SENATOBIA – Championship Saturday is upon us as the #4 Northwest Mississippi Community College football team (9-1, 5-1) play host to the #5 Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Bulldogs with the Region 23 and MACCC Championship on the line at Bobby Franklin Field with kickoff scheduled for 2:00 PM.
The game is a rematch from 2024's MACCC semifinal where the Rangers came away with a narrow 33-31 win over Gulf Coast on the same field that Saturday's clash will take place in and is the seventh consecutive year the two sides have faced each other going back to the conference championship game in 2019. That game went the way of the Bulldogs 22-19.
In that six-year span, the two sides have been neck and neck with a slight 4-2 edge for NWCC in games. All time, the Rangers have a 23-26-2 record against Gulf Coast. The Rangers haven't seen that success translate to the postseason however where they have a 3-7-1 record against the Bulldogs, including a 2-2-1 record in title games.
The last time the two faced each other in a title game, Gulf Coast earned the 22-19 win in the 2019 edition, but the Rangers have won two of their national titles after title game matchups with MGCCC, including a 34-24 win in the 2015 season and a 7-7 draw in the title game of the 1982 season.
This year's battle will feature a pair of offenses that have been at the top of the conference all season long as both teams come in one-two in scoring. Gulf Coast has averaged 39.4 points per game on the year, and Northwest is right behind with 35.9.
Gulf Coast does hold an edge in passing yards per game with 323.8, but the Rangers were fourth in the conference with 222.2, but Northwest countered with 186.8 yards rushing per game while Gulf Coast was eighth in the MACCC with 158.1 yards per game.
Defensively, both teams were also relatively stout, but the Randers had the edge in total yards allowed and points allowed per game, leading the entire conference by only allowing 247.2 yards per game while the Bulldogs were fourth in standings with only 286.7 allowed per game.
Northwest was one of the top rushing defenses in the country, only giving up 46.0 which was tops in the MACCC and led the nation as well. MGCCC was 24th nationally in rushing defense giving up 133.3 yards per game but their passing defense was seventh in the nation only allowing 153.4 yards per game.
On the individual side, both teams have major impact players at the national level. For Gulf Coast, Landon Varnes leads the nation in passing yards per game with 308.2 and has thrown for 30 touchdowns which also leads the country. His 192 completions is second nationally and so is his 66.4 completion percentage. He is also first in pass efficiency with a 182 rating on the year.
On the other side of the coin, the Rangers have one of the top athletes nationally in Julius Pope who is 19th in the nation in rushing yards per game and averages 106 yards per game in all facets with 703 on the ground to date to go with 344 yards through the air. Pope is also tenth in the nation with 66 total points.
Gulf Coast does have a pair of scorers the Rangers will need to silence though. Tyler Henderson is tied for fifth in the nation with 72 total points on the year and Alan Woods has nine rushing touchdowns and his 54 points is 23rd in the country. Woods has also shown his versatility as an athlete with nearly 1100 yards of total offense himself.
For the Rangers, it is their eighth championship game sine 2015 and they have won seven of them, with the only loss during that time coming to Gulf Coast in the 2019 affair. All but one of those games have been under Head Coach Benjy Parker.
Saturday's game can be viewed online at nwccrangers.com/watch with the pregame show beginning at 1:30 pm. Tickets can be purchased at nwccrangers.com/tickets. Keep up with all of the action as well, by following Northwest on social media throughout the game.
