2020 NAIA football rankings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 2020 NAIA football rankings reports the poll results conducted during the 2020 NAIA football season. Each season, one poll evaluates the various National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) 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 four 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.
Once the regular season is completed, the NAIA will conduct a playoff to determine the year's national champion. A final poll will be taken after completion of the series of playoff games, collectively referred to as the 2020 NAIA Football National Championship.
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 (counting zero for ballots with no votes for a 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 (including discounted ballots) that includes the team.[1]
As an example, if there were 17 voting panelists, and one team is a unanimous choice for the highest ranking, then that team would receive 25 points * 15 ballots (disregard 2 ballots) + 17 points (one for each ballot cast) = 392 points.
Teams that received only one point in the ballot were not considered “receiving votes.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, modifications to the playing season and associated polls and release dates were made. Some teams were able to compete and complete their seasons in the fall of 2020; however, a large portion of the NAIA season was delayed until the spring of 2021.
No spring or preseason polls were released for the 2020 season; the first poll was released after the spring playing season was underway.
Following is a complete schedule of 2020 poll release dates.[2]
| 2020 poll release dates | |
|---|---|
| Spring | None |
| Preseason | None |
| Poll 1 | February 22, 2021 |
| Poll 2 | March 22, 2021 |
| Poll 3 | March 29, 2021 |
| Poll 4 | April 5, 2021 |
| Poll 5 | April 11, 2021 |
| Postseason | May 17, 2021 |
Week by week poll
| No change in ranking | ||
| Increase in ranking | ||
| Decrease in ranking | ||
| Not ranked previous week | ||
| NAIA National Champion | ||
(#-#) |
Win–loss record | |
Italics |
Number of first place votes | |
(т) |
Tied with team above or below also with this symbol |