Jackson-Madison County Schools will have their fall break next week, while the private schools are out of school this week.
But there’s no break in football coverage because it happens every week.
North Side and South Side will probably have a hard-hitting battle on Friday night, and then they have an entire week without classes and no game the following Friday.
So knowing that, this game could be hard to pick because there could be some surprises when you add this aspect of the game to the fact that this is a longtime city rivalry, there’s a Commissioners’ Cup in play and – most importantly – this is a region matchup and North Side is trying to get a home game in the first round of the playoffs while South Side is simply trying to get to the playoffs.
So we could see coaches and players pulling out all the stops in this one.
But as far as picking games goes, there are only four to pick this week, and I plan to simply stick to the game plan. Don’t get caught up in hype for some games or some teams. Just be basic, because that’s given me a stellar record since the first week of the season.
So here are this week’s picks as I’ve got a 29-10 record entering this week after a 5-0 week last week:
North Side 35, South Side 14: South Side proved itself a little better than JCM earlier this season, and I think the Indians play the Hawks in a similar manner. South Side will show they can compete a little better with the Indians than their counterparts did last week. North Side will probably jump ahead by three or four touchdowns to begin with before South Side figures it out before avoiding the shutout with a couple of touchdowns.
Huntingdon 42, Jackson Central-Merry 7: Huntingdon has had a couple close games in the last couple weeks, but those were against teams ranked in the top five in the state. JCM didn’t show a lot of fight last week in its homecoming loss. The Cougars need to show some pride and be able to stop Huntingdon’s repetitive offense to give themselves a shot at this game.
Covington 42, Liberty 6: Liberty’s bye week last week gave the Crusaders a few days to take a step back, look at things from a different perspective and maybe make some changes to put themselves in a better chance to compete. If they want to have a shot at winning this game, they need to at least take advantage of their rest and recuperation time, but the Chargers have been playing good football for the last month or so.
Trinity Christian 34, Greenfield 14: Greenfield has some big wins, but its wins are against the weaker teams on its schedule. TCA is probably closer to those stronger teams that the Yellowjackets have struggled with. Greenfield’s defense is the side of the ball that really struggles against the better teams, and knowing what this Lions offense has done a couple times this year so far, some of their players could have another career night if their minds are right coming into the game.
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
