SportsZone Football Friday Game of the Week Preview: Jefferson City at Hickman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The second-oldest rivalry West of the Mississippi River is set to be renewed on Friday night at Alumni Stadium. Hickman will be seeking its first three-game winning streak in more than a decade when Jefferson City travels to Columbia in Week 6.

The Jays and Kewpies 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

After beginning the season with an 0-3 record, Hickman has quickly turned the tide on its season. The Kewpies have strung together two straight wins to pull within one victory of claiming a .500 record. In its last two wins over Battle and Smith-Cotton, Hickman has averaged 38 points per game and held its opponents to an average of 21 points per game, a vast improvement from Weeks 1-3 when the Kewpies were only scoring about 23 points per game and allowing around 56 points per game. However, it's not just the box score where head coach Justin Conyers has noticed a difference in his group during this successful stretch.

"Our approach to practice has continued to get better. That's been something we've talked about from the very beginning is being consistent in what we do in our approach. All the way up to Weeks 4 and 5, our Thursday practices have been really, really bad. Even after a pretty good performance in Week 1, I felt like it was still not where it needed to be, and so, that was the challenge to our guys," Conyers said. "We needed that, and our guys have done that the past two weeks. I believe the consistency piece of how we practice has been a major key in the difference in how we've gone out and really repped out football games on Friday nights."

On the opposite sideline, Jefferson City is also carrying a 2-3 overall record into Friday's contest, aiming to bounce back after falling to Capital City its last time out. The Jays have had the definition of an up-and-down campaign, avoiding back-to-back losses through five weeks but still waiting to post two consecutive victories this season. In it two wins, Jefferson City's average margin of victory is 10 points, but in its two losses, the Jays have lost by an average of about 41 points. During that rocky first half of the season, head coach Eric Thomas' message to his team was to stay motivated to keep improving each week.

"Just stay the course. That's what it's been for us. Continue to be a LINK and continue to work. It's not always fun to come and grind after taking a loss, but we've got to get back to work and figure out how we can make it better. We've talked the entire year about can we continue to improve to get to Week 10, and that's our end reflection. Each one of these games is a step in that way, and sometimes, getting beat pretty handily exposes some things that you've got to go back to the drawing board on and making sure you're correcting those things the next week," Thomas said.

Both teams might have the same record but the results of Weeks 1-5 become an afterthought when Hickman and Jefferson City meet on the gridiron. This rivalry dates back more than a century with the first contest between the two schools being played back in 1911. However, the Jays have dominated this annual rivalry over the past decade, winning its last 12 meetings with the Kewpies.

"Back in my day, it was just physical. It was just a physical, hard-fought battle, and I don't expect this to be any different," Thomas said. "Both offenses have changed. It's a little more of a finesse game in some ways, but it's still going to be physical. It's still going to be hard-hitting, and like I said, we've got our work cut out for us. They are a much-improved team. They've really gotten better throughout the season."

"That's what makes it so special is, you know that no matter what the record is, you can always throw it out the window Jays week because there's like this little personal vendetta versus each other, so to speak. It's like the Kewpies and the Jays, and I think that's what's pretty darn cool about it, and like you said, it all goes back to that history of being one of the oldest rivalries in the state of Missouri," Conyers said.

Each program has a different head coach than they had the last time they met, but both Conyers and Thomas are very familiar with this rivalry. Each head coach experienced this annual showdown as players competing for their respective alma maters. Now, both head coaches hope they've constructed the game plan necessary to walk away with a win in this storied rivalry.

"Starting fast and being physical. Those two things," Conyers said. "Obviously, we can talk about execution and all these other things. Yes, we need those things, but fast start and physical football play is going to be the keys to this football game. If we can control the physicality in it, then we have a really good chance at being successful, and our kids have done a really good job with that the last couple weeks."

"I think it's going to come down to ball security first and taking care of the turnover battle," Thomas said. "Every possession is going to matter in this game, so we've got to be on top of what we're doing on both sides of the ball, and again, I think it comes down to the line of scrimmage. Can we get our running game going? Can we block them? Then, on the other side of the ball, it comes down to the line of scrimmage but also can we cover and can we tackle in space, which we've struggled with at times, and can we get better at that this week?"

Jefferson City and Hickman are scheduled to kick off on Friday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. in Columbia.