2018 NAIA football rankings


The 2018 NAIA football rankings reports the poll results conducted during the 2018 NAIA football season. Each season, one poll evaluates the various National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics football teams and ranks them. Coaches from each of the football conferences are members of a selection panel, with conferences receiving one vote for every 4 member teams. Sometimes referred to as the football ratings or the NAIA Coaches' Poll, the poll is generally conducted once during the preseason and after each week of play during the regular season.
The Top 25 is determined by compiling points for each vote. A team receives 25 points for each first-place vote, 24 for second-place and so on through the list. The highest and lowest ranking for each team are disregarded. To obtain the final tally, each team's ranking is recalculated with an additional point added to each team for every ballot that includes the team.
As an example, if there are 16 voting panelists, and one team is a unanimous choice for the highest ranking, then that team would receive 25 points * 14 ballots + 16 points = 366 points.
Teams that receive only one point in the ballot are not considered “receiving votes.”
Once the regular season is completed, the NAIA will conduct a playoff to determine the year's national champion. A final poll will be taken after completion of the series of playoff games, collectively referred to as the 2018 NAIA Football National Championship.

Poll release dates

The NAIA released a preseason edition of the rankings on August 6, 2018. A complete schedule of poll release dates will be:

Week by week poll

The postseason tournament

A 16-team tournament will be contested to determine the winner of the 2018 NAIA Football National Championship. Teams were selected to the field of participants through a two-tiered selection process. First, any conference champion ranked in the top 20 positions in the final regular-season Coaches' Poll received an automatic bid into the tourney field.
In 2018, the following 12 NAIA conferences had champions who were part of this selection process for the automatic invitations:
ConferenceDivision
Frontier Conference
Great Plains Athletic Conference
Heart of America Athletic ConferenceNorth
Heart of America Athletic ConferenceSouth
Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference
Mid-South ConferenceAppalachian
Mid-South ConferenceBluegrass
Mid-South ConferenceSun
Mid-States Football AssociationMideast
Mid-States Football AssociationMidwest
North Star Athletic Association
Sooner Athletic Conference

After the automatic bids were granted, any open positions in the field were filled with at-large invitations. These at-large entries were granted to the highest ranked teams who were not conference champions. Since there were 12 conference champions, a minimum of four at-large invitations could have been granted to play in the 2018 tournament.
Based on the Week 10 Coaches' Poll, the following teams made up the 2018 playoff field:
RankTeamConference/DivisionInvitation Type
1Morningside Great PlainsAutomatic - 1
2Marian Mid-States / MideastAutomatic - 2
3Bethel Mid-South / BluegrassAutomatic - 3
4Reinhardt Mid-South / AppalachianAutomatic - 4
5Northwestern Great PlainsAt-large - 1
6Kansas WesleyanKansas CollegiateAutomatic - 5
7Benedictine Heart of America / NorthAutomatic - 6
8Saint Francis Mid-States / MideastAt-large - 2
9Langston SoonerAutomatic - 7
10Grand View Heart of America / NorthAt-large - 3
11Cumberlands Mid-South / AppalachianAt-large - 4
12Baker Heart of America / SouthAutomatic - 8
13Concordia Mid-States / MideastAt-large - 5
14Evangel Heart of America / South
15Dickinson State North StarAutomatic - 9
16Rocky Mountain FrontierAutomatic - 10
17Saint Xavier Mid-States / MidwestAutomatic - 11
18Lindsey Wilson Mid-South / Bluegrass
19Georgetown Mid-South / Bluegrass
20Ottawa Kansas Collegiate
21Southeastern Mid-South / Sun
22College of IdahoFrontier
23Dordt Great Plains
24Eastern OregonFrontier
25Siena Heights Mid-States / Mideast
25Arizona ChristianSooner

After the tournament participants were determined, the top 8 seeds were granted first round home games. Opponents were determined based on the oft-used tournament protocol that pairs highest seeds with lowest seeds: #1 vs. the lowest seeded entry, usually #16), #2 vs. the second-lowest seeded entry, usually #15), #3 vs. the third-lowest seeded entry, usually #14), etc. This alignment was then tweaked for geographic considerations by the tournament selection officials.
The first round tournament match-ups, finalized and announced on Sunday, November 11
, were:
RankVisitorRankHome
#16Rocky Mountain 20at#1Morningside 49
#17Saint Xavier 34at#2Marian 21
#12Baker 44at#3Bethel 41
#13Concordia 31at#4Reinhardt 21
#15Dickinson State 14at#5Northwestern 6
#9Langston 9at#6Kansas Wesleyan 15
#11Cumberlands 41at#7Benedictine 48
#10Grand View 3at#8Saint Francis 34

Leading vote-getters

Since the inception of the Coaches' Poll in 1999, the #1 ranking in the various weekly polls has been held by only a select group of teams. Through the last poll of the 2018 season, the teams and the number of times they have held the #1 weekly ranking are shown below. The number of times a team has been ranked #1 in the postseason poll is shown in parentheses.
There has been only one tie for the leading vote-getter in a weekly poll. In 2015, Southern Oregon was tied with Marian in the preseason poll.
In 1999, the results of a postseason poll, if one was conducted, are not known. Therefore, an additional poll has been presumed, and the #1 postseason ranking has been credited to the postseason tournament champion, the Northwestern Oklahoma State Rangers.
TeamTotal #1 Rankings
57
55
28
25
24
Saint Francis 21
14
12
5
4
4
3
2