CSJ Sagarin NCAA FCS Playoff Projection-Oct. 31

Here is this week’s projected field using the Sagarin rankings to fit the bracket. This field is as of today and using the fact that 10 FCS conferences get automatic bids to the field the bracket (highest ranked school in each get the bid in this projection). Then the 14 next highest ranked teams are the at-large teams.

As the season goes on, I will use the six Division I win criteria into account. If there is a team before then cannot possibly get to this total, I will take them out of the projection. I will do a projection each week up until the actual playoff field is announced on Nov. 19th.

This week there were no adjustments but should there be two conference teams paired together, I will take the the playoff committee suggestion where two teams from the same conference cannot meet in the opening round. But one item that I am doing that takes back to the roots of the Division I FCS playoff field is to seed the full group from #1 to #24 and not look at geography to select the field.

I will repeat that this is as the field sits if the rankings were used to select the field today. As this projection shows, there are eight schools from the Missouri Valley Football Conference with seven of these schools in the Top 8. This will likely go down as teams from that league knock each other off and when the six Division I criteria is taken into account.

Overall SeedSchoolPlayoff BidSeed/Placement
1North Dakota StateMissouri Valley#1 SeedEdit
2James MadisonColonial#2 Seed
3South DakotaAt-Large 1#3 Seed
4South Dakota StateAt-Large 2#4 Seed
5Western IllinoisAt-Large 3#5 Seed
6Northern IowaAt-Large 4#6 Seed
7Illinois StateAt-Large 5#7 Seed
8Youngstown StateAt-Large 6#8 Seed
9Jacksonville StateOhio ValleyHome 1st Round
10Northern ArizonaBig SkyHome 1st Round
11Central ArkansasSouthlandHome 1st Round
12Weber StateAt-Large 7Home 1st Round
13FurmanSoConHome 1st Round
14Sam Houston StateAt-Large 8Home 1st Round
15Southern UtahAt-Large 9Home 1st Round
16VillanovaAt-Large 10Home 1st Round
17Southern IllinoisAt-Large 11Road 1st Round
18SamfordAt-Large 12Road 1st Round
19WoffordAt-Large 13Road 1st Round
20Eastern WashingtonAt-Large 14Road 1st Round
21Kennesaw StateBig SouthRoad 1st Round
22Duquesne NECRoad 1st Round
23Colgate PatriotRoad 1st Round
24San DiegoPioneerRoad 1st Round

And here are these projections in bracket form.