{"id":26,"date":"2010-10-14T05:14:09","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T10:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/?p=26"},"modified":"2010-10-21T11:40:59","modified_gmt":"2010-10-21T16:40:59","slug":"naia-week-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/2010\/10\/14\/naia-week-seven\/","title":{"rendered":"NAIA: Week Seven."},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t have much to say by way of preamble regarding the NAIA, so let’s just get on down to it.\u00a0 The same method which I used for Division I FCS actually does work well for the NAIA despite a low voter total.<\/p>\n

My calculated conference rankings:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Mid-States (.252)<\/li>\n
  2. Heart of America (.188)<\/li>\n
  3. Great Plains (.164)<\/li>\n
  4. Kansas (.146)<\/li>\n
  5. Dakota (.089)<\/li>\n
  6. Frontier (.088)<\/li>\n
  7. Mid-South (.031)<\/li>\n
  8. independents (.025)<\/li>\n
  9. Central States (.017)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There’s really nothing surprising at all about this list.\u00a0 If we divided the point totals by number of teams in each conference, the tiers would still be set, but the Mid-States and Great Plains would pull down a little closer to the HoA and Kansas leagues, respectively, and the Frontier would climb up to join them all.<\/p>\n

    The upper tier, 1-4, is responsible for 8 of the top 10 teams, and they’re also deeper than the lower tiers.\u00a0 The middle tier (5-6) consists of the Dakota AC, which has has always been in the middle of the pack, and the Frontier Conference, which suffers from only having six teams.\u00a0 On a per-team basis, the Frontier would be a top-tier league.\u00a0 At 7 and 9, the Mid-South and Central States conferences are very weak, even on a points-per-team basis, and the same applies to the independents.\u00a0 The Mid-South was, once upon a time, a much stronger league.\u00a0 They’ve expanded (adding poor teams), and they’ve lost one of their best teams (Lambuth, who is currently independent while moving toward Division II).<\/p>\n

    Here’s the NAIA Football Coaches’ Top 25 Poll<\/a>, and on to the conference recaps:<\/p>\n

    Mid-States<\/strong>: The conference that just keeps rolling.\u00a0 A whole slew of former members of this conference are now in Division II, but that hasn’t held the conference back any.\u00a0 In the Mideast, #3 St. Xavier (7-0, 4-0) visits Malone (1-4).\u00a0 They have a half-game lead over #8 St. Francis (IN) (5-0, 3-0), who visits Trinity International.\u00a0 #13 Walsh (5-1, 1-1) hosts Taylor in a battle for control of third place, and winless (amazingly, as they’re a former power) Olivet Nazarene visits Marian.\u00a0 In the Midwest, #12 William Penn (6-0, 3-0) hosts St. Ambrose, #19 McKendree (4-2, 2-1) visits Waldorf, and Iowa Wesleyan travels to winless Quincy.\u00a0 St. Francis (IL) (3-3, 3-1) hosts Haskell in non-conference action, and Grand View is idle.<\/p>\n

    Things to Know: Quincy, who has always remained a Division II basketball school, will head back to Division II football in the next year or two when the Great Lakes Valley Conference begins sponsoring football.<\/p>\n

    Heart of America<\/strong>:\u00a0 #5 MidAmerica Nazarene (6-0, 6-0) holds a one-game lead over #6 Lindenwood and #10 Missouri Valley (5-1, 5-1).\u00a0 MANU has already beaten Lindenwood, but won’t play MVC until November 6.\u00a0 This week, MANU visits William Jewell, Lindenwood hosts winless Culver-Stockton, and MVC travels to Evangel.\u00a0 #20 Benedictine (KS) (4-2, 4-2) entertains Baker and Avila visits Graceland, while Central Methodist takes the week off.<\/p>\n

    Things to Know: William Jewell is moving to Division II, joining the Great Lakes Valley Conference.<\/p>\n

    Great Plains:<\/strong> #4 Morningside pays a visit to #1 Sioux Falls Saturday, and this is without even the shadow of a doubt the NAIA game of the week as the teams are tied at 6-0\/6-0.\u00a0 The winner effectively takes a two-game lead over the loser with three conference games remaining, and the rest of the conference is all but eliminated.\u00a0 #17 Northwestern (IA) (3-2, 3-2) invades winless Dordt, Hastings travels to Dakota Wesleyan, Doane visits Midland Lutheran, and Briar Cliff is at Concordia (NE).\u00a0 Nebraska Wesleyan is idle.<\/p>\n

    Things to Know: Sioux Falls has been running roughshod over the NAIA for years; next year, they’ll be in Division II.\u00a0 No conference affiliation yet, but they’re trying to join the Northern Sun.\u00a0 Nebraska Wesleyan has, for years, maintained a dual membership between the NAIA and Division III, and as such have been ineligible for NAIA post-season play.<\/p>\n

    Kansas<\/strong>:\u00a0 The runner-up for NAIA Game of the Week features #14 Kansas Wesleyan traveling to #7 McPherson.\u00a0 Both teams are 5-0\/4-0.\u00a0 #25 Friends (5-1, 4-1) hosts Peru State in a non-conference match, while #11 Ottawa (5-1, 4-1) is idle.\u00a0 Southwestern (KS) travels to Bethany, Sterling visits Tabor, and St. Mary’s hosts Bethel in a meeting of winless teams.<\/p>\n

    Things to Know: Nothing special.\u00a0 Historically, the KCAC has been a very stable conference.<\/p>\n

    Dakota:<\/strong> The top half of the conference has already played the bottom half; the top four teams are 4-0, and the bottom four are 0-4.\u00a0 As you can imagine, the last three games of the DAC season will be interesting.\u00a0 Well, half of them, anyway.\u00a0 #9 Dickinson State (6-0) hosts Black Hills State (5-1), while #15 South Dakota Mines (5-1) visits Minot State (4-2).\u00a0 When the winners of these two games meet, it will be for the conference title.\u00a0 Down in the cellar, winless Dakota State visits Valley City State, and winless Mayville State visits Jamestown.<\/p>\n

    Things to Know: Minot State is currently in the process of moving to Division II.<\/p>\n

    Frontier<\/strong>: The Frontier plays a double round-robin, the first half of which is already complete.\u00a0 #2 Carroll (5-0, 5-0) visits Rocky Mountain, #21 Montana Tech (4-2, 4-1) heads off to Eastern Oregon, and winless Montana Western travels to Montana State-Northern.<\/p>\n

    Things to Know: Nothing, other than to note that Carroll is just as hazardous to NAIA playoff hopefuls as Sioux Falls has been, and will take over the role of big bully once the Cougars leave after this season.<\/p>\n

    Mid-South<\/strong>: It’s ugly.\u00a0 In the East, especially so; even perennial power Georgetown (KY) is on the skids (3-2, 2-0).\u00a0 They’ll host winless Pikeville, which will help.\u00a0 They’re tied with Virginia-Wise (2-5, 2-0) atop the division; UVW is idle.\u00a0 Winless Kentucky Christian travels to West Virginia Tech, and in cross-division play Campbellsville travels to West Division leaders Cumberlands (KY) (3-2, 2-0) and Lindsey Wilson hosts Union (KY).\u00a0 Out West, #16 Cumberland (TN) (5-1, 1-0) trails by a half game; they’ll visit Faulkner while Shorter travels to Belhaven.\u00a0 Bethel (TN) is idle.<\/p>\n

    Things to Know: Mentioned above prior to the recaps.<\/p>\n

    Independents<\/strong>:\u00a0 #21 Webber International (4-2) visits Edward Waters, #24 Azusa Pacific (4-2) is idle.\u00a0 The remaining games are against teams in conferences; Haskell is at St. Francis (IL), Menlo hosts D-III Pacific Lutheran, Peru State visits #25 Friends, Southern Virginia travels to D-III #3 Wesley, Southern Oregon hosts D-III #4 Mary Hardin-Baylor, and Lambuth hosts D-III Wisconsin-Oshkosh.\u00a0 Notre Dame (OH) is idle.<\/p>\n

    Central States<\/strong>:\u00a0 Northwestern Oklahoma State (3-2, 2-0) is technically in the lead; they’ll host Bacone.\u00a0 #23 Langston (3-2, 1-0) is half a game back, and they’ll entertain Southwestern Assemblies of God.\u00a0 Winless Texas College travels to Panhandle State in the remaining game, while Southern Nazarene stands idle.<\/p>\n

    And that’ll do it for this week’s heads-up.\u00a0 I may come up with something interesting to write about between now and Saturday (especially with some Thursday games on tap), and on Saturday I’ll drop some notes in the event anything interesting happens, as well as updates on the big games of the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I don’t have much to say by way of preamble regarding the NAIA, so let’s just get on down to it.\u00a0 The same method which I used for Division I FCS actually does work well for the NAIA despite a low voter total.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-division-news-and-notes","category-naia","tag-naia-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p185sV-q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/95"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}