The Geek has Big Ideas for Mississippi Magazine this season, to go with a pigskin year that may prove to be Jefferson County’s biggest-ever in a lot of ways – win, lose, or Draw Play. But who needs to read a laundry list of improvements at our blog when Jamboree Weekend is already in rearview? For this Week 1, the site will take a look at our Dirty Dozen’s role in the affairs of all six MSHSAA state brackets, which will let TGG dish out close to a half-dozen Big Ideas one at a time.
Crystal City’s Big Idea is that big ideas are no longer needed. Hornets football is no longer a rescue-operation, but a point of intense pride for a community that’s hosted some of the coolest Friday Night Lights victories of the decade thus far. Bradley’s Farm has turned a corner after rebuilding from the ashes (and the floods) of the 2010s. CCHS, often Missouri’s smallest or close-to-smallest 11-Man Football school in year-over-year enrollment, has reached Week 13 in two consecutive campaigns, beating ranked Class 1 contenders like Tipton and Class 2 mainstays like Charleston in the District playoffs. Arriving coaches are going to want to succeed for Crystal City football, instead of trying to make it work for them.
Crystal’s school board surprised The Geek by making “splash” coaching hires this offseason. Former head coach Adam Sims, who replaced Crystal City’s former-former HC Dan Fox last summer, began to mysteriously distance himself from CCHS as soon as 2024’s playoff effort ended. In the slang of our padawans, he was “ghosting,” not showing up to run Weightlifting sessions as promised, and getting hard to reach via phone or text. So, the school acted aggressively to make a change, dismissing Sims and hiring new skipper Craig Collins to become Crystal’s third head coach in three seasons.
Collins’ skills and his focus seem to be just what the doctor ordered, not just for Bradley’s Farm but for Jeffco pigskin on the whole. Collins is an A+ where Sims was a C- in the public-relations department. Hailing from Osceola’s 8-Man program, Crystal City’s new CEO was willing to act as a leader and as a fan and a booster of the team this summer, bringing CCHS’s social media pages alive with colorful pep talks and praise for the kids and coaches.
Those familiar with SEC football will recognize Coach Collins’ style, a blend of fierce competitiveness and upbeat faith. Collins’ evangelicalism could lead to students seeing their new HC skip and sashay around campus like Dabo Swinney (“Your coach – all up in the locker room – DANCIN’!”), just to share his joy in the word. Collins isn’t afraid to be corny on the internet, blatantly cheering for John Cena even after John’s phony friend Travis Scott showed up to ruin WrestleMania. But his desire to take CCHS to another level on the gridiron was evident when Collins went to each Varsity Hornets tryout’s house, individually, to garner close to 25 “summer commits” to play for a team that lost almost as many athletes as it gained in 2024’s transfer period.
Collins understands the Vince Lombardi method of “Show, then Tell,” going the distance to help his new team before asking others to do the same. He’s been all over the weight room, taking part in a crazy build-up of the Junior High team, and stealing headlines with Assistant Coach hires that will complement rather than replace Crystal’s tight staff in place. The hiring of Zac Weber, a former assistant at St. James and Farmington (!), is a Crystal City move that would have been impressive if the Hornets were bringing Weber in as a head coach, let alone a play-calling associate of “CCC”s.
Crystal City’s head coach also shares a resemblance with Robert “Sgt. Slaughter” Remus of WWE.
It’s hard to take a team to the next level when the level they’re on is pretty good. Collins’ stated goal of going “unbeaten at home” in 2025 is less ambitious than it sounds, since the Crystal City Hornets of Class 1 are already 14-3 at the Sunken Place over the last three seasons, against a schedule of more Class 2-thru-4 opponents than foes in their own division. Will enhanced play-calling (and all those summer commits) help Collins turn a fun success story into something more?
He’ll have a roster of standouts helping him try. This is the year when Crystal City’s power at the line-of-scrimmage could come to the fore like never before, to potentially shock opponents who only know what they saw during the Hornets’ slump last midseason. For the first time since the 1970s (!!!) there are too many accomplished linemen at CCHS to start every one of them, on “platoon” duty or both ways. Tristyn Munton, an award-winning frosh blocker who already tipping scales at 240 lbs., joins Crystal’s array of upperclassmen such as Trent Eisenbeis and David Parham in the trenches.
Collins confessed this preseason that his starting offensive line could weigh a collective 1200+ pounds, and that it has the agility of a bunch of linebackers. (Considering the depth chart, some of the OL’s blockers play their share of snaps in the defensive front-7 and will continue to.)
Landyn DeRousse is the quarterback, a logical choice as a senior and the only kid to take substantial snaps with Varsity during the Nolan Eisenbeis years. Riley Hendrickson has been moved from TE to become the team’s new power fullback, though The Geek has a hunch that RB Rico “Pasta” Pastrana’s senior year will have the pep squad chanting for Penne with Parmesan. London Patton starts as the WR corps’ leader on the boundary. Surrounding those four seniors, Crystal’s got its usual collection of swift, lanky prospects like Skylar Fowler … and an unusual one in Alex Parham.
Is it too early to call Alex Parham, only a freshman, the “X-Factor” for CCHS? Maybe, but he’s already something close to it, a potential “Jaxin Patterson”-type who could steal the show by driving an offense downfield before he can drive a car. The Middle School phenom has proven to be coachable, versatile, and durable in camp this summer. What’s more, The Geek was wrong about Parham’s first-step speed lacking something in his highlight reels. Turns out maybe the youngster was just too casual about slower opposing players until it was time to run past them. You can’t have a muddy first step and dominate in regional track meets the way that Parham did this spring. He even outran the fastest 200-Meter Dash kid from Jackson.
Crystal’s remodeled playbook should help to get Parham and Fowler the ball in space, while letting the seniors strut their stuff on every-down touches. While DeRousse isn’t likely to throw as many passes as Eisenbeis, the new offense will look a little more “wide open” anyway, with a Shotgun snap and plenty of tosses and laterals. The Geek doesn’t want to see CCHS try to get too complicated, or rely on its quickness and fine execution too often this year as happened in the Slump of 2024. It’s time to play some “John Robinson” bumper cars and dare Class 1 playoff opponents to contain a bigger, more athletic offensive line aimed at them. Too much option-play trickery is an unneeded risk when you’re winning battles at the line. Conversely, though, you would much rather see Alex Parham taking touches on the boundary, and on long pitch-backs, versus running “Midline” up the gut at age 14. That option-rushing style would be bad for Parham, and for frosh QB Kolton Adams.
Bad news: Crystal City’s schedule is so difficult that it could make all of the above hype and excitement a moot point. Any remaining whispers that Bradley’s Farm faces a soft schedule will die in the wind this fall. Don’t look now, but the C1 Hornets’ slate has turned into a BEAST. There will be as many as five Class 4 opponents to worry about, including the rebuilding Sikeston Bulldogs in Week 1. If you think that’s hard, Crystal City plays the defending Class 4, District 2 champions (gulp) from Gateway STEM again in Week 5. Bayless is another Large School (it was under 1000-kids enrollment when the rivalry started) that spoiled CCHS’s tropical Homecoming last September.
By the time the Hornets get around to playing small public schools in Weeks 8-9, it’s going to feel like an exhibition. All that “they’re Class 4, but it’s a losing program” scheduling by Dan Fox back in the day was like a time-bomb that may be ready to go off. Even the “only” 4x-larger Duchesne Pioneers program could be a load to deal with in Week 7.
Good news: Crystal City rocked and rolled at its Jamboree, and the Hornets did it against nothing except Large Schools, even against a Jamboree host that’s played in Class 5, the Parkway South Patriots. The hungry Hornets showed up to PSHS’s super-size campus with a point to prove, going unbeaten in three games without giving up a touchdown. The offense was promising, but the defense was unreal, forcing turnovers to go with its 30-play shutout.
There’s that DEFENSE! that we thought would come back to CCHS once the roster had another year. Given 5+ bruisers to choose from to anchor 3 spots in a 3-5-3 formation, a crew of senior linebackers, and Adams, Parham, and Fowler to boost the defensive backfield, Crystal’s defense looks deep and experienced enough to contend with C4 teams in regular-season play. After all, Class 4 visitors have been falling to defeat at the Sunken Place with the same regularity as everyone else. If we can keep that trend going in spite of the vast improvement of opposing Sikeston, Gateway, and Roosevelt, CCHS might just earn enough bonus points to finish first in the Hornets’ 8 or 9-team District standings.
That – in case anyone’s counting – would force up to four playoff opponents in a row to come and struggle on the hard, unforgiving turf on which Crystal’s kids have a distinct edge. It’s worth taking a few chances to try to finish 7-2 and seed first in a travel-weary division. If the Hornets’ size doesn’t intimidate visitors this year, the field itself will, alongside one of the most impressive home-field records of any MSHSAA team that hasn’t been to the state bracket.
Where does Crystal City fit in Class 1 this November? It’s hard to know about the Hornets’ prospects in District play, of course, prior to MSHSAA crashing its website putting 2025’s alignment out at some point before Friday’s debut kickoffs. For all of the fuss and bother over St. Vincent’s passing game, the last three Class 1 championships were won by outstanding defensive teams who simply proved too strong and deep for the opposition – East Buchanan in 2022, Marionville in 2023, and Adrian in 2024. Penney showed that a “Crystal City”-style team could make hay in the Class 1 Show-Me Bowl last season, but Penney’s head coach quit this year, just as Adrian’s line graduates, and St. Vincent gets promoted.
Fans won’t see the contenders of Class 1 when Louisiana and Scotland County meet Crystal City in Weeks 2 and 8 respectively. One can hope that the Sunken Place won’t get too overconfident about the playoffs if CCHS simply outclasses both of those opponents this year. The District playoffs are where Crystal’s throng has gotten a taste of the wider Class 1 world, when the Hornets face down teams like Tipton and Charleston. Tipton remains one of the most consistent tiny-campus programs around. Charleston could go back up to Class 2 in 2025 following November’s ugly ending in the Tri-Cities.
If CCHS doesn’t contend in a “Final Four” state bracket soon, it will be because the mid-2020s Hornets have the defects of their virtues. Class 1 titles are the specialty of Iron Man teams with some type of cruel, prohibitive edge over everybody, like Hayti’s NCAA O-line blocking for an NFL running back in 2018. Crystal’s roster numbers are now blossoming to the point that the Hornets can’t help but pretend they’re in Class 3 and rotate 20+ different players on the gridiron. Trophies will be raised by that kind of a team given enough time – and they won’t go 5-6 the year after winning one.
Crystal City’s willingness to build from the weakest-link upward is a path to consistent winning, not just one hot lineup with 12 really good seniors on it. On the plus side, that means the Varsity Hornets will get more chances to reach a MSHSAA Final Four than any flash-in-the-pan champion.