KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Rocky Mountain College and Montana Tech were among the teams to climb in the 2018 NAIA Football Coaches’ Top 25 Poll, which was released Monday. It’s the first poll since the coaches debuted the preseason poll.
Rocky started the season ranked 20th, but the Battlin’ Bears have moved up to No. 14 in the latest rankings. RMC is 2-1 on the season with wins over Montana State-Northern and Dickinson (N.D.) State, which is ranked 20th this week. The Battlin’ Bears forfeited their season-opening 19-0 win over Carroll College.
Tech, which was unranked to start the season, debuted at No. 23 this week. The Orediggers are 2-0 after impressive wins over College of Idaho and Eastern Oregon. The win over College of Idaho was Tech’s first win at Caldwell, Idaho in program history, and the Diggers rallied from a 14-0 deficit to topple EOU last week.
Defending Frontier Conference champion Southern Oregon is still the highest-ranked team from the league. The Raiders, who lost in the semifinals of the NAIA playoffs last fall, climbed one spot to No. 3. SOU, which is 2-0 to start the season, ranks behind Saint Francis (Ind.) and Morningside (Iowa). Saint Francis received all 16 first-place votes.
Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) and Northwestern (Iowa) round out the top five.
Montana Western, which coaches picked to finish seventh in the Frontier Conference preseason poll, is among the 10 other teams receiving votes. The Bulldogs have started the 2018 season with conference wins over Carroll College and MSU-Northern.
Please click here to view the complete poll.
