Two weeks in, and it's a battle at the top

For all practical purposes, we might as well be in the high school football preaseason right now. Under the Missouri state playoff format adopted almost two decades ago, Weeks 1-7 offer little more than message board material and roster shuffling. As playoff games, Weeks 8-10 are the ones that make or break a season.

But there's a field of contenders quickly pulling away from the rest of the pack, and Friday night was another step toward weeding out the field and giving a peek at which teams are likely to be the noisemakers when Week 8 comes along.

Among Southeast Missouri's 32 teams, 10 are unbeaten. Some are surprises, some not.

No surprise: North County, Caruthersville, Crystal City, Farmington, Charleston and Potosi are 2-0. They were all among the top 15 in our preseason SemoSportsWeb.com PowerPoll and, for the most part, have shown only a few blemishes through two weeks of wins.

But it's the undefeated surprise teams that could turn into the most-watched programs over the next five weeks leading into the playoffs.

For starters, Festus was among the top-tier preseason teams but faced a true wildcard Friday against Dexter. The outcome: Festus won 13-10 and jumped to 2-0.

New Madrid County Central was a heavy favorite in Week 1 against St. Pius X, but the Eagles faced bigger odds against Cape Girardeau Central. Outcome: NMCC won 32-30 and withstood a rally to be 2-0.

Malden shoved past Scott City in a Week 1 warmup, but Hayti was an early season SEMO South opponent that had us all dishing out predictions. But few of us predicted the onesided outcome: Malden 32, Hayti 14.

And the biggest surprise of all? Try Perryville, which added to Pacific's woeful losing streak in Week 1, then swarmed MAFC opponent DeSoto 24-6 on Friday. The upstart Pirates still face a handful of hurdles, but Friday's win could be a big boost for a team that, until this season, hadn't won since 2004.