Western Carolina earns votes in preseason FCS Top 25 poll

Western Carolina picked up votes in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 preseason poll released for games through Aug. 3, 2026, keeping the Catamounts in the national conversation without putting a number beside their name. Montana State opened No. 1 with all 57 first-place votes and 1,425 points, but Western Carolina’s presence on the ballot still mattered: it showed that some voters see a team close enough to the top 25 to warrant attention before the first kickoff.

That is the line between promise and proof. The Catamounts were ranked No. 18 in the 2025 preseason poll, then climbed back into the rankings at No. 24 on Nov. 3 and finished No. 25 a week later on Nov. 10. This year’s votes say the program has not fallen off the national map, but they also show the next step is still unfinished. Western Carolina is getting noticed in Cullowhee, North Carolina, yet it remains just outside the tier that opens the season with a formal ranking.

The broader résumé already shows why voters have kept the Catamounts nearby. Western Carolina also entered last season at No. 19 in the AFCA Coaches Poll and No. 18 in the HERO Sports FCS preseason media poll, a sign that its profile has been rising across multiple national outlets rather than in one isolated poll. That matters in a subdivision where preseason legitimacy often shapes the first month of the season, especially when teams are trying to position themselves for playoff talk and conference credibility before the calendar turns deep into September.

Ken Moore Jr. adds another reason the Catamounts are drawing notice. The standout was named a Stats Perform FCS Preseason All-America selection on July 13, giving Western Carolina a recognizable headline player before the season even begins. That kind of individual recognition does not guarantee a ranking, but it helps explain why the Catamounts are still on ballots. A team with All-America talent and recent top-25 history is harder to dismiss than a program that has to start from zero.

For Western Carolina, the path from receiving votes to cracking the top 25 is straightforward, if not easy: convert preseason interest into early wins, beat the kind of opponents that force voters to move a team up, and stack enough results to make last fall’s late-season ranking look like the start of something larger. The votes are a foothold, and the season will decide whether they become a position in the poll.