SCOOBA — For the fourth time in the last five years, East Mississippi Community College will kick off the upcoming football season as the nation’s No. 1 team in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Preseason Top 20 Rankings, as announced this week by the national office headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Dating back to their first of three national championships claimed during a recent four-year span (2011-14), head coach Buddy Stephens’ EMCC Lions were previously tabbed as the NJCAA’s top-ranked football team in the 2012, 2014 and 2015 preseason polls on the heels of national championship seasons. The Lions will enter this year’s slate having won 52 of their last 55 games spanning back to 2011, including separate winning streaks of 25 and 20 consecutive games.

Including preseason and final rankings as determined by the NJCAA, EMCC has now been ranked in 67 consecutive NJCAA football polls dating back to the team’s 2011 national championship season. For the past five years heading into this season, the Lions have stood among the NJCAA’s top 10 teams in 54 of the last 56 regular-season polls, including 42 weeks ranked among the nation’s top five squads.

Since Stephens’ first year (2008) at the East Mississippi Community College football helm, the Lions have been represented in the NJCAA’s weekly football poll 85 percent of the time over the past eight seasons combined. Included among EMCC’s 76 weeks (out of 89 total weeks) of being listed among the NJCAA’s football national rankings have been 65 weeks (73 percent) ranked among the top 10 and 45 weeks (51 percent) within the top five nationally.

With the three national championships, four MACJC State/NJCAA Region 23 titles and seven MACJC North Division regular-season crowns, EMCC’s Stephens owns the highest career winning percentage among all active NJCAA football coaches with an eight-year coaching mark of 76-11 (.874), including a 45-3 (.938) regular-season record against MACJC North Division opponents.  

This year’s EMCC squad will open the upcoming campaign with consecutive road games against Jones County (Sept. 1) and preseason fourth-ranked Mississippi Gulf Coast (Sept. 8) before beginning MACJC North Division action by playing host to Northeast Mississippi, Sept. 15, at Sullivan-Windham Field on the Scooba campus.

Along with EMCC and MGCCC, the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges (MACJC) was also represented in this year’s NJCAA preseason football rankings by Copiah-Lincoln (No. 7), reigning NJCAA champion Northwest Mississippi (No. 10) and Hinds (No. 19).

Snow and Trinity Valley secured the second and third slots, respectively, in the NJCAA’s preseason poll, while Butler (No. 5), Iowa Western (No. 6), Dodge City (No. 8) and Navarro (No. 9) rounded out the top 10 nationally.