Navarro loss changes juco bowl picture

Blinn College fired a shot heard around the world of junior college football Saturday afternoon when the No. 6 Buccaneers stunned No. 1 and previously unbeaten Navarro, 49-24, in the Southwest Junior College Football Conference championship game.

Instead of an anticipated battle between Navarro and No. 2 Snow (Utah) for the national championship, the NJCAA poll that will be released later today or Wednesday morning should have Snow in the No. 1 position and Butler moving up to No. 2. This means they will face each other in the Top of the Mountains Bowl in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Dec. 6 for the national championship.

And that is just the beginning of a domino effect that sees Fort Scott Community College's football team going from no bid at all to Minnesota to Texas, all in a period of eight days.

The Blinn Web site is reporting that No. 12 Fort Scott will be the Buccaneers' opponent in the Heart of Texas Bowl at Copperas Cove on Dec. 6. Blinn (9-2) received an automatic bid to the bowl when it beat Navarro.

Two weeks ago, Fort Scott (8-2) fell to Hutchinson in the semifinals of the Region VI Playoffs. At that time, FSCC head coach Jeff Sims didn't believe that a bowl game was in the Greyhounds' future.

But then the new North Star Bowl in Minnesota came into the picture. The first-year event is a doubleheader and needs four opponents for its two games. Initial word was that this bowl wanted Fort Scott. Later on, there was more information that suggested that the bowl was going to put the Greyhounds in its feature game -- and that the opponent would be Hutchinson.

Had this match-up come about, the Greyhounds would have been in Minnesota this weekend.

But then came the Blinn upset. And chaos has since ensued. Other than the Snow-Butler match up and the automatic bids, nothing seems assured.

First, No. 5 Harper (Ill.) was said to have elected out of its automatic bid to one of the games of the Graphic Edge Bowl doubleheader, presumably to face No. 8 Phoenix in the Valley of the Sun Bowl. Phoenix got a bid to that game as the team in Arizona with the best record.

That opened up another possibility for the 'Hounds as No. 17 Iowa Central -- which, as Midwest Football Conference-Western Division champion, would have faced MFC-East champ Harper in the Graphic Edge Bowl -- now needed an opponent.

No. 4 Georgia Military, which will most certainly move up to No. 3 in this week's poll, is said to be the opponent the new Mississippi Bowl would like to have face Mississippi Gulf Coast, the Mississippi champion and tied for No. 6 in the national rankings with Blinn.

If all of these scenarios bear out, then Fort Scott will face Blinn, Hutchinson could go to either Iowa or Minnesota and Navarro -- despite being No 1. for seven weeks, beating five ranked opponents and having only one loss -- may not have any bowl to go to at all.

This situation is so shaky that Fort Scott still hadn't officially released word on the bowl announcement itself even though a visit to the college by the Tribune brought forth information that any bid was expected to be official by 3 p.m. Monday.

It wouldn't be surprising to find out that there was still jockeying for bowl positions going on despite the fact that Blinn has already posted the information.

This would be the Greyhounds' second visit to the Heart of Texas Bowl in three years if, indeed, FSCC gets this bid. In 2006, the Greyhounds lost to Kilgore in that game. Kilgore received the automatic bid after making a stunning run through the SWJCFC playoffs after finishing the regular season with a record of just 3-6.

Also, former FSCC head coach and athletic director Jack Welch is the director of the Heart of Texas Bowl.