#1 – Hillsboro Hawks
The Gridiron Geek did not realize until weeks into the season that every-other-photo featured on the blog since Jamboree Week has been of a Hillsboro Hawk game. Maybe it was your narrator’s subconscious way of hailing the Hawks even as headlines lured readers to other scrums. The Blue & White rich quality is making Leon Hall’s wins seem insignificant when they aren’t at all really, like how Alabama’s slate is called “weak” after the Tide annihilates teams that others defeat 28-14.
Beating the Fort Zumwalt West Jaguars this Friday would be counted as “significant” to say the least, not just at Mississippi Magazine, but also well above the Meramec and points northwest. Fort Zumwalt West opened the 2022 season in the hardest possible circumstances with a bout at Eureka, and actually ran-up a nice lead on Hassan Haskins’ alma mater in the 3rd quarter before another prodigal tailback, this time RB Kevin Emmanuel of the Wildcats, went off like an atomic bomb for 300+ yards and 4 scores, sparking Eureka to a 43-28 comeback win.
The Jaguars most likely would have preferred to stay in St. Louis County and play a common opponent to try and reestablish their pride in Week 2, but wound up traveling to Belleville, where FZW completely outclassed the Belleville West Maroons (gosh, what a nickname) in a Turbo Clock triumph.*
*Since Fort Zumwalt-at-Belleville was played on Illinois turf, was it really a “Turbo Clock” game or is there some other mercy-rule at work in a blow-out played under IL sanction? Fans of east-side pigskin, please feel free to let us know.
STLToday pundits may have been correct about Jefferson County’s power on the field this fall, but not for exactly the right reasons. It was said that relatively new faces and contenders would top District standings in ’22, such as Dabrein Moss of St. Pius X, Arhmad Branch of the Festus Tigers, and Cole Ruble of the Seckman Jaguars. Each of those athletes still has a chance for a seminal, championship season. But the fact that Hillsboro’s all-star offensive backfield of Ray, Patterson, and Romaine (and Associates) has been around long enough to start a law firm makes Hillsboro even more dangerous as a postseason entry. All 3 players have the experience to work hard every practice week and play a responsible 48:00 no matter how “easy” a Friday scrum is supposed to be, a trait missing from pretty much every Tri-City team in recent years. Meanwhile, the “old hands” on the Fox coaching staff won’t let Red & White roll-over against the Suburban League. It’s up to this year’s hyped preseason teams to catch up to Blue & White…and Red.
#2 – Seckman Jaguars
Speaking of mismatched games, the Seckman Jaguars are about to feast on another vulnerable foe this Friday, as the Northwest Lions host SHS after sagging to 0-2 against the Parkway South Patriots. Seckman is scheduled to demolish Parkway South by at least 42 points in Week 6.
#3 – Festus Tigers
A.J. Ofodile is a man of contrasts. It’s true that Columbia Rock Bridge (and the Missouri Tigers) benefited from the learning curve of hard schedules during Coach O’s tenure. Ofodile’s prep football jargon is designed to give students an NFL-like “any given weekend” vibe, as when the skipper told Black & Gold that a 1-point victory over DeSoto in the District Q-Finals would be just fine. At the same time, Ofodile seems to be tuned into the pros-and-cons of a High School slate and its characteristic of Friday night rivals varying wildly in speed and talent, and appears to believe – judging from Week 2’s post-game interview – that cupcakes are part of a healthy diet.
“It was hard to get mentally healthy after the St. Genevieve game,” Ofodile told Regional Radio after dropping to 0-2 against Valle U. “To have a better chance against these guys, we’d have needed a couple of games to work everything out, get our minds right, and make sure we can execute.”
Translated. that means Ofodile thinks DeSoto would have been a better warm-up opponent before facing the Warriors, and he wouldn’t have expected a “1-point victory” if DHS were the debut opponent.
Will the Varsity Tigers be holding “practices” on the next 2 Friday nights? Maybe not, given how porous the team has been to start the season. Approximately half of the team’s starters will be fairly tested by each game in Weeks 3 and 4. Burned and bruised Tiger defenders will have to watch out for some of Windsor’s new playmakers on the outside this weekend. Any kind of OK defense will probably blow through DeSoto’s motley blocking efforts in Week 4, making the unit’s biggest challenge not to get overconfident going into the Hillsboro game. But the Dragons’ own defense could be returning to its form of the late 2010s, and will resist any blow-out bid from FHS.
#4 – Fox Warriors
Arnold and Imperial alumni have to be encouraged by the apparent lack of division-killing teams in Fox and Seckman’s respective playoff districts. Class 5, Division 1 has been “murdered” by the Jackson Indians for several years running, while CBC appears to be the titan in Seckman’s surprising Class 6 bracket. But the Jackson Indians have begun the season 0-2, with a blow-out loss dotting the ledger. CBC was not only outshone by the Junior Billikens of SLUH in last year’s Class 6 District playoffs, but now stands at 1-1 after a blow-out loss to East St. Louis, another Illinois team not playing quite up to its standards in ’22. The landscape could be more open than was believed.
Fox can hope for a favorable seed in D1 if the Warriors manage just 1 or 2 upset victories in midseason. Weeks 6-7 opponents Poplar Bluff and Hazelwood West have nary a win between them, which seems kind of crazy, but it’s how things have gone so far. Meanwhile, a Senior Night kickoff against Parkway South is bound to end very differently than the Northwest Lions’ pale effort against the Patriots. Before those dates come to pass, though, Red & White must tackle hard September contests against teams like Lindbergh, rival Seckman, and Ritenour, a genuine enigma which we’ll know more about after the Huskies square-off with Ladue Horton Watkins (better known to local fans as “that damned Ladue”) this Friday.
#5 – Herculaneum Blackcats
It’s time to start moving our winning teams above our losing teams, regardless of school size. Herculaneum’s C3 lineup doesn’t make the best parallel comparison to a team like Northwest-Cedar Hill, but after seeing the large-school Lions wilt against a parked-in-place Parkway South program in Week 2, Mississippi Magazine contends that Cedar Hill probably couldn’t beat Windsor by a Turbo Clock score. Herky did just that in its ’22 debut.
But should the Felines be topping Jefferson County’s small-campus representatives on the Power Poll, having so rarely brushed-up close to the I-55 Conference title in a decade’s span? TGG believes that high-quality passing games are at a premium ATM, and that long-strike TD potential has already shown to be the deadliest weapon in the early-going this year. Maybe once the leaves turn and scrums get even more physical, a burly team like Jefferson is bound to take over the I-55 race. Today’s date is 9/9 though…not the best timing for JHS to try to deal with Jackson Dearing and Lucas Bahr.
T-6 St. Pius Lancers, Jefferson Blue Jays
High School coaches love to say things like, “Hey, if we need to score 40 points to win, that’s fine, but if we ever need a shut-out, our defense will be prepared for the challenge also.” Yet on Friday night of Week 3, it would be as goofy for St. Pius X alumni to hope for a low-scoring game as it would be for Jefferson R-7 boosters to pray for a high-scoring I-55 Conference opener.
It’s true that with a looming 5-way fight between Jefferson, Herky, St. Pius, Grandview, and St. Vincent (sorry, Bayless Bronchos, but someone has to finish 6th) for league hardware, coaches must be mentally prepared to manufacture Ws any-which-way. But the Jefferson Blue Jays likely aren’t capable of scoring 45+ points to beat Herky’s high-octane squad in ’22. Jefferson’s chances tonight are clearly better in a 17-14 type of bout.
St. Pius “The Tenth,” as Lancer commentators like to say, lived through a grudging, ragged game with Grandview High once already last year. Grandview’s roster doesn’t include the Class of 2022’s speedy backfield stars, but there are up-and-coming players blocking for the Birds of Prey who could knock another time-travel portal into existence somewhere close to Marty McFly’s shopping mall in Hill Valley. The SPX lineup has grown flashier and more versatile, while Grandview doubles-down on power football. If MSHSAA fans see a “42-17” score from the Grandview-at-SPX game, then they’ll probably already know which school is winning without having to glance again. But in case of an ugly “15-12” score? Those newfangled road-graters from Winchester Avenue might just lumber downfield for a winning TD.
#8 – Northwest Lions
Cedar Hill’s prospects of stopping Cole Ruble in Week 3 are slim. However, the Lions could get fat gnawing on Seckman’s secondary if the Jaguars aren’t better prepared to face a wide-open playbook than they were in August. Northwest should go for broke against Seckman, as the Lions need not worry about “goosing” Seckman High School to score 60-70 points and potentially embarrass the Lions’ defense.
SHS is beginning to recover from the Thursday-Friday shocks of Week 1, and Nick Baer’s coaching staff will be thinking big-picture. If Seckman leads 45-7 and gives up 10 or 14 mop-up points early in the 4th quarter, the Jags – who can successfully block for simple 1st downs at will against Northwest – are just as likely to control the ball for the final 9:00 with a go-to-bed possession.
#9 – Grandview Eagles
Preseason pundits who go through schedules and say “that’s a win! that’s a loss!” etc. usually wear egg on their face when the season shakes out, and some favorites prove to have diminished while underdogs get better. This year, those “Week 1 through Week 9” prognosticators could be wrong for another reason. Grandview’s schedule is an example of a slate that looked muddy in summer, yet it now looks clear-as-day just 3 weeks into the campaign.
GHS has already beaten the 6th-ranked team in the I-55 league in Bayless. The Birds of Prey will get an easier conference game on 9/23 when pitiful Perryville visits town. Chaffee, the team’s Senior Night opponent again this season, has debuted looking even worse than the Red Devils of 2020-21. There’s 1 other “gimme” game on the GHS slate, though a gimme for the wrong team – St. Dominic has blossomed into a titanic dragon-slayer of large schools and private-campus powerhouses, and booking the Crusaders for Week 4 represents former coach Dave Dallas’ biggest mistake as CEO.
That leaves conference foes St. Pius, Herculaneum, Jefferson, and St. Vincent, against whom GHS went 2-2 last season. Prevail in just 1 of those games, and the Varsity Eagles will be assured of a 3rd-straight winning season while also drawing a solid District seed and a winnable Class 1 Q-Final, unless Duchesne’s tough 2022 schedule puts C1D2’s potential division-killing brand right smack among the middle teams in the bracket.
#10 – Crystal City Hornets
Wait, if Duchesne is the best team in C1D2 with Brentwood, SPX, Grandview, and Crystal City lagging slightly behind in development, then why would TGG predict that the Pioneers could go 3-6 and be seeded 4th or 5th?
The answer lies in a ’22 Duchesne schedule that includes all kinds of MSHSAA and District champions, including private-school warhorses MICDS and Cardinal Ritter. If the Pioneers pull off just 1 or 2 major upsets as a Class 1 entity, expectations are that Duchesne will waltz to a #1 or #2 seed. But as TGG understands the rules, a team cannot simply “lose” its way to a top District seed no matter how good the W/L records of its opponents are. If the MO postseason were organized that way, a cynical administrator could book as many Class 6 powerhouses as they could, sleepwalk through 9 opposing Turbo Clock victories, and emerge with a nice playoff seed in October.
If Brentwood is seeded #1 and Duchesne is seeded #4, that sets up a potential “JCTV Bowl II” between the Crystal City Hornets and St. Pius Lancers in Week 11. In fact, if things shake-out very lucky, CCHS could get a chance to square off with 4 of the I-55 Conference’s contenders before the campaign is over.
Such anticipation could work to distract a Crystal City lineup that doesn’t have any favored opponents on the slate until later on. But the Grandview Eagles did the Sunken Place a solid last Friday by letting Bayless back into what turned out to be a thrilling battle. Bayless has now firmly challenged St. Pius X and Grandview in consecutive scrums against the I-55, highlighting the steep task faced by CCHS in defeating the upgraded Bronchos tonight.
A team that wasn’t too “distracted” to crush Chaffee in Week 1 won’t take Bayless too lightly. Plus, a win over a Class 3 school would be just what the doctor ordered when it comes to vying for home-field honors on 10/28.
#11 – Windsor Owls
WHS underachieved in Week 1 and played up to its water-line against lowly Perryville in Week 2. Could the fresh high-mark come this week against Festus, just like the Albino Birds’ brave opening half vs FHS in 2020?
Given the added weapons in the Varsity Tiger backfield, “progress” for Windsor on Friday night could amount to holding Essien Smith to less than 200 yards and 3 combined touchdowns.
#12 – DeSoto Dragons
The form of DeSoto’s senior-studded defense is slowly approaching the unit’s formidable standards, which should keep a far greater number of Friday scores respectable at Joachim Junction. But the DHS offense looked so poorly overmatched by Sullivan last Thursday that Dragons fans must be mentally prepared to see < 2 TDs vs all but Fredericktown and Orchard Farm.