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 (NAIA) 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 (counting zero for ballots with no votes for a 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 (including discounted ballots) 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 (one for each ballot cast) = 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:

2018 Poll Release Dates Spring None Preseason August 6 Week 1 September 10 Week 2 September 17 Week 3 September 24 Week 4 October 1 Week 5 October 8 Week 6 October 15 Week 7 October 22 Week 8 October 29 Week 9 November 5 Week 10 (Final Regular Season) November 11 Postseason December 18

Week by week poll

* preseason rankings include prior season won-loss records

+ Legend   No change in ranking   Increase in ranking   Decrease in ranking   Not ranked previous week   NAIA National Champion   Win–loss record   Number of first place votes   Tied with team above or below also with this symbol

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 (or divisions within large 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 Conference North Heart of America Athletic Conference South Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference Mid-South Conference Appalachian Mid-South Conference Bluegrass Mid-South Conference Sun Mid-States Football Association Mideast Mid-States Football Association Midwest 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 (final regular season) Coaches' Poll, the following teams (11 champions and 5 at-large teams) made up the 2018 playoff field:

RankTeamConference/DivisionInvitation Type 1 Morningside (IA) Great Plains Automatic - 1 2 Marian (IN) Mid-States / Mideast Automatic - 2 3 Bethel (TN) Mid-South / Bluegrass Automatic - 3 4 Reinhardt (GA) Mid-South / Appalachian Automatic - 4 5 Northwestern (IA) Great Plains At-large - 1 6 Kansas Wesleyan Kansas Collegiate Automatic - 5 7 Benedictine (KS) Heart of America / North Automatic - 6 8 Saint Francis (IN) Mid-States / Mideast At-large - 2 9 Langston (OK) Sooner Automatic - 7 10 Grand View (IA) Heart of America / North At-large - 3 11 Cumberlands (KY) Mid-South / Appalachian At-large - 4 12 Baker (KS) Heart of America / South Automatic - 8 13 Concordia (MI) Mid-States / Mideast At-large - 5 14 Evangel (MO) Heart of America / South 15 Dickinson State (ND) North Star Automatic - 9 16 Rocky Mountain (MT) Frontier Automatic - 10 17 Saint Xavier (IL) Mid-States / Midwest Automatic - 11 18 Lindsey Wilson (KY) Mid-South / Bluegrass 19 Georgetown (KY) Mid-South / Bluegrass 20 Ottawa (KS) Kansas Collegiate 21 Southeastern (FL) Mid-South / Sun (Outside the Top-20) 22 College of Idaho Frontier 23 Dordt (IA) Great Plains 24 Eastern Oregon Frontier 25 Siena Heights (MI) Mid-States / Mideast 25 Arizona Christian Sooner 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#16 Rocky Mountain (MT) 20 at #1 Morningside (IA) 49#17 Saint Xavier (IL) 34 at #2 Marian (IN) 21#12 Baker (KS) 44 at #3 Bethel (TN) 41#13 Concordia (MI) 31 at #4 Reinhardt (GA) 21#15 Dickinson State (ND) 14 at #5 Northwestern (IA) 6#9 Langston (OK) 9 at #6 Kansas Wesleyan 15#11 Cumberlands (KY) 41 at #7 Benedictine (KS) 48#10 Grand View (IA) 3 at #8 Saint Francis (IN) 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 (postseason) 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 (the national champion) 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) 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 Rankings57 (6)55 (3)Morningside (IA)28 (1)25 (2)24 (2)Saint Francis (IN) 21 (2)14 (1)12 (1)5 (1)4 (1)432

References