’Hounds tabbed last in grid coaches’ vote

WICHITA — There’s the defending national champions picked to repeat as Jayhawk Conference football champions. There’s Fort Scott Community College picked again to finish last. But everything in between suggests a major shake-up is underway in the conference.

Fort Scott (1-6 Jayhawk, 4-7 overall last season) has finished last each of the last two seasons and it’s been a while since the Greyhounds were picked to finish higher than seventh place. So it’s not certain what the prediction might have to do with how the coaches feel Kale Pick will perform in his rookie season as head coach. And of course, defending national champion Garden City (7-0, 11-0), which was so dominant that the Broncbusters clinched the conference title with two games to go on the KJCCC slate, is probably expected to perform even better under head coach Jeff Sims now that the 20-man out-of-state roster limit has been eliminated.

Jayhawk Conference teams can now have up to 85 players with no restrictions on where they’re from.

The rest of the poll, though, is somewhat stunning. Dodge City (4-3, 7-4) is picked to finish second, though that’s not too surprising as head coach Gary Thomas has supervised an improving program over the past couple of seasons.

Independence (4-3, 5-4) has been picked to finish third. Yes, Indy. Last season, then first-year head coach Jason Brown guided the Pirates to their first winning season since 1987. The producers of Last Chance U, a popular show on Netflix, took notice and have expressed interest in making Independence the subject of season three of that show.

Hutchinson (2-5, 3-6), which has had consecutive losing seasons under Rion Rhoades since winning the conference title in 2014, was tabbed for fourth place. Traditional national power Butler (4-3, 7-5) was chosen fifth followed by Highland (4-3, 7-4) in sixth and Coffeyville (2-5, 6-5) in seventh.

The changing of the guard may have been strongly indicated last season when four teams — Dodge, Highland, Butler, and Indy — finished tied for second place, each with three losses. This was the first time since 1988 that second-place finishers finished with more than two conference losses (Garden City, Butler and Indy tied with 3-3 records).

The conference season begins with two games on Thursday, Aug. 24. Highland will play at Dodge City and Ellsworth (Iowa) will travel to Garden City. The rest of the conference teams begin play Saturday, Aug. 26. Four games are on the docket including Fort Scott at Butler in El Dorado at 7 p.m.

Fort Scott’s home opener is against Independence at Frary Field at 7 p.m. Sept. 2. The Greyhounds, at this point, also have an odd glitch on their schedule as they have consecutive open weeks on Sept. 16 and 23.