Five Missouri Valley Football teams were ranked in the final AFCA coaches poll, while four were in the Stats Perform poll.   North Dakota State was a unanimous No. 1 in both polls, while South Dakota State (3/3), South Dakota (4/4), Illinois State (10/11) and Missouri State (23) also represented the MVFC in the final rankings.

For the seventh time this season, the Missouri Valley Football Conference had three teams ranked among the Top 4 in a national poll.  Notably, the league has had two of the top three spots in the top-25 rankings 71 times in its 40-year history, including all 15 polls this season.

Three league teams have been ranked among the nation’s Top five the same week 25 times, including 12 times this year.  The MVFC has had three of the Top 4 positions in a national poll nine times in its history, including seven times this year.

NDSU posted the league’s 22nd all-time win vs. a No. 1-ranked team when it beat top-ranked Montana State.  Thirteen of the 22 MVFC wins against a No. 1 team have been league games.  MVFC schools are 9-15 all-time against non-conference No. 1-ranked teams.  For the first time in MVFC history a league team faced a No. 1 team twice in the same season -- UNI (NDSU, SDSU), South Dakota (NDSU, Montana State), and NDSU (SDSU, Montana State) all did it this year.  NDSU is the first team to unseat two No. 1-ranked teams in the same year.

The MVFC was 11-5 against ranked FCS non-conference teams in 2024.  MVFC schools were 29-9 against FCS opponents this year, with five of those nine losses to ranked FCS non-league teams.  The 29-9 mark against peer FCS programs is the best of any FCS league.

STATS PERFORM (Craig Haley)
They held the No. 2 ranking after the 2022 season and were No. 3 after last season – spots they also held earlier this season.   Make no mistake, the North Dakota State Bison prefer only the No. 1 ranking, which is what they claimed on Tuesday in the final Stats Perform FCS Top 25 Poll of the 2024 season.   Fresh off beating previously unbeaten Montana State 35-32 Monday night in the FCS championship game, NDSU (14-2) received all 56 first-place votes in the national media poll.
 
The FCS title was the Bison’s 10th in the last 14 seasons – four more than any other program in the playoffs’ 47-year history. Senior quarterback Cam Miller received the game’s Most Outstanding Player award, while Tim Polasek became the ninth first-year coach to lead a team to the FCS championship.
 
“Obviously, the standard here has been the same for 15 years now, and it's a national championship. It's to get up on that (victory) stage in Frisco,” junior linebacker Logan Kopp said. “The past two years, we have fallen short, and we've worked our butts off, 365 days, 24 hours a day, to get back up here.”
 
Montana State (15-1) had its program-record winning streak end while falling to NDSU for the sixth straight time in the FCS playoffs.
 
Semifinalists South Dakota State (13-2) and South Dakota (11-3) finished No. 3 and 4, respectively – giving the Missouri Valley Football Conference three of the top four teams along with NDSU. Quarterfinalist UC Davis (11-3), which finished second to Montana State in the Big Sky, was No. 5.
 
Eleven conferences had a team ranked in the final Top 25. The Big Sky had the high with five.  A national media panel selected the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 Poll this season. A first-place vote was worth 25 points, a second-place vote 24 points, all the way down to one point for a 25th-place vote.




AFCA (Vince Thompson)
North Dakota State survived a furious second half comeback from Montana State in the NCAA FCS national championship game to win, 35-32. The Bobcats outscored NDSU 29-14 in the final two periods, but the Bison recovered an on-side kick with a little over a minute left in the game and ran out the clock. This was North Dakota State’s 10th national title in the last 14 years. The Bison end the 2024 season at No. 1 in the final AFCA FCS Coaches Poll, presented by Hudl. Montana State falls to No. 2.   

South Dakota State and South Dakota both made appearances in the FCS semifinals, and finish at No. 3 and No. 4, respectively. UC Davis, UIW, Mercer and Idaho all reached the quarterfinals and end the season ranked five through eight. Villanova and Illinois State made it to the second round of the playoffs and round out the top 10.

Lehigh and Eastern Kentucky used playoff appearances to end 2024 ranked in the AFCA top 25 for the first time this season. Lehigh made it to the second round, finishing with a 9-4 record and ranked No. 21 while Eastern Kentucky lost in the first round and comes in at No. 25 with an 8-5 mark.  

 

No.	Stats Perform Poll	Rec.	Pts.	Prev.
1	North Dakota State (56)	14-2	1400	3
2	Montana State	15-1	1344	1
3	South Dakota State	12-3	1284	2
4	South Dakota	11-3	1236	4
5	UC Davis	11-3	1170	5
6	UIW	11-3	1084	6
7	Idaho	10-4	1058	7
8	Mercer	11-3	1037	8
9	Rhode Island	11-3	873	10
10	Montana	9-5	807	13
11	Illinois State	10-4	805	11
12	Villanova	10-4	780	12
13	Tarleton State	10-4	754	14
14	Abilene Christian	9-5	714	15
15	Richmond	10-3	608	9
16	Southeast Missouri	9-4	465	16
17	UT Martin	9-5	463	23
18	Jackson State	12-2	462	18
19	Tennessee State	9-4	311	21
20	Lehigh	9-4	301	NR
21	Eastern Kentucky	8-5	292	22
22	Northern Arizona	8-5	273	17
23	New Hampshire	8-5	200	19
24	South Carolina State	9-3	172	20
25	Harvard	8-2	64	25
Others Receiving Votes (schools listed on two or more ballots): Stony Brook (8-4, 5-3 CAA), 59; Southern Utah (7-5, 6-2 UAC), 34; Drake (8-3, 7-1 Pioneer), 28; North Carolina Central (8-3, 4-1 MEAC), 27; Western Carolina (7-5, 6-2 SoCon), 24; Southeastern Louisiana (7-5, 6-1 Southland), 20; Chattanooga (7-5, 5-3 SoCon), 18; Tennessee Tech (7-5, 6-2 Big South-OVC), 9; Central Connecticut State (7-6, 5-1 NEC), 8; Duquesne (8-3, 5-1 NEC), 8; Dartmouth (8-2, 5-2 Ivy), 6
No.	AFCA Coaches Poll	Rec.	Pts.	Prev.
1	North Dakota St. (16)	14-2	575	4
2	Montana St.	15-1	552	1
3	South Dakota St.	12-3	529	2
4	South Dakota	11-3	507	3
5	UC Davis	11-3	480	5
6	UIW	11-3	448	6
7	Mercer	11-3	418	9
8	Idaho	10-4	402	8
9	Villanova	10-4	351	11
10	Illinois St.	10-4	350	10
11	Rhode Island	11-3	336	12
12	Tarleton St.	10-4	307	14
13	Montana	9-5	288	13
14	ACU	9-5	252	17
15	Jackson St.	12-2	249	15
16	Richmond	10-3	238	7
17	Southeast Missouri St.	9-4	223	16
18	UT Martin	9-5	173	20
19	Tennessee St.	9-4	139	19
20	South Carolina St.	9-3	127	18
21	Lehigh	9-4	113	NR
22	Northern Arizona	8-5	102	22
23	Missouri St.	8-4	73	21
24	New Hampshire	8-5	55	24
25	Eastern Kentucky	8-5	51	NR
Others Receiving Votes:  North Carolina Central, 30; Drake, 29; Central Connecticut St., 28; Stony Brook, 15; Duquesne, 14; Dartmouth, 7; Columbia, 6; Harvard, 5; Southeastern Louisiana, 5