America’s best Thanksgiving high school football rivalries

For more than a hundred years, high school football teams have played on Thanksgiving Day. Here are the nine best rivalries that stand a century since the beginning.

6. Show me the turkey

Kirkwood and Webster Groves is the only high school game in the state Missouri on Thanksgiving.  (Photo: Webster Groves Athletics)

Kirkwood vs. Webster Groves — There’s only one Thanksgiving Day game in the state of Missouri, and it’s contested between two suburban St. Louis rivals. There was a three-year spell from 2010-12 in which only junior varsity squads competed in the rivalry because of a playoff scheduling conflict, but the tradition has been revived. The winner earns the Frisco Bell, which was donated by the Frisco Railroad Company in the 1950s.

Kirkwood became the first school to capture both a state title and Turkey Bowl victory in the same year in 2016 with a 17-6 victory. The Pioneers fell early in the state playoffs in 2017, but rebounded for a 35-7 rout of Webster Groves. The 2018 contest, the sixth straight in the rivalry for Kirkwood, was a depressing coda for Webster Groves, as it dropped to 0-9 after a 75-34 loss.