LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Attaining perfection is one of the most difficult things anyone can do.
In the world of sports, there’s a certain level of prestige surrounding perfection, and in junior college football, East Mississippi Community College has been the poster child for that.
Of their five national championships won between 2011 and 2018, the Lions achieved a perfect 12-0 season four times. Not only that, but EMCC has never lost a national title game, going 5-0 in that span.
While this 2023 team won’t have the opportunity to finish with a perfect season, maintaining a perfect title-game record and a shot at history sits just 60 minutes away
“We grew a lot,” head coach Buddy Stephens said. “We’re fortunate that the guys stuck around mentally and stayed the course. The talent level that was there. The mentality that they had. They’re really stuck together and they’re a fun team to be around.”
The Lions (10-2) will face off against Iowa Western CC (11-1) in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division I football national championship game on Wednesday evening at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Ark., with a chance to go 6-0 in national title games and equal the most titles won by a single program in junior college football history.
After a half decade drought – the Lions last national championship was in 2018 – this year’s Lions began the season with one goal in mind.
“That was the main goal starting out in the summer to compete for a national championship,” quarterback Ty Keyes said. “We already had that mindset going in, but at the same time, we were just going to take it one game at a time because we know it’s tough to get to a national championship.”
To even get a chance to play for a national championship, EMCC has had to beat three-straight top-10 teams in Co-Lin, Mississippi Gulf Coast and most recently, No. 1 Hutchinson on the road in the NJCAA national semifinals.
That gauntlet would be daunting for most any team, but to face that in a make-or-break situation, with a loss keeping the Lions out of national-title contention, and then win out, is truly remarkable.
EMCC hasn’t just won, but it’s reclaimed that magic of the 2010s in the process, sparking belief amongst these players in the common goal set in the summer.
“We faced a lot of adversity in the regular season,” Keyes said. “We lost twice, but to me, I felt like that humbled us. It taught us don’t take the game for granted because it can be gone at any moment. Everyone came in after those weeks locked in.”
The Southern Miss transfer is no stranger to big moments, having won two state titles in high school, but Keyes has re-established himself as a big-time quarterback.
Accolades have poured in this entire season, and he enters Wednesday’s game as the leading passer in junior college football (3,089 yards) and leader in passing touchdowns (32).
EMCC was a place to re-focus on himself and his college goals, and he has responded in a big way, ready for the challenge ahead of him and confident in himself and his teammates.
“It’s amazing,” Keyes said. “I look back and think, ‘Man, we beat so many great teams and now, we’re going to compete for a national championship’ … We have a great gameplan. I feel like everyone is going to lay it on the line for each other.”
This matchup between the Lions and Reivers has history, including a 2014 national championship matchup won by the Lions, 34-17.
Iowa Western comes into Little Rock as the No. 2 national seed, one of the best all-around teams in juco football, with a top-10 defense and complementary offense that scored over 30 points per game.
The Reivers have revenge on their minds from a decade ago, but EMCC came to Little Rock on a business trip, looking to bring back some long-awaited hardware to Scooba.
“It’s been business as usual,” Stephens said. “This bunch is so much like some of the great teams that we’ve had, the national championship teams we’ve had. … They’re not through with the mission. They know that this is the next step.”
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