Yesterday I finished another great documentary series on Netflix called "Last Chance U". Now, Netflix has been known, at least in the past year or so, to put out very good documentary series. You need look no further than the excellent "Making A Murderer", which is coming back for a second season. That show was damn near perfection. Everyone I know loved it, and everyone has an opinion, as one should when watching documentaries. "Last chance U" does not have the same stakes, not even close, as "Making A Murderer", but it is still very, very good. I was turned on to this show by a buddy of mine that I work with. He too, is a big fan of college football, and he told me to check the show out. It took me some time to get around to it, but I'm glad I finally did.
All of you know by now that I'm a huge college football fan, and "Last Chance U" focuses on a junior college team in the state of Mississippi. The team is the East Mississippi Junior College Lions. The thing that makes this school "special" or "unique", they take on transfers from big time division 1 colleges, or kids that were stars in high school, but couldn't make the grades to play D-1 football. EMJC is also an absolute powerhouse, obviously. When you are getting guys from major D-1 programs to come to your junior college for 1 or 2 years, you should dominate. They won the last 2 NJCAA national titles, and the title games weren't even close. In fact, they have won 3 titles in the last 6 years. They are the Alabama of junior colleges.
I sat down to watch the show, and we first meet the head coach, Buddy Stephens. He is a big guy, that immediately commands your attention. He has a southern twang to his voice, but his voice is booming. He is a salesman, but he is a damn good one. He convinces these kids that still want to play football and move on to another D-1 school to come to the middle of nowhere Mississippi to play football. He is a legend in the town and a legend in the junior college ranks. He is one of the greatest junior college coaches of all time. Not to be outdone, his staff is equally great. His offensive and defensive coordinators have a ton of experience, and they coach the hell out of these kids. He also has great, some former pro and college football players, as positional coaches. This staff is much, much to good to be coaching junior college, but Buddy Stephens has convinced these guys that this is where they should, and want, to be.
After meeting the head coach and the staff, we start to meet the players. This is the best part of this mini series, the players. There's two QB's at EMJC. One, Jonathan Franklin, was a former D-1 QB at Florida State. He was a star in high school, and was highly recruited. He got to FSU and saw his playing time was non existent. He was a good enough student, but he was upset at his lack of playing time, so he transferred out to EMJC. But, he had to split time with the other QB, Wyatt Roberts. Roberts was smaller, not as fast, but had better accuracy, and was more coachable. Roberts is also your typical country boy. He could have went to a 4 year university, but he didn't want to end his football career after high school. He wanted to keep going. He also loves hunting and living close to home, that is why he chose EMJC. The skill position players are boiled down to two of the running backs. They have receivers and tight ends, but we don't hear too much from them. The 2 running backs though, DJ Law and Isiah Washington, we get to meet both of them, and get their stories. Washington is the back up to Law. He is a true freshman, with lighting speed and the ability to find a hole in the smallest crease. But, he is not a good student. He does not care about school, so major D-1 straight out of high school is out of the question. He has to go to junior college to up his grades before he can go play D-1. DJ Law is the starter at EMJC. He is big, fast, strong, quick, finds space, can catch out of the backfield and block. He is the total package, but he also loathes school. He coasted in high school because he was so good at football, but no one offered him a scholarship because his grades were terrible. He would skip school constantly and, when he was in class, he couldn't keep up, so he was destined for junior college.
Flipping over to the defensive side of the ball, they point out linebackers and some secondary guys, but the mini series mainly focuses on one of the 2 defensive lineman. That D lineman is Ronald Ollie. Ronald Ollie is a kid who grew up with no parents. His dad shot his mom and then took his own life. He had to live with his aunts and his sisters kind of became his adult supervision. Needless to say, he had a very, very tough upbringing. But, he was always bigger than everyone else, and he dominated on a football field. Like the majority of the players on EMJC, he did not do well in school. Going to class was the last thing on his mind. School was boring, and he only showed up so he could play football. Man, what a great football player he can be. He was so dominant on the D line. Quick feet, heavy hitter and explodes through the hole to blow up QB's or running backs.
After meeting all these people, we go through the 9 game season with them. We see the ups and the downs. Early in their season, they get beat for the first time in 26 games. We come to find out later that the team they played had an ineligible player. We also see them regroup after the loss and go on to destroy any opponent that comes their way. They win games by 3, 4 and sometimes 5 touchdowns. We also see injuries and skipping classes come into play. Ronald Ollie suffers a concussion and misses 3 games. This is a big deal for a junior college player, because scouts will forget about a guy out with injuries, and move on to the next player. DJ Law also hurts his knee. This makes him question if he still wants to play football, and he flat out stops going to class. With Law out though, we got to see Isiah Washington, and that kid is great. There is also the QB competition all season long. Roberts becomes the starter, shockingly, and he does an adequate job, until he gets hurt. When Roberts gets hurt, we get to see Jonathan Franklin shine. He goes for 6 TD's, 4 rushing and 2 passing, in the first half of a game that will eventually ruin EMJC's shot at a third straight title.
We can see this title shot getting ruined earlier in the mini series. A few players and Coach Stephens get suspended for fighting with officials. The problem with running up the score, that makes the opponents take late shots, but the guys winning are always the ones to get caught, or made example of. That's exactly what happened in their final regular season game. They were crushing a far inferior opponent, 48-0 in the first half. Coach Stephens called a timeout, to give Franklin another series before half, and this incited an all out brawl. There were fights, people stomping on other people, trash cans were thrown, helmets were used as weapons, it was bad. Being the powerhouse they were, EMJC was forced to call the game, and their season was deemed over before the playoffs started. This made everyone upset. Some kids questioned being at the school. Others, they just wanted to get out of there quick, with graduation being around the corner.
The interesting thing about this part though, the recruiting didn't stop there. There was still another episode that showed how recruiting still goes on, even when your season ends. Most of the kids did get D-1 or D-1AA scholarships. Ronald Ollie ended up at Nicholls State in Louisiana. DJ Law got his act together and his grades up, and he ended up at UAB. Wyatt Roberts refused to go D-2, so he retired from football and decided to attend Mississippi State as a student. Jonathan Franklin ended up singing with Auburn, thus being the kid who got the best scholarship offer. I believe he is still there playing right now too.
"Last Chance U" is a must watch for football fans. It shows you everything you could want to know about the life of student athletes. The ups, the downs, the coaches, the academics and academic advisers, it's all there. I really hope Netflix continues with this series because I will watch every season. The show ended, spoiler alert, but not really, with Coach Stephens out on the recruiting trail, so that gives me hope that they will do another season. I also want to see what happens with Isiah Washington, because he already has offers from FSU and Auburn, so imagine what a good sophomore season can do for him. This show is great, and I think a lot of people would enjoy it. I know I sure did.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He used to load up his NCAA Football rosters with juco transfers, and he was unstoppable. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.
