CSJ Sagarin 2021 NCAA FCS Playoff Projection-Nov. 7
Using the Sagarin ranking this week, the following would be the field of 24 teams for the Division I FCS Football Playoffs. North Dakota State is the top seed, while MVFC mates South Dakota State and Northern Iowa are the second and third seeds respectively.
James Madison is the #4, while Sam Houston State and Eastern Washington are the #5 and #6 respectively.
There are currently 11 conferences that get their champion into the field as an automatic qualifier. The remaining 13 positions are at-large selections. NOTE: the MEAC, SWAC, and Ivy League do not send their conference champions to the playoff field. The MEAC and SWAC non-winners of either their division or the conference could be selected so these teams were taken into consideration.
Below is a list of all 24 teams with the ones in bold and highlighted in orange as the automatic qualifier from their respective conference (again, using the Sagarin rating to determine that team). The teams highlighted in yellow and not bolded represent the at-large selections:
The seeds would be as follows using the Sagarin rankings:
| 1. South Dakota State |
| 2. North Dakota State |
| 3. Sam Houston State |
| 4. James Madison |
| 5. Northern Iowa |
| 6. Montana State |
| 7. Missouri State |
| 8. Eastern Washington |
Below would the be bracket using fully the 24-seeds. No regionalization was considered for the 24-team field and the bracket was solely made by the Sagarin rankings.
Conference Breakdown with Number of Teams
| Missouri Valley Football Conference | 6 |
| Big Sky Conference | 5 |
| Colonial Athletic Association | 2 |
| Southern Conference | 2 |
| Southland Conference | 2 |
| AQ7 (Western Athletic/Atlantic Sun) | 2 |
| Northeast Conference | 1 |
| Ohio Valley Conference | 1 |
| Patriot League | 1 |
| Pioneer Football League | 1 |
| Big South Conference | 1 |
I will create a weekly projection until the playoff selections are made on Nov. 21st and will later take into account playoff criteria such as consideration for 7-wins (this week North Dakota and Weber State falls into this category after both suffered a fifth loss so they can not get to a 7-win total despite being ranked in the Top 24) and will also take the automatic qualifiers when they are declared conference champions over what the Sagarin rankings show as the top team in a conference. Also note, this bracket would have resulted in to Southern Conference teams to play each other, which can not happen in the first round. Incarnate Word and East Tennessee State were switched in seeds to avoid this in this projection.
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:
