FINAL NJCAA POLL OUT | KC gets top-five finish

Kilgore College’s football program had one of its highest finishes ever in the NJCAA’s final postseason football rankings following the 2023 season.

No, the final game did not go the Rangers’ way – they fell in their last game at Iowa Western, 47-7 – but the Rangers were in the national semifinals, one of the top four teams in the nation in the tournament to decide the national championship, the number three seed.

Coach Willie Gooden’s Rangers wound up fifth in the nation in the final rankings, which went this way:

1. Iowa Western, who claimed its second straight NJCAA national championship. The Reivers finished 12-1 and bounced back from a loss in the final week of the regular season to Hutchinson (Kan.), to beat Kilgore College in the national semifinal, and then bounced East Mississippi in the national championship game on Dec. 13 at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Ark.
2. East Mississippi Community College. “Last Chance U,” as EMCC is called now, because of the program’s appearance on the “Netflix” series of the same name, upset then-No. 1 Hutch in the national semifinal round, reaching the title game, finished second in the final poll.
3. Hutchinson (Kan.), finished third, its only loss coming to EMCC in the semifinal. Hutch also, as mentioned, is the only school all season to beat Iowa Western.
4. Copiah-Lincoln (Mississippi), who reached the Mississippi championship ranked No. 4 in the country and was upset by EMCC, or might have made the semifinals. They jumped KC somehow in the final rankings. Copiah-Lincoln finished the season with a 10-2 record.
5. Kilgore College finished up with a 9-2 overall mark, the Southwest Junior College Football Conference champions, beat every single team in the conference (including Navarro, who dealt them their only conference loss), beat Tyler twice, and made it to the national tournament in just the second year of that format.
6. Dodge City Community College (Kan.), who finished 8-3 in the tough Jayhawk Conference.
7. Iowa Central (7-4).
8. Mississippi Gulf Coast (8-2).
9. Snow College (Utah, 9-3).
10. Trinity Valley (7-3).
11. Georgia Military (7-4).
12. Navarro (6-5).
13. Northwest Mississippi (7-3)
14. Lackawanna College (Penn., 7-3)
15. Highland Community College (Kan., 6-5)

Receiving votes: Northeast Mississippi, Tyler Junior College, New Mexico Military.

Kilgore College finished the season 9-3, reached the final four teams in the national semifinal for the NJCAA national championship tournament, and wound up ranked fifth in the nation in the NJCAA’s national poll. (File photo by EMMA WILEY – ETBLITZ.COM)