NAPERVILLE, Ill. - A pair of College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin football teams were featured in D3football.com's 2026 Preseason Top 25 Poll ahead of the 2026 season. North Central College and Wheaton College enter their 2026 campaigns ranked No. 1 and No. 5, respectively.
For the fourth consecutive year, North Central enters the season as the No. 1 team in the country. The Cardinals earned 625 points and all 25 first-place votes to become the unanimous preseason No. 1. They are coming off a strong 2025 season in which they finished as the national runner-up following a 24-14 loss to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. North Central also enters the upcoming season riding a conference-record 51-game winning streak in CCIW play and seeking its sixth consecutive CCIW championship.
Wheaton earned the No. 5 spot in the preseason poll after finishing the 2025 season ranked No. 7. The Thunder notched 11 wins last season for the second-highest win total in program history while advancing to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division III Football Championship before falling to UW-River Falls. This marks the 19th consecutive year Wheaton has appeared in D3football.com's preseason poll.
Both squads will open their seasons September 5 against fellow top-five teams in the preseason poll. North Central will host No. 2 Bethel University at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium in an early showdown between the nation's top two teams, while Wheaton will face No. 3 University of Mount Union at McCully Stadium.
Follow the CCIW
| CCIW on X | CCIW Instagram | CCIW Facebook | CCIW YouTube | CCIW on TikTok |
The College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) was founded in 1946 and currently services nine member institutions including Augustana College (Rock Island, Ill.), Carroll University (Waukesha, Wis.), Carthage College (Kenosha, Wis.), Elmhurst University (Elmhurst, Ill.), Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, Ill.), Millikin University (Decatur, Ill.), North Central College (Naperville, Ill.), North Park University (Chicago, Ill.) and Wheaton College (Wheaton, Ill.).