The Midwest Conference released its 2026 Football Preseason Coaches Poll on Thursday and Lake Forest College was ranked second.
Voting is done by the MWC head football coaches. Each coach votes for the other 10 schools in the league in order of predicted finish. Points are assigned in reverse order of voting (10 points for first, 9 for second, etc.). Coaches may not vote for their own teams.
The Foresters finished with 90 points and received a pair of first-place votes in the poll. They were just below defending league champion Monmouth College with the Fighting Scots tallying 99 points and appearing in the top spot on nine ballots. University of Chicago (80), Illinois College (77), and Ripon College (59) finished off the top five.
Lake Forest is seeking the program's fourth league championship in a six-year span and the ninth in school history. The Foresters were 7-3 overall and tied for second in the MWC standings at 7-2 in conference play a year ago. They captured titles and made NCAA Division III Tournament appearances in 2021, 2022, and 2024 and are 39-6 in league play in the last five years.
The Foresters have several all-conference players returning this fall, including MWC Newcomer of the Year James Jordan (tight end) and fellow First Team All-MWC selections Jakob Gump (punter), Ethan Springer (quarterback), and Blake Ware (linebacker).
The 2026 season will be Jim Catanzaro's 18th as the Foresters' head coach and will begin with a non-conference home game against his alma mater, Greenville University, on Saturday, September 5. Lake Forest will open league play two weeks later against Grinnell College and the team's Homecoming opponents will be Lawrence University on October 13. The regular season will conclude at Chicago on November 14.
The league champion will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament while the the highest-placing team in the standings that does not qualify for the NCAA Playoffs will take on its counterpart from the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference in the fifth annual Lakefront Bowl on November 21.
