The Hutchinson Community College football team jumped three spots to No. 11 in the latest NJCAA poll released on Tuesday.

Hutchinson defeated Dodge City 45-10 on Saturday to move to 3-1 overall and 3-0 in the Jayhawk Conference. The Blue Dragons are the highest ranked one-loss team in this week’s poll, which took a major shift from last week.

The Blue Dragons started the season ranked No. 10 and spent two weeks at No. 14 before this week’s move upward. The latest ranking marks the 32nd-consecutive poll and the 41st time in the last 43 polls that the Blue Dragons have appeared in.

Hutchinson has a bye this week before closing out the month of September on Sept. 29 in a 1 p.m. game at Highland.

The NJCAA introduced something new to the poll this week that caused dramatic shifts throughout the poll.

For the first time the NJCAA used as a portion of configuring this week’s poll used a computer rankings program that counts for 33 percent of the poll. The other 67 percent derived from the usual human vote.

Despite winning its first three games, defending national champion and preseason No. 1 pick East Mississippi fell from first to fourth this week, despite getting eight of the nine first-place votes. Iowa Western went from fifth to second, while Butler dropped from second to third.

Mississippi Gulf Coast is the new No. 1 team after being ranked No. 4 last week.

Hutchinson and Butler are the only Jayhawk Conference teams ranked this week.

(HCC Sports Information)

NJCAA FOOTBALL POLL           Record    Pts    Last Week
1. Mississippi Gulf Coast CC            3-0      187.5       4
2. Iowa Western CC                        4-0       185.0       5
3. Butler CC (1)                               4-0      182           2
4. East Mississippi CC (8)                3-0      175          1
5. Arizona Western College              2-0      137.5       5
6. Northwest Mississippi CC             2-0      137         10
7. Nassau CC                                  3-0      133.5       13
8. Navarro College                            3-0      132           7
9. Scottsdale CC                              3-0     130         18
10. Kilgore College                           3-0      128         19
11. Hutchinson CC                          3-1        74         14
12. Itawamba CC                              3-0       72          20
13. Snow College                             3-1        66         15
14. Northeastern Oklahoma A&M       3-0       64.5       NR
15. Louisburg College                        5-0       59.5       NR
16. Hinds CC                                    2-1       57.0       6
17. Lackawanna College                    3-0       55.5       NR
18. Minnesota West CTC                   4-0       31.5       NR
19. Eastern Arizona College               2-1       29          8
20. ASA College                               3-0       24.5       NR
   Others receiving votes: Tyler Junior College (2-1); Georgia Military College (2-1); Ridgewater College (4-0); College of DuPage (2-1); Rochester CTC (3-1); Dean College (2-1); New Mexico Military Institute (3-1).