Being picked in the preseason top 10 is becoming an annual August event for the University of Massachusetts as the Minutemen were picked fifth in the Sports Network's Football Championship Subdivision Top 25 that was released Tuesday.

This is the second straight season UMass was picked in the top five as it was No. 3 to open the 2007 season. The Minutemen were never ranked lower than No. 8 last season. They were picked No. 10 before the 2006 season. Their highest ever preseason ranking was in 1999 when they were picked No. 2 after winning the 1998 Division I-AA Championship.

Three-time defending champion Appalachian State was No. 1 with 97 of the 101 first-place votes, followed by North Dakota State, which was No. 2 (one first-place vote). The Bison were a top 10 team last year, but weren't eligible for the posteason as a transitional FCS school. NDSU is eligible this season.

Northern Iowa was picked third.

The Minutemen were one of six Colonial Athletic Association teams ranked in the top 25, including four in the top 10. Richmond, which shared the CAA regular season crown with UMass, was the highest ranked at No. 4, just ahead of the Minutemen. James Madison was just behind UMass at No. 6 and received three No. 1 votes. After advancing to the championship game last year, Delaware is at No. 9. The Minutemen play each of those teams this season as well as No. 16 New Hampshire. Villanova is the sixth CAA team in the poll at No. 21.

Maine and Hofstra as well as nonconference opponents Albany, UMass' first opponent of the season (Aug. 30), and Holy Cross are all among teams also receiving votes.

Including Texas Tech, which is ranked No. 12 in the Football Bowl Subdivision, nine of UMass' 12 opponents are either ranked or received votes in the top 25.

POSTSEASON IMPLICATIONS - The NCAA Selection Committee will use the Sports Network Top 25, which is voted on by media, the USA Today FCS Coaches Poll (which hasn't been released yet this year) and the Gridiron Power Index, a computer ranking system to help determine the 16 teams included in the 16-team FCS playoff field.

According to UMass athletic director John McCutcheon, the polls will be used to evaluate teams from leagues without automatic bids to the postseason.

"The polls aren't going to be used to evaluate the entire field, but if there are conferences out there that don't have an automatic qualification, we're going to look at how they finished in a number of different polls for inclusion into the poll," McCutcheon said.

That list of teams will shrink in 2010 when the FCS Playoff field expands to 20-teams. McCutcheon said while the 20-team total has been determined, many other factors remain up in the air in terms of how the field will be chosen, seeded and scheduled.

"It's still moving forward. The field is expanding to 20. Right now the question is how do we incorporate those addition teams in the championship. Nothing has been determined yet," McCutcheon said. "Going to that number of teams is going to require an additional week and right now that means we're going to lose the bye week in the regular season. Most of our discussions are about if we want to do that or look at other alternatives. None of that has been resolved at this point. There will be more automatic qualifications for conference, but it hasn't been put into stone which conferences will receive those."

Under the current system, the champions of eight leagues - the CAA, the Patriot League, the Big Sky, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Confernce, Southern Confernce, the Southland Confernce, the Ohio Valley and the Missouri Valley (formerly the Gateway) each receive an automatic bid to the playoffs. The eight at-large bids are chosen by the selection committee.

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. For more UMass coverage, including a UMass sports blog, go to http://www.gazettenet.com/blog/umass-sports.