Who will win the Conference in 2026?

[zimmy21]

Welcome, Wisco G

[34blast]

I see coaches poll came out https://northernsun.org/news/2026/7/...ches-poll.aspx
I see it posted on another thread
Give me Augustana above Duluth and Winona above Moorhead, looks about right after that

[MrMustang]

I voted Mankato.

Think USF will be 2nd

In the North i think Duluth

i think there will be many upsets this year.

sneaky team - Wayne

I have rethought this. Top 3 are all South Mankato, Augie, USF, Augie may win it over Mankato

[MrMustang]

Hey everyone,

I’m new to the forum, the parent of an incoming freshman at Northern State and have been getting up to speed on the NSIC. I know this is a bit long, but here goes...

I like analytics, so I built a model to project the season. 2025 standings are the baseline, with adjustments for roster retention (including All-Conference selections and key contributors who played at least 50% of the games), player losses, Prep Redzone recruiting rankings, and strength of schedule with home-field and travel adjustments.

Transfers aren't included and recruiting classes aren’t factored as heavily as upperclassmen movement since true freshmen rarely make immediate impacts. I didn't include writeups on Minot State, UMary, Jamestown, and SMSU since my model projects them in the lower tier this season.

My top five rosters based on the formula:
Sioux Falls, Minnesota State, Minnesota Duluth, Northern State, Augustana

Roster rankings and projected standings aren't the same because SOS ultimately reshuffles a few teams. When I applied the SOS and ran the full schedule, the projected results looked like this:

At the top are UMD and USF. UMD pairs a top-two roster due to solid retention and average loss numbers, with a very favorable schedule that misses both MSU and USF. USF carries the strongest overall roster with minimal losses and draws the easiest SOS among top teams (hosts MSU/Moorhead, misses UMD/NSU).

Then I have MSU and NSU. MSU has a top-five roster with the strongest returning group despite losing some top talent. It’s basically "next man up" for them. They won’t face UMD and have some key games at home. NSU grades out well in my model because of solid overall retention despite some notable departures, along with a top-five recruiting class. That said, their schedule features tough road trips to UMD, MSU, and MSUM.

In the next tier are Augie and MSUM. Augie grades out with a top-five roster and should reload like MSU, but gets hit with a brutal SOS that forces them to play all the other top-half teams. MSUM falls to an average roster rating after notable departures, but they have some top-tier opponents at home, which helps.

In the middle of the pack are Bemidji State, Wayne State, Winona State, and Concordia-St. Paul. Bemidji has a low number of experienced returning players and lost a few All Conference guys, so they appear a bit thin. A favorable SOS should help them some. Wayne had a balanced offseason in terms of roster gains versus losses alongside an average schedule. Winona’s roster was fairly stable, but they had little All-Conference representation and face a gauntlet schedule playing six of my top seven. Finally, CSP comes in with a tough baseline and low recruit scores, but didn't lose much All-Conference talent, which softens the hit from significant player turnover.

While this is a long post, it’s very much a summary. I'm sure I've missed some things, especially with transfers, so I'd be interested to hear where people think the model is overrating or underrating a team.

welcome -- plenty of satire here don't take offense.

Also lots os solid insight and homerism

[MrMustang]

Augie 9-2
Kato 9-2
USF 9-2
UMD 9-2

Wayne 7-4
Northern 7-4


Winona 6-5

Moorhead 5-6

SMSU 4-7
Bemidji 4-7

Mary 2-9
Minot 2-9
CSP 2-9
Jamestown 2-9

[FB Player Coach & Fan]

Just looking at the luck of the draw of the cross over part of the schedule for the south:

Sioux Falls has the easiest 4 cross over schedule with Jamestown/Moorhead/Mary/Minot. Concordia would have the next easiest Moorhead/Mary/Bemidji/Jamestown. Augustana, Mankato, Wayne & Winona all with similar cross over anticipated strength of schedule in this third grouping. SMSU drew the short straw in the strength of schedule crossover with Minot, bemidji, northern and Duluth.
This would be based on the preseason polling. We will see if there are any surprises at the end of the season.

[Tundra_Man]

...
Sioux Falls has the easiest 4 cross over schedule with Jamestown/Moorhead/Mary/Minot.
...

That means they can't afford to be on the bubble for the playoffs, as their SOS will likely be lower than everyone else.

[vikingfaithful]

Just looking at the luck of the draw of the cross over part of the schedule for the south:

Sioux Falls has the easiest 4 cross over schedule with Jamestown/Moorhead/Mary/Minot. Concordia would have the next easiest Moorhead/Mary/Bemidji/Jamestown. Augustana, Mankato, Wayne & Winona all with similar cross over anticipated strength of schedule in this third grouping. SMSU drew the short straw in the strength of schedule crossover with Minot, bemidji, northern and Duluth.
This would be based on the preseason polling. We will see if there are any surprises at the end of the season.

Augustana plays MSU, UMD, NSU and WSU, all on the road. MSU-UMD do not play each other this season. AU has USF at home, which is not a big home advantage. Vikings North opponents are, MINOT, MSUM, UMD and NSU. For the predicted contenders, Augie has the toughest schedule.

[Wisco G]

welcome -- plenty of satire here don't take offense.

Also lots os solid insight and homerism

Thanks for your thoughts, MrMustang. I don't mind being challenged.

I'll just say that my satire and "homerism" is rooted in reviewing every NSIC roster to see which All Conference players from last season are no longer on rosters, weighted with 1st team more than 2nd team. Also, giving credit for those who remain, similarly weighted. I also pulled participation data for every team and identified how many players on each roster that participated in at least half the games for their team last season remain on their rosters. I used high school rankings for all players who were ranked by Prep Redzone to grade recruiting classes, both by ranking position and the number of ranked players. In addition, I weighted those rankings in three tiers, to recognize the guy Augie brought in who was ranked #477 in Texas should get a boost, because Texas is amongst the hotbeds of high school football talent, for example. I also boosted OPY and DPY from last year, which resulted in MSUM and Wayne losing a little extra on the roster scoring, since neither of those players returned. I also weighted position retention, with teams that have returning QBs (for example) getting a little extra juice in the formula as well.

After doing those few things, I put the conference in tiers based on the roster scores and graded each schedule to get the SOS, with small adjustments for home and away, as well as travel. For instance, games like Minot-Winona and Minot-Wayne are both over 9 hours and may be a bit more difficult for the road teams. Smaller adjustments for games as far as five hours were included.

After grading the SOS and putting my homerism to work, my formula kicked out a hypothetical order that looked like this:

Minnesota Duluth

Sioux Falls

Minnesota State

Northern State

Augustana

MSU Moorhead

Bemidji State

Wayne State

Winona State

Concordia-St. Paul

Minot State

UMary

Jamestown

Southwest Minnesota State

The dark greens were the highest rated rosters. The dark blues the lowest. The movement up or down was based on the schedule.

I then walked through the schedule using zimmy21 's framework. While I did not present records from my analysis, since I know anything can happen on the field, and considering I also acknowledged transfers were not included, I did list the tiers based on this with some justification for each.

As noted, I'm an analytics guy, but I know the games are played on the field. I thought my insights might provide some value in this forum and contribute to the friendly banter.

Enjoy the season, all!

[FB Player Coach & Fan]

Augustana plays MSU, UMD, NSU and WSU, all on the road. MSU-UMD do not play each other this season. AU has USF at home, which is not a big home advantage. Vikings North opponents are, MINOT, MSUM, UMD and NSU. For the predicted contenders, Augie has the toughest schedule.

No pun intended, but the easiest or simplest is not to create sub stacks of variables like home or away, travel miles, contenders or pretenders, opponents after a bye, early or late in the season. Those can all be reasonable considerations.
The intent was simply who is playing who in the 4 crossover schedule alone and are those opponents expected to be easy or tough games. Everyone in the south will play the same 7 teams from the south. You may well be correct when you add all the sub stack of categories associated with all 11 games.

[vikingfaithful]

Just looking at the luck of the draw of the cross over part of the schedule for the south:

Sioux Falls has the easiest 4 cross over schedule with Jamestown/Moorhead/Mary/Minot. Concordia would have the next easiest Moorhead/Mary/Bemidji/Jamestown. Augustana, Mankato, Wayne & Winona all with similar cross over anticipated strength of schedule in this third grouping. SMSU drew the short straw in the strength of schedule crossover with Minot, bemidji, northern and Duluth.
This would be based on the preseason polling. We will see if there are any surprises at the end of the season.

You have AU, MSU, WSC & WSU on the same plateau, however Mankato doesn't play Duluth like the other three. Therefore, should be on an easier level.

[FB Player Coach & Fan]

You have AU, MSU, WSC & WSU on the same plateau, however Mankato doesn't play Duluth like the other three. Therefore, should be on an easier level.

Wouldn’t argue your point on Mankato avoiding Duluth making it an easier strength of schedule. I simply looked at the number of anticipated tough pre season ranking opponents versus relatively easy opponents. Looked to me as each team had two top tier opponents and two lower tier opponents. Is there a difference between Duluth ( with a new qb) and bemidji or northern? Probably, but all three are expected to be top teams in the north.

[Discopooch]

I just hope all of the teams have fun.

[MrMustang]

Bemidji has been very good the past few years, but a expected to be a little down.

the differences on paper bewteen the North and South are bigger than ever, perhaps. we shall see once the games are played