KJCCC claims top three spots

For the fourth time in five weeks, there is a new No. 1 team in the National Junior College Athletic Association/jcfootball.com poll after former chart topper Mississippi Gulf Coast suffered a 30-27 overtime loss to unranked Pearl River Thursday night.

Gulf Coast's loss allows Butler, Hutchinson and Coffeyville all to move up one spot. All three are Jayhawk Conference members, undefeated and are ranked in that order. Fourth is undefeated Iowa Western, which is in just its second season of football, while Navarro moves up two spots to No. 5 after beating Blinn last week by a score of 9-3.

Butler (6-0) defeated Garden City in Jayhawk Conference play last week while Hutchinson (5-0) beat Fort Scott in another conference game and Coffeyville (5-0) got by a tough Air Force Prep squad, 32-23, at Coffeyville. Iowa Western (6-0) beat the College of DuPage, 30-6, in a Midwestern Football Conference game. Navarro is 4-1 with its only loss coming to Butler in each team's first game of the season. Blinn, which was No. 1 in the pre-season poll, fell to 3-2 on the season and No. 19 in the poll.

According to an NJCAA press release, this is the first time teams from the same conference have been in the top three positions since the Oct. 1, 1991 poll. That week, Navarro, Kilgore and Northeastern Oklahoma A&M of the Southwest Junior College Football Conference were ranked 1, 2 and 3.

Hutchinson's No. 2 ranking is the highest for the program since occupying the No. 1 spot for a time in 1970. The Blue Dragons are 5-0 for the first time since 1969. Coffeyville hasn't been ranked this high since the Red Ravens were at No. 2 in the fifth poll of the 2005 season.

With this poll, a 17-week run ended in which Blinn, Navarro and Butler were all in the top 10. Navarro and Butler have been in the top 10 together for 18 consecutive weeks.

Glendale (Ariz.) is at No. 6 with its 5-0 record. It currently has the nation's longest winning streak at eight going back to last season. Northwest Mississippi is No. 7 at 5-0 followed by Grand Rapids (5-1) at No. 8, Arizona Western (3-1) a former No. 1 until it lost to Glendale three weeks ago, at No. 9 and Copiah-Lincoln (Miss.), one of four Mississippi teams in the poll at No. 10 with a 5-0 record.

Ellsworth (5-1) is No. 11 followed by Pearl River (4-1), which was rewarded for its upset of Gulf Coast by being included in the poll for the first time this season. Gulf Coast (4-1) dropped from the top perch all the way down to No. 13. Central Lakes (Minn.) is No. 14 at 6-0 followed by Georgia Military at No. 15.

Snow (Utah) is 16th at 4-1 with Nassau (N.Y.) at 17 and Cisco (Texas) at 18, then Blinn and then ASA of Brooklyn at No. 20 with a 4-1 mark. Nassau and Cisco are the last two undefeated teams in the poll.

Only two games this week will pair ranked teams against each other. Glendale will visit Snow in a game that could determine which takes the Western States Football League crown. The WSFL does not conduct playoffs. Also, Copiah-Lincoln will play host to Pearl River .

This week in the Jayhawk Conference, Butler will be at home against Independence, Hutchinson goes on the road to visit winless Dodge City, Coffeyville will go to Highland and Air Force Prep will face Fort Scott at Frary Field. Garden City has the bye.

The final three weeks of the KJCCC regular season will see the three ranked teams face each other in what amounts to a round-robin playoff for the conference title. Butler goes to Coffeyville on Oct. 16. Hutchinson will play at Butler on the 23rd and Coffeyville will be at Hutchinson on the 30th.

First-place votes in parenthesis.

"Next game" is this Saturday unless noted.