The East Mississippi Community College football team capped its 2011 season with a first national championship.
The ability of the 2012 squad to defend that title may come down to a computer.
The National Junior College Athletic Association approved sweeping changes last week to the format for its top 20 ranking system in football. Most years, the top two teams in the final NJCAA regular season poll meet in one of nine NJCAA-sanctioned bowl games for the national championship.
“This is going to be a really good thing for junior college football,” NJCAA Director of Communication Ben Pryor said. “Teams who play difficult schedules will be rewarded. This is another positive step toward a true national championship game.”
In December, EMCC defeated Arizona Western College 55-47 in the El Toro Bowl at Arizona Western College campus in Yuma, Ariz. The title game was a No. 1 versus No. 2 matchup, as the final regular-season poll had Arizona Western at No. 1 and EMCC at No. 2.
EMCC became the fifth of the state’s 14 football-playing NJCAA institutions to win a national championship. EMCC joined Mississippi Gulf Coast C.C. (1971, 1984 and 2007), Northwest Mississippi C.C. (1982 and 1992), Mississippi Delta C.C. (1993), and Pearl River C.C. (2004) in that elite company.
Still, EMCC would not have earned the title shot without help. It began the season No. 16 in the preseason rankings. The Lions moved to as high as No. 3 in the polls by the first week of October. A month followed with EMCC at No. 3 before a loss by then-No. 1 Blinn College opened the door for the Lions.
After that loss, EMCC moved up to No. 2 with a first-round state playoff win against Hinds C.C. EMCC held at second after defeating Gulf Coast to win the school’s second state championship in the past three seasons.
“You have to be fortunate to be in this position,” EMCC fourth-year coach Buddy Stephen said. “The margin for error is non-existent. You have to win your games, and sometimes you have to have help. Fortunately, we had the opportunity and took full advantage of it.”
In 2011, seven regional voters selected the NJCAA top 20. Under the new format, the poll committee will expand to nine. The new voters will be two head coaches chosen at random from selected conferences. The highest and lowest vote totals for each school will be omitted.
Once the human poll is tabulated, the Football Computer Rankings will be added to the equation. The FCR will be a computer program similar to the Division I’s Bowl Championship Series format. The FCR will be calculated with the following variables: winning percentage (50 percent), opponents winning percentage (25 percent), and opponents-opponents winning percentage (25 percent).
“The main benefit of this system will be strength of schedule,” Pryor said. “It should help to reduce regional bias. The teams who play more difficult schedules will be rewarded in the end.”
Mississippi junior college football is considered among the nation’s best. While the in-state schools play a nine-game in-state schedule, the reward for playing the in-state foes should be reflected in the new format.
“Each year it is a popularity contest for who makes the national championship game,” Hinds C.C. coach Gene Murphy said. “This is a very positive development for our state. We know how demanding the football is in our state. This should give the teams in our association an advantage.”
While winning all 12 games it played, the EMCC squad defeated six ranked last season. That win total was the largest among any team in the nation’s final top 10. Still, the Lions most likely needed the upset by Blinn to reach the national title stage.
No. 4 Grand Rapids C.C. was the nation’s only other undefeated team. The Raiders, who finished as the nation’s top non-scholarship team in 2005 and 2009, went 10-0 last season.
Football wasn’t the only sport where sweeping changes were approved.
The format for the NJCAA national championship tournaments also were altered. The men play annually in Hutchinson, Kan., while the women play annually in Salina, Kan.
Each tournament still will involve 24 teams. However, the previous format of six four-team regions has been scrapped. Instead, each tournament will include a 24-team, single-elimination format. The only consolation game will be for the third place prior to the national championship game.
Presently, 16 district champions earn automatic invitations to the national tournament. The other eight berths will be at-large ones. Each basketball committee approved policies on how at-large teams would be selected. For zone qualification, the current 16 districts were divided into four zones. Each year one zone, which is made up of four districts, will qualify a second team based on criteria determined by each district.
The EMCC men’s basketball team has won the past three Region XXIII championships and qualified for the national tournament. In 2012, the Lions placed No. 15 in the final regular-season poll and finished 23-6.
Under the new format, the national tournament will be seeded 1 through 24.
The NJCAA also voted to expand its national soccer championship tournament to 12 teams in the men’s and women’s division. The former national championship event included eight teams for each division.
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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