The Shorter College football team has turned a lot of heads in Northwest Georgia over the past year, putting together a talented young team that finished 3-7 in its inaugural season in 2005.
Now, the Hawks are turning some heads on a national level.
Shorter added to its long list of program firsts on Monday, getting its first-ever NAIA national ranking. The Hawks broke into this week’s poll at No. 25, after receiving some votes for the first time in last week’s poll.
“This is really nice, and I’m really proud of our kids,” Shorter head coach Phil Jones said. “We’re grateful for the opportunity we have here at Shorter. It’s kind of unique for a team in just its second year to be ranked nationally, but our players and our coaches have worked extremely hard and they take a lot of pride in what they do.”
The Hawks, 4-1 overall and 1-0 in the Mid-South Conference’s Western Division, rolled past Campbellsville (Ky.) 38-17 this past weekend to pick up their first divisional win of the year.
This came just one week after Shorter knocked off previously ranked University of the Cumberlands, 27-7.
What makes the Hawks hot start all the more impressive is that Shorter has played four straight road games after opening the season with a home win over Brevard College at Barron Stadium.
“It’s exciting to finally be home,” Jones said, as the Hawks prepare to host Pikeville this Saturday at Barron at 1:30 p.m. “This is a week when we don’t need directions to get to the stadium.”
While Shorter’s national ranking is an accolade that is well-deserved by the team, Jones was quick to point out that achieving a ranking is not the end-all, be-all of the program for this season.
“We don’t want to lose sight of the bigger picture,” he said. “There is still so much work to do. The ironic thing is, when you look at the tapes, we feel like we can play even better than we have.”
So has Shorter changed its goals from the preseason?
Jones said no — the Hawks have had high goals all along.
“We felt like if we were going to be playing football in a conference, we wanted to set a tone for what direction we want to go,” he said. “So our guys have had the goal of winning our division and winning our conference.
“It’s a lofty goal, but that’s our objective,” he added. “In this conference, there are some tough games ahead, so we still want to work to be better.”
While Jones didn’t make it a priority to get noticed in the NAIA polls, he certainly is not shying away from the attention the Hawks are getting.
“After getting some wins, our guys feel like they can win every time out,” he said. “And any time you do anything, if you feel like you can accomplish it, it makes a big difference.
“This is an honor for our guys, and having some success can inspire you sometimes to play harder and practice harder.”
Shorter has six games left, with four of them at home. Starting with Saturday’s date with Pikeville, the Hawks are also at home on Oct. 14 (against Virginia-Wise), Oct. 26 (Cumberland University) and Nov. 4 (Belhaven).
| No Related links found |
