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Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I join Senator Boozman today in congratulating the Harding University Bisons from Searcy, AR, for winning their first ever Division II football championship against the Colorado School of Mines Orediggers in a decisive victory--38 to 7.

Going into last month's game, few could have predicted such a decisive outcome. Both teams were undefeated. While Harding had the No. 2 defense and the No. 3 offense in the country, the Orediggers had the No. 3 defense and the No. 2 offense. It was an evenly matched game if there has ever been one, but after the first quarter, the Bisons didn't let the Orediggers score a single point.

Time and again, the Harding defense stopped the Orediggers dead in their tracks, with Nathaniel Wallace making two out of the Bisons' six sacks and linebacker Clark Griffin making six tackles, including two for a loss.

The offense charged just as well as the defense stopped. Harding's offense ran for an impressive 502 yards, with running back Blake Delacruz rushing 212 yards for a championship record. Braden Jay added 161 yards on the ground and scored three out of the Bisons' five touchdowns, with Jhalen Spicer and quarterback Cole Keylon punching in the other two.

It was a game that players and their families will never forget, and it is a game that Harding University and Searcy, AR, also will never forget.

This championship victory is the culmination of years of hard work, dreaming, and especially prayer because, for those who don't know, Harding University is a small Christian college in the middle of our State, and Harding's Christian mission touches every part of the university, including the football program. In his pregame speech, Coach Paul Simmons told his players that ``the scoreboard doesn't matter'' and that the ``great cloud of witnesses'' around them ``just want to see you be excellent and do things in a way that really does honor God''--a great message from a great coach for a great team before a great game.

With this game, Coach Simmons has led the Bisons to 65 overall wins since 2017--the fastest accumulation of victories in Harding University's history.

I want to again congratulate Coach Simmons and his entire team for their extraordinary victory last month. I want to congratulate them for their even more extraordinary 15-and-0 season, in which they scored an average of nearly 47 points per game.

The Harding Bisons should be proud of their many accomplishments. The State of Arkansas certainly is.

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