Team Capsules: Top 10 | 11-19 | 20-25 | Others Receiving Votes

April 30, 2007

Editor's Note: The 2007 NAIA Spring Football Top 25 is not intended to replace the preseason rating scheduled for mid-August. The poll is offered as a pre-summer preview of the NAIA and how it's raters - 17 coaches from affiliated conferences and independent institutions - are predicting teams will look at the beginning of the 2007 season.

OLATHE, Kan. - Defending NAIA Football National Champion Sioux Falls (S.D.) earned 15 first-place votes to edge out its championship game competitor, Saint Francis (Ind.), in the first-ever NAIA Spring Football Top 25 Coaches' Poll.

Saint Francis was the only other institution to grab first-place consideration, pulling two votes away from Sioux Falls, while Missouri Valley remained in the No. 3 position where it ended in the post-season poll conducted in early January at the AFCA convention in San Antonio, Texas.

Carroll (Mont.) moved into the No. 4 spot while Saint Xavier (Ill.) is No. 5, and the second half of the Top 10 begins with Bethel (Tenn.), who moved up one spot from the post-season rating to No. 6. Falling a spot to No. 7 was Northwestern (Iowa), and the Top 10 rounds out with Georgetown (Ky.), St. Ambrose (Iowa) and Morningside (Iowa), all of which were NAIA Championship Series playoff participants in the 2006 season.

Only two teams that ended 2006 outside the Top 25 were pushed into the Spring Rating, as McKendree (Ill.) sits at No. 17 and Langston (Okla.), a newcomer this season to the Central States Football League, enters the poll at No. 22.

RANK	2006 POSTSEASON	SCHOOL	1ST PLACE VOTES	2006 RECORD	POINTS
1	1	Sioux Falls (S.D.)	15	14-0	420
2	2	St. Francis (Ind.)	2	13-1	410
3	3	Missouri Valley		13-1	386
4	5	Carroll (Mont.)		11-2	356
5	4	Saint Xavier (Ill.)		10-3	350
6	7	Bethel (Tenn.)		10-3	332
7	6	Northwestern (Iowa)		11-2	327
8	10	Georgetown (Ky.)		9-2	297
9	9	St. Ambrose (Iowa)		10-1	267
10	8	Morningside (Iowa)		9-3	256
11	12	Black Hills State (S.D.)		8-3	243
12	11	Montana State-Northern		9-3	227
13	16	Walsh (Ohio)		9-3	193
14	13	Friends (Kan.)		9-2	192
15	14	Jamestown (N.D.)		8-3	154
16	17	Ohio Dominican		7-3	153
17	NR	McKendree (Ill.)		5-4	133
18	22	MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.)		7-3	113
19	18	Benedictine (Kan.)		8-3	111
20	20	Kansas Wesleyan		8-2	93
21	15	Bethel (Kan.)		9-2	92
22	NR	Langston (Okla.)		5-4	70
23	19	Malone (Ohio)		7-4	66
24	21	Northwestern Oklahoma		6-4	55
25	24	Virginia-Wise		8-3	54

 

Others Receiving Votes: Cumberlands (Ky.), 49; Montana Tech, 43; Azusa Pacific (Calif.), 19; Nebraska Wesleyan, 17; Quincy (Ill.), 9; Belhaven (Miss.), 8; Dickinson State (N.D.), 7; Shorter (Ga.), 6; Sterling (Kan.), 6; Southern Nazarene (Okla.), 5; Graceland (Iowa), 4; Webber International (Fla.), 3; Lambuth (Tenn.), 1.