Greyhounds picked to finish 7th

Fort Scott Community College's football team was voted to finish seventh place when the Jayhawk Conference coaches' poll was released at a media conference in Wichita Friday afternoon.

The Greyhounds will begin their fourth year under head coach Curtis Horton at Frary Field on Aug. 30 with a 1 p.m. kickoff against Iowa Central, one of three games against team from Iowa this season.

Butler, which has won the regular-season and playoff championships each of the last four seasons, was picked on top again this season followed by Hutchinson, Dodge City and Coffeyville. Highland and Garden City tied for fifth place in the voting followed by Fort Scott and Independence.

Each of the eight teams in the Jayhawk Conference will play the three Iowa football-playing schools this season under a scheduling agreement that replaces the opening-week series against schools from the Southwest Junior College Football Conference that was held from 2006 through last season. This results in an 10-game schedule over 11 weeks. Some schools have chosen to fill the bye week with another non-conference opponent to make an 11-game schedule.

Fort Scott will play 10 games over 10 weeks and sit out the final week of the season on Nov. 8. The Greyhounds, 1-6 in the conference and 2-7 overall last season, begin and end the season with Iowa schools at home. In fact, they get all three Iowa teams at home, hosting Ellsworth on Oct. 11 and Iowa Western on Nov. 1.

Fort Scott's first conference game will be at Hutchinson on Sept. 6. The first home conference contest will be Sept. 13 against Coffeyville.

The 11-week schedule also brings an end to the Region VI Playoffs, which began in 1981. Butler won 13 of the last 16 playoff championships.

Going from the bottom of the poll up, Independence (1-6, 2-7) will bring back seven starters from last-season's last-place team. Four of those will be on defense. The Pirates will be playing home games at an upgraded Emmott Field, which has remodeled locker rooms, a video board and FieldTurf.

Fort Scott will bring back seven returning players on both offense and defense. But the Greyhounds will have a tough early stretch in their schedule going up against Iowa Central (6-5 last season), Hutch (5-2, 8-4), Coffeyville (3-4, 4-5) and Butler (6-1, 9-2).

Highland (5-2, 6-4) has a new head coach as Ryan Held parlayed a fourth-place finish and a playoff berth into a new position at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in Miami. Aaron Arnold takes over a squad which has four returning starters on offense but none on defense.

Garden City (2-5, 2-8) went to the Football Capital of Kansas Bowl last season despite its record, which was the result of having to forfeit several early-season games. The Broncbusters, who will open a new facility this season, bring back 23 letterwinners, 12 of them on defense, for head coach Matt Miller.

Coffeyville's third-season head coach, Aaron Flores, has made major changes to his coaching staff after a fifth-place finish last season. The Red Ravens will be led by a strong sophomore class.

Gary Thomas led Dodge City (5-2, 6-4) to a second-place finish last season. The Conquistadors finished 19th in the final regular-season poll after losing to No. 4 Scottsdale in the Valley of the Sun Bowl. In contrast to Coffeyville, the Conqs will need production from many freshmen this season.

Hutchinson's Rion Rhoades saw his Blue Dragons win their fifth consecutive Salt City Bowl last season -- they were the only KJCCC team to win their bowl game. Hutch finished 17th in the final poll last season.

Butler brings back two starters on each side of the ball but Troy Morrell also has 13 offensive letterman and 9 defensive letterwinners returning to a squad which finished No. 6 in the NJCAA poll after a loss to No. 2 Iowa Western in the Graphic Edge Bowl.

Iowa Western's head coach, Scott Strohmieier, was also in attendance. IWCC has only had football for five seasons but won the NJCAA National Championship in 2012 and finished second last season. His team brings back seven starters and 26 lettermen, the majority of each on offense. The Reivers finished 11-1 last season.

Iowa Western -- which has never had a losing season -- was last season's Midwest Football Conference champion with an 8-0 conference mark and an 11-1 overall record. The Reivers were followed by College of Dupage (Ill.) at 6-2, 7-4, Iowa Central at 3-5, 6-5, North Dakota Science, 2-6, 3-7, and Ellsworth, 1-7, 2-8.

The scheduling alliance brings about an end of the MFC as there are not enough dates on the schedule for each of the three Iowa teams to play each of the eight KJCCC schools, each other and their former conference foes, NDS and DuPage.