No. 15 Indians hit the road in NJCAA Game of the Week

No. 15 Indians hit the road in NJCAA Game of the Week
Adam Gore/LetsGoICC.com

FULTON, MS – Itawamba Community College will hit the road for the first time this season as they travel to Summit to take on Southwest Mississippi Community College in the Bears' home opener in a game that has drawn national attention after being named the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Game of the Week.

"It's a great honor to be recognized in this capacity by the NJCAA," said ICC head football coach Jon Williams. "I'm expecting Thursday night to be a battle from start to finish and hopefully we will be on the positive side of the score at the end of the night."

The Bears (1-0; 0-0 MACJC South) opened the season with a 19-15 come-from-behind victory at Northwest Mississippi Community College (0-1; 0-0 MACJC North) on a 71-yard interception returned for a touchdown by Tim Lewis.

"It's a big confidence boost anytime you can go on the road and get a win in this league," Williams said. "Southwest showed a lot heart and desire to win after going down 15-0 and being able to score 19-unanswered points to get a win at a place like Northwest where wins are tough to come by."

Southwest had 237 yards of total offense (89 passing; 148 rushing) with Chris Jones leading the way with 114 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries.

"I expect to see a much improved offense take the field Thursday night," said Williams. "They had a few mental break downs, but they were able to fight through those and play with a lot of intensity when they could have easily shut it down. That shows the great coaching staff they have at Southwest and you have to really respect a team that is going to give you everything they've got until the final horn sounds."

Defensively, the Bears gave up 366 total offensive yards (193 passing; 173 rushing) to Northwest.

"They nearly had three guys with double digits tackles and had nine tackles for loss with a couple of sacks and the big interception return to win the game," Williams commented. "We are going to have to protect the football and win the battle up front if we want to be successful and hope to come away with a win Thursday night."

Williams thinks special teams could be a deciding factor in the final outcome of Thursday's game.

"They have a really good special teams unit," Williams said. "One player broke off a 45-yard kickoff return and their punter did a great job making Northwest work with a long field all night long. Whichever team can consistently win the battle of field position will have the upper hand in the game."

Last season, ICC defeated Southwest 22-10 in the Indians' home opener at Eaton Field.

"Last year's outcome means nothing this season," commented Williams. "We approach each week as if we are 0-0 and all we are worried about is being 1-0 at the end of the week. We are excited about preparing for a long road trip to take on a very good football team out of the extremely tough South Division."

Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. and can be heard on WAFM 95.7 FM (Amory) as well as fm95radio.com and can been seen streaming live on njcaatv.com/iccathletics starting at 6:40 from John I. Hurst Stadium.

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