Sports
Jacks football team headed to bowl game on Dec. 7
Tyler Ohmann
11/19/2013
Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB) has been a buzz this past week with two big pieces of news for the college’s football team.
The Jacks football program, which recently finished their fifth regular season with a program best 8-2 record, has recently learned that they will be playing in a bowl game this season and that they have been accepted into a conference for the 2014 season.
This was all announced at a press conference held at 1:30 p.m. on the DCB campus yesterday afternoon.
First the Jacks were invited to participate in the Salt City Bowl at 1:07 p.m. on Dec. 7 in Hutchinson, Kan. It is the first postseason game in the program’s history and they will play the host Hutchinson Community College (HCC).
“I don’t think we envisioned being in a playoff game or a bowl game this early,” said DCB athletic director Scott Johnson. “It’s exciting, and if you talk to the football players they’re walking about three feet in the air right now, because they’re happy about what they’ve accomplished.”
HCC finished the season with a 7-4 record and were ranked No. 18 to finish the season. This is the fifth straight bowl appearance.
“We’re going to play an excellent team down there, the best team we’ve played by far,” said Jacks football head coach Tim Pfeifer. “They’ll probably be bigger, they’ll probably be better and they’ll probably be faster than us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go down there and compete and do the best we can.”
“We’re just happy to be playing again, and if you’re playing at this time of the year, that means you’re having a good year,” Pfeifer added.
Another big piece of news for the football team is their acceptance into the Minnesota College Athletic Conference (MCAC) to begin in the fall of 2014.
“It’s a pretty big deal for us, and we’ve waited over five years for this,” Johnson said. “The dreams that we’ve had, we’ll have the opportunity for that now.”
The Jacks will play eight conference games, four at home and four away, and the top four teams from each division will have the opportunity to host or play in conference playoffs.
Another big opportunity is that players will be eligible for conference awards, something they haven’t had in the previous five years.
“When the football program was designed, it was designed to play against Division III or non-scholarship schools,” Johnson said. “For the first five years we didn’t get to do that, and now all of a sudden, we’ll get that opportunity.”
DCB Dean Ken Grosz is thankful for the community support that has led to the quick success of the football program.
“I think we’ve come full circle in our football program from starting a football program, to getting a conference affiliation and being a successful program,” Grosz said. “That’s all happened this year, and congratulations to the football team and their great year, and looking forward to this as the year that we kick things off to have a successful program year in and year out.”
DCB Hockey team will be honoring Coach Pfeifer and the Jacks Football team before there game on Friday Nov.22 against South Dakota State. The ceremony will take place before the puck drops at 7:30 p.m. at the Lumberdome.