JACKSON, MO (WSIL) -- The Jackson Indians made their way to Jefferson City for the Missouri Class 5 football state championship on Friday. Great send off by the local community.
The Jackson Indians are in a championship state of mind. A chance to run the table and go 14-0 and claim the schools first ever football state championship.
The team left at about 1:45 PM Friday afternoon to make their way to Jefferson City.
The Indians take on Platte County, a team many experts didn't expect would advance to the title game.
In 1935 Jackson went undefeated, didn't allow a point. This group knows a win, will allow future teams to talk about them in the same special way.
"In a way it's kind of a trap like game in the fact that we were excited to maybe get the opportunity to play Carthage again and they got knocked out by Webb City and everybody in the world talks about Webb City and how special their program is and so our guys were excited to have a chance to play Webb City and then Platte County beats them and we have no history with Platte County but the one thing is for sure, they were good enough to beat Webb City and good enough to be in the championship game back to back years similar to us and I'm sure their motivation is going to be high because they didn't win the game last year so the motivation is their for us, Jackson Head Football Coach Brent Eckley said. "I don't sense any change in our kids from one week to the next and I feel they have been pretty static and they just continue to plug away and do their job and stick with the process."
"Just last year losing, it has inspired all of us to play in a different way and we've come back every week and practiced hard all week and the game comes and just leave it on the field," Jackson senior wide receiver Ty Moran said.
"It's just like you're on the field and when you're on the field you don't think about what happened last year, what happened last game, you are going to focus one game at a time and when you look up at those things it gives you more power more energy to go out there and do what you want to do, you have that background because you're an Indian," Jackson senior center Thomas Ruch said.
"The primary thing we've talked about and will continue to talk about is turnovers and our turnover margin," Eckley added. We feel if we can be positive there we can have a great chance to win and that's something, we want to value the football wherever it's at. It's going to be a really, really big part of the game in our opinion."
