JACKSONVILLE, Ala. — As the Gamecocks celebrated a mythical conference title, the Colonels could only contemplate just how a championship and a historic three-decade streak of success slipped away in the final month of the season.

“We had a good game plan,” Eastern Kentucky University senior linebacker Jake Tamaska said after his team’s season-ending loss to Jacksonville State on Saturday. “We had a good week of practice. We were executing, but a couple of things didn’t go our way and a couple of things went their way.”

Indeed.

Even after a shocking late-season slide, EKU still had a shot at a third-straight Ohio Valley Conference championship heading into a showdown with the Gamecocks.

And the Colonels did put together one of their best all-around performances of the season, but still it wasn’t enough to clinch a title or to salvage an extremely disappointing season.

Senior standout quarterback Ryan Perrilloux ran for a touchdown and rushed for another TD as the Gamecocks scored 10 fourth-quarter points and held on for a 34-26 win.

With the loss, the Colonels (5-6) finish the season with a losing record for the first time since 1972. EKU had posted 31 straight winning seasons, the second-longest current streak among Division I schools.

“We didn’t lose the streak here today,” EKU coach Dean Hood said. “We lost it losing to Tennessee State, Western Carolina and Austin Peay in games we should have won.”

Jacksonville State finishes the season with the best record (8-3, 6-1) in the OVC. However, the school is ineligible for the championship or the league’s automatic bid to the FCS Playoffs because of NCAA-imposed academic sanctions.

Eastern Illinois (8-3, 6-2) takes the official title, still, that didn’t stop the Gamecocks from holding up a handmade sign that declared them the ‘real OVC champs’ in a raucous postgame on-field celebration.

“We’re the champs,” Perrilloux said in a television interview after the game.

The Colonels had lost three of their past four games prior to the regular-season finale, but they jumped on top early against the Gamecocks and led three times in the first half. Garnett Phelps and Shannon Davis each had touchdown catches as EKU took a 17-14 lead with 2:28 left in the second quarter. JSU’s Calvin Middleton scored on a six-yard run moments later and with Logan O’Connor’s second field goal of the first half, JSU allowed EKU to go into halftime down just 21-20.

“We had an eight-play script that we worked on (to start the game), but we had to get away from it a few times because on the first play we almost took it to the house,” Hood said. “The script was to have a lot of motion and stuff they had never seen before just because of how big and athletic they are. That really helped a lot.”

The Colonels finished the first half with more than 300 yards of offense, more than they had the entire game last week in a humbling loss at home to Western Carolina.

“It was pretty much a shootout,” EKU senior offensive lineman Derek Hardman said. “They have a great team, but we went out and played one of our best games (of the season).”

The Gamecocks got a 20-yard field goal late in the third quarter to extend their lead to 24-20. Perrilloux, a transfer from LSU, then engineered a 10-play, 62-yard drive that he capped with a 15-yard pass to Ryan Bonner early in the fourth quarter.

The senior quarterback was 13-of-24 for 191 yards and rushed for a team-high 115 yards on nine carries.

“He’s a good player, but he didn’t beat us,” Tamaska said of Perrilloux. “We missed a couple of tackles. He didn’t beat us. We beat ourselves. He didn’t do anything special out there.”

The Colonels battled back, getting a 1-yard TD run from senior running back C.J. Walker with 8:04 left in the final quarter. After the two-point conversion failed, EKU trailed 31-26.

JSU added another field goal with 3:31 left, but the Colonels had one last shot.

After a 10-play, 65-yard drive moved the ball to the Gamecocks’ 25-yard line, an EKU fumble with less than a minute left all but ended the game.

“We really played well enough on offense to win the game,” Hood said.

The Colonels finished with a season-high 501 yards of offense, including a season-high 284 yards rushing. Freshman quarterback T.J. Pryor was 18-of-30 for 252 yards and two scores, while Walker had a season-best 133 yards rushing and Cody Watts had seven catches for 87 yards.

Middleton had 98 yards rushing and two scores of JSU.

After the loss, Hood tried to the keep the loss and the losing season in perspective when he addressed his players.

“It’s like I told them in the locker room, the (streak and our record) doesn’t define us as men,” the second-year coach said. “If you attach your self-worth to an athletic endeavor or a job, then you are making a mistake. Your self-worth as a man is defined by how hard you work. Are you honest? Are you a good dad? Are you unselfish? Are you a good husband? Those are the things you attach your self-worth to.”