CSJ Sagarin 2018 NCAA FCS Playoff Projection – Sept. 17
Just as Chuck Burton has done his projections for the FCS playoff, the following are using the Sagarin rankings to fully project the field. Keep in mind that there are automatic bids to the following conference champions so the projects also keep this criteria in mind:
Big Sky Conference Big South Conference Colonial Athletic Conference (CAA) Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC) Northeast Conference (NEC) Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) Patriot League Pioneer Football League Southern Conference Southland Conference
Top 25 Rankings with playoff spot with the conference name indicating the automatic spot for its conference and then the 14 at-large spots also listed. See the full Top 25 with the hyperlink:
As noted above, North Carolina A&T and Princeton are in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and the Ivy League. Those two conferences and along with the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) do not directly participate in the playoffs. The MEAC and SWAC champions play a bowl game (the Celebration Bowl) while the Ivy League does not allow any of its members to participate in the postseason in football.
Any MEAC or SWAC second place or lower team could be selected for an at-large spot provided they do not already have a game scheduled on Thanksgiving weekend. But no such team was in the rankings this week.
Also, the final three conferences of the NEC, Patriot League, and Pioneer League will have their champions also participate and these three teams are shown below and will be the final three teams in terms of overall seeds.
The following are the full rankings for these three conferences with the winner highlighted in yellow:
Ranking 1-24, the following would be the playoff field based on the Sagarin rankings.
| 1 | North Dakota State |
| 2 | South Dakota State |
| 3 | James Madison |
| 4 | Northern Iowa |
| 5 | Illinois State |
| 6 | Weber State |
| 7 | Eastern Washington |
| 8 | Jacksonville State |
| 9 | Kennesaw State |
| 10 | South Dakota |
| 11 | Samford |
| 12 | Elon |
| 13 | Maine |
| 14 | Wofford |
| 15 | UC Davis |
| 16 | Villanova |
| 17 | Montana |
| 18 | Missouri State |
| 19 | Western Illinois |
| 20 | Sam Houston State |
| 21 | Youngstown State |
| 22 | Colgate |
| 23 | Sacred Heart |
| 24 | San Diego |
Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football is the Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
Reach him at this email or click below:
