2020 NAIA football rankings

Due to the presence of 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 and played in 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]

A 16-team tournament is being contested to determine the winner of the 2020 NAIA Football National Championship. Teams were selected to the field of participants through a two-tiered selection process.

First, any conference champion ranked in the final regular-season Coaches' Poll received an automatic bid into the tourney field. This was a modification (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) to the normal requirement that a champion needed to finish in the top 20 positions to receive an automatic invitation.

After the automatic bids were granted, any open positions in the field were filled with at-large invitations. These at-large entries were granted to the highest ranked teams who were not conference champions, with some ranked teams omitted due to lack of playing a minimum number of conference games.

In 2020, there were 12 NAIA conferences (or divisions within large conferences) who had champions that were part of the selection process for the automatic invitations. The 12 eligible conferences for the 2020 season were:

Based on the Poll 5 (April 11) Coaches' Poll, the following teams (12 champions and 4 at-large teams) made up the 2020 playoff field:

After the tournament participants were determined, the top 8 seeds were granted first round home games. The lone exception was #5 Concordia (MI), who played an away game due to restrictions in Michigan caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Opponents were generally determined based on the oft-used tournament protocol that pairs highest seeds with lowest seeds: #1 vs. the lowest seeded entry (usually #16), #2 vs. the second-lowest seeded entry (usually #15), #3 vs. the third-lowest seeded entry (usually #14), etc. This alignment was then tweaked, for geographic and travel considerations, by the tournament selection officials to determine the announced first-round pairings.

The first round tournament match-ups, finalized and announced on Sunday, April 11[9] , were:

Since the inception of the Coaches' Poll in 1999, the #1 ranking in the various weekly polls has been held by only a select group of teams. Through Poll 5 of the 2020 season, the teams and the number of times they have held the #1 weekly ranking are shown below. The number of times a team has been ranked #1 in the postseason poll (the national champion) is shown in parentheses.

There has been only one tie for the leading vote-getter in a weekly poll. In 2015, Southern Oregon was tied with Marian (IN) in the preseason poll.

In 1999, the results of a postseason poll, if one was conducted, are not known. Therefore, an additional poll has been presumed, and the #1 postseason ranking has been credited to the postseason tournament champion, the Northwestern Oklahoma State Rangers.