Iowa Western’s national championship peppered with Eastern Iowa flavor

COUNCIL BLUFFS — The football success at Iowa Western Community College can officially be termed a “dynasty.”

Iowa Western’s 28-10 victory over Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division-I national championship game Dec. 17 at Canyon, Texas gave the Reivers their third national title in four years and fourth in the 17-year history of the program.

A big part of the Iowa Western blueprint continues to be Eastern Iowa athletes.

“Iowa is so important to us,” Iowa Western Coach Scott Strohmeier told The Gazette. “There are a lot of really good football players in Iowa. The east side of the state has been really, really good to us. Getting those kids over here, there is good football, there is good high school coaching and some kids are coming over here ready to play. That pocket and the Des Moines area, we go all over the state, but those are our two biggest pockets of guys that we spend the most time in. We’ve had so much success with those guys coming here.”

The Iowa Western roster lists a dozen players from Eastern Iowa high schools, including Cedar Rapids Kennedy, Cedar Rapids Prairie, Clear Creek Amana, Iowa City Liberty and Iowa City West. No area high school, however, has more alums on the Reivers’ roster than Iowa City High, which touts a trio of redshirt freshmen in linebacker Oliver Kniss, defensive lineman Sam Kueter, receiver Jeremiah Madlock, plus freshman offensive lineman Dieme Lipanda.

“They are a program that is built to go in there and elevate from,” Iowa City High Coach Mitchell Moore said. “They have a really good process and understanding of, ‘This is what Year 1 looks like, this is what Year 2 looks like.’ They do a great job of following that plan and then there is exceptional talent. There really is. You look at that roster up and down and there is exceptional talent, so it gives you ample opportunity to get better and challenge yourself and go up against the best every day.”

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The continual frenzy of college football’s transfer portal — which allows student-athletes to switch schools without the penalty of sitting out a year — has resulted in less Division-I opportunities for high school athletes as programs supplement more of their roster with transfers. With fewer players going straight from high school to four-year institutions, JUCO programs like Iowa Western — where they can play for two years — can be an attractive option for players hoping to bolster Division-I dreams.

“I tell kids all the time, everybody’s dream in the state is to play at Iowa or Iowa State,” Strohmeier said. “Well, there are another 126 or 128 Division-I institutions and those schools don’t always recruit the state. … It just opens up doors. I always tell them, ‘You’re more of a national recruit now when you go the junior college route because some of those schools in Texas or Florida, they recruit their state and they are going to look for transfers across the country.’ That is really what it does. It just opens more doors.”

Any player that chooses Iowa Western is met with stiff competition. The program’s status as a national power attracts the best of the best JUCO players, both from the high school level and from former Division-I athletes looking for a fresh start.

“I heard a lot about, ‘It’s too hard, don’t do it, you’re going to be going through a lot,’” said Iowa Western sophomore linebacker Santana Miller, a former Iowa City West prep. “I thought about it and I was like, ‘Football is hard already, so I might as well try to get to the level I feel like I deserve.’ So I took the chance on myself in going to Iowa Western and I’m grateful I did that because a lot of people were telling me not to do it, that I would not make it out of here and it was too hard. But really, if you just put your head down and work and trust in God every day, it will take you to where you want to go. That’s all I did. Just head down working.”

After piling up 73 tackles with three defensive touchdowns at Iowa City West in 2023, Miller turned down an offer to play Division-II football for the opportunity to be developed at Iowa Western.

As a freshman, he split repetitions with more experienced linebackers. When given the opportunity for more playing time this season, Miller registered 53 tackles and spearheaded a grand defensive effort that shut out Hutchinson for the final three quarters of the national championship game.

Miller now has Division-I offers from North Alabama and Southeast Missouri.

“He has grown up so much,” Strohmeier said. “Not only as a football player, but as a young man. He would be the first to admit it. Talking to him after the national championship game, he stated what this place meant to him and he needed it to mature as a person and academically and on the football field.”

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Another player that benefited from betting on himself was sophomore receiver and Cedar Rapids Kennedy graduate Cyrus Courtney, who went from being the only receiver in Class 5A to surpass 1,000 receiving yards in 2023 — including one of the greatest single-game performances (17 receptions, 320 yards, three TDs) in Iowa high school football history — to not having much of a role as an Iowa Western freshman.

“Never complained,” Strohmeier said. “Just came to work.”

This past offseason, Courtney returned to Cedar Rapids to work with John Larkin of New Wave Performance. A slimmed-down physique led to a productive sophomore season with the Reivers, capped by a touchdown reception in the national championship game.

“It felt like a dream come true,” Courtney said. “The ball moving in slow motion, you catch it and it is in the biggest moment. It means different.”

Courtney has garnered a Division-I offer from Tennessee-Martin and Strohmeier calls him a “sleeper prospect” who should attract even more offers.

“I don’t want to say a ‘pleasant surprise’ because we knew he could play out of high school,” Strohmeier said. “But he improved so much from last year to this year to where he was our steady guy for every single game.”

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