Last week, the NAU football team was ranked 9th in the country in one of the first preseason polls released this summer.

Fast forward to Tuesday and the Lumberjacks were surprisingly picked to finish fifth in the Big Sky Conference by both the league's coaches and the media that cover the conference.

But, for what it's worth, Lumberjacks coach Jerome Souers isn't paying too much attention to either of the polls.

"Preseason polls are just something that have to be done," Souers said. "It's something to keep the media busy. But, whether we're picked ninth in the country or fifth in our own conference, we have extremely strong expectations for our program and that will never change."

The Jacks have plenty of talent returning from last year's 6-5 squad, headlined by quarterback Michael Herrick.

At the same time, NAU will welcome back several players who missed the 2009 campaign with injuries, leading Souers to believe the Jacks could be better than their predicted fifth-place finish.

"We have a lot of really, really good players that aren't on people's radar because they weren't around last year and people may have forgotten about -- guys like Cody Dowd, Mike Battisti and Kyle Rath," Souers said. "But, those guys along with a few others that missed last season are going to be real big for us this year.

"I also think people look at our team and see Mike (Herrick), but then see all the receivers we've lost and (running back) Alex Henderson is gone, but we still have plenty of weapons for him to use."

Montana is the overwhelming favorite to win the league for a 13th straight time. The Grizzlies were a unanimous pick to win the conference by the coaches and received 40 of 42 possible first-place votes from the media.

Even with a coaching change in Missoula with Robin Pflugrad taking over for Bobby Hauck, Souers wasn't surprised at all to see the Griz on top.

"They've gone through coaching changes before and it seems like they never skip a beat," Souers said. "To me, they have to be the favorite to win the league."

The Jacks received one first-place vote from the media and Pflugrad's first-place vote. Coaches aren't allowed to vote for their own team, meaning Pflugrad couldn't vote for the Griz.

Eastern Washington was picked to finish second by both the coaches and media, followed by Montana State and Weber State in both polls.

After NAU, Sacramento State, Northern Colorado, Portland State and Idaho State round out both polls in that order.

NAU is set to begin fall practice Aug. 10 with its season opener slated for Sept. 2 against Western New Mexico.

Daniel Berk can be reached at dberk@azdailysun.com or 556-2251.