The Gridiron Geek tries to avoid recapping Week 9 as much as possible, to get a jump on Missouri’s district tournament brackets as soon as they come out. Then TGG spends the Saturday after the regular season’s final round wishing that a regular old recap was all that’s due. At least MSHSAA will show us the outcome from Friday as of a Saturday. The outcome of the playoff seeding race isn’t as simple as the nine-week standings, making it perilous to post a district bracket until MSHSAA confirms the seeds. When are the tournaments set to go with inked brackets? Eh, as soon as MSHSAA-dot-org gets around to it, of course. There is often a site crash on Monday or Tuesday just for fun.
(Note: MSHSAA’s office in Bonne Terre was awesome this year and got every bracket posted by Sunday morning. It’s a new era, though we still hope Brian Jones sticks around.)
Class 1’s postseason is more cut-and-dry, at least when it comes to our familiar District 1 and District 2. The Grandview Eagles and Crystal City Hornets play in Class 1, District 2 this year. The 2025 state bracket’s Al-Gore-Rhythm pits District 1 and District 2’s champions in Week 13’s quarterfinals according to the MSHSAA Football Handbook. Van-Far’s impressive win over Scotland County from Week 9 gives Vandalia the #2 seed in District 2 behind Grandview at #1 and ahead of Crystal City, which is berthed in third place.
Class 1, District 2 Tournament Seeds and Opening Round Games
Week 10 District Quarterfinals (October 31):
#4 Veritas Christian Academy Eagles vs #5 Louisiana Bulldogs
Week 11 District Semifinals (November 7):
#1 Grandview Eagles vs #4 Veritas Christian Academy Eagles OR #5 Louisiana Bulldogs
#2 Van-Far Indians vs #3 Crystal City Hornets
The talented Grandview Eagles have faithfully furthered a revival at almost every turn this year. Following a Moon-shot visit to victorious Quincy Notre Dame in Week 1, the Birds of Prey have gone on a 6-2 run that includes only one convincing loss, paired with a heartbreaker against the Perryville Pirates. Meanwhile, the Hillsboro-Dittmer program averaged an 18-point winning margin in four conference triumphs, chewed 2500+ rush yards and 40+ TDs, and put its dual-threat senior QB Brendan Martin on pace for a 1000-yard passing year should the Eagles merely play okay in their next tilt on November 7. Grandview’s pass defense is fire again, riding on 16 INTs and a hefty sack total for the junior OLB Aaron Smith.
Grandview’s HC Cory Hanger has impressed Mississippi Magazine by making the Birds of Prey more dynamic as the season goes on. For example, Grandview High isn’t satisfied with having a three-headed backfield monster in Martin, Isaac Walker, and Wyatt Keim running the rock. They’ve been working on a four-headed monster that includes the do-it-all junior Brock Poole, who is leading the 2025 Grandview Eagles in combined touchdowns after making the 2024 Jefferson County All-Star Team as a kick returner 11 months ago.
Poole has snuck up on everybody to become the Eagles’ most effective rusher, statistically speaking, as of October. The 5’8″ speedster has inched above Walker on Grandview’s rushing chart with 789 yards and a fantastic 10.4 yards-per-carry average. Poole’s 1280 total yards leads all of Grandview’s skill corps. Heck, it feels like time for a highlight!
We criticized Hanger for letting a risky pitch-out occur at the tail end of Grandview’s win over Jefferson. Going into the playoffs, though, it’s good that the Eagles have so many wide-open running plays in the playbook. You can’t stick a backfield of Martin, Walker, Poole, and Keim into a plain Wing-T offense and get the most out of them. If Grandview is to be destined for a run at the District 2 crown, the Eagles want to make all their potential postseason touchdown kings into possible threats alongside Martin’s arm on every series.
Grandview has a favorable style-vs-style matchup against just about any District 2 team it happens to play. Louisiana High is 20 points worse on the road than at home, where the Bulldogs compete with 14 good guys against 11 bad guys when you count the referees in. Veritas Christian Academy hasn’t played a legitimate schedule and won’t beat a slumping LHS by many touchdowns, if at all, in the District’s lone quarterfinal at the start-up program’s home field. (The other “Eagles” would have no chance 11-on-14 at Louisiana.) GHS isn’t a swell opponent for Van-Far, given what would be a size-and-strength disadvantage against GHS. Grandview would also have a big experience edge over Crystal City at quarterback, a potential District Championship Game story that wouldn’t be fun like all of the angles listed above. In fact, it’s one of the year’s hardest tales for TGG to relate.
QB Landyn DeRousse of the CCHS Hornets left Week 9’s Grandview-CCHS game, a 42-12 win for the Varsity Eagles, reportedly with a concussion. The senior’s new malady brings a likely end to a DeRousse’s storied career as a rusher, receiver, returner, and finally a quarterback at Bradley’s Farm. There’s no getting around it – 2025 has been a bad dream of a season for Crystal City football. With the Hornets at 3-6 after falling to a team they beat last autumn, it’s not much consolation that frosh QB Kolton Adams is learning on the job.
The Jefferson County Leader did a fine job of documenting how Crystal’s offense was A-OK once DeRousse warmed to the challenge as a healthy player in midseason. It’s been the regression of the Bradley’s Farm defense that has hurt the Hornets most this season, putting so much pressure on the offense to score that accidents were bound to occur. We aren’t fans of the helter-skelter style of defense that Crystal City has been trying, although that’s not Coach Collins’ fault individually because the Hornets’ coaches have already transitioned away from the ingrained Xs and Os of the Dan Fox regime. (Notably, after Crystal City and Herky nearly tied their infamous “0-0 Game” with a 6-0 score in 2023, Crystal’s then-HC Fox told Regional Radio’s Griffin Weinberg “it’s hard to move our defense.” Hard to move our defense. Not “it’s hard to keep us from scurrying around.”)
Crystal City’s ray of sunshine is that Van-Far is a familiar opponent to visit in Week 11, and the Hornets’ zany style of “Rich Brooks” defense might throw a crimp in the Indians’ passing game. For this particular District Semifinal alone, it is a good idea for Crystal City to try to cause some chaos, instead of sitting back and waiting for Van-Far’s offense to outclass Crystal City’s with its freshman quarterback handing the ball off. Maybe a super-aggressive defense will yield turnovers against Van-Far, and set Adams up with some opportunities on a short field. By next season, though, we’d like to see CCHS reorganize its defense to be more solid in pursuit, and not give up long TDs on ragged plays.
It’s like the “Kyler Murray” dilemma in the NFL. Give a sophomore Alex Parham’s backfield a fighting chance to score winning TDs in games with ordinary point totals, and there’s a chance he’ll be the county’s new sensation. Put pressure on Parham and Adams to score all the time, and by Week 7, they’ll be as late to the starting blocks as Rey Robinson.
Whoever wins District 2 will draw a winnable state Q-Final against District 1’s winner. No team from District 1 has better than a 5-4 record. The standings leader, Saxony Lutheran, did bother Perryville in a 56-42 win for the Pirates in Week 7. But the Crusaders have zero quality wins on the campaign and a 28-7 defeat to Charleston on the books. Portageville defeated Charleston for its only quality-W of the slate in Week 5. Whoever wins the Portageville-Charleston rematch in Week 11’s district semis could become “true favorites” to vanquish Saxony Lutheran and take the Class 1, District 1 trophy in Week 12. They’re still likely underdogs to the Dirty Dozen in Week 13, especially if Grandview is the rival.
CLASS 1, DISTRICT 2 PREDICTIONS:
DISTRICT CHAMPION: GRANDVIEW EAGLES
RUNNER-UP: VAN-FAR INDIANS
Photo Credit: Mary Jo Koetting-Nicks