Hillsboro 31, North County 10
The Geek does not expect to find any snickering remarks, or “Thinker”-posed emojis, on social-media threads underneath the Week 4 Friday Night Predictions. Mississippi Magazine had its best Friday of forecasting since TGG began trying to gauge 12+ teams’ efforts every week in the mid-2010s, with some scores threatening to hit our final-score prediction right on the money. Mississippi Magazine has “lost” very few W/L predictions through 4 weeks as per usual, but prep football involves so many disparities that to brag on that would be akin to the old Boomer Esiason-Cris Collinsworth NFL crew on HBO, which bragged on picking 60% of the win-loss results in select games each weekend against nothing but the scoreboard, much like a fan boasting that she’s “figured out” how the Ravens can beat the Jets at least 6 out of 10 times. The Geek is much more pleased to have gotten the “blow-out meter” exactly right in September’s MSHSAA slate, and it’s great to be correct whenever no Jefferson County school takes a blow-out loss to an outsider that we didn’t already warn the alumni about.
But there’s no hiding a public embarrassment, either. Friday of Week 4 was also when TGG realized he’s been hoodwinked, hogtied, and Houdini’d into 100% whiffing on a TON of major storylines on the local gridiron this year. A sample:
– Gateway Tech will NOT be hosting the 4-0 Crystal City Hornets on a lovely September afternoon in STL. In fact, the Gateway STEM Jaguars have made a bizarre scheduling mistake that might have doomed 2 lesser teams to a sloppy, terrible game played in front of about 50 people.
– The injury to RB Chase Viehland of Northwest-Cedar Hill has turned out to be worse than lazy MSHSAA bloggers assumed in August. Maybe a lot worse.
– The Festus Tigers somehow planned, arranged, and executed a Homecoming Week in the summer, featuring a Homecoming Game against the worst team in the region north of the Chaffee Red Devils, with the entire event making so little noise (literally and figuratively) that your Class of ’97 reporter didn’t learn about it in time to get dressed-up or anything.
– 2022’s unbeaten Hillsboro Varsity Hawks are running a new offense that looks more like the Muskegon Big Red, or the Pike Red Devils of Indiana, than the Blue & White we’ve been watching for 50 years.
WAIT, W-W-W-WHAT? No disrespect to those other items, but TGG wouldn’t blame anyone for getting stuck on #4. Hillsboro hasn’t just made a QB change while handing Griffin Ray full-time duties on other units (and triple-duty as a practice player), tossing Preston Brown behind center to make a few B-back reads and throw a forward pass now and then. Skipper Bill Sucharski has decided to rearrange his entire works instead. Dangerously, the coach has adjusted Hillsboro’s playbook in such a way that will give Brown more time, more vision, and more passing lanes from the pocket without sacrificing – if last Friday’s 31-10 victory was any indication – Blue & White’s trademark power-rushing and the Hawks’ variety of option plays.
Brown is running most of his plays from the “Pistol,” the same mini-Shotgun snap that characterized San Francisco’s 2nd-from-last run to the Super Bowl with Colin Kaepernick at QB. Lamar Jackson’s freakishly effective Baltimore Ravens offense is a better example of what Hillsboro is trying to do, though, since the Ravens’ wonderful coaching staff are the only NFL people who welcome “High School” offense specialists into their meeting rooms. Friday Night Lights teams that use the “Pistol” snap don’t imitate Kaepernick’s super-spaced Nevada Wolf Pack attack as often as they maintain the blocking scheme and “wheel” motions of Flexbone players and a triple-option threat on every down, while turning their “A” and “B” backs into hybrid WRs. In layman’s terms, everybody on the field can score TDs in a lot more ways now, and Sucharski has just the right talent on hand to pull-off this sort of thing.
Other than the wonderful Red Zone defense that sealed the W, Hillsboro wasn’t all that lights-out in the win over North County, at least not compared to last season’s Turbo Clock triumph. The Blue & White’s nice 8+ yards-per-carry average owes a lot to a handful of big-time open field gallops from athletes like Brown (both Browns) and Austin Romaine, and 2022’s starting QB only completed 3 of his 8 pass attempts. But the Hawks were patient and polished enough to gnaw through Bonne Terre’s fundamentally sound defense for the winning TDs, and just as importantly, found ways to slow down Jobe Smith.
“Purists” loyal to the old Hillsboro playbook may complain that the HHS offense loses its ability to slash-through big defensive lines on quick-hitter plays, a key component to the success of teams like Army and Navy (and Hillsboro) when close to the opponent’s end zone. But remember that the Hawks still enjoy the services of Griffin Ray, a veteran QB who’s more than capable of running an under-center offense on the goal line if Leon Hall needs to bludgeon through a massive DL at some point in the playoffs. You couldn’t do it with 2 separate playbooks, leaving only 1/2 of the team’s practice time to work on the new short passes and deadly delayed-sweeps out of the Pistol and have success. But there’s nothing too fancy about a goal-line attack of Quarterback Sneak and Fullback Duck, and after running that playbook every year of their careers until this one, the Hawks can execute it in their sleep.
The fact that the HHS rush offense didn’t look like an indomitable buzz-saw against NCHS is all the more reason to for the team to become more versatile and multifaceted with the egg in hand. Hillsboro will have to complete a few passes to win a District title anyway, no matter how many yards the ’22 team’s newfangled backfield rushes for. Former QB Tyler Isaacson broke the 2017 District Championship Game wide-open with a long TD pass, even though the Hawks’ overall aerial effort was scatter-shot during the memorable win. If Sucharski’s kids can take a step beyond that kind of long-strike ability this season, it could be the ticket to knocking-out a charged-up North County, Festus, or Farmington side in November’s climactic contest.
St. Pius 34, Jefferson 12
Despite the final score getting out-of-hand, the scrum at Jefferson may have been our most accurate prediction of all on Friday, as the Blue Jays grimly battled the Lancers for 3 quarters but could not overcome the polished, dynamic offense of their rival visitors.
SPX coaches must be pleased with a prodigious run-blocking effort in the Lancers’ maiden signature win this season, and yet The Geek is just as encouraged about the discipline and stamina of a St. Pius X defense that’s shutting down top-rated I-55 teams with just 13 or 14 players working OT.
That gives others from the Hill Valley lineup a lot of rest-minutes for a roster of no more than 30 Varsity names, and helps HC Dan Oliver rotate fresh athletes into a nimble 4-wide passing attack that produced 200 yards and 3 TDs on Friday. Herky-SPX could be more of a track meet than ever before in 2022, with potential winning bombs hurled by both QBs in the 4th quarter.
St. Vincent 19, Herculaneum 16
Mississippi Magazine wouldn’t normally presume to give Herculaneum coach Blane Boss pep-talk advice twice within a 5-game span, considering that TGG already recapped the “Festus puts its pants on like we do” catastrophe from the 1980s in last season’s playoff coverage of Dunklin R-5.
However, we genuinely hope Boss isn’t filling the HHS players’ ears with “no moral victories” talk following Herculaneum’s close-shave loss to the St. Vincent Indians. The idea of “no moral victories” makes a good slogan for Texas losing to Oklahoma in a overtime battle, but not if Texas had spent 10 seasons losing to OU by 50 points before taking the Sooners into OT.
Winning football games is a long-term as well as a short-term goal. The Felines certainly experienced heartbreak trying to beat St. Vinny’s on Friday, but an annual conference game against a private school is a nice measuring stick too, and the fact that the Blackcats were threatening to win a 3-point game in the final moments of Week 4 shows that alumni can measure Dunklin’s gridiron progress in miles, not meters.
QB Jackson Dearing’s got himself a special team with a special defense, and the revelation of R-5’s power in September is far more important than any 1 scrum’s outcome. Besides, the wide-open element of 2022’s I-55 Conference race means that the eventual champion is bound to lose at least once, so the Blackcats must dwell on the positive and try to stack-up all the Ws they can.
Crystal City 42, Confluence 0
The fake-out from Public High League administrators in setting up Friday’s – yes, Friday’s kickoff between Gateway Tech and visiting Crystal City throws a gigantic wrench in the Mississippi Magazine’s coverage of Hornet football. We’ll talk more about that in the Power Poll this week, but for now, focus must remain on the team’s solid play and a “surprise” – but not so surprising – 4-0 record for the C1 upstarts going into Week 5’s critical litmus test.
The CCHS offense has scored over 20 touchdowns, and yet there are just over a dozen total TDs credited to Varsity Hornets on the statistics sheet at STLToday, letting The Geek know that stats from the team’s most-recent victories haven’t been added yet. Still, just a glimpse into Crystal’s production through the year’s opening games helps to get a handle on who’s emerging.
Freshman back Cohen Compton scored 3 times on the first 15-or-so touches of his Friday Night Lights career and is averaging 10 YPC, mind-blowing for a 14-year-old Varsity newcomer. Nolan Eisenbeis’ 4 tackles-for-loss as of early September do not qualify as a shocker, but it’s aces that Class of 2026 lineman Jacob Loveless is rivaling Eisenbeis as a difference-maker, out-pacing the sophomore star (and heavy-duty senior Hayden Reynolds) in the QB sack department. Loveless joins Cale (not “Cyle”) Schaumburg and Max Nelson as anchors of the CCHS defense for the next 3-4 years.
This weekend’s Gateway Tech scrum would still be captivating if it was played in the parking lot at 7 AM, but The Geek shouldn’t kid around like that – we don’t want to give people any ideas.
Festus 56, DeSoto 7
Bad news first – the Homecoming Game’s arrival prior to the mosquitos dying along Midmeadow Lane underscores the challenges of a weird FHS schedule. The boys will only play 2 or maybe 3 more home games in total in 2022, unless Black & Gold suddenly improves enough to snag a surprise #1 seed in District 1, or takes a patented Ofodile-leap of quality in late autumn.
The encouraging thing about Friday? The Varsity Tigers looked more like themselves than at any point since the first Hillsboro game from last season. DeSoto High’s offense just isn’t a competitive 11 right now, and everyone knew that Festus would get plenty of turns. But the offense made the most of its possessions from the very start. QB Jeremiah Cunningham nailed WRs streaking down the field consistently for the first time, and FHS blockers smoothly and cohesively blew a senior-studded defense off the ball. Arhmad Branch’s deke and subsequent race to pay-dirt on what should have been an ordinary nickel-pass shows that the 2-sport upperclassman’s health is not likely to be a factor in Week 5’s seminal rivalry game.
As for FHS hosting a Homecoming Week before the fall solstice, we’re reminded of the late Andy Rooney using the Bible’s “time to reap and a time to sow” verse to talk smack on the NBA’s out-of-whack timing. “There shall be a time for basketball which shall be in the winter time. And there shall be a time to knock it off with basketball, which shall be in the spring time and shall not be at the end of July.” There shall also be a time for Homecoming in fall when the semester is in full swing, as Coach O’s former program Mizzou meant to have happen when they hauled-off and invented the holiday 100+ years ago.
St. Dominic 42, Grandview 6
We’ll go with good-news-first this time. By all accounts, the Grandview Eagles can boast of a marvelous effort against powerful St. Dominic in Week 4, stemming the tide of early opposing momentum to produce more mid-game stalemates, then getting a TD on the board. St. Dominic did not score enough points on offense to manufacture the Crusaders’ 36-point Turbo Clock margin over Class 1’s stubborn visitors, and needed an INT for a touchdown to get the lopsided land-slide rolling. The ’22 Birds of Prey fared better against St. Dominic on Friday than in any such David vs Goliath encounter following the team’s recent revival, with exception of a 2019 GHS vs Valle U. game that caused Dex R. Stacky’s stack to blow a few times.
What’s the bad news? It’s that Perryville High School, next weekend’s supposedly “weak” opponent for Grandview to defeat, came alive with a 40-point win over Bayless in Week 4, posing the problem of Perryville giving Winchester Avenue a good game after all. More to come on Thursday.
Seckman 58, Mehlville 6
The 1998 Herky Blackcats won 9 games in a row by a 40+ point average, returned the opening kickoff back for a TD in a Round-of-16 playoff scrum against MICDS, and got ready to party ’till the moon went down. Herculaneum then averaged about 1.3 yards-per-play the rest of the evening as the Rams won by 200 points and ended HHS pigskin for the year. The Geek worries.
Ritenour 34, Fox 20
An outcome that points to the Fox Warriors managing to bother rival Seckman in the teams’ upcoming clash, and less reason for TGG to worry that the Jaguars will get overconfident while feasting on a diet of cupcakes.
Lafayette 49, Northwest 0
Forget any chiding from TGG about Northwest’s ’22 squad trying too many passes. With the Lions’ star tailback injured, and Cedar Hill thus playing as a 30-point underdog in the Suburban League, it’s just as well that the offense learns how to toss the egg around better until Mr. Viehland returns. On that frabjous day, Northwest could find that its offense has been practicing with a “weighed bat,” and will start finding WRs open down the field as soon as opponents tighten up their formations on defense.
Windsor 41, DuBourg 6
The emergence of Week 8’s Windsor opponent St. Clair (following a terrible start against Potosi) means that WHS will be the heavy underdog in 3 consecutive games starting in Week 6. That puts pressure on the Albino Birds to defeat DeSoto this Friday, and perhaps avoid a grim Q-Final seeding.