The Post Route - Week 8

Your guide to Madison County high school football this week.

University School of Jackson (6-1, 1-1) at Evangelical Christian School (4-2, 1-1)

Last year’s score: USJ 49, ECS 14

Players to watch: USJ LB Miles Horton

What to know: ECS has been up and down as a program in recent years since their legendary coach retired, and the early returns suggest former Trinity Christian coach Blake Butler may have returned stability to the program. If that’s the case, then that returns an old rival for USJ fans to look forward to playing each year. The big question for USJ is how will the Bruins play coming off a loss? This is uncharted territory for the Bruins in 2024, but knowing the coaching staff, the business-like mentality the team already had to each game will probably be turned up a couple more levels this week.

Bounce back: With this being the second year of head coach Derrick Pritchard’s tenure at USJ, the Bruins were 3-1 last year in games coming off a loss. And the one loss came as the team was still trying to figure out its best blocking schemes when their best lineman went down with an injury for about a month.

Jackson Central-Merry (6-0, 3-0) at Huntingdon (4-2, 2-1)

Last year’s score: Huntingdon 41, JCM 6

Players to watch: JCM WR Jaylan Young

What to know: Cougar fans should be concerned about a possible hangover from last week’s emotional win going into this game. Huntingdon is coming off a comeback win at the defending state champ, and while that game didn’t come down to the final play, the Mustangs could still be feeling that game as well. But the Cougars have become masters at not worrying about the big picture when there’s a game to be played. If they can do that and the defense do a good job keeping the Mustang ground game in check, the Cougars could make more history.

Mixed close results: Huntingdon has had two games that finished with the teams within a possession of each other, and the Mustangs are 1-1 in those games. JCM has had only one, and that was last week’s win over North Side. The Cougars have had three other games where it was close late before they scored again to get two possessions away to seal the win.

Liberty (0-6, 0-3) at Covington (6-0, 4-0)

Last year’s score: Covington 70, Liberty 12

Players to watch: Liberty WR Jacarrion Pirtle

What to know: There’s not a lot of reason to think Liberty will win this game, so this could be a trap game for Covington. The Chargers are undefeated, and they have a game next week that wasn’t originally scheduled against an old rival in Haywood. It’s possible a lot of the Charger players could be looking ahead to that and Liberty catch them looking ahead. But if they do that, the Crusaders have to stay on them for four quarters.

Long layoff: In addition to coming as close as they have in five years to a win in their last game, the Crusader coaching staff had 15 days to develop a few wrinkles for this game. We’ll see how much that will throw the Chargers off.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news