–-Jefferson County Large Schools Coach of the Year—
A.J. Ofodile, Festus Tigers
Honorable Mention: Russ Schmidt, DeSoto Dragons
Weirdly enough, there’s a local Large Schools coach who deserves all kinds of the honors in COTY-style awards, but his name’s not listed among the 4 head coaches hailed here. Nick Baer of the Seckman Jaguars was faced with a challenging scenario in 2024, having lost most of his OL-DL combination – the heart and soul of SHS’s unreal win streak in regular season games. Baer rebuilt his lines with youngsters flourishing around “Blocks of Granite” like Isaac Johnson, and came out with the best defense that Seckman has rocked since SLUH fell by a lopsided score in The Valley a few postseasons ago. But the Jaguars were a typical 1-1 in the playoffs this year, and there was merely a modest improvement in the Jaguars’ promising game vs Jackson in Week 12. There can be no more “promising” of a campaign than what Festus did in 2024, making A.J. Ofodile the skipper of the hour.
Ofodile’s biggest surprise for Tri-City spectators is that he’s done exactly what he said he would do, and that his brand of pigskin is exactly what he said it would be. Festus boosters were originally skeptical that Ofodile would stay around for more than a cup-of-coffee with Friday Night Lights in the Mississippi league, since as a former SEC assistant coach, he was frankly overqualified versus who School Boards usually aim to hire in this region. However, the HC said Varsity ball in Missouri is his favorite thing to coach, and he undoubtedly meant it, staying long-term to revitalize a championship tradition.
Coach O’s power-football tactics are another trait that not everyone took seriously at first, given how Cole Rickermann spent the first 2 years of Ofodile’s reign rescuing Black & Gold from 4th-down-and-7. But when Ofodile told Live Stream STL in 2020, “The running game is my weapon, and the passing play is my last resort” (wait for it) he meant that too. The Tigers have rushed for close to 6000 yards over the last 2 seasons and postseasons put together. People talk about “establishing the run” in a game, but it’s better when you establish it FOREVER. Ofodile’s opponents of 2025 will know that they have to stop Williams, and Kamden Yates, before they worry about anything else, a potentially tremendous edge for junior QB Parker Perry in his first season as R-6’s starter.
In the year’s final Power Poll this week, we’re going to have to criticize Black & Gold’s coaches for losing their play-calling nerve in last Friday’s Show-Me Bowl. So, to counter that sentiment here, let’s note that Ofodile was proven *exactly right* in scheduling the DeSmet Spartans on Senior Night. The Geek called Week 7 and 8’s Festus and St. Pius X dates “unwinnable,” reasoning that there was no necessity to add nationally-ranked schools to schedules that were already exotic and difficult. Yet while our pair of teams went 0-2 that fortnight, the Festus Varsity Tigers had a thrilling 3rd-quarter shootout with the Spartans, cementing the ’24 team’s legacy once DeSmet went on to be unconquerable in the highest weight class of MSHSAA’s postseason. Incidentally, the St. Pius Lancers were shown to have made a good call to get the contest at Baylor, which spurred SPX’s development.
DeSoto’s head coach Russ Schmidt has spent the last 24 months defying expectations. When the skipper spent a season coaching Austin Romaine as an AC at an ever-growing Hillsboro brand, some folks may have thought that he was “running to the money,” giving up on the smaller, underdog bids of Jefferson County to take on a bit-role for the Big Dog. But when those Hillsboro Hawks embarrassed the DeSoto Dragons 79-0 in ’22, Schmidt wasn’t thanking his lucky stars that he picked the “right” school over a cupcake. Soon, DeSoto handed most of its Athletic department over to Schmidt, who said that that Hillsboro-DeSoto farce itself was an altruistic factor in his choice to take the job.
It is also whispered that Schmidt isn’t a “chalkboard” guy, and knows 100% more about handling students than drawing up plays for them to run. CRS has never said a word in response to all that. (As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “action will define you.”) Schmidt just arrived at DeSoto and taught the offense a BEAUTIFUL wide-field version of his canny Delaware Wing-T playbook that set scoring records at Festus High in the 2010s. The HC’s innovation has allowed rushers like Eli Thebeau to scamper in spite of DHS’s necessity to switch-up the ball carrier and the angles constantly with the Delaware, to keep a defense guessing. Schmidt’s not only brought Joachim Junction out of long-term doldrums with a 5-4 regular-season record, but dragged the ’24 Dragons scary-close to upsetting the North County Raiders in District playoff action. That’s a team that’s come a long, long way from fumbling against Bishop DuBourg! The question The Geek has is why Windsor and DeSoto had their best performances of the year against North County, a fine team that’s had the Festus Tigers’ and Hillsboro Hawks’ numbers a LOT over the past 5 campaigns. Maybe it’s those super-shiny “Vintage USFL” helmets that the Bonne Terre Buccaneers often wear, causing Jeff County’s coaches to game-plan extra hard trying to stop Herschel Walker.
–-Jefferson County Small Schools Coach of the Year—
Frank Ray, St. Pius Lancers
Honorable Mention: Adam Sims, Crystal City Hornets
Our small-schools COTY award was always going to come down to Frank Ray of St. Pius and Adam Sims of Crystal City. Coaches Matt Atley and Jason Kimminau’s efforts were overly inconsistent at Jefferson and Grandview respectively, and Herky’s HC of 2024 is about to become a Boss someplace else. St. Pius and Crystal City had similar problems during ’24 training camp, if you can believe that, in spite of the far-flung offseason the Lancers had. Sims and Ray dealt with young rosters on which many student-athletes’ starting block positions weren’t settled as of August. There was no time for rebuilding – each head coach had to get 17-year-old stars like Nolan Eisenbeis and Justin Lehn in a place to succeed like they were supposed to do, or there would be long faces among the boosters of Commercial Boulevard. Both lineups began against daunting opponents.
But even though St. Pius had the toughest 2024 schedule of all, it was Ray’s Lancers who got it all glued together faster than the Hornets did. This midseason, Crystal City was still disorganized enough to fall to Confluence in an upset, and lost its crazy-fun winning streak against Gateway STEM in unceremonious style. The St. Pius Lancers of Week 5 stopped a lively Class 3 pass-offense in its tracks to complete a sweep of their westerly MSHSAA C3 opponents Knob Noster and St. James by a combined 45-20 score. After the leaves turned, the Lancers kept-up with Valle U. on the scoreboard (almost), and fought with Hermann High to the finish line in the semifinal of a stacked District. All that from a school that labored under controversy, boycotts, and unimaginable changes in the 2023-24 offseason. Blessings in disguise, such as St. Pius going independent, can only be blessings if folks capitalize on them. St. Pius Football made sweet lemonade out of the JCAA’s lemons.