Hunt for Dirty 30 title narrows

The regular season has finished and only a few weeks remain before we find out who wins the 13th annual JCGridiron.com Dirty 30 national title. Some saw their national title hopes disappear while others strengthened their cases.

The California playoffs are set and there wasn’t any real surprises. Fullerton remained the top seed in Southern California after finishing the regular season a perfect 10-0. The Hornets remain at No. 1 in the Dirty 30 and get No. 14 Saddleback in the opening round of the SoCal playoffs. The Gauchos are the only team to lead Fullerton after the first quarter of any game this season and always seem to give the Hornets some problems. The other game will feature No. 6 Ventura and No. 7 Riverside. RCC dropped four spots in the rankings after falling to No. 15 Mt. San Antonio College this past weekend on the final day of the regular season, but still qualified by way of tiebreaker after a three-way tie in their league.

Northern California has two solid matchups as No. 5 American River hosts No. 9 Laney while No. 11 San Mateo hosts No. 19 Siskiyous. Neither matchup features teams that have seen one-another this season but ARC has beaten both San Mateo and Siskiyous.

The NJCAA has got a hot mess on their hands. For one reason or another, East Mississippi moved up a few spots last week in the NJCAA rankings to the top spot, which rankled some of the people that were in front of them. They are the only program with no first place votes, but somehow garner the top spot in the rankings.

The Lions won an instant classic over the weekend against Northwest when they beat the Rangers 67-66 in double overtime. They rose to No. 4 in the Dirty 30 Rankings as a result. Iowa Western was the program that took it on the chin, dropping out of the NJCAA top spot all the way down to No. 3 despite winning convincingly in the previous week. With bowl matchups being announced this week the folks in Colorado have their work cut out for them. If EMCC remains No. 1, they aren’t likely to want to travel somewhere else with the Mississippi Bowl being located in their own state. The No. 2 team in the NJCAA rankings is Arizona Western, who hosts the El Toro Bowl. Iowa Western is still trying to figure out how they moved down, because they’d like to host a championship game in the Graphic Edge Bowl. Good luck folks!

At the end of the day, the JCGridiron.com Dirty 30 Rankings have Iowa Western at No. 2 in the nation, Arizona Western No. 3 and East Mississippi at No. 4.

Three conferences crowned champions this past weekend. The Minnesota ranks had an upset winner in Northland, who raced past Mesabi Range for a 68-35 win. The Jayhawk crowned Independence as the champions after they survived to beat Coffeyville, 27-22. Independence rose to No. 13 in the Dirty 30 Rankings as a result. Northeastern Oklahoma A&M captured the Southwest Junior College Football Conference title with a 26-10 win at Trinity Valley. The Golden Norsemen jump all the way up to No. 12 in the rankings and sit in a good position for a solid bowl game after winning their final eight games of the season.

The rest of the JCGridiron.com Dirty 30 Rankings follows.

Just a reminder, the Dirty 30 Rankings do not include games against prep schools or non-affiliated programs in the team records.