Herculaneum Blackcats at Windsor Owls
The Geek was feeling a blow-out win for the Windsor Owls in a matchup against visiting Herky, until figuring out that the Owls’ star running back Willie Coleman III wasn’t going to perform for Imperial in 2025. (Or, at least we think that’s what the info tells us.) It will be good for Windsor over the long haul to have to build from square one with a balanced offense this year, but the scenario of Windsor showing up without a proven Class 4 tailback of any variety will keep the Owls close to the vest on double-option plays and let Herky hang around. PREDICTION: OWLS 26, BLACKCATS 14
Parkway West Longhorns at Seckman Jaguars
It’s easier to find info on unfamiliar opponents from St. Louis than it is to figure out who’s graduated and who is returning for Varsity teams down south, or otherwise far outside the Metro. But we don’t even have to check STLToday for a look at the 2025 Parkway West Longhorns. Russell Korando of the Jefferson County Leader made a crafty point of including “Week 1 opposing team previews” in the JCL’s preseason looks at our Dirty Dozen, in understanding that there’s no time to review Jamboree Friday and then post everything all at once. PWHS is one of Korando’s Week 1 topics.
Friday Night Lights veterans know that a “QUARTERBACK!” headline in preseason doesn’t mean as much as finding a college or pro team’s previews slathered with hype for a QB. It’s great to have a good quarterback on a Varsity team, but he’s got to have a supporting cast around him. Korando touts the senior Parkway North QB Brett Ottensmeyer as a signal-caller who has already committed to the Missouri State Bears after throwing nearly 3000 yards in complete passes last season. But the Seckman Jaguars defeated Parkway West easily when Ottensmeyer was a junior last summer.
We’ve said that this year’s Seckman team could be Imperial’s best ever at the line-of-scrimmage. Parkway West will test the open-field chops of HC Nick Baer’s battalion, but Parkway’s “Bear” of a QB must contend with a pass rush keyed by Dylan Lappe. PREDICTION: JAGUARS 42, PWHS 24
Caruthersville Tigers at St. Pius Lancers
St. Pius X already had some things going for it in Week 1’s rematch against Caruthersville. The Lancers are so much better on home turf than away. They’re bigger, quicker, deeper, and (mostly) older in the starting-22. Mild weather will allow SPX’s stars to play more minutes than in a typical Week 1.
Mississippi Magazine got lucky and found a not-firewalled SemoBall preview of the 2025 Caruthersville Tigers this week, and suddenly, tonight’s tilt at Hill Valley feels like a potential run-away win for Frank Ray’s home team. Caruthersville’s coach Dom Guglielmo, when asked to compare the Tigers’ new lineup to last year’s 10-win team, immediately said “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and confessed that “we’re going to fall short in some ways.” Caruthersville has been socked in the mouth by a rash of graduations, with only a scant set of big and talented youngsters to step up.
Week 1’s emotion could carry the Greenhorns Tigers in a home game. At Hill Valley, they can’t fall back on that. PREDICTION: LANCERS 44, CHS 13
DeSoto Dragons at Freeburg Midgets
Freeburg is a super fun Illinois team and a credit to a region that doesn’t mint many great teams. But we’re not impressed with the Midgets’ playbook, a reform-school style slog right up the middle. The Midgets are big enough. It’s the playbook that’s too tiny. PREDICTION: DRAGONS 28, FREEBURG 6
Sikeston Bulldogs at Crystal City Hornets
The Gridiron Geek wasn’t ready to change his mind about Sikeston-Crystal City after Jamboree Friday. Yes, the Crystal City Hornets had their best Jamboree – far and away – since the team’s watershed of late 2021. But we’ve had Sikeston favored over CCHS in Week 1 for most of the offseason, figuring that the Hornets are going through more changes this summer, while the Bulldogs are into their second year of a so-far-successful rebuild.
Week 1’s roster releases – and the weather forecast – seal the deal on a Prediction Change. Sikeston’s 20 upperclassmen won’t serve up the visiting Bulldogs with as much of a numbers-edge as it did last August, when Crystal City’s lineup omissions made it nearly impossible to cope with a Class 4 opponent in the second half of a game that CCHS led at halftime. Crystal City has exactly one roster omission this Week 1, OL Hayden Westbrook in Basic Training. Sikeston might have more omissions for all we know. What’s for sure is that the amazing “early fall” which has blessed the Missouri shoreline is going to make Week 1 into a fight of each team’s best players to the finish, not a morass of cramps, heat exhaustion, and substitutions.
If one of CCHS’s really good RBs gets hot (not from the sun) Sikeston may not be able to answer. PREDICTION: HORNETS 32, SIKESTON 21
Festus Tigers at Rolla Bulldogs
Festus and Rolla had really nice first-string lineups at their Jamborees. Then the backups came out, and Rolla looked 200,000 times bigger, stronger, and more confident. Once again, the fair Week 1 weather report is a saving grace for teams with thin depth charts. However, it’s also good news for Rolla’s style of power football. Coach O has made it a point to talk about Rolla’s likely improvement this season, setting Midmeadow Lane up psychologically for potentially losing tonight’s road game far from home. We still don’t see the Festus Tigers getting blown away, with so much talent around quarterback Parker Perry, and Kamden Yates’ ability to simply run past Rolla’s linebackers no matter how much thicker their 2025 depth chart may be. TGG anticipates crafty TD drives for FHS … to go with bruising Rolla offense that takes over by Quarter 4. PREDICTION: ROLLA 35, TIGERS 19
Mehlville Panthers at Fox Warriors
Fox will be served a cupcake in Week 1 … IF Jude Pribish is ready to eat. PREDICTION: WARRIORS 45, MEHLVILLE 14
Sullivan Eagles at Northwest Lions
Sullivan’s success with a “modernized” system seems to have peaked and begun to dwindle. We’re counting the years until the Eagles go back to that “1940s” offense that terrorized Large Schools from Jefferson County and the Meremac. Even if they practiced it this week, though, it’s not likely to bother a Northwest Lions that’s team on the rise with a star offensive backfield. PREDICTION: LIONS 34, SULLIVAN 10
Priory Ravens at Jefferson Blue Jays
This matchup occurred in the playoffs, just a couple of “games” ago for both teams. With QB Cooper Frisk and most of a lively Blue Jays offense still in place, we expect that Week 1’s contest will go much like “Week 10″s if that’s not too confusing to think about.
It’s like the ending of “Kung Fury.” Week 10 was almost one year ago … in the future. PREDICTION: JEFFERSON 35 TO 13 (NO, REALLY, 42-12.)
Hillsboro Hawks at Moberly Spartans
We’re placing this year’s two new Week 1 games at the bottom-of-scroll. No real reason, except that it’s a good time to look at how the Dirty Dozen’s administrators have handled the chore of having to book new Friday night matchups in what’s supposed to be a “flip-flop” season of rematches.
Hillsboro, of the two local teams in question, has gotten it right. Moberly is a Class 3 scrapper with a better team than its 4-7 record from 2024, as the town’s coaching staff made absolutely sure to remind the kids and the parents and the media of 22,000 times this summer by all reports. Anyone who says, “Hillsboro should beat a 4-win team from Class 3 by 60 points” isn’t paying attention. In MSHSAA, it’s not the W/L record, but the schedules.
For instance, The Geek already made his first error of 2025 (imagine that!) by holding up St. James as representative of Class 2 and 3’s tier of “solid” public school outfits. No disrespect to the Grape Gang, but further research shows that St. James’ flourish of success from the late 2010s was their only one so far on a fairly new campus. Since then, teams like Moberly, St. James, and Hermann have been seen pounding their heads against the wall thanks to the unlucky fate of having so many Large Schools surrounding them, and admins who refuse to find new conferences to play against. Collectively, Moberly, St. James, and Hermann went up against 12+ Large Schools in the final 5 weeks of last season, losing to almost all.
If nothing else, Moberly is more than experienced going against programs of Hillsboro’s size and standards, and the Spartans’ great angst over having lost so many of those matchups in 2024 shows that Week 1’s home team expects to beat them. HHS could be shaky on defense out of the gate this year, but we think Braxton Chazelle’s quick feet will produce a 14-0 lead before Moberly knows what hit it. PREDICTION: HAWKS 42, MOBERLY 21
Grandview Eagles at Quincy Notre Dame Raiders
Hillsboro hit its Week 1 reschedule right on the mark. Grandview’s is shooting for the Moon. We do not think the Birds of Prey are ready to bear their talons at a celebrated, even DECORATED private school’s field on either side of the Mississippi River. However, if Grandview’s new “select” offensive line gashes any holes in the Raiders, then we can look forward to a huge year for RB Isaac Walker. PREDICTION: QUINCY NOTRE DAME 49, EAGLES 7