Powered behind a 25-game winning streak, No. 1 Sioux Falls (S.D.) stays on top in the final regular season NAIA Football Coaches’ Top 25 Poll. The No. 1 ranking marks the 13th straight time for the Cougars overall after receiving 418 total points and all of the 18 possible first-place votes. Sioux Falls, who is the defending national champion, finishes the regular season with an 11-0 mark and claims its fourth straight Great Plains Athletic Conference Championship.

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With 400 total points, No. 2 Carroll (Mont.) heads into its 10th straight postseason with a perfect 11-0 record. The Fighting Saints have been the second-ranked team for 13 straight polls. In the postseason, Carroll is 23-2 in its last 25 games.

No. 3 Lindenwood (Mo.) checks in at the third slot for the 13th straight week. The Lions secured its second Heart of America Athletic Conference title in the last three years with a victory over William Jewell (Mo.) on Saturday. With a 10-0 regular season record, Lindenwood has now won at least 10 games in each of the last three seasons.

Marking its highest position in the poll this year, No. 4 St. Xavier (Ill.) gathered 363 total points. The Cougars jumped up one spot after the previous No. 4, Morningside (Iowa), fell to Sioux Falls on Saturday. St. Xavier is enjoying its most successful season in school history with an 11-0 record.

No. 5 Ottawa (Kan.) is another team to move up one spot earning 343 total points. The Braves have clinched their first-ever 10-win season after a 49-42 win over then-No. 13 Friends (Kan.) on Saturday. The ranking is the highest for Ottawa this season.

NOTES: The 25-game winning streak for Sioux Falls (S.D.) is tied for college football’s longest in any division (NAIA and NCAA) -- Mount Union (Ohio), an NCAA Division III member, also holds 25 straight wins… Talk about consistency, the top three teams have been ranked the same each week in all 12 polls this year… No. 2 Carroll (Mont.) has been either No. 1 or No. 2 for the last 32 straight rankings… Sioux Falls (S.D.) has now been ranked No. 1 a total of 42 times since the 2000 season including 25 mentions since 2007… The No. 1 Sioux Falls defense has been getting the job done as no opposing player has rushed for 100 yards or more since the 2007 National Championship – a span of 25 games… Six teams in the country boast undefeated records with four teams holding 11 victories… The last time a team other than Carroll (Mont.) and Sioux Falls (S.D.) was ranked at No. 1 was Saint Francis (Ind.) on Nov. 12, 2006 – a streak of 40 polls… Carroll has now been ranked in the Top 5 in the last 63 straight polls dating back to November, 2004… St. Francis boasts the longest consecutive stretch of being named in the Coaches’ Top 25 Poll – now standing at 127 straight mentions – the last time St. Francis was not mentioned in the Top 25 was Oct. 19, 1999… After St. Francis, Carroll is the next team in line with 114 straight Top 25 rankings while Sioux Falls stands at 113 straight mentions… Since 2000, Carroll has been ranked No. 1 53 times, the highest amount of any program during that time span; Sioux Falls is second with 42 mentions at No. 1 followed by Georgetown (Ky.) with 14, Northwestern Oklahoma State with 11 and St. Francis with three… Since 2000, there are seven teams that have been ranked at least one time each season – Carroll (Mont.), MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.), St. Ambrose (Iowa), St. Francis (Ind.), St. Xavier (Ill.), Sioux Falls (S.D.)… There are 77 schools that have been ranked at least once in the Top 25 since 2000, of that group of schools, six no longer sponsor NAIA football.

For more information on the NAIA Top 25 Poll, please click here.