CEDAR FALLS, IOWA — The National Junior College Athletics Association is set to cap an outstanding football season with No. 1-ranked Iowa Western taking on No. 2 Butler Community College in the 2012 NJCAA national championship game.
The Graphic Edge Bowl will host the matchup on Sunday at the UNI Dome on the University of Northern Iowa campus.
Butler is making its sixth trip to the national title game, where it is 3-2 overall. The Grizzlies’ last appearance came in 2010, when they fell 13-12 to No. 2 Navarro. Butler has claimed five outright national championships (1981, ’98, ’99, 2003 and ’08) and was named co-champions in 2007. The Grizzlies have a 14-9 record in their 23 bowl appearances.
Tyler Uselton, a 2012 graduate of Great Bend High School. is a freshman offensive lineman for the Grizzlies.
Uselton played in the prestigious Shrine Bowl last summer after establishing himself as a first-team All-Western Athletic Conference pick his senior year.
Despite being a relatively new football program, Iowa Western has quickly grown into one of the nation’s marquee teams. The Reivers are playing in their first ever national championship game and are making only their third bowl appearance after defeating Rochester 62-0 in the 2011 Graphic Edge Bowl and falling 48-36 to Snow in the 2010 Top of the Mountains Bowl.
This is the first time that the Graphic Edge Bowl has played host to the national title game. It has hosted two bowl games annually since 2002.
NJCAATV will broadcast the national championship game live over the internet through iHigh.com.