Week 12 “Table of Contests”
Page 1: Seckman Jaguars at Jackson Indians (C6D1 Championship Game)
Page 2: Sikeston Bulldogs at Festus Tigers (C4D1 Championship Game)
Page 3: Jefferson Blue Jays at Valle Catholic Warriors (C2D2 Championship Game)
Page 4: Crystal City Hornets at Louisiana Bulldogs (C1D2 Championship Game)
Page 5: St. Clair Bulldogs at St. Pius Lancers (C3D2 Championship Game) Prediction, aka “That Chiefs-49ers Thing”
Page 6: Week 12 Jefferson County Power Poll
Seckman Jaguars at Jackson Indians (C6D1 Championship Game)
Meramec kids are tough, and we don’t just mean how they come back from injuries. Seckman QBs Brody Kube and Cohner Baer had to have stunned a set of 2026’s doctors, trainers, and coaches while they each rehabbed from severe injuries so quickly, Kube came back for October’s action before Baer popped up healthy to begin the playoffs. But it’s equally tough that teams like Seckman, Fox, and Northwest play so hard to win their locality and get into the “out-of-town” matchups in Weeks 10-12, sometimes meeting each other in November, too, to try to advance past one another before the exotic matchups can even happen – plus they know that once they arrive in what should be the most fun scenario, the power of the opposition makes it nearly impossible to advance from there. Farmington, and St. Mary’s, stood in Fox’s way following the Warriors’ surge to a winning record. Jackson High is still standing in Seckman’s way, just like the Indians would have stood in Northwest’s way if the Lions had prevailed last weekend. JHS is such an antagonist for JeffCo that Seckman’s ’49-28′ playoff loss in 2024 was a proud day. JHS beat Northwest by 50+ in 2025’s playoffs.
Seckman is trying to build on that 2024 final score, its best outcome against Jackson to date. It’s the Jaguars’ fourth playoff trip to The Pit in six seasons.
Jackson would be favored over Seckman’s overall team if Friday’s scrum occurred in a Festus-Warrenton snowstorm. But with the weather taking a decidedly chilly turn this weekend, there’s hope that it might not be a shootout that Imperial simply can’t win. The Jackson Indians have become more of a Lee’s Summit this year, maybe as a reaction to what happened to the Indians in the MSHSAA state tournament of 2025, coasting along with 40-point performances backed by a supreme, stubborn defense.
Jackson’s defense is the secret sauce to this year’s hopes for state in a town where everybody goes to the football games. It does mystify The Geek how Jackson is able to keep such a massive crowd entertained at The Pit through years and years of lopsided victories and Turbo Clocks. To the credit of Indians Nation (<— let’s keep that plural so as to not offend this blogger’s triple-great Granddad, the conquering chief of the Kaskaskians), Jackson has turned the endless Ws into a ritual of fun times, not so much malaise such as can occur when a prohibitively stacked team can’t stop winning 55-0, and the alumni just yawn while they watch. Heavens, this year they’ve got something NEW to look at, a Jackson Indians defense that is no longer a sideshow to the brand’s unstoppable rushers, receivers, and returners. Jackson has played so well on defense this season that it defies logic, linebackers such as junior William Parker leading the way as the Indians put together a 10-0 mark with an epic 7.6 opposing PPG average. Tempo-tastic offensive teams aren’t supposed to have a defense that plays like it’s had 30:00 of extra rest between 7 and 9 PM. Jackson’s defensive backfield is highlighted by two track-star brothers, Brock and Blaine Reagan, who make every opposing quarterback feel like Walter Mondale via a landslide of pass-breakups. Jackson could have a dull offense, and finish 9-2.
Meanwhile, the Varsity Indians have an uncharacteristic trend with the football, too, relying on the running game to slow things down and secure the win, against opposing teams whose experience would lead them to expect more passes and touchdowns from QB Tyler Fischer once Jackson takes its customary midgame lead. JHS is taking advantage of the fact that its latest offensive line is incredibly big and deep, averaging 275 pounds across nearly two full strings. There’s no need to try to go ahead 57-3 when a blocking and tackling corps is so rich with bruising bigs as that of the Indians, who know there is nothing wrong with 42-0.
RB Jaylon Hampton’s skills also change the paradigm for a Jackson brand that’s been seen as too one-dimensional.
It’s a hopeful thing, nonetheless, that Jackson’s hardest row to hoe all year to date came against Hannibal of Class 4. Hannibal was not healthy during the regular season, in fact, you could argue that Seckman – of all teams – had a healthier lineup than the Hannibal Pirates this Week 8, when 2025’s state runners-up tallied 21 points, and made Jackson endure its tightest Quarter 3 of the season.
How does that relate to Seckman at Jackson in this week’s David vs Goliath rematch? Hannibal and Seckman have comparable playbooks, and comparable teams. Heck, you’d expect the SHS Jaguars to score more than 12 points on Festus – The Geek gave Seckman a bundle of points against Midmeadow Lane’s stout defense in October’s 2026 Fantasy Tournament. But that was the meek point total that the injured Pirates had at Tiger Stadium this midseason … before going on to pierce Jackson so effectively.
Let’s see if a healthier set of weapons can bother Jackson’s improved defense just as badly. Seckman’s trickery is a double-edged sword this Week 12, as the quick two-play touchdown drive can be a Game Control curse against a team as explosive as JHS. You think you’re doing great, until you miss the extra point, and Jackson takes your kickoff back 60 yards before scoring on a Hampton run, and you’re down by exactly one more point than when you started. That’s the sort of episode that happened to Festus R-6 in its Jackson loss in 2025. Seckman discovered better ways to hang around longer in 2024’s defeat, feeding sizzling RB Brady Ambrose for 260 rushing yards on 28 carries. If the Jags, who blew Northwest’s strong defense off the ball in November 6’s surprising blowout victory in Cedar Hill, can block the Jackson Indians like that once again, there are probably more outstanding fast players on 2026’s team who can run to that daylight. However, the amazing pursuit of the Reagan brothers will leave Seckman to scrap for four and five-yard gains without Imperial’s customary explosive plays, which leaves the Jaguars with a vanishingly thin margin-for-error.
Could an injury be limiting Jackson’s tailback? Hampton was credited for an alarming four runs and 24 yards in the Indians’ semifinal win last weekend. It’s a rare “rural” stat line from STLToday on a Pay-Per-View contest that may not be accurate. But the Jags will take it if the Indians backfield is finally tiring out, because the key to stopping Jackson this time could be to force JHS to throw.
Seckman’s other potential X-factor is the pass rush, of course, with Matt Muessig standing among the top-10 sack masters of the STL Metro right now. It’s kind of deceiving that Muessig has less than half of the QB sacks as the area leader Tyson Griener of St. Dominic, since his unreal total of 21 sacks makes that the case for almost all defensive stars who’re chasing him. In any event, Muessig leads JeffCo, and likely will when the year is over. Seckman can rely on its “front six” to pressure Fischer, a boon when every DB has to focus on coverage. Pressuring a spread offense with fewer rushers at a time is how you can frustrate them.
Are we saying we want the Jackson Indians to throw more?! It’s the only way to turn the weather into an X-factor for Seckman’s upset hopes. If each school’s rushers encounter tough sledding, Jackson’s NFL-style passes could fall incomplete off of cold fingertips. But when Seckman snaps to Kube, who laterals to Weidler, who fires downfield to Logan Harris, gosh – when that play works, Harris is wide open enough to cradle that bomb like it’s a puppy dog. That’s mostly trivial if the Quarter 4 scoreboard is reading 63-21, but not if the score is 21-14. PREDICTION: JACKSON 42, JAGUARS 13
Sikeston Bulldogs at Festus Tigers (C4D1 Championship Game)
Festus quarterback Parker Perry is going from the frying pan to the fire in only his second start since rehabbing a long-term injury. You have to be impressed with Sikeston’s defense, led by senior LB Sam McGill, than ever before, now that the Bulldogs’ 15-10 semifinal victory over Hillsboro has sunk in. Sikeston put a hurting on Hillsboro’s ground game – that much is evident from HHS’s paltry stat lines. Now, having watched the game – once, at least – The Geek does not fully trust the STLToday stat chart that has the Hawks trying fewer than 30 hand-offs and passes in the whole contest, and accumulating only 100 yards. If a school boasts eight possessions in a short encounter, averaging a three-and-out, well, they generally tend to lose 0-55, not 10-15.
If Hillsboro was too demoralized by Sikeston’s tackling to even want to upload every Week 11 stat, that in itself is evidence that this fall’s Bulldogs streak of defensive performances, in which Coach May’s club may have made three consecutive shutouts if not for trash-time substitutions, was not a fluke, despite what an easy schedule of opponents the Bulldogs took down for the most part. The STLToday pay-per-view recap credits Sikeston for having “stymied” Hawks QB Aiden Fleming’s lineup last weekend. What’s more, October’s 27-16 conquest of rival Cape Central, in which sophomore DB Easton Rush snagged a pick-six on CHS, looks even grander in view of the Cape Central Tigers’ wonderful upset bid at St. Mary’s.
Ain’t got no footage of that one handy, so here’s a few clips from Sikeston’s main claim to being the true favorite at Midmeadow Lane this Friday – its easy thrashing of common opponent Poplar Bluff, a brand that terrorized the Mississippi league in 2026.
Black & Gold has a tough defense to try to plow through in Week 12’s district final, perhaps as tough as TGG originally thought the Union Wildcats’ defense (sack total: 1,362, playoff record: 0-1) was turning out to be. Festus has a dominant defense of its own, but fans will be biting their fingernails all night if neither team can score TDs, a scenario that puts FHS in danger of losing a field-goal derby against Sikeston’s well-oiled kicking in the closing minutes, given the inexperience of talented young PK Bennett Spraul.
It’s easy to say RB Kamden Yates is the straw that will stir the drink this Week 12. His ability to break any simple-dimple carry for an explosive gain is a precious weapon in chilly conditions, against a physical Sikeston defense that would be bound to stop a 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust style opponent at some point along the way. Yates’ run-after-catch threat makes life easy for Perry, who can softly dink a deadly Screen Pass to his senior, instead of risking downfield passes to try to mint the same explosive outcome.
But the Bulldogs are as physical as they’ve ever been since Mississippi Magazine was a thing, and they were as snakebitten as Hillsboro when it came to converting on long drives in the C4D1 semis. It’s not so critical what Sikeston’s Red Zone statistics may be, or whether they’ll be as willing to kick field goals at Tiger Stadium as they were in the Bulldogs’ NFL-style Game Control win against Hillsboro. Midmeadow Lane’s biggest key to avoiding a tight tussle with SHS is how the Tigers’ bruising defense fares, because a ragged contest is in the Tigers’ favor. Sikeston’s got an unlucky matchup, because SHS does not like to throw.
Sikeston’s superb running game may be one of the hardest-to-stop that the Festus R-6 defense has come across this season. But the best Class 4 defensive front this side of Kearney can handle it. The 2026 FHS Tigers have shut down the rushers of St. Mary’s, Hillsboro, Hannibal, and DeSoto this season, a body of work which might just get Coach May’s staff drawing up a few more passes, whether the Bulldogs like it or not. Beau Canaday, Gibson “Gibby” Cotham, and Galin Hall are enjoying studly seasons, while a linebacking corps of Aiden Schirmer, Aric Luo, and Braydon Wilkes stacks up well against any Tiger trio you care to name. Antonio Pinkston was there to crumple Cannon Kisner each time the All-Star opposing QB and his Dragons got any momentum that the referees didn’t rob last Friday. Speaking of weird stats, the FHS defense has gotten so good, it’s burying its own stat lines!
You can’t rack up stats on defense when you’re forcing three-and-outs. In fact, one reason why Ryan Joggerst’s career tackle-total of 300+ at Fox High is so impressive is that Fox has a ball-control team. Festus has a Big Play team, and yet the defense is literally getting itself off the field too fast to lead the county in any category. TGG is sure that the Tigers are approaching R-6s’s record mark for forced three-and-outs on the campaign, yet everyone’s individual stat lines look ordinary, because the Tigers won’t let opponents keep the ball! Kamden Yates is the only player with more than one INT in 10 outings, but look at the footage, and the Varsity Tigers stripped the war paint off of St. Mary’s QB Ja’Khori Battle, didn’t aid Hillsboro QB Aiden Fleming, and held Hannibal’s quarterback Wyeth Dorsey to a dinky two scoring drives. Sikeston’s running attack, meanwhile, could crash into a D’ that knows it’s coming.
It’s not how well Aiden Schirmer’s defense plays, but what it does, and how ACs such as Jim “Ox” Sardo set Black & Gold’s bigs up for success against a physical squad. If Friday’s visitors find a way to limit Yates’ yardage, and Perry’s receivers have a cursed night, then it may not be enough for the FHS defense to play like it did against Hannibal, and hold most of Sikeston’s drives to 20 yards before trading punts with the Bulldogs. It could take something more. The good news is that the performance is in R-6’s grasp.
Don’t worry when Sikeston is able to move the sticks – worry about where the football gets spotted compared to the sticks. If the disruptive Festus front can break through for just enough tackles-for-loss, and put the Bulldogs in enough uncomfortable down-and-distance snaps, SHS play-callers won’t be able to stick to the patient plan forever. 3rd-and-long is the time for Festus High’s defense to create all kinds of mayhem, and fiend to force turnovers from a Bulldogs offense that won’t be able to help but start rolling its QB Jayce Drake out, looking for some kind of conversion instead of a 4th Down. If the Bulldogs fall into a hole, and try to pitch, lateral, reverse, and maybe, launch a downfield pass (the horror!) to claw their way out of it, that’s when Festus can steal the ball away.
If you’re nervous about having to rely on turnovers, relax by listening to the emerging FHS wide receiver/defensive back Keyshawn Hall, and several of his teammates, on the excellent Festus Tigers Football series from local podcaster Dewhitt L. Bingham.
However, as the boys have learned against Sullivan and Warrenton (and DeSoto) recently, you can also rely on field position to help your defense out sometimes.
Wilkes isn’t just a two-way Iron Man. He’s a triple Iron Man who has proven effective as a punter. Spraul has blasted a nice punt or two this season as well. In a year which began with lousy special-teams efforts, the Tigers’ improved boots and developed coverage teams can now help to pin Sikeston deep in its own territory, giving the Varsity Tigers an even better chance to blow it wide open with a fumble recovery or a pick. PREDICTION: TIGERS 21, SIKESTON 10
Jefferson Blue Jays at Valle Catholic Warriors (C2D2 Championship Game)
JHS freshman Logan Young‘s profile was marred by a pesky One-Hour Boo Boo at publish time, as The Geek confused Jefferson’s two championship opponents’ rosters from St. Vincent and Valle Catholic, giving St. Vinny’s a “senior” reserve quarterback instead of a sophomore in Week 9. Valle, of course, is hoarding 17-year-old QBs like an NIL agent these days. We should be square about who Young was up against when he snagged three INTs, although a sophomore like Hunter Mattingly -is- often more talented than the older options to step in at quarterback, or else he wouldn’t have been behind center for the QCC title meeting at Blue Jay Way. It’s also critical to be nice by acknowledging the inexperience in a rival’s lineup, whenever it has fallen short in a championship game.
Those two issues are in play for Jefferson this weekend. We have to be honest about what the Jefferson Blue Jays are up against, and the ‘Jays are almost surely about to fall short in a championship game. Before anyone decides that The Geek is ‘hating on’ Jefferson R-7, this site will state for the record that the Blue Jays could have the most promising set of “U17” talents in the Tri-Cities, perhaps more exciting than Javier Pulido’s underclass at St. Pius X or Conor Hedrick’s sophomore class at Herky. But it is going to take more than an All-Star prospects’ team, or even a QCC champion, to take down Valle Catholic this fall. Valle has grown so powerful that the word “Valle” doesn’t have the same vibe anymore. Valle Catholic is now a beast like we have never seen.
Senior QBs Sam Kuehn and Andrew Schilly have helmed one of Missouri’s top-15 teams, most definitely the second-best squad in southeast MO, in 2026. We’ve heard it said that Jackson might be the tops in the state in 2026. The Geek has seen Valle Catholic play so well this autumn that the Warriors could probably bother Jackson a lot worse than St. Mary’s or Hannibal did this regular season. Festus High, for all of its accomplishments, might boast one chance in five to upset this year’s Valle Warriors, who obliterated SPX by 46 points. Valle could win Class 2 or Class 3. It would be a hell of a tough out in Classes 5 or 6.
We love you, MyMoInfo … but it was not an “upset,” not really.
2026’s Olympic Athletes of Valle Catholic could beat last year’s Valle Warriors by several TDs, too. They’ve proven that by getting so much better against repeat opponents. WR Colby Basler gives the Warriors yet another “dynasty” kid on the boundary, while fellow senior WR Kaden Williams defied his diminutive 5’8″ stature to catch three TD passes against rival Park Hills earlier this year. Valle’s cast of RBs is flourishing despite the fact that none are especially big or powerful. (That’s a theme in Valle’s 2026 lineup.) It’s one thing to take on Valle Catholic for a championship in any old year – it’s another ordeal to have to face Valle’s best team ever.
What’s made Valle’s lineup so much better than ever? Well, that’s the only neat part about having to play and lose to Judd Naeger’s program – they are NOT simply bigger and faster than the competition anymore. Warrior Nation wants to beat up The Gridiron Geek for saying so, but Valle Catholic needed the Promotion Rule to grow as a program, because Class 1’s weaker opposition made it possible for Valle to just out-hit and out-run its rivals, so that the Warriors’ legendary discipline and execution were simply window dressing for a team that could just pitch out 50 times and still beat Thayer. Now that Valle is threatening to be ranked as one of Missouri’s very best teams, vying in higher weight classes, the Warriors can truthfully say they aren’t just outsizing people.
You can’t believe how big the Valle Catholic line is – in a SMALL way. Senior OT Chase Reed is a lanky “Kearney”-style blocker at 6’2″, but he’s below 250 pounds, outweighed by his own offensive guards. Senior DT Trevor Roth is listed at 5’8″. Yet when Valle faced big, bad Rockwood Summit, a Class 5 state hopeful that just rushed for 550 yards in its first two playoff games, the Warriors held the Falcons to less than four YPC. Senior Philip Naeger’s corps of pass rushers demolished Summit’s offensive line, which couldn’t help to produce a 200-yard night of offense in Valle’s 42-7 win. Valle’s vaunted defensive backfield, led by the senior speedster Kaden Williams, is so fast, rangy, and skilled that the 10-0 Warriors have surrendered 0 meaningful pass TDs.
It’s not like losing to one of St. Mary’s or Lutheran North’s “30 Zip Code” teams with 12 plays in the playbook. Losing to Valle is more like getting blown out by a sneaky snake-in-the-grass. If you show any sign of a specific weakness, like St. Pius X’s injury gaps in the lineup in Week 9, the Warriors will exploit it to build a 35-point lead, as if their offensive line did weigh a combined 1500 pounds. Herky’s fans from 1991 can remember what it was like when the Blackcats lined up against Chillicothe in the Show-Me Bowl, having defeated Caruthersville’s huge kids behind Chris Glaze’s heroics, and viewers saw that the opposing starting OL averaged just 185 pounds. “Ha, look at these guys!” we all said. Yeah, look at “these guys” beating Herculaneum 48-14 for the state title. That’s the paradox that Valle’s wonderful 2026 lineup is bringing to the field, a roster that isn’t as exciting to look at as to watch winning.
In simple terms, this isn’t like Jefferson’s conference champs visiting a favored Small Schools powerhouse. This is like Jefferson visiting Cardinal Ritter or CBC. The Blue Jays’ disadvantage against MSHSAA’s Top 15 is similar to that of a Division 2 college basketball team taking on the Big Ten in one of those November warm-up games, “Ohio State vs Maryland Teacher’s Tech.”
But what if Maryland Teacher’s Tech has a freshman who can go 8-of-12 from downtown? Or a junior who can set school records? There’s no reason why Young and WR Ollie Klump can’t have a better day on offense than some of Summit’s demoralized players when Valle last faced a JeffCo-area public school. If QB Sam Kerley returns this week, the Blue Jays could have even more fun. Young is exactly the type of defensive back who you tend to see coming up the ranks at Valle, except that his last name isn’t “Fallert,” and his homework tudors don’t include NASA, or the Ste. Genevieve Foundation for Warrior Player Academics.
Jefferson can plow behind its hefty line to gain a few yards at once, and look downfield for its tall junior TE Kollyn Waters, to try to nab a lucky TD against Valle’s squad of short guys who could beat Jackson in a 12:00 game. But the Blue Jays cannot hope to win – they’ve got to reset their goals, aiming to attempt to look like they belong on the field in a title tilt against Class 2’s potential champs. As former Grandview head coach Dave Dallas put it when Chase Wilson’s up-and-coming roster had to face Lutheran North, “we’re trying to do some things in this game.” A team that gets whitewashed 66-0 does not get to do many things. If the JHS Blue Jays surrender 7-38, they’ll get to do stuff that football teams do … knowing they can’t go worse than 1-1 in championship games.
For today’s score pick, bear in mind that Valle’s “54-14” margin over Hermann High came about because Valle was already crushing 3-8 Hermann by 47 points in Quarter 2. There won’t be quite as much garbage-time in Week 12’s game, due to Jefferson’s quality.
Valle and Jefferson are boasting wins over a shared rival powerhouse – St. Vincent! That’s pretty sweet. They can share freshman depth charts, and get Valle’s coaches jealous over at least one Jefferson rookie. PREDICTION: VALLE 56, BLUE JAYS 7
Crystal City Hornets at Louisiana Bulldogs (C1D2 Championship Game)
From 2025’s spoiler bid and a “World Class Pain in the Ass” to the #1 seed in this year’s Class 1, District 2 bracket, the Louisiana Bulldogs are working on a Pike County powerhouse that could contend in the state playoffs. MSHSAA’s absurdly great new rosters tell us that the while a Bulldogs’ combination of QB A.J. “Buy a Vowel” Gschwender and RB Donnell Griffith are merely juniors, they are fronted by an offensive line of upperclassmen that average 250 pounds. Louisiana’s defense, marked by the height and the agility of 6’4″ senior Javon Ries, held the 6-5 Winfield Warriors of Class 3 to fewer than 200 yards of offense this season.
Louisiana played at the level of Jefferson’s conference champions while defeating Montgomery County 30-16 on Senior Night. The Bulldogs then took advantage of a two-week break to score a 72-0 victory over unlucky Veritas Christian, whose coaches had scheduled into a ridiculously easy August-September that left the Eagles unprepared for Louisiana’s muscle in Week 11.
We’re happy for the #2 seeded Crystal City Hornets getting their third District Championship Game opportunity in four years. No one wants to see the Hornets get hammered by 50+ points this Friday. That could definitely happen, considering how many problems the CCHS defense has had trying to contain opposing athletes like Griffith and Ries this season. Crystal City has not appreciably slowed down any opposing offense except for Grandview and VHS. Louisiana is almost as physical as Salisbury, which nailed CCHS 66-0.
CCHS, besides getting a GREAT rest advantage from two weekends a without Friday Night Lights kickoff, can draw on its players’ experience in a unique way this Friday. It’s true that Louisiana looks like a “Seckman,” and Crystal City like a “Parkway South,” if Class 1 were 2026’s Suburban League, but imagine a Suburban League in which Seckman and Parkway South’s players were the veterans of tight, tumultuous regular-season and playoff rivalry games. Crystal’s seniors remember their successes – and failures – against Louisiana as underclassmen. The Bulldogs have almost always found ways to knock the Hornets off, but it was always competitive. Veritas couldn’t draw on memory to help ward-off “0-72” at LHS. No CCHS-LHS score has ever looked like that.
With the football in hand, Crystal City will have a chance to make some noise in what shall probably be the Hornets’ last Centennial combat. While the move to include more Spread Offense packages was designed to get sophomore QB Kolton Adams better pass protection, the Hornets ended the regular season running the ball so patiently, and so effectively, that at least the offensive line is playing downhill for a change. Louisiana is way too fast in 2026 to surrender a bunch of short passes for a long Hornets drive. However, if the seniors who beat LHS as sophomores in 2024 are familiar to the challenge, they can produce enough of a “Throwback” run-blocking effort for Crystal City to make LHS pay attention, then block for Adams to throw a deep ball.
Crystal’s prospects on defense and special teams might be grimmer. Louisiana has finally got itself some quality numbers, the sauce for a Class 1 program that wants to look more like a genuine big-shot in all three phases. Five of the Bulldogs’ sophomores are nimble receivers, giving Louisiana’s coverage unit a “Crystal City 2023” flair. The Geek can see Louisiana’s offense looking like an enhanced version of the Winfield offense against CCHS’s defense, from all the way back in summer, putting those upperclass speedsters out on the edge to run against a Hornet defense that has lost its grip, needing to rebuild “numbers” of its own.
Strangely enough for Class 1, the Hornets could hope to hang around by mimicking … Seckman’s best alternative game-plan at Jackson? We’ve got it all worked out that Seckman could annoy the Jackson Indians if RB Jaylon Hampton is slowed, and JHS has to throw lots of precise passes into traffic on a cold night. But if Hampton is really going to be a bit-player, JHS opponents could also decide to cover the receivers and the outside running plays, and try to keep things inside the hashes. After all, if the Jackson Indians are running up the middle for seven yards at a time, that still gives the Jaguars a shot to upset Jackson if the ball bounces funny, as Vince Lombardi liked to say. The football – and the flags – have fallen funny in lots and lots of Louisiana – Crystal City contests. In fact, you’d be kind of shocked to see the Hornets and Bulldogs get together and play through a tilt without turnovers. The best halftime outcome for CCHS this Friday is if LHS has 4 possessions, 150 hard-earned yards, 2 lost fumbles, and 8 points.
It’s not just a big #1 seed against a fortunate #2 seed. It’s also a matchup of rivals who’ll poke, prod, and provoke one another into making mistakes and bobbling the ball. Let’s hope the bean bounces funny in Crystal City’s favor like it has for Louisiana in the past. If it doesn’t, CCHS is still building a Week 12 resume to galvanize Grade 8 recruits. PREDICTION: LOUISIANA 48, HORNETS 14
That Chiefs vs 49ers Thing: St. Clair Bulldogs at St. Pius Lancers (C3D2 Championship Game)
Folks know that when The Gridiron Geek changes his mind about a prediction, his last-minute take often turns out to be correct. A chat with Lancer Nation headquarters after last Friday’s semifinals made it seem like St. Clair might just be the favorite to win the Class 3, District 2 championship. Coaches felt that the Bulldogs had destroyed the physical Herky Blackcats so completely, it reminded them way too much of Valle Catholic and Blair Oaks, the only east-of-KC teams to blow out SPX in two years.
Hill Valley has a soft spot for the Kansas City Chiefs, like the Hillsboro Hawks have a soft spot for the Navy Midshipmen. While The Geek was equally impressed by St. Clair’s semifinal victory, compared to the St. Pius Lancers’ scary-bad start in the first half of last weekend’s win over Park Hills, it’s hard not to get that Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl feeling again after taking a closer peek at St. Clair. There’s reason to think St. Pius can get an edge similar to its midgame surge of Week 11, though it could take more early drama.
First, let’s give St. Clair its due for that epic pounding of Herky. Park Hills, a team that was on a plain with the Quad County’s teams competitively, had a lot more success than Herculaneum at hurting one of the district’s two favorites on November 6, even though Herky’s 17-year-old quarterback – unlike Park Hills Central’s – was lining up elsewhere via tactics. The Bulldogs have more than November to point to on their resume, having defeated Class 4 district title hopeful Sullivan 35-21 in an October upset. One sophomore-turned-senior starter, the wide receiver Xavier Tiepelman, has starred for St. Clair for three seasons.
QB Jude Dierker’s club looks more balanced than it has in the past, which is scary. Even when St. Clair was blowing out Owensville 36-0 this season, the Bulldogs lined up in numerous formations, and tossed the bean around. It’s also scary that you can’t analyze St. Clair’s late regular-season very easily because the two Class 4 teams that the Bulldogs lost to were on absolute roller-coasters. North County? The Raiders had scored 31 points on Festus. Then they were eliminated by DeSoto. St. Clair’s 28-7 loss to Union seemed like a shiny outcome for St. Clair, not Union, considering that the favored Wildcats had the best pass rush in the Metro. Pass-rushing isn’t everything, though, and Union was zapped up the middle and beaten downfield by Vianney in its playoff L. Ultimately, it felt incumbent on The Gridiron Geek to forecast a “28 to 27” spectacle, an unwelcome nail-biter at Hill Valley.
But on second thought, the Bulldogs have been peaking, and may have already peaked. The Lancers’ underachievement of Weeks 9-11 can’t last long, given that SPX finished last Friday’s second half feeling sharper, and healthier, than it did going into the game. Hill Valley’s edge over St. Clair is that Friday’s best 10 athletes on the field will include seven, or possibly -eight- Varsity Lancers. Festus is such a den of defense that St. Pius X will feel comfortable in a low-scoring first half, but it could also put St. Clair in a pickle if the District 2 final is high scoring, because a shootout is often won by the side with more unstoppable kids on hand.
Who does St. Clair have to counter Harrison Ray? STC’s balanced offense is paired with an unbalanced roster that lists one – count them, one – primary WR on the whole squad. That’s the junior Carson Roemer, and he is roaming on defense much of the time. The Bulldogs have only two skill players who stand 6’0″ or higher. Their tallest tight end is the sophomore Jordan Schmidt. The Lancers do not throw endless “Fade Routes” to tall WRs, which is why The Geek likes them. But it could work for Ray in Week 12, for the reason we thought Principia’s 6’4″ Kingston Money was going to catch seven TD passes over little corners in Class 1 districts.
There’s no St. Clair tailback whose resume compares to Cody Shaver’s, or Brody Ervin’s. The pair has totaled 2800 yards and averages well over 10 YPC in 2026. St. Clair’s biggest players are frighteningly young – frightening for opponents who can see five “Tucker Rhinehart”-s coming down the pike for the Bulldogs in seasons to come, but also a bit scary for St. Clair ’26, which has to match up against SPX’s gigantic seniors David Schulte and Jackson Jercinovic in the trenches. St. Clair doesn’t possess a time machine to skip ahead two years to put what might become a brutish lineup on the field now. They’ll have to rely on a set of upperclassmen on the inside whose heights and weights shape them up like DeSoto’s smallish, blue collar front-seven.
If St. Clair favors its seniors, St. Pius can go to its Texas Roadhouse offense and run up the middle successfully. If St. Clair favors its bigger, taller, less seasoned kids on substitutions, that’s when SPX can go to its patented quick-toss plays, and get a galloping Ervin or Shaver to the edge at light-speed, fronted by a crew of veteran blockers who can out-quick STC’s 300-pound rookies if need be.
If the Lancers are plowing up the middle, or scoring with misdirection runs, that sets up QB Evan Eckrich to have another vintage playoff performance. Eckrich is starting to feel like the “Stephane Matteau” of Friday Night Lights, a player who looks ordinary until history is in the making, at which time he visits the Superman Phone Booth, and leads the way in a victory. Eckrich faced a tough opposing pass rush from Park Hills, while the Lancers’ OL struggled to remember their Shotgun-Spread techniques. He still completed 8-of-11 passes for two touchdowns, scrambling up the middle on improvised QB Draws to help turn the tide.
You’ll get to sit and watch another St. Pius win in Friday’s championship clash … but hold on to your seats. The one thing St. Pius X probably isn’t ready to do is put on a defensive classic and win 21-0. There are too many minor injuries keeping SPX’s biggest boys from going both ways as often as they would like to, and too many WR coverages still getting blown when opposing QBs drop back. Friday’s win will have to come via another pile of points, but the Lancers can produce them, having polished the passing game, and the quick-toss method to punish opponents who try to stack the line on Cody & Brody. PREDICTION: LANCERS 34, ST. CLAIR 21
Week 12 Jefferson County Power Poll
#1 – Festus Tigers
#2 – Seckman Jaguars
#3 – St. Pius Lancers
#4 (T) – Fox Warriors
#4 (T) – Northwest Lions
#6 – Hillsboro Hawks
#7 – DeSoto Dragons
#8 – Jefferson Blue Jays
#9 – Herculaneum Blackcats
#10 – Windsor Owls
#11 – Crystal City Hornets
#12 – Grandview Eagles
Photo Credits: The Grind, Dana Shirrell, and Herculaneum High School R-5 Facebook