Fox lost to the Soviet Red Army Eureka Wildcats, and Festus and DeSoto played head-to-head to guarantee that one other club from the Dirty Dozen had to lose. That was it for defeats and disappointments in Jefferson County last weekend. Seckman, Hillsboro, Windsor, St. Pius X, Crystal City, Jefferson, and Herculaneum – Herculaneum! – produced lopsided wins, even against difficult rivals like North County and St. Vincent. Grandview and Northwest won thrillers that made The Geek so giddy to recap, he removed 14 points from NHS-WGHS’s 44:00 score and briefly had Will Travers QB’ing 19 different teams.
There’s no longer any doubt about it. Our county is a Friday Night Lights hotbed and we’re in a Golden Age of quarterbacks. There won’t enough room for Cooper Frisk, Parker Perry, Cohenn Stark, Brendan Martin and all of the area’s other sizzling QBs on 2025’s Mississippi Magazine awards team. Heck, the signal-callers who you’d be forced to rank “bottom half” of our starters, like Chandler Price or Keaton Reeves, are making splashes in 2025 too. It’s a lot like how nobody should really be ranked “last” in Jefferson County at this moment. #12 is now just a bed for whichever of our dozen contenders is taking a nap.
It’s very hard to submit a fair Week 5 Power Poll without dreaded “T-“s all over the place. But as Facebook Group members know, Mississippi Magazine’s pundit was called “biased” in comments from a bloke who jumped out the window when The Gridiron Geek asked for proof. The Cowardly Lion was known to be more courageous the second time he questioned The Wizard, so we’ve got to keep Week 5’s rankings fair or deal with more tomfoolery on social media. The only truly accurate Power Poll move that The Geek can think of this time is ranking ALL of our molten-lava-hot county’s teams in the top six.
#1 – Festus Tigers
Is Imperial’s fan base a reliable narrator on Festus High School and MSHSAA Class 4? Seckman’s alumni spent a few seasons calling for Nick Baer and the other coaches to be fired, so that the Varsity Jaguars could stop going 9-0 and start going 0-9 again. They were charitable people who didn’t like hoarding all of the Ws and preferred to make other teams happy by losing. That’s admirable, but now that some of those same folks are calling it “biased” that Festus is ranked above Class 6 in our Jefferson County Power Poll, The Geek has to address it.
Festus, Hillsboro, Fox, and Seckman play so few common opponents that it’s tricky to weigh the larger campuses against Class 4s. In case anyone’s counting, Mississippi Magazine does take a team’s weight class into account a TON, perhaps even more than we should sometimes. Once, we ranked Northwest ahead of Hillsboro at the end of a poor October for the Hawks, and a Hillsboro student-athlete typed “Northwest, though!” under the rankings. His complaint was a fair one because HHS crushed NHS the last time those teams played. We were just favoring Class 6 in the blog’s rankings when the right answer was in doubt.
The catch is that Missouri’s team rankings are more critical than the size of opposing schools in the strength-of-schedule department. Seckman defeated a host of Class 6 schools easily in the early 2020s, but the Jaguars also lost to Valle in one out of two games, showing that many of those C5-C6 rivals were inferior to Small Schools titans. Seckman’s last four opponents in the 2024 regular season went on to finish 11-29 overall and merely one reached Week 11. The Jaguars failed to establish a Turbo Clock against any of them.
Seckman played a better game against Jackson than Festus did last season, but that outcome alone is not a counterpoint to the Suburban League’s weakness compared to Festus and Hillsboro schedules against teams like DeSmet, SLUH, and Chaminade these days. They have taken on MSHSAA’s Top 10 and Top 50 more often and have better results in those contests on average. FHS and HHS are ranked above-and-below Seckman right now but that goes to show they’re legitimately in the conversation. There’s no higher ceiling of performance than going toe-to-toe with a top-ten overall team from the Tri-States.
Could the Seckman Jaguars match the reigning Class 6 champion DeSmet at two TDs each in the middle of Quarter 3? How about beating Lutheran North in a state semifinal, or scoring 35+ points against Kearney in a championship game? Hillsboro’s come close against Cardinal Ritter in games that stood out against Ritter’s litany of blowouts. We love the Jaguars but they don’t have that kind of resume … yet. Give the Class 4 teams props for reaching the Show-Me Bowl.
The only justification for ranking Seckman #1 would be the “Week 1 reset” idea where you pretend that everyone went .500 last season. Seckman also has a higher-quality win over Fox than any of Hillsboro or Festus’ seven wins thus far this year. However, the Jaguars have a “worse quality loss” against Parkway West than Festus has had in a couple of seasons. In The Geek’s opinion, the Mississippi teams have sported faster lineups that can run with the DeSmet-s and Cardinal Ritter-s of the world. This Week 1, the 3-1 Jaguars gave up nearly as many touchdowns to Parkway West as the Longhorns scored against either of McCluer’s sorry squads in the next two weeks after the Parkway-Seckman shootout that began the 2025 campaign.
Seckman will get a chance to prove that its new team’s defensive backfield is fleet-footed enough to beat elite teams when Pattonville’s impressive aerial offense visits on October 3. If the Jaguars win that one while Festus/Hillsboro do nothing spectacular, yes they can climb back to #1 in the Power Poll.
Meanwhile, the Festus Tigers and Hillsboro Hawks meet in Week 5 to decide home-field advantage in a District 1 tourney that has produced two state runners-up in a row. The reason that Mississippi Magazine is going to feature that game over Seckman’s upcoming blowout of Oakville is because we’re biased.
(Don’t be upset this article’s about the county and not just your Week 4, Festus Tigers. You need to forget that sloppy DeSoto game ASAP.)
#1.5 – Seckman Jaguars
Here’s the Jaguars ranked safe-and-sound above all Class 4 (and Class 5/6) schools that don’t have Parker Perry throwing to David Russell. Oakville does not seem like a legit threat to the Jags’ one-loss record in Week 5, but Week 6 will be another story – a true litmus test of a scrum against the Pattonville Pirates.
#2 – Hillsboro Hawks
There are no less than three teams who could be ranked #1 after Week 5’s contests. Hillsboro can execute a coup by surprising Festus this Friday, and there’s nothing Seckman can do against Oakville that would help the Jaguars jump over the Hawks in that circumstance.
The Blue & White’s defense has come alive at the right time to score the upset victory. HHS must avoid giving Festus a short field at all costs, though.
#2.5 – Fox Warriors
We’re looking forward to 2026’s schedules to see if Fox and Seckman can start chasing each other on level ground. Arnold usually has a tougher schedule than Imperial, but this year’s contrast takes the cake. The Fox Warriors proved that they’re just about as good as the Seckman Jaguars in Week 2. Since then, Fox has banged its head against a wall of mighty opponents while Seckman breezes along against its weaker slate. The Gridiron Geek will be accused of bias against Imperial again now. Before anyone posts a comment accusing TGG of “sending his kids to Fox” etc., think about whether you could pick a team from the lineups of Oakville, Hazelwood West, and Parkway South and beat the Eureka Wildcats with it.
#3 – Northwest Lions
Nope, The Geek didn’t send any kids to Northwest-Cedar Hill, either, but he’s going to SCREAM in frustration if Cohenn Stark and the Lions don’t make a better game of it against forever-rival Fox in eight days. We need our small surviving handful of classic rivalry games to succeed and be too good for anyone to want to miss in the future, including the players and coaches and administrators who decide whether more annual Fox-Northwest games are worth having. They are ALWAYS worth having, but the series isn’t likely to go on long with 44-7 scores on the ledger. NHS has to show it can fight an excellent team.
#3.5 – Jefferson Blue Jays
If Herky and DeSoto are destined for a close contest this October, then we’ve got to rate Jefferson slightly higher than both brands based on the Blue Jays’ win against the Blackcats. QB Cooper Frisk’s bolstered battalion has not lost in regulation and could be favored over all five teams left on the slate. St. Gen’s perfect 4-0 record looks more superficial than ever.
#4 – DeSoto Dragons
Week 5’s DeSoto-Windsor game seems designed to pick on the Dragons’ problems this year. They’re going to have to stop the run, protect the ball, and play well enough on special teams to put Windsor in awkward situations more often than DeSoto gets pinned down. Has it been a syndrome of growing pains, or another factor that’s holding the Dragons back? Funny enough, if DeSoto fumbles the game away on Friday, that could be the growing pains. But if the Dragons play well and the Owls still win it’s a bad sign for Joachim Junction.
#4.5 – St. Pius Lancers
You can’t rank St. Pius ahead of a worthy Class 4 bid like DeSoto’s based on St. Pius whipping Roosevelt, a candidate for worst-Class-4-team-of-2025 if things don’t improve for the Roughriders. The Lancers still needed a blowout win like Week 4’s to gain some confidence. St. James may have its best-ever squad this fall, but it’s not a sure winner over SPX.
T-5 – Grandview Eagles
It’s even harder to separate the next three teams in the Jefferson County Power Poll, so we probably shouldn’t try.
Windsor has the best win over a Herculaneum team that’s rising into contention out of nowhere, but the Blackcats weren’t exactly trending up back in August. Principia, the Grandview Eagles’ foil in Week 4’s overtime classic, has beaten Windsor’s opponents Clayton and Affton convincingly, but Windsor set program records for offense against Clayton while Grandview labored to beat Principia and move to an equal 3-1. Grandview High is “5-A” above the evenly ranked teams of Herky and Windsor because the ’25 Eagles have a tad more experience playing in tight games with a whole lot at stake.
T-5 Herculaneum Blackcats
It’s crazy to think that Herky can’t rank higher after beating St. Vincent in what could be a watershed Week 4 victory. It’s even more insane to think about how Windsor set program records for rush offense in Week 4 and yet remains nearer the bottom of our Power Poll. But the Blackcats and Owls are no longer deadlocked in hapless obscurity. They’ve gone 4-2 since fighting out Week 1’s overtime and could combine to win a truckload of conference games.
T-5 Windsor Owls
Windsor could defeat DeSoto, North County, Fredericktown, and Bayless by 66-26 scores and it still wouldn’t make the Owls into a top-flight Class 4 bid in the coming postseason. Week 3’s whitewash at the hands of Festus, and Week 6’s probable Turbo Clock defeat at Hillsboro will serve to show that. Thankfully, that’s neither here-nor-there when it comes to Windsor’s most important quest, which is to draw a solid District seed and host (and win) a playoff game. Recruiting on campus could take a big leap for Coach Freeman if the Owls can add something substantial to their trademark .500 record this time.
Sikeston has fallen back to 1-3 after a promising start. North County and DeSoto are vulnerable. Perryville looks so diminished in 2025 that Windsor is probably regretful that the Pirates aren’t on the Owls’ schedule currently. Whoever the eventual #5 or the #6 seed might be, the Windsor Owls would have a glorious opportunity to host and defeat that team for a landmark playoff win. The trick is getting the Owls into at least a #4 seed with a healthy lineup in Week 10.
#6 – Crystal City Hornets
Lo and behold, there could be FIVE well matched teams in Crystal City’s district, not four. Veritas Christian Academy played so poorly in its first Varsity season a year ago that The Geek thought there was no way the private school would change 2025’s conversation in any way. That was before the Eagles averaged about 35 points in their first three games while going 2-1. Veritas Christian has an easy schedule, yet still deserves credit for looking as sharp as the blog’s Jefferson Blue Jays in their second season as a Varsity. They’re not District 2 title hopefuls like C1D2’s other four teams, but they’re making an impact.
If Crystal City looked destined for a #4 seed, the bright side was going to be the Sunken Place hosting the district’s only quarterfinal game, a likely victory over what-we-thought-would-be a patsy in Veritas Christian, and bring momentum on the road to face the #1 seed in Week 11. Now it not only looks like Veritas Christian could be a spoiler as a #5 seed visiting a #4 seed, but in fact it’s starting to look like the Eagles will rate higher in Week 9’s standings anyway.
Crystal can seed highly for a .500 team again if the Hornets get to 4-5 or 5-4. Former head coach Dan Fox’s huge Large Schools scheduling fetish has seen to that. The #1 goal of Week 5 is to get the CCHS Hornets through four quarters without injuries against a Gateway STEM team that has unexpectedly sustained its hot success into 2025. After that, however, Crystal City will be favored to beat Roosevelt of Class 4 and Duchesne of Class 3. The subsequent boost in standings points from taking the upper hand over “Play-Up” opponents could give the Hornets a narrow chance to earn a home field semifinal on 11/7.