled down at that point, but it still took the Jaguars the entire night to secure a 13+ point win over Class 5.
On the good side, QB Brody Kube had his best outing to date for Seckman on Friday, throwing for almost 200 yards on less than 10 attempts against the best team on his school’s 9-game slate. Given that Week 7’s opposing Parkway South Patriots just gave up a 50-spot to rival Parkway North, we won’t be surprised if Kube goes krazy from the pocket against the rest of October’s schedule.
Grandview 14, Herculaneum 7
Grandview’s one TD margin-of-victory over Herky is deceptive, but only because of the Dunklin scrum’s second 24:00. Grandview played to its potential in the latter half and shut-out Herculaneum from any Red Zone chances at all, coming back from a 6-0 deficit with forced turnovers and at least 4 rapid drives into Blackcat territory. The problem was that GHS fell behind at halftime, and had to play its way out of yet another uncomfortable spot just to get to Friday night’s finish and a cheerful Victory Formation. The 4-2 Birds of Prey are a noble football team outside of their occasionally poor starts. Grandview simply can’t afford another one in Week 7.
Hillsboro 62, Windsor 24
The Geek knows that Bill Sucharski agreed with Thursday’s item about Hillsboro needing to get healthy. How? Because the 2nd half at Windsor was a true “MSHSAA Preseason” setting if there ever was one, with HHS turning its lineups over all the way down to the freshmen. For some perspective on that, the halftime score was 43-8. It was a good coaching move which allowed a friendly coach’s team from WHS to score, while preparing banged-up Hillsboro for Week 7’s bout vs DeSoto…led by another alumni HC in Russ Schmidt.
Perryville 42, Jefferson 36
The Perryville Pirates manage to foul up Jefferson’s timely Homecoming Game after all, erasing then doubling a 7-point JHS lead by scoring 3 unanswered TDs to open the second 24:00. QB Cooper Frisk had a marvelous night for the Varsity Blue Jays, but the fact that Landon Weiss had only 10 touches in the contest showed that Perryville’s defense succeeded in limiting Frisk’s attack when it counted. Perryville is now a contender for the inaugural QCC championship, and a weirdly probable #2 seed in Class 4, District 1.
DeSoto 45, Fredericktown 20
Woo! The 3-3 DeSoto Dragons raced. rumbled, and ran away from host Fredericktown like Woody Wabbit in the 4th quarter. Once again, in a normal season, it would be considered the bare minimum for a Class 4 program to employ superior numbers and outlast Fredericktown on its home turf. But recall that 2024’s boosted Blackcats have actually been getting tougher at the end of their tilts against big operations like Park Hills Central, making it a statement for DeSoto to have turned the trick Class 3’s champs couldn’t. Moreover, the victory represents DeSoto’s first 2-game streak of the 2020s. A watershed 5-4 regular season is now a goal in sight.
St. Pius 27, Cuba 14
“St. Pius 27, Cuba 14” is yet another instance of The Gridiron Geek getting a _score_ correct, but missing some of the bout’s bigger storylines in the process. Cuba’s annoying ground game that helped to upset Grandview was essentially MIA on Friday. TGG didn’t notice “Pocko Taco Layo” (real full name: Francisco Laos) in the backfield for CHS, presumably due to an injury. Cuba found a way to hang around anyway, giving its surly Pep Squad the chance to go to town until SPX’s final win-sealing TD went on the board, and those cruel slogans trailed off into the wind. Frank Ray believes that his Varsity Lancers got just a little bit cocky and overconfident toward midgame, when Cuba mounted its comeback via passing, scrambling, and determination prior to Jack Michaud’s critical interception that put Hill Valley sailing on clear water. Coaches always say things like that when a football team blows a 2nd quarter advantage, but we do think that St. Pius was imperfectly prepared for Week 6’s contest from a mental POV. Everybody knows the best way to beat a scrappy, scattershot offense is to take a solid lead, and force your opponent to be one-dimensional. When the Lancers went up 14-0, they may not have realized that Cuba High School – without Mr. Laos to lean on – was already planning to be one-dimensional and go for broke anyway. St. Pius X will have another tough mental task getting ready for its Homecoming Game against Miller Career Academy this Friday, for reasons we’ll get into while ranking Hill Valley a proud #5 in this week’s Power Poll.
Crystal City 22, Roosevelt 20
It wasn’t pretty, but Crystal City has stopped the bleeding. It took a PAIR of kickoff returns for TDs by a healthy Landyn DeRousse, a weird goal-line stand for CCHS in which both teams took penalties, and condolences for 5 ugly turnovers. Coach Adam Sims was nevertheless wise for painting a sunny picture of the win in his postgame interviews, because what matters most is that the Sunken Place’s slump, dreadful as it was, appears to be ebbing. Crystal City’s #2 placement in the District 1 standings is a miracle of good fortune, and shouldn’t be threatened unless the Roosevelt victory proves to be a blip in a long cold streak. With a successful road performance against Duchesne in a beautiful St. Charles County kickoff this weekend, the Hornets can clinch their home-field advantage in Week 11, to get a leg (a wing?) up on appearing Championship Weekend (albeit in a semifinal) again in 2024.