We’re not going to bother with Division III here, because (a) time and (b) honestly, you should just go to d3football.com and rely on a team of dedicated experts. So we’ll just jump straight to the NAIA. And the first thing we have to do to talk about the NAIA’s final week is present the top 25 poll, because everything hinges on it.

1. Morningside (9-1)
2. Baker (9-1)
3. Grand View (9-1)
4. Doane (9-0)
5. Saint Francis (IN) (8-0)
6. Montana Tech (8-1)
7. Marian (IN) (7-2)
8. Southern Oregon (7-2)
9. Tabor (9-1)
10. Montana Western (7-2)
11. Kansas Wesleyan (9-1)
12. Campbellsville (8-2)
13. Reinhardt (8-1)
14. Lindsey Wilson (7-2)
15. Dakota Wesleyan (8-2)
16. Benedictine (KS) (7-3)
17. Saint Xavier (7-3)
18. Point (7-2)
19. William Penn (7-3)
20. Robert Morris (IL) (6-3)
21. Dickinson State (8-2)
22. Saint Francis (IL) (7-3)
23. Saint Ambrose (7-3)
24. Arizona Christian (6-3)
25. Faulkner (6-3)

If the playoffs started this week, the field would be the top 15 teams plus Point, as the playoff field consists of all conference champions (including divisional champions in the HAAC, MSC, and MSFA) in the top 20, plus however many at-large teams are required to get to 16 teams. The NAIA poll determines everything.

But they don’t start this week, so let’s see what Saturday has to offer in terms of shaking things up.

Central States Football League

Arizona Christian is the only team in the league with even a remote chance to get into the playoffs. The Firestorm ran the table to win the conference title, and they’re idle this week. That’s good, insofar as it means they can’t lose Saturday. It’s bad because they’re ranked 24th, and therefore not only need four teams immediately ahead of them to lose but also not get leapfrogged. It’s possible, but unlikely.

Frontier Conference

Montana Tech has clinched a share of the conference title, and is probably secure no matter what happens Saturday. They host Montana Western, who probably cannot survive a loss, in a huge game at 2pm ET. Southern Oregon is also probably safe, although less so than Tech. The defending NAIA champion Raiders visit Eastern Oregon (4-6) at 3pm. Both Western and Southern are in position to share the Frontier title, sitting a game back of Tech. We’re mostly avoiding any discussion of irrelevant games this week, but there are a couple which need to be mentioned. The first: Carroll (MT), the conference’s traditional power, will miss the playoffs for only the second time this century. The Saints are only 4-5, and visit 3-7 College of Idaho at 2pm.

Great Plains Athletic Conference

Two GPAC teams are absolutely assured of a berth in the playoffs: top-ranked Morningside and 4th-ranked (and still unbeaten) Doane. They face one another in one of the biggest regular-season games of the NAIA season at 2pm ET Saturday, the winner claiming the outright GPAC title. It’s hard to envision Doane not jumping all the way to the top spot with a win given the magnitude of the game. Dakota Wesleyan is the last team in right now, but a win over Dordt (2-8) would alleviate those concerns entirely, as there will be attrition ahead of them in the poll.

Heart of America Athletic Conference

This is the most complicated conference in the NAIA. The easy part: Baker is securely in the playoff field, and with a win on the road at Evangel (3-7) they’ll clinch the South Division title outright. That’s a 2:30pm ET kickoff. Should they lose, the door is open for two teams to share the title, but neither will be making an appearance in the post-season. Missouri Valley (6-4) visits MidAmerica Nazarene (5-5) at 2pm, and the winner would share the division title with Baker should the Wildcats lose (though Baker still holds the tiebreaker for the automatic bid). It’s worth noting that Valley is ending a four-year playoff streak, while this is only Nazarene’s second failure to make the field in the last nine years.

In the North Division, Grand View has already won a share of the title in their first year in the HAAC. The conference’s other new member, William Penn, could stake their own claim Saturday; Grand View visits Penn at noon ET (on ESPN3). Grand View is in the field no matter what, but a Penn win would be huge; it would secure Penn’s place in the field. Also hoping to sneak in is Benedictine (KS), who will visit Peru State (6-4) at 2pm. The Ravens are currently the first team out, but a win would probably push them in. If Penn wins, Benedictine would also share the division crown with a win.

Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference

It hasn’t been a wonderful year for the KCAC, but the conference season did manage to separate a couple of teams from the pack, and both should be securely in the playoffs with easy Saturdays this week. Tabor, who already holds a share of the conference title, hosts 3-6 Bethel (KS) and Kansas Wesleyan hosts 3-7 Saint Mary (KS), both games at 2:30pm ET. Wesleyan would share the title with a win and a Tabor loss, but that’s really unlikely. Sterling (6-3) is receiving votes, but there’s really no way they can jump the 12 spots they’d need to with a win over 3-7 Southwestern (KS).

Mid-South Conference

Campbellsville has already clinched a playoff bid, as they’re the outright West Division champions and they’re idle this week. The conference is heavily weighted to the west this year; Reinhardt and Lindsey Wilson are in the field at present, both also from the west. Neither can afford a loss, however. Reinhardt hosts 4-6 Bethel (TN) at noon ET, while Lindsey Wilson — who spent all of October as the #1 team in the NAIA before losing to Reinhardt — hosts 3-7 Cumberland (TN) at 2:30. Faulkner is ranked, but a home win over 1-8 Union (KY) at 2:30 is not going to convince anyone to move them up ten-plus spots on their ballot. They’re out after making two straight appearances.

In the East, there will probably be no playoff participant. 5-4 Georgetown (KY) visits Pikeville (4-6) at 1:30, and would win the East outright with a win; if they lose, they’ll share the title with Pikeville and 7-3 Cumberlands (KY), who is idle this week. But Georgetown would need a lot of help to move up into the top 20 and claim the automatic playoff bid. If they do, the Tigers — who have made 20 playoff appearances since 1987 — will miraculously extend their current playoff streak to seven years.

Mid-States Football Association

The Mid-States also gets two potential automatic bids. In the Mideast League, unbeaten Saint Francis (IN) visits 0-9 Missouri Baptist at 2pm ET, and it’s hard to imagine a more certain win on the schedule. The Cougars will clinch the outright Mideast League crown and secure their playoff bid. Marian hosts Siena Heights (4-5) at 1pm; they might survive a loss, but shouldn’t depend on it. Marian would share the title with a win and a Saint Francis loss, but the Cougars would still win the tiebreaker.

In the Midwest League, nobody is secure at all. Saint Xavier might slide up a couple of spots to safety simply by sitting at home and doing nothing, but that’s not assured. They have a share of the conference title, but that’s also not good enough — because if Robert Morris wins on the road at Saint Ambrose (2pm), there will be a tie. If Saint Francis (IL) also wins a 2pm game at home over Olivet Nazarene (3-7), it would be a three-way tie, and we’ll be honest: we have no idea which team gets the “automatic” bid in that scenario.

One of these three teams will be in the top 20 regardless, and therefore one of them will earn the “automatic” playoff bid. Saint Ambrose can’t win the league title, so they’ll have to win and hope they jump about 8 spots to get in; that’s unlikely.

North Star Athletic Association

With the exception of the utterly pointless non-conference game between Waldorf (2-7) and Trinity Bible (1-8), the NSAA is done for the year. Dickinson State is the conference champion, and would earn a playoff bid if they can move up one more spot in the rankings while being idle. The situation in the MSFA makes that more difficult that it would be otherwise, as the winner of that Robert Morris-Saint Ambrose game is almost certain to jump Dickinson.

The Sun Conference

Point, who has already won the outright Sun title, plays a non-conference game against 1-8 Concordia (AL) at 6pm ET. It’s the last game of the NAIA regular season, and naturally it’s marginally relevant to the entire playoff picture. Point is in the playoffs as long as they avoid the upset.

Tags: naia

We wrap up this week’s spurt of posts with the NAIA, which is always a fun time because of the simple method they use to determine the playoff participants. The top 16 teams in the final poll get in, with one exception: if a team wins its conference’s autobid and is ranked 17-20, they steal a spot from the top 16. If an autobid falls outside the top 20, it simply vanishes into thin air. For what seems like a decade, poor William Penn has been the victim of this setup, repeatedly finishing 15th or 16th in the final poll only to lose a playoff spot to a conference champion ranked 17th-20th. Luckily, that’s not going to happen this year. Not only does there appear to be no serious threat of a stolen spot, but William Penn has solved the problem themselves by stumbling through a 4-6 season to date.

Anyway, we’ll get right to the breakdowns after the jump.

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The Spreadsheet: (Excel2003, 147kb)

Quick Note: Although this is technically week two for the NAIA, as they started a week earlier, we’re treating it as week one (with last week as week zero) just for consistency’s sake with the other divisions.  If you care, you can add a “1” mentally.

Saturday’s NAIA Game of the Week:
This game looked like it was going to be an ugly morass.  Six minutes into the third quarter, Montana Tech led 7-6.  Eastern Oregon had managed only 138 yards of offense and had punted seven times.  When the Mountaineers took over after an Oredigger punt at their own 1 and then immediately gave up a safety to fall behind 9-6, one might have been forgiven for throwing one’s hands up and heading back out to the tailgate.

But then, on the third play following the free kick Nathan Rudder intercepted Nick Baker and returned the ball to the Tech 4-yard line.  Four plays later, Eastern Oregon finally had the lead back, but it was then Tech’s turn to unload.  Pat Hansen scored on runs of 3 and 27 yards in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter to put the Orediggers up 23-13.

That’s when coach Tim Camp pulled the ripcord.  He benched Tyler Pine, who’d gone 13-22 for 108 yards through the first 50 minutes, and inserted sophomore Jason Simonis.  All he did was lob two touchdown passes, the second with only forty seconds remaining in the game, to regain the lead and seal a 26-23 win.

One might fear for the Mountaineers going forward based just the score; the circumstances of the game, however, indicate that perhaps EOU can actually exceed expectations if a change at quarterback in dire straits during their opener actually sparks the team to life.

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