Unbeaten and Unanimous: College of Idaho Is the No. 1 Team in the NAIA

Photo: Cody Smithies / FLOWW Network

The best small-college football team in America plays its home games in Caldwell. College of Idaho is 7-0, unbeaten through the end of October, and ranked at or near the top of every NAIA poll that matters. The Yotes have outscored their opponents 365-102 this season, an average final score of roughly 52-15, and they have done it the same way almost every week: run the ball down your throat, then make you earn every yard going the other way.

The final NAIA coaches' poll of the season, released Oct. 19, made it official. College of Idaho collected all 13 first-place votes to finish as the unanimous No. 1 team in the nation, its third consecutive week at the top. The rankings picture has one wrinkle worth knowing: starting this week, the NAIA's playoff field is seeded by a National Selection Committee, and that committee's first Top 15, released Tuesday, placed the Yotes at No. 2. The coaches say this is the best team in the country. The committee that will actually build the bracket says second best. Either way, the Yotes are in position to play their playoff football at home, where they have been untouchable.

How 7-0 happened

The season opened on the road with a statement, 37-7 at Eastern Oregon, and the home opener was a party: 63-13 over Rocky Mountain. A 59-14 win at Montana State-Northern set up the biggest test of September, a visit from Montana Tech, a top-six team in the national rankings and the program that won the Frontier East last season. The Yotes won it 35-19, the closest thing to a challenge they have faced all year, and the win looks better every week: Tech has not lost since.

October opened with a 56-14 homecoming rout of Simpson. Then came the most complete performance of the season, a 52-7 win at Montana Western on Oct. 17 in which the Yotes rolled up 553 yards of offense. And last Saturday night at Simplot Stadium, in front of the home crowd under the lights, College of Idaho finished the sweep of an Eastern Oregon team that arrived 5-1, ranked No. 24, and riding a five-game win streak. The Yotes piled up 609 yards of offense, forced two turnovers on downs, turned a second-quarter fumble recovery into points, and won 63-28. FLOWW Network TV's Yotes Gameday Live has had a front-row seat to the run all fall.

The ground game is the identity

Start with the number that explains everything: 2,040 rushing yards and 35 rushing touchdowns in seven games. The Yotes run for nearly 300 yards a night, and the engine is running back Rylie Byington, a First Team All-Frontier West selection last season who has already scored 13 rushing touchdowns this fall. Defenses know what is coming. It has not mattered. Behind Byington, quarterback Caden Young is the second half of the problem: at Montana Western he completed 21 of 27 passes for 237 yards and a touchdown and added 139 rushing yards and three touchdowns of his own. A defense that sells out to stop Byington gets carved up by Young, and a defense that respects Young watches Byington score again.

A defense that travels

The other side of the ball is why this team wins on the road by five touchdowns. College of Idaho has allowed 102 points in seven games and is holding opponents to 88 rushing yards per game. The unit brought back nine starters from last season, led by First Team All-Frontier West defensive lineman Tucker French, linebacker Elton Saole-Su'e and defensive back Tanner Steele, and it has played like a group that has been together for years, because it has. The Yotes held Montana Western to seven points in its own stadium and turned Eastern Oregon over on downs twice in the biggest home game of the season.

Built for this

None of this is an accident. Head coach Michael Moroski's program went 11-2 last season, won the inaugural Frontier West division title, beat Montana Tech in the national quarterfinals and reached the NAIA semifinals. This year's team returned seven starters on offense and nine on defense from that group, which is why the Yotes opened the season as the preseason favorite in the Frontier West and why a No. 1 ranking felt less like a surprise than a confirmation. The Frontier's divisional format sends both the East and West champions into the playoffs with automatic bids, and College of Idaho is three weeks from collecting the West.

What is next

The regular season closes with three games that define everything. Saturday, the Yotes travel to Arizona Christian for a 7 p.m. Mountain kickoff against a Firestorm team that is 0-7 and rebuilding under first-year head coach Drew Maddox. It is exactly the kind of game a No. 1 team is supposed to win by 40, and exactly the kind of game that has ruined perfect seasons before, on the road, against a team with nothing to lose. Then comes the game the whole Frontier West has pointed at for a month: Carroll College, 6-1, visits Caldwell on Nov. 7. The Saints' only loss came against Montana Tech, and the winner in Caldwell takes the division and the automatic bid that comes with it. A regular-season finale follows, and the NAIA playoffs open the weekend of Nov. 21. If the Yotes hold their seed, the road to the national championship runs through Simplot Stadium, where they have won their four home games this season by a combined score of 217-74.

By the numbers

• 7-0, 3-0: the Yotes' record, first in the Frontier Conference West Division
• 365-102: points scored vs. allowed through seven games
• 2,040 and 35: team rushing yards and rushing touchdowns
• 13: rushing touchdowns for Rylie Byington, the Frontier West's most productive back
• 88: rushing yards allowed per game by a defense that returned nine starters
• 13 of 13: first-place votes in the final NAIA Coaches' Top 25, a unanimous No. 1
• 609: yards of offense against Eastern Oregon, the season's biggest night

The stakes of the next three weeks are simple to state. Win the Frontier West and the Yotes take an automatic bid and, in all likelihood, home field through the early rounds of the playoffs. Slip up, and a team that has been ranked No. 1 for a month could find itself traveling in late November. Unbeaten seasons are rare at any level of college football. College of Idaho is three wins from taking one into the postseason, and the hardest of those three is the one everybody in Caldwell already has circled.

Sources

• 2026 Football Schedule and Results, College of Idaho Athletics
• No. 1 Yotes Roll Past Eastern Oregon, 63-28, College of Idaho Athletics
• College of Idaho unanimous No. 1 in final NAIA Coaches' Top 25, Frontier Conference
• C of I ranked in NAIA selection committee's first Top 15, Montana Sports
• 2026 Frontier Conference West Division Preview, Victory Sports Network