(LEBANON, Ill., July 26)—The McKendree University football team earned the No. 5 position in the 2019 Great Lakes Valley Conference football pre-season poll, which was released Friday in conjunction with the 2019 GLVC Football Kickoff held Friday at the Hettenhausen Center for the Arts on the McKendree campus.
 
The Bearcats garnered 29 points in the voting conducted by the league's eight head football coaches in mid-July. The GLVC will feature eight teams competing for the league championship in 2019, which will mark the eighth season of action in the conference.
 
Last season, McKendree posted an overall record of 6-5 with a 4-3 mark in GLVC play. The Bearcats set a program record by scoring 393 points in 2018, including 202 over the first five games of the year. Head coach Mike Babcock, who enters his seventh season at the helm of the Bearcats' program, McKendree has 49 returning lettermen, including 15 starters, back from a year ago. Among the returning starters are eight on defense.
 
The University of Indianapolis has been picked as the favorite to win the GLVC football championship in 2019. The Greyhounds grabbed seven of the eight first-place votes and received 49 points in the poll. The newest member of the GLVC, Lindenwood University, was picked to finish as the runner-up in the league with 38 points, followed closely by Truman State University with 37 points. The Bulldogs collected the remaining first-place vote in the conference.
 
Missouri S&T was just in front of McKendree in the GLVC pre-season poll in fourth place with 31 points. Quincy University (18 points), Southwest Baptist University (13 points) and William Jewell College (9 points) rounded out the league's rating.
 
McKendree will play an 11-game schedule once again in 2019, beginning with a non-conference game at Northern Michigan University on Saturday, Sept. 7. The Bearcats will host their first-ever four-game home stand beginning the following week with their home opener on Sept. 14 versus Michigan Tech. McKendree will host Lindenwood in the annual Homecoming contest on Oct. 5.