No. 13 EMCC set to travel to No. 10 Northwest for rematch of last year’s MACCC football championship

SCOOBA – At the midway point of the regular season, the 13^th-ranked and reigning MACCC football champion East Mississippi Community College Lions are set to travel to Senatobia for Thursday's rematch of last year's conference championship contest against the 10^th-ranked Rangers of Northwest Mississippi. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Ranger Stadium at Bobby Franklin Field.

A season ago, the then-No. 12 EMCC Lions avenged their 38-21 regular-season (Sept. 29) home setback to Northwest by upsetting the second-ranked Rangers, 36-28 in Senatobia, to claim their eighth conference football championship during a 14-year span.

Hitting the road for the first time since dropping the team's season opener, 23-20, at Copiah-Lincoln back on Sept. 7, this year's East Mississippi squad enters Week 5 with a 2-2 overall record and 1-0 MACCC North Division mark. The Lions rebounded with consecutive home victories over then-No. 4 Jones College (47-23) and Holmes (65-17) before falling, 42-17, to fourth-ranked Mississippi Gulf Coast a week ago to close out a three-game home stand.

Despite being limited to season-low team totals for points scored (17), passing yards (235) and total offense yards (352) by Gulf Coast last week, the EMCC Lions still rank second in NJCAA Division I football in passing yards per game (335.0 yds/gm), sixth in scoring offense (37.3 pts/gm), and seventh in total offense (441.5 yds/gm) for the season.

Individually for East Mississippi, two-time MACCC Offensive Player of the Week recipient Ty Keyes continues to top NJCAA Division I football with an average of 308.5 passing yards per game, along with ranking tied for third nationally with 13 touchdown passes on the year, despite being held to personal season-low marks in passing yards (168), pass completions (15) and passing touchdowns (1) a week ago by Gulf Coast.

Sophomore wide receiver Cam Wright remains Keyes' top target on the season, as the University of Memphis bounceback currently ranks fourth among NJCAA Division I players with an average of 5.8 catches per game and eighth nationally with 85.8 receiving yards an outing.

Guided by eighth-year head coach Benjy Parker, the Rangers of Northwest Mississippi are 3-1 overall on the season and 1-0 in MACCC North Division play after rebounding from their season-opening 49-14 loss at Mississippi Gulf Coast with consecutive non-division home wins over Hinds (19-3) and Pearl River (27-3). Last week, Northwest kicked off its division slate with a 38-13 victory at Itawamba.

EMCC head football coach Buddy Stephens, now in his 16^th year as head coach of the Lions, owns a 13-4 career record versus Northwest Mississippi dating back to the 2008 season, including conference championship wins over the Rangers last year and back-to-back during the 2016 and 2017 seasons. Previously, the Lions prevailed, 38-30, in the 2016 title game played in Scooba and then came back the following year to earn a memorable 67-66 double-overtime road triumph over Northwest during the 2017 championship contest played in Senatobia. Including last year's MACCC championship victory in Senatobia, Stephens' Lions are 8-1 against Northwest in road games since 2008. The Lions' lone road loss to the Rangers during the Stephens era came in 2017 when Northwest prevailed, 61-38, during the regular season prior to EMCC returning to Senatobia two months later and avenging the 23-point setback to repeat as conference champions.

This week's EMCC-NWCC gridiron matchup will mark the 14^th meeting in the past 16 seasons that both teams have been nationally ranked when going head-to-head, which includes 10 times when both teams owned top-10 rankings at game time.

Dating back to the 2008 football season, EMCC and Northwest have combined to claim each of the previous 15 MACCC North Division regular-season championships between them. The Lions have won 10 of those division titles, while the Rangers have earned the other five MACCC North crowns. Aided by the Lions' eight conference championships since 2009 and five national titles during an eight-year span (2011-18), EMCC and Northwest have also combined to account for 11 MACCC football championships in the last 14 years along with six NJCAA titles over the last 12 seasons. 

Thursday's rematch of last year's MACCC championship football game between EMCC and Northwest will be broadcast live by WFCA-FM (107.9), out of French Camp, with Jason Crowder and Glen Beard slated to provide the play-by-play and color commentary, respectively. Brad Logan is set to handle the sideline reporting duties. The game's live-streamed audio will also be carried by SuperTalk Mississippi (WZKR-FM 103.3), out of Meridian, as well as through EMCC's campus radio station, WGTC-FM (92.7), originating from the Golden Triangle campus in Mayhew. In addition, EMCC's weekly live video-streamed football broadcasts will be available in HD at emcclive.com. Alternate audio streams of the radio broadcasts are also available at wfca.fm.