By STEVE CARPENTER
Blue Dragon Sports Information
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The 2020-21 Hutchinson Community College football team has already scratched one goal off the preseason wish list – a Jayhawk Conference championship.
Now the Blue Dragons get to go after the other coveted item on that list – to play for a national championship.
The NJCAA announced on Monday that the No. 1-ranked Blue Dragons (7-0) will play No. 2 Snow College (8-0) in the 2020-21 NJCAA Football Championship game. The game will be played at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Arkansas, at 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 5.
The game will be televised live on CBS Sports Network.
Tickets for the NJCAA Football National Championship presented by Bob McCloskey Insurance can be purchased online at https://www.njcaa.org/tickets. Tickets will range from $12 to $45.
The Blue Dragon Athletic Department is planning on a “Fan Bus” for the championship game. Details on the Fan Bus will be released later this week.
The Blue Dragons will play for a national championship for the first time in the program’s 89-year history. The highest final ranking the Blue Dragons have ever had in football was No. 3 after the 2019 season. The only other seasons the Blue Dragons finished undefeated were 1947 and 1969.
The championship game matchup will be the first between Hutchinson and Snow.
The Badgers will be looking for their second national title in football. Snow won the 1985 championship defeating NEO in the Mid-America Bowl. Snow also played in the 2008 national championship game and lost 37-30 in double overtime to Butler.
That was the first year that the NJCAA started designating bowl games as the national championship game. Then in 2018, the NJCAA created a game for the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the final poll to play for the national championship. In 2018 and 2019, those games were at Pittsburg State University’s Brandenburg Stadium.
Under first-year head coach Drew Dallas, the Blue Dragons rolled through the Jayhawk Conference for its first KJCCC title since 2014 and seventh in program history. Hutchinson outscored its opponents 334-80 this season.
The Blue Dragons own two dominant Top 10 victories this season. Hutchinson defeated then No. 3 (now No. 5) Garden City 23-7 on April 25. One week later, the Blue Dragons traveled to and defeated then No. 6 (now No. 7) Independence 42-24.
Snow opened the season with an impressive 31-30 victory at Iowa Western. The Badgers also own victories of 27-7 at Lackawanna, a 27-6 home win over ASA Miami and back-to-back wins in Iowa of 69-18 at Ellsworth and 48-14 at Iowa Central. Snow closed the season with a 77-0 win over Gordon’s Fine Arts and Sports Academy on May 15.
The Blue Dragons have gone wire-to-wire in the NJCAA Rankings this season. Hutchinson was the preseason No. 1 pick in the poll and did not drop during the regular season. The Blue Dragons and Snow were 1-2 in the final regular-season poll released on Monday. The remainder of the Top 5 was Cisco (7-0), Iowa Western (7-1) and Garden City (7-1).
Blue Dragon Football will be making its 23rd postseason appearance. The Blue Dragons are 13-7-2 in postseason games.
The Blue Dragons bid to become the first Jayhawk Conference team to win a national football title since Garden City in 2016. The Blue Dragons also seek to become the fifth KJCCC school to win a national championship (Butler 6, Coffeyville 3, Garden City 1, Fort Scott 1).
CLICK HERE to download the Hutch Post mobile app.
CLICK HERE to sign up for the daily Hutch Post email news update.