{"id":27599,"date":"2018-12-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-texan-football-concludes-season-ranked-in-top-5-nationally\/"},"modified":"2021-11-12T01:16:41","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T01:16:41","slug":"tarleton-texan-football-concludes-season-ranked-in-top-5-nationally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-texan-football-concludes-season-ranked-in-top-5-nationally\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarleton Texan football concludes season ranked in Top 5 nationally"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"attachment\"><a href='https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-875.jpg'><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"248\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-875-248x300.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"AFCA 2018 Final Poll\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-875-248x300.jpg 248w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-875-847x1024.jpg 847w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-875-331x400.jpg 331w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-875-768x928.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-875.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 248px) 100vw, 248px\" style=\"width:100%;height:120.83%;max-width:1080px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>AFCA 2018 Final Poll<\/p>\n<p>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br \/>Tuesday, December 18, 2018<\/p>\n<p>STEPHENVILLE, Texas &mdash;&nbsp;For the first time in program history, Tarleton State University football is a national Top-5 program.<\/p>\n<p>The Texans were named the No. 5 football team in the nation in the final poll by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afca.com\/polls\/\">American Football Coaches Association<\/a> (AFCA) Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Tarleton just finished arguably the greatest season in school history after winning the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lonestarconference.org\/standings.aspx?path=football\">Lone Star Conference<\/a> (LSC) Championship outright and completing the first undefeated regular season in the program&rsquo;s NCAA era.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/tarletonsports.com\/index.aspx?path=football\">Texans<\/a> earned the right to host two playoff games, which they won advancing them to the Super Region IV finals against then-No. 1 Minnesota State. Tarleton fell to the Mavericks 13-10 in the third round of the postseason.<\/p>\n<p>Valdosta State, who won the NCAA Division II National Championship in McKinney last weekend, took over the top spot in the national poll while runner-up Ferris State is at No. 2. Minnesota State and Notre Dame (OH) are just ahead of the Texans in the No. 3 and No. 4 spots of the poll. Tarleton leads all LSC programs in the poll, checking in ahead of Texas A&amp;M-Commerce (9) and MSU Texas (25).<\/p>\n<p>This marks the fifth different season that Tarleton has been ranked under head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/tarletonsports.com\/staff.aspx?staff=155\">Todd Whitten<\/a>. The ninth-year leader of the Texans led Tarleton to its first national ranking in 2001 and the highest spot in program history at No. 5 this year.<\/p>\n<p>For the complete national poll, visit&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=http-3A__tarletonsports.com_services_go.ashx_d533930c-2D6593-2D4bdb-2D8793-2D042793c0a14e-3Felinkdata-3D226219&amp;d=DwMCaQ&amp;c=eQdEe9K32izieWD3NkQJir9gQaVsVoIVcl3Cm413M7A&amp;r=1Xm3eYbJuZbgFOM0kRYxGQ4Wqp7MEhynk4lH8S5Ipd4&amp;m=GIucUWd3sXC_XeTXIi7ZNLRHarF0xjNcTEvvV26C1Sg&amp;s=Q6Z0qIXZXYWVfB92ykGlQgCBkWjnT0yhBEfRFf71s6M&amp;e=\">AFCA.com<\/a>. To revisit Tarleton&rsquo;s historic season, view game statistics and more at&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tarletonsports.com\/\">www.tarletonsports.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Tarleton, founding member of The Texas A&amp;M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven education marked by academic innovation and a dedication to transform today&rsquo;s scholars into tomorrow&rsquo;s leaders. It offers degree programs to more than 13,000 students at Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian, RELLIS Academic Alliance in Bryan, and online, emphasizing real-world learning experiences that address societal needs while maintaining its core values of tradition, integrity, civility, excellence, leadership and service.<\/p>\n<p>#<\/p>\n<p>Contact: Nathan Bural, Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications<br \/>254-968-1802<br \/><a href=\"mailto:bural@tarleton.edu\">bural@tarleton.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time in program history, Tarleton State University football is a national Top-5 program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[433],"class_list":["post-27599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","tag-athletics"],"acf":{"image":null},"author_meta":{"display_name":"keegan","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/keegan-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-876-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/category\/campus-community\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Campus &amp; Community<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Campus &amp; Community<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/category\/campus-community\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Athletics<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Athletics<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 7 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on December 18, 2018","modified":"Updated on November 12, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on December 18, 2018 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on November 12, 2021 1:16 am"},"featured_img_caption":"Tarleton State football team celebrates 2018 Lone Star Conference championship.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}