NORMAL, Ill. - After finishing the regular season with a 7-4 record and in third place in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, Illinois State remained ranked in The Sports Network/Fathead.com and the FCS Coaches Poll final regular season polls.
The Redbirds dropped slightly in both polls, after suffering a 23-20 double-overtime victory to then No. 4 ranked Northern Iowa in the season finale at Hancock Stadium. ISU fell three spots to No. 17 in the FCS Coaches Poll and dropped to No. 18 in The Sports Network/Fathead.com poll. Despite their national rankings in both polls and a No. 14 ranking in the Gridiron Power Index (GPI), the Redbirds were not selected to the 20-team playoff field as an at-large selection.
ISU (7-4, 5-3 Missouri Valley Football Conference) has been ranked in The Sports Network/Fathead.com poll for five-consecutive weeks and finished the season ranked in the FCS Coaches Poll for four weeks. Both polls will release their final rankings of the year following the completion of the FCS playoffs.
MVFC co-champion Northern Iowa, which heads into the playoffs as the No. 5 seed., moved up to No. 2 in The Sports Network/Fathead.com poll and improved a spot to No. 3 in the FCS Coaches Poll after defeating the Redbirds in double overtime. The league's other co-champion and its recipient of the automatic bid to the FCS playoffs, North Dakota State, improved to No. 4 in both polls and heads into the playoffs as the No. 2 seed.
The FCS playoffs begin with first round games Saturday, Nov. 26, and the top 12 teams in the bracket will play their first games in the second round Saturday, Dec. 3. The quarterfinal round will be the weekend of Dec. 9-10 and the semifinal round will follow the next weekend Dec. 16-17. The 2011 FCS Championship Game will take place Saturday, Jan. 7, at Pizza Hut Park, in Frisco, Texas.
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