The South Dakota State University football team has attained another top-10 ranking in a preseason poll, checking in at No. 6 in the first 2017 Football Championship Subdivision Coaches Poll on Tuesday.
The Jackrabbits’ sixth-place showing in the coaches’ poll comes on the heels of SDSU being tabbed fourth in Monday’s STATS FCS media poll. SDSU picked up one first-place vote in Tuesday’s poll, which is based exclusively on a voting panel of head coaches in the FCS under the cooperation of the Collegiate Commissioners Association (CCA) and the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), and is administered by the Southern Conference.
Defending national champion James Madison led the way with 20 first-place votes and 642 points, topping North Dakota State, which tallied a pair of first-place votes and 618 points. Sam Houston State was third with 577 points and three first-place votes, followed by Eastern Washington (525 points), Jacksonville State (493 points ) and SDSU with 479 points.
The Missouri Valley Football Conference paced the subdivision’s conferences with a total of five teams in the top 25. Youngstown State recorded an eighth-place finish, with Illinois State (18th) and Northern Iowa (20th) also in the rankings. Western Illinois and South Dakota were among the teams receiving votes.
SDSU finished the 2016 season with a 9-4 overall record and earned a share of the MVFC regular season title with a 7-1 mark in league play. The Jackrabbits went on to earn their fifth consecutive berth in the FCS playoffs, reaching the quarterfinals for the first time.
The 2017 season kicks off Aug. 31, when the Jackrabbits host Duquesne at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium.
