KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Rocky Mountain College is still climbing the NAIA Football Coaches’ Top 25 Poll. The Battlin’ Bears are ranked 11th in the latest edition of the rankings, which was released Monday.
At 8-2 overall and 7-2 in the Frontier Conference, Rocky has already clinched a share of the the league championship. The Bears drilled then-No. 24 Eastern Oregon 48-10 at La Grande, Ore., last weekend. Rocky is back home this weekend, hosting Montana Tech in the regular-season finale.
Rocky is the highest-ranked Frontier team in the poll and is the league’s best shot to host a game in the first round of the NAIA playoffs, which begin Nov. 17. Sixteen teams qualify for the national playoffs.
Montana Western, which was 20th last week, slipped to No. 23 in the rankings after its 17-14 loss to College of Idaho. COI has now won five consecutive games after an 0-5 start to crack into the top 25. The Coyotes are ranked 24th this week.
Eastern Oregon fell out of the top 25 and into the “others receiving votes” category.
The top four teams in the rankings remained the same from a week ago: Morningside (Iowa), Marian (Ind.), Bethel (Tenn.) and Reinhardt (Ga.). Northwestern (Iowa) is ranked fifth after last week’s fifth-ranked team, Grand View (Iowa), lost a 25-13 game to Benedictine (Kan).
To view the complete top 25, please click here.
