SportsZone Football Friday Game of the Week Preview: Hickman at Rock Bridge

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The top high school football team in Columbia will be crowned under the lights on Friday night. Rock Bridge (6-1) and Hickman (3-4) will both be seeking to win the city in the Providence Bowl, striving to complete a flawless record in crosstown rivalry games this season.

The Kewpies and Bruins are our SportsZone Football Friday Game of the Week. You can watch the game live over the air channel 17.3 on KZOU. Here is a look at other local listings:

• DirecTV - Channel 18
• Dish Network - Channel 32
• Mediacom - Channel 12 & 709
• Centurylink - Channel 12
• Spectrum - Channel 183

Along with city bragging rights, a perfect record in the Central Missouri Activities Conference (CMAC) is also obtainable for head coach Matt Perkins' team in this contest. Rock Bridge clinched the CMAC championship with a 37-point win over Battle in Week 7, and now, they can complete an undefeated conference season with a win over their Providence Road rivals in Week 8. However, despite their six-game winning streak, the Bruins are hunting for improvement in a few key areas with the district tournament on the horizon.

"We talked during film this week about how half-a-second, what that could mean for Brady, as good as he is and as well as he's played. If he just had a little more time to step into throws," Perkins said. Defensively, getting home would be big. We haven't had as many sacks this year as we had last year. We're creating pressures, but we're not quite able to get there and making sure we're taking the quarterback run game out of things is going to be big for us this coming Friday."

At the same time, Hickman has had a tale of two seasons in 2024. After suffering three straight losses to begin the campaign, head coach Justin Conyers has led his team to victories in three of its last four games. The Kewpies did see their three-game winning streak end in Week 7 with a 17-point loss at Camdenton, but the mentality shift that has driven the program to success is still circulating throughout the team.

"I'm very impressed with our guys with the way we handled the adversity coming from weeks one through three. It would have been real easy for us to put our heads down or say 'here we go again' and not believe, but the guys really stayed focused on the task at hand, which was to learn how to practice better. That's what we kept saying. Part of why we were not being successful was we weren't developing consistency in weeks one through three, and we really were not practicing very well. But, that changed going into that Week 4 football game versus Battle High School," Conyers said. "Last week, it just felt like a really slow start, and there were some weird things that went on. Four stalls in the red zone on Friday night. Obviously, that's the difference in the game, or we're sitting here talking about being 4-0 over the last four weeks."

Rock Bridge and Hickman both have plenty of motivation to walk away with a win during Providence Bowl week. The Bruins and Kewpies are Columbia's original high school sports rivalry, separated by less than five miles. Over the last decade, Rock Bridge has defeated Hickman in 12 consecutive contests on the gridiron and held the Kewpies scoreless on the scoreboard in its last three outings. Even though the rivalry has been one-sided over the last 10 years, the hype surrounding this game has not faded.

"The thing about this one is the pride factor. It's a crosstown rival game. I don't know exactly the stat but they keep it over there on the south side, but I don't think we've scored in the last three outings against them at all. They've shut us out in the last three matchups, and so, for us, that's been something that we've talked about in our program all week, so heck yes, this rivalry is alive and it's well and it's in our blood and it's brewing," Conyers said. "You got to know this one is all about bragging rights."

"The kids know each other. That's number one. They have a history with [Hickman], and so, for our kids, they want to make it four straight times that they've beat them on the football field in high school. That's something our seniors are talking about," Perkins said. "It's just a lot of fun. Hopefully everyone keeps a level head and doesn't make it bigger than it is but want our kids to go out and enjoy it and perform well and let the best team win."

As both teams enter the home stretch of the regular season, Rock Bridge and Hickman are focused on winning this rivalry and refining their game ahead of the playoffs.

"We want to get better. I really think if you polled the entire group of kids on our roster if we've played our best game yet, they would say no. If we've played a complete game yet, they would say no. Our mission is to improve," Perkins said. "Hopefully, we're playing our best ball as we go through until the end of the year. I think that's important for each team to get your best football on the field this late in the season, so if we do that on Friday night, we feel good about our chances."

"No pressure. Put the pressure on them. That's what I've told them is there's all this stigma behind Rock Bridge and them doing all these things and having all these elite guys and we're just little old Hickman sitting over here just trying to be somebody again. That's who we are, so we're going to go to work and our thing is put zero pressure on us and go out and have fun. Give it your all. Give it everything you have. Leave no stone unturned. For these seniors, it could be their last opportunity to take a shot at Rock Bridge," Conyers said.

Kickoff from Rock Bridge High School is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m.