While Oxford, Mississippi is the epicenter of the college football world this weekend, with Ole Miss set to host its former head coach Lane Kiffin and LSU on Saturday night, the town is also home to a defending national champion in football.
Flag football, that is.
The Ole Miss Special Olympics College Flag Football Club represented the state of Mississippi over the summer at the Special Olympics in Minneapolis and, well, "Hotty Toddy," the Rebels won the whole darn thing.
Gold medal and all.
Pretty sure that makes this group of football Rebels the most decorated on campus.
"Hopefully, they (the football team) see us and they’re like, ‘Well, we’ve got to go get a national championship now," Ole Miss senior Jason Skocy said with a smile.
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Skocy is a center for the flag football team, which is comprised of Ole Miss students like Skocy, who are called partners, along with local and regional individuals with intellectual disabilities. They are called athletes.
Flag football in this category is played 5-on-5, and for each team, there are always 3 athletes to 2 partners on the field at all times.
Make no mistake, there might be flags instead of tackles, but this is still football.
There are playbooks, touchdowns, running, passing and players chasing each other all over the field.
"These kids have play cards on their arms, I call plays," said Hunter Crabbs, the intramural sports and sports clubs coordinator at Ole Miss who was one of the coaches of the gold medal flag team. "It’s a much smaller playbook than what we might be using on Saturday night ( against LSU ), but it’s a very similar process."
Abbreviated or not, something in the playbook is working.
After earning the right to represent the state of Mississippi at the Special Olympics by defeating a team from Mississippi State, the Rebels overcame all kinds of adversity in Minnesota to bring Mississippi its first-ever intercollegiate gold medal in flag football . They lost their first two games in Minneapolis, felt down in the dumps, but rallied to get to the championship game.
In that final game, against Iowa, one of the teams to tag an early loss on the Rebels in pool play, one key player for Ole Miss went down with a serious injury. The score was tight at the time.
But the Rebels dug deep again, and came away with the emotional victory. Chants of "Hotty Toddy" rang through the Ole Miss fan section and along the Ole Miss sideline.
"We were so excited, we were all jumping around," said 27-year-old Madison Dennis, an athlete who plays defense for the team. She is also the only woman on the team. "We honestly couldn’t believe it. It was awesome to bring home gold back to Ole Miss."
The Rebels brought back so much more than gold.
They brought back memories, and friendships, and confidence and self-esteem that had grown and blossomed.
"There’s a couple of our athletes who, going into this trip, I would have said they’re probably going to be maybe a little shy, maybe not want to interact with other teams," Skocy said. "I was completely wrong. They were out there, making friends, staying up, playing Xbox in the lobby. It was cool to see."
The team also took a trip to Mall of America, toured Minneapolis and went to a baseball game. There were also all kinds of fun activities in the athletes’ Olympic Village that kept the players busy.
For Dennis, making friends became just as important as chasing down quarterbacks, which she does with glee.
"Oh yes, I did that," Dennis smiled as she recalled her pursuits of opposing quarterbacks. "I just love flag football. And it has helped me build new friendships, different people that I would have never gotten to meet.
"And the partners, I like having them there to help us. That’s a pretty cool thing."
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The Rebels traveled with 9 players to Minnesota, but there are enough players in the Ole Miss intramural flag football program to make up at least six teams.
The team that won the national championship returns all of its players, and one highlight on this year’s schedule as the Rebels defend their national title is the annual Egg Bowl game against Mississippi State .
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"It’s a big one for us," Skocy said. "The Egg Bowl probably means just as much to us as the gold medal. That’s big on the calendar, so practices are going to rev up here in a little bit."
In the meantime, the flag football champs are revved up to cheer on their fellow Ole Miss football brethren in the big showdown Saturday night against LSU.
Last weekend, the football team honored the gold medal winners during a home game against Charlotte .
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"I don’t know what it sounded like to the rest of the stadium, but down there on the field, when the camera panned to the athletes, it sounded like the student section erupted and you would have thought that we just ran in a touchdown," Crabbs said. "They were cheering so loud for our athletes and partners and it was really awesome to observe.
"Our players, they’ve definitely become mini celebrities."