Matador Football grabs #1 spot in ‘Dirty 30’
Jim Howell
Jul. 15th, 2010
JCGridiron.com’s national preseason football poll puts AWC as tops in nation
Yuma, Arizona – July 15, 2010 -- Arizona Western College is proud to announce that for the first time ever, the Matadors’ football team is ranked first in JCGridiron.com’s national poll. The Matadors own the top spot in the 2010 ‘Dirty 30’ Preseason Rankings, and are one of only three Western States Football League teams to be mentioned in the poll. It’s the second time in as many years that the Matadors have earned a spot in a preseason national football poll, having been ranked 24th in the NJCAA Preseason Poll last year. The announcement comes just three weeks before the 2010 Matadors take the practice field for the first time in preparation of their August 28th season opener.
With the Matadors winning last year’s WSFL Championship Game, making their first postseason appearance in 11 years and finishing 7th in the NJCAA Final Poll last December, AWC Head Football Coach Tom Minnick fully expected that his 2010 squad would garner plenty of respect from the national polls. However, a #1 ranking even surprised the reigning WSFL/Region I Coach of the Year a bit, especially considering that unlike the NJCAA Preseason Poll, the JCGridiron.com poll also includes the strong base of talent from the California community colleges (who don’t belong to the NJCAA). Traditionally, the California schools fare very well in the ‘Dirty 30” poll and many times grab the top spot, but the Matadors jumped in front of California powers like El Camino (ranked 3rd), San Francisco (5th), Mt. San Antonio (7th) and Fullerton (9th) to grab the top spot for the first time since the poll came into existence five years ago. The Matadors also leapfrogged Texas power and defending national champion Blinn College, who placed 2nd in the poll; and the team that narrowly defeated AWC in the 2009 Mississippi Bowl, East Mississippi Community College, who are ranked 4th. The national preseason rankings are based on the combination of a program’s finishing mark from the year before, current recruiting class and number of experienced returners. The Matadors finished 2009 with a 9-2 record, the top spot in the WSFL and a #7 national ranking. They also have a total of 16 players who were part of the Matadors’ starting lineups in 2009 return for their sophomore campaigns, including ’09 WSFL Offensive Player of the Year Reggie Bullock, 1st Team All-Region defensive lineman Jesse Williams, Mats’ ’09 receiving yardage leader and 2nd Team All-Region I wideout Ge’shun (gee-SHAWN) Harris and fellow All-Region I 2nd Teamer and linebacker Maurice Alexander. Meanwhile, Minnick and his coaching staff are ecstatic about what they consider to be their best recruiting class yet since Minnick took over the reins of the Matador Football program in 2008.
The Matadors now wait to see how they’ll fare in the NJCAA Preseason Poll, which is expected to be released within the next two weeks. Besides AWC, the team that AWC bested to win the WSFL Championship, Snow College, is ranked 16th in the ‘Dirty 30’ poll, and Glendale Community College is one of ten teams that don’t own an official ranking but are listed in the ‘Others on the Bubble’ category. The Matadors will face both of those squads at the friendly confines of Veterans Memorial Stadium-the Mats’ home field-in 2010. The Glendale Gauchos will be the Matadors’ third opponent of the season as they come to Yuma on Saturday, September 18th; and the Snow Badgers will actually close out the home side of the Matadors’ schedule for an October 23rd rematch of last year’s WSFL title game.
