As of this moment, no team has actually officially clinched a berth in the post-season in any of the lower divisions, but that’s about to change. To save me discussing the ins and outs of playoff selection for each division every week, I’m providing you a handy summary of the process right here, after the jump.<\/p>\n
DIVISION I FCS<\/strong><\/span>: DIVISION II<\/span><\/strong>: DIVISION III<\/span><\/strong>: NAIA<\/strong><\/span>: As of this moment, no team has actually officially clinched a berth in the post-season in any of the lower divisions, but that’s about to change. To save me discussing the ins and outs of playoff selection for each division every week, I’m providing you a handy summary of the process right here, after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,10,6,12,4],"tags":[9,11,41,13],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-division-ii","category-division-iii","category-fcs","category-naia","category-non-specific-babble","tag-d2","tag-d3","tag-fcs","tag-naia-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p185sV-cQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFirst round: November 25\/26
\nSecond round: December 2\/3
\nQuarterfinals: December 9\/10
\nSemifinals: December 16\/17
\nChampionship: January 7, Pizza Hut Park, Frisco TX, 1pm Eastern (ESPN2)
\n Automatic bids (10)<\/span>: all conferences, with the exception of the Great West (not enough teams), the Pioneer (complicated), the Ivy League (refuses to participate), and the SWAC (some teams schedule regular season games which conflict with the playoffs, so they opt out as well)
\n At-large bids (10)<\/span>: everyone without an automatic bid is eligible except Massachusetts, South Alabama, Texas-San Antonio, and Texas State (transitioning to FBS), and the Ivy schools. In theory, should a SWAC team which does not schedule a regular season game that conflicts with the playoffs have the resume, they can be invited.
\n Format<\/span>: Five teams are officially<\/em> seeded, and always host unseeded teams. (I will assign rational seeds to the remaining 15 teams for the purposes of illustration when we get to playoff time, but 6-20 are extrapolated and unofficial.) Those five teams and three others receive first-round byes. With the exception of the five seeded teams, the location of all games is determined by a bidding system which takes into account expected gate receipts and travel issues. All games are played on campus sites with the exception of the Championship.
\n Special at-large criteria<\/span>: Teams should have at least 7 wins against FCS teams. Wins over FBS teams are not taken into account for this purpose. Only if all teams with seven FCS wins are accounted for will teams that don’t meet this critiera be considered.<\/p>\n
\nFirst round: November 19
\nSecond round: November 26
\nQuarterfinals: December 3
\nSemifinals: December 10
\nChampionship: December 17, Braly Municipal Stadium, Florence AL, 11am Eastern (ESPN2)
\n Automatic bids (none)<\/span>: For football, Division II is divided into four super-regions. Each week, beginning in late October, the NCAA publishes rankings in each super-region; the final rankings determine the six playoff participants. However… if a conference champion is not among the top six, but is ranked #7 or #8, they will be included, costing one of the top six (not a conference champion) their slot.
\n At-large bids (24)<\/span>: Everyone is an at-large, technically.
\nFormat<\/span>: The top two seeds in each super-region receive byes for the first round. Except in fairly dire circumstances (inadequate facilities, insurmountable travel hardships, etc.), the higher-seeded team hosts. The six teams in each super-region play a regional tournament, thus the four semifinalists will include one team from each super-region. Host sites for the semifinals are not determined yet.
\nSpecial at-large criteria<\/span>: Team must be eligible.\u00a0 Ineligible teams in Division II, all of which are ineligible due to transitional status, include Azusa Pacific, Black Hills State, Lindenwood, McMurry, Minot State, Northwestern Oklahoma State, Sioux Falls, South Dakota Tech, Southern Nazarene, and William Jewell.<\/p>\n
\nFirst round: November 19
\nSecond round: November 26
\nQuarterfinals: December 3
\nSemifinals: December 10
\nChampionship (Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl): December 16 (Friday), Salem VA, 7pm Eastern (ESPNU)
\n Automatic Bids (25)<\/span>: With the exception of the University Athletic Association (only four teams) and the NESCAC (refuses to participate), all Division III conference champions now receive automatic bids.
\n At-large Bids (7)<\/span>: One at-large position will be granted to either an independent or a member of the UAA. The remaining six berths are open to all teams which have not yet received bids.
\n Format<\/span>: The 32 teams are placed into four regions, with travel considerations carrying serious weight. The only actual seeds are the #1 seeds in each region, and they will always host. The remaining teams are not officially<\/em> seeded, but the NCAA still does so unofficially and internally; if the #1 seed were to fall in the first round, it would be obvious who the #2 seed was by noting who hosts second-round and quarterfinal games. Here, we’ll still assign unofficial seeding for clarity purposes, as it’s readily apparent from the bracket (and it’s usually apparent when they’ve shuffled seeds for travel reasons).
\n Special at-large criteria<\/span>: The selection committee places a great deal of weight on regional competition, and their definition of “regional” is very complex. Teams are in regions; games against other teams in the same region are regional. Schools are in NCAA administrative<\/em> regions, which do not match up with the competition regions; games between schools in the administrative regions are regional. Games between teams less than 200 miles apart are regional, regardless of region, and conference games are always regional games, regardless of region or distance. Finally, games against teams that aren’t in D-III at all are not regional under any circumstance. If a game isn’t regional, it is excluded<\/strong> from a team’s profile when the selection committee considers their body of work. With those restrictions, the committee will then select the six teams they deem most deserving.\u00a0 There are currently no D-III football teams in transitional status, so nobody is ineligible for that reason.<\/p>\n
\nFirst round: November 19
\nQuarterfinals: November 26
\nSemifinals: December 3
\nChampionship: December 17, Barron Stadium, Rome GA, 4:30 EST (CBSSN… maybe)
\n Teams (16)<\/span>: I can’t even use the terms “automatic bids” or “at-large bids” here, because neither is true, yet both are true. Basically, all 16 bids are “automatic” in the sense that they are determined by process. The first step in that process is the final NAIA coaches poll. Any conference champion (including both divisional champions from the Mid-South Conference and Mid-States Football Association — that is, each division is considered a conference for this purpose) who finishes in the top 20 of the final poll is guaranteed a berth. The highest-ranked independent is also guaranteed a berth if they’re within the top 20. (Important note: the Dakota Athletic Conference is no longer deemed an official conference; the four teams remaining are considered as independents.) Once those berths (a maximum of 10) are handed out, the remaining berths are filled, in order, according to the final poll rankings.
\n Format<\/span>: Seeds are assigned based on the final poll, and the higher-seeded team hosts through the semifinals.
\n Special at-large criteria<\/span>: Several NAIA schools are ineligible for the post-season because they’re moving to D-II.\u00a0 I confess to some confusion, though, because some teams moving to D-II <em>remain<\/em> eligible (specifically Azusa Pacific and Southern Nazarene); I think this has to do with <em>when<\/em> they announced their departure.\u00a0 At any rate, Malone, McKendree, and Walsh are ineligible for this reason.\u00a0 Siena Heights is ineligible because they’re not playing a full season against varsity competition, West Virginia Tech is ineligible because they’re not yet a full NAIA member, and Southern Virginia is ineligible because they are only an associate NAIA member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"