2019 NAIA football rankings


The 2019 NAIA football rankings reports the poll results conducted during the 2019 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 was determined by compiling points for each vote. A team received 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 were disregarded. To obtain the final tally, each team's ranking was recalculated with an additional point added to each team for every ballot that includes the team.
As an example, if are were 17 voting panelists, and one team is a unanimous choice for the highest ranking, then that team would receive 25 points * 15 ballots + 17 points = 392 points.
Teams that received only one point in the ballot were not considered “receiving votes.”
Once the regular season was completed, the NAIA conducted a playoff to determine the year's national champion. A final poll was taken after completion of the series of playoff games, collectively referred to as the 2019 NAIA Football National Championship.

Poll release dates

The NAIA released a preseason edition of the rankings on August 5, 2019. A complete schedule of poll release dates will be:

Week by week poll

The postseason tournament

A 16-team tournament was contested to determine the winner of the 2019 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.
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.
In 2019, there were 12 NAIA conferences who had champions that were part of the selection process for the automatic invitations. The 12 eligible conferences for the 2019 season were:
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

Since all 12 conference champions finished in the top 20 positions in the final poll, they each received an automatic place in the tournament. Therefore, a total of four at-large invitations were granted to play in the 2019 tournament. Based on the Week 10 Coaches' Poll, the following teams made up the 2019 playoff field:
RankTeamConference/DivisionInvitation Type
1Morningside Great PlainsAutomatic - 1
2Marian Mid-States / MideastAutomatic - 2
3Kansas WesleyanKansas CollegiateAutomatic - 3
4Grand View Heart of America / NorthAutomatic - 4
5College of IdahoFrontierAutomatic - 5
6Lindsey Wilson Mid-South / BluegrassAutomatic - 6
7Keiser Mid-South / SunAutomatic - 7
8Northwestern Great PlainsAt-large - 1
9Saint Xavier Mid-States / MidwestAutomatic - 8
10Cumberlands Mid-South / BluegrassAt-large - 2
11Saint Francis Mid-States / MideastAt-large - 3
12Concordia Mid-States / MideastAt-large - 4
13Reinhardt Mid-South / AppalachianAutomatic - 9
14Southeastern Mid-South / Sun
15Baker Heart of America / SouthAutomatic - 10
16Ottawa SoonerAutomatic - 11
17Dickinson State North StarAutomatic - 12
18Benedictine Heart of America / South
19Langston Sooner
20Siena Heights Mid-States / Mideast
21Evangel Heart of America / South
22Montana WesternFrontier
23Waldorf North Star
24Bethel Kansas Collegiate
25Carroll Frontier

After the tournament participants were determined, the top 8 seeds were granted first round home games. Opponents were generally determined based on the oft-used tournament protocol that pairs highest seeds with lowest seeds: #1 vs. the lowest seeded entry, #2 vs. the second-lowest seeded entry, #3 vs. the third-lowest seeded entry, etc. This alignment was then tweaked, for geographic and travel considerations, by the tournament selection officials to determine the announced first-round pairings.
The first round tournament match-ups, finalized and announced on Sunday, November 17
, were:
RankVisitorRankHome
#17Dickinson State at#1Morningside
#13Reinhardt at#2Marian
#15Baker at#3Kansas Wesleyan
#12Concordia at#4Grand View
#16Ottawa at#5College of Idaho
#11Saint Francis at#6Lindsey Wilson
#10Cumberlands at#7Keiser
#9Saint Xavier at#8Northwestern

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 final poll of the 2019 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
40
25
24
Saint Francis 21
14
12
5
4
4
3
2