The Gridiron Geek always seems to skip writing a random week of the Jefferson County Power Poll in October. This Week 6, at least we’ve got a friendly alibi to share. TGG and his team are working to set up a YouTube content hub on which we’ll (only occasionally) replace weekly pigskin articles with video versions. Mississippi Magazine will embed the videos just like articles as opposed to trying to “promote a YouTube,” so it won’t change anything for padawans and parents searching for our picks.
The former FBS student-athlete Cam Schuh is one candidate to host and interview The Geek. If it happens, he can offer uniquely valuable advice when a local school’s got a Division 1 prospect. (Your blogger is also enough of an Austin Powers fan to want to name the YouTube show “The Preemptive Schuh with Gridiron Geek,” but my team never covered Mr. Schuh in college, and so his name might be pronounced “She-Shoo” for all TGG knows.)
For today’s sake, we’ve got a ton of critical Week 6 fights (for the bottom 10 of the JC Power Poll anyway) to go over, and not much change in our dirty dozen’s comparative local rankings. So let’s reward our Power Poll’s winners by dishing on them first in the Week 6 Friday Night Predictions…even if we don’t believe the foremost 2 teams are due to play 48:00 Varsity minutes.
Seckman Jaguars (#1 JCPP) at Parkway South Patriots
Seckman’s regular-season schedule couldn’t have worked out much better for the unbeaten Varsity Jaguars. Seckman notched 2 statement wins in the first 5 weeks, beating the Fox Warriors and the Olympic Athletes of Valle Catholic by deceptive final scores and chomping on a few cupcakes in-between. Like the Festus Tigers, SHS will play 4 remaining teams that range from large school contenders to hopeful upstarts, though unlike Black & Gold, the Jags are expected to find an edge vs all 4 rivals.
HC Nick Baer doesn’t want any more “Mehlville”s on the slate, with the Jaguars preparing to compete in what may be the most difficult 5-seed District bracket MSHSAA has ever concocted. He will be pleased to note that Parkway South is improving, having begun the year winning 2 out of 3 games, and playing in a fun shootout with Hazelwood West last Friday. WR Dashon Davis caught 6 passes for 124 yards, and Parkway South boasted a solid 4th-quarter lead before blowing a 5-point heartbreaker.
For a change, though, this time it’s the Hazelwoods, Parkways, Park Place-es and Boardwalks who are found mulling around the middle tier in the Suburban League, while Seckman High reigns from on-high. QB Tommy Gibbar is doing what was thought to be impossible in 2023, rivaling Cole Ruble’s senior performance in orchestrating an elite Class 6 offense. Gibbar has rushed for 7 yards per carry and scored 16 total times by ground and air, totaling ZERO interceptions, and only 5 incomplete throws!
Seckman’s defense, meanwhile, is so big, so mean, and so good that it’s a little bit scary. The Jaguar front-7 is bringing QBs down with sacks an average of 3x per game, held Fox High’s Cameron Underwood to 102 total yards in Week 5, and – most critically – hasn’t allowed more than 2 or 3 meaningful TDs all season.
PSHS, Pattonville, Oakville, and Webster Groves are all noble opponents with worrying gaps in the depth-chart. We’ll watch for Seckman football to expose each and every one of them, and continue romping toward 9-0. PREDICTION: JAGUARS 44, PARKWAY SOUTH 14
Windsor Owls (#9) at Hillsboro Hawks (#2)
Windsor finally looked like a Hillsboro Hawks “Mini-Me,” and not “Mini-Mush,” while beating the ’23 DeSoto Dragons 29-6 with an option running game. Still, it’s hard to think of WHS’s virtually un-winnable Week 6 road trip and not ponder what might’ve been.
WHS head coach Jeff Funston was quoted bragging on QB Luke Patterson’s arm to the Jefferson County Leader last week. But – in spite of the QB’s promising aerial stats from 2022 – we know that the coach is hedging on his opinion. Otherwise, Windsor’s offensive line wouldn’t be lining up with its helmets in the dirt, blocking for 2-3 kids instead of a large cast of play-makers.
We would have liked to see Windsor put its big, veteran OL in an upright setup this season, letting Patterson (or another QB) toss passes to RB Logan Wilson in the flat and A.J. Patrick down the middle. The Varsity Owls’ ground game might have begun to flourish just as much under those circumstances as it has with coaches borrowing from Army and Navy’s style to essentially force the issue this year. Elite conference rivals would have been tasked to defend the entire gridiron against a group of seniors who made some noise against Festus back in 2022.
Instead, the capable Albino Birds are about to line up and run a cut-blocking scheme at Hillsboro, a scheme that each and every one of the Varsity Hawks has seen about 10,000 times every day since they were 9 years old. Windsor, with regret, might as well try to defeat the Allman Brothers Band with a guitar solo. PREDICTION: HAWKS 61, ALBINO BIRDS 12
Festus Tigers (T-3) at North County Raiders
The Festus Tigers are more of a threat in this year’s large-school postseason than Week 6’s “T-3” ranked Fox High School. But it’s nevertheless getting hard to rank the Black & Gold above Arnold football. In their current shape, the boys would struggle to beat Fox, as sure as the gridiron is long. Just imagine the relatively well-disciplined Warriors executing their drives, while Festus begins by taking 5 straight penalties, then just misses on a 50-yard bomb that would’ve gotten FHS right back to the original line-of-scrimmage. It’s a “Washington Generals” handicap.
At least the R-6 schedule offers one more helpful matchup before going crazy in Week 7-9. North County has begun 1-4 with one conference win and one meek loss, which doesn’t mean the Buccaneers aren’t dangerous, but it does mean that FHS approaches Friday knowing a W is up to the Tigers.
Farmington, St. Clair, and Hillsboro High played solid, clean, aggressive pigskin against Brian Jones’ rebuilding Raiders, and outscored North County ’23 by an average of about 25 points. But when vaunted Mount Vernon balked, bobbled, and blundered in Week 5, NCHS came close to scoring a mountainous upset, as it so often does early in fall.
The Geek would rather see Black & Gold score twice in a clean opening half in Bonne Terre (dare to dream) than to see the offense strike-rich while also drawing enough flags, and serving NCHS up with enough sublime field position, that the Varsity Raiders can’t help but hang around in a high-scoring tilt. PREDICTION: TIGERS 31, NORTH COUNTY 23
Poplar Bluff Mules at Fox Warriors (T-3)
Fox has a golden shot at a statement game of its own in Week 6, against a favorite that’s been sketchy and sluggish outside of a vengeance-victory over inconsistent Cape Girardeau Central. PREDICTION: POPLAR BLUFF 24, WARRIORS 20
Jefferson Blue Jays (#5) at Perryville Pirates (Saturday)
The Geek owes an apology to Grandview and Jefferson boosters for referring to last week’s Thursday night game as Perryville’s “Homecoming” about 6 straight times. It was one of those mistakes a sports writer makes that gets followed by a little birdie (or a parrot) sitting on your shoulder and making absolutely sure you repeat the mistake as many times as possible, just to max-out the embarrassment factor.
It happened because TGG almost fell asleep during Regional Radio’s Week 5 postgame show, which included standard-length one hour interviews with both coaches from Valle U’s latest Turbo Clock win. (Crystal City’s skipper Dan Fox got about 2 minutes.) Since the Olympic Athletes of Valle Catholic beat so many small schools by essentially the same score every time, shouldn’t the radio record just ONE reusable coach’s interview, pressing “play” on the file after the next year’s Turbo Clock? But anyway, by the time Jefferson’s HC Matt Atley was on the air, talking about Perryville High’s upcoming Homecoming Game on Saturday, it was too easy to conflate “Off-Day Perryville game” and Homecoming just as last week’s GHS recap came due.
Grandview needs to fix its WR coverage whether last week’s Perryville Pirates game was a Homecoming, Senior Night, or a Piñata On A Pole Match. But for the 5-0 Varsity Blue Jays, the Pirates enjoying a Homecoming Game this Saturday, not on a Friday night, brings up some weird questions from a coaching perspective. Can it help PHS avoid the “Homecoming Blues” to have the kickoff on the same date as the dance for once? Will Perryville use the momentum of last Thursday’s surprise aerial blow-out to keep tuxedos on the rack and put a hurtin’ on JHS?
It will be intriguing to see what Perryville can do in 48:00 against the likely I-55 champs. We’re not so sure it won’t turn out much the same way as it has for other Jefferson opponents, however. Perryville’s got the edge of a sharp, downfield passing attack, but the Blue Jays caught a lot of PHS’s best pass routes on footage from the wide-open Grandview game, and they’ll know what’s coming, better than any team could figure out SPX’s tricky shifts out of the Wishbone. If the Lancers couldn’t vanquish the Blue Jays, the Pirates probably won’t. PREDICTION: BLUE JAYS 36, PERRYVILLE 14
Cuba Wildcats at St. Pius Lancers (#6)
The Geek’s mother is a long-time employee of St. Pius X High School, and worries about SPX games like a person who watched only the NFL…until working on a prep campus.
Having talked himself sick for 30 minutes, The Geek now knows that there is no way to convince Ms. Boyer that St. Pius X will prevail easily against Cuba, Bayless, Pevely, or Old Mines. “Ooooohhhhhh, but you neeeeeevvv-er knowwwwww…”
Such skeptics must only check the halftime score from Hill Valley to feel differently about it. Cuba doesn’t play defense near as stubbornly as Herculaneum these days, and the Wildcats’ meaningful TD counter for 2023 remains at a grim “0.” PREDICTION: LANCERS 52, CIGARS 6
Russellville Indians at Crystal City Hornets (#7)
Crystal City’s next pair of opponents are similar in many cosmetic ways. Russellville and Van-Far are both located in District 2 (if not the Milky Way galaxy) and could each very well become the team CCHS must face in the District Semifinals of Week 12. Each roster boasts of a numbers-boost in 2023.
However, we’re expecting the 4-1 Hornets to have to play 2 very different kinds of football games to win in their most important battles of the regular season. The Geek will only go over the Russellville tactics now, since the best and only goal is 1-0.
To state the obvious, Crystal City High has to put last season’s controversial ruling at Russellville out of its mind. Maybe it would help CCHS to consider what would have happened if the Varsity Indians had traveled to the Sunken Place in 2022 and thrown a winning TD pass, only to have the game-ending play ruled short by out-of-position and out-of-whack referees. The Geek likes to think he would have pointed out what an awful, decisive mistake that the officials made. But it’s not as though the Hornets would have called a halt to the celebration, met with the referees in private, and “relinquished” a W like Cornell did in 1940.
In other words, it wasn’t Russellville’s fault. Crystal City’s players can’t go and beat up the referees from 2022, so they might as well treat the Russellville Indians as just another challenge.
Russellville didn’t turn out quite as talented or fast as Vandalia on the gridiron this year. The danger Homecoming poses for CCHS is that a repeat of last fall’s sloppy “Homecoming Blues” game vs Van-Far would set the C1 District’s other Varsity Indians up to manufacture mayhem. Russellville is hoping to put on a “death march” in the late quarters, using its superior size to punish the Hornets and take a prohibitive late lead.
We’re not going to tell Bradley’s Farm that “calm and patience” is the key to winning every game in 2023. As early as next week, it could be to the Hornets’ advantage to engage in a long, ragged scrum at Van-Far. This weekend, it’s the Hornets’ job to simply stalemate the Russellville Indians on the line-of-scrimmage again, trusting there will be no encore 38-36 heartbreak.
Kanden Bolton is rushing for 15+ yards per carry this season, and Russellville has lost several of its only seniors who were any good at chasing Bolton and CCHS down last September. If the Homecoming team and the away team produce 15-20 successful option plays each in Week 6, we’ll find that the Indians’ plays are stopped for 10 or 15 yards, while the best opportunities for Crystal all threaten to go to the house. PREDICTION: HORNETS 30, RUSSELLVILLE 13
Herculaneum Blackcats (#10) at Grandview Eagles (#8)
Friday’s grapple at Grandview may be predicted as a “baseball score” by some local pundits, since Herculaneum hasn’t scored a solitary point since becoming a casualty-ward in September, and the GHS Eagles are coming off 2 straight lopsided losses.
But the Grandview offensive line was netting Nash Moore’s run game about 7-10 yards per pop against Perryville, even as the Pirates out-ran the Birds of Prey everywhere else. Grandview blocking will be hard for HHS to handle with only 20-22 players suiting up. On the other sideline, the Eagles’ poor coverage of receivers has woken up about every quarterback, so why not Herculaneum’s? PREDICTION: EAGLES 42, BLACKCATS 14
Oakville Tigers at Northwest Lions (#11)
The 3-2 Oakville Tigers have finally run into the midseason wall that TGG expected, but still bring a little too much to Cedar Hill for the Lions to break the L streak in Week 6. PREDICTION: OAKVILLE 29, LIONS 7
Fredericktown Blackcats at DeSoto Dragons (#12)
Russ Schmidt teams tend to respond after blow-out losses very well, making Week 6’s kickoff a glorious chance for 1-4 DHS to grab another victory. PREDICTION: DRAGONS 24, FREDERICKTOWN 16