The road to Frisco, the home of the 2023-2024 FCS National Championship game, starts on November 19th, 2023 with the Selection Show. On that day, twenty-four teams will be given the opportunity to work their way through the bracket to win a National Championship. Here, we attempt to project the FCS Playoff bracket to find out who those teams are. Of the fourteen FCS conferences, nine are awarded automatic bids as conference champions. One auto-bid is a combination of the Big South and Ohio Valley Conferences. The other fourteen teams come from an at at-large pool of the best of the rest non-conference champions.
For more reading, see our FCS College Football Ratings and our CFB game predictions.
We’ve analyzed the teams and understand how the selection process works, so below is our projected FCS Playoff field for the year. In preseason, this list is mostly a crap-shoot, however, as more games are played we will be able to more accurately predict where the FCS teams will land in the bracket.
Our FCS Playoff Bracket attempts to analyze everything that the selection committee would look at. This includes record, conference record, conference championships, strength of schedules, big wins, RPI and more. Remember, this list is not who we think should make the tournament, but who we think the committee will select to make the tournament.
Updated on 11/19/2023 @ 8:40am EST.
FCS Playoff Bracket Projection
| Seed | Team | Record | Conference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S Dakota St | 11-0 | Missouri Valley |
| Mercer | 8-3 | Southern | |
| S Illinois | 7-4 | Missouri Valley | |
| 8 | N Dakota St | 8-3 | Missouri Valley |
| Montana St | 8-3 | Big Sky | |
| Duquesne | 7-4 | Northeast | |
| 5 | SUNY Albany | 9-3 | Colonial |
| Austin Peay | 9-2 | United | |
| Nicholls St | 6-4 | Southland | |
| 4 | Villanova | 9-2 | Colonial |
| Richmond | 8-3 | Colonial | |
| Lafayette | 9-2 | Patriot | |
| 3 | South Dakota | 9-2 | Missouri Valley |
| UC Davis | 7-4 | Big Sky | |
| TN Martin | 8-3 | Ohio Valley | |
| 6 | Idaho | 8-3 | Big Sky |
| North Dakota | 7-4 | Missouri Valley | |
| Gardner Webb | 7-4 | Big South | |
| 2 | Montana | 10-1 | Big Sky |
| Youngstown St | 7-4 | Missouri Valley | |
| CS Sacramento | 7-4 | Big Sky | |
| 7 | Furman | 9-2 | Southern |
| Delaware | 8-3 | Colonial | |
| Drake | 8-3 | Pioneer |
Just missing the cut, here are our last four out…
| Seed | Team | Record | Conference |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 | Holy Cross | 7-4 | Patriot |
| L2 | Chattanooga | 7-4 | Southern |
| L3 | W Carolina | 7-4 | Southern |
| L4 | Incarnate Word | 8-2 | Southland |
FCS Projected Automatic Bids
As mentioned above, there are ten teams that are awarded automatic bids due to being a conference champion. In both the SWAC and MEAC, the conference champions play in the Celebration Bowl. However, teams that are not winners of those conferences are still eligible to make the FCS Playoff. The Ivy League is the only FCS conference that completely sits out of the playoff.
| Conference | Projected Bids | Projected Auto Bid |
|---|---|---|
| Big Sky | 5 | Montana |
| Big South-OVC | 2 | Gardner Webb |
| Colonial | 4 | Villanova |
| FCS Independents | 0 | No Auto Bid |
| Missouri Valley | 6 | S Dakota St |
| Northeast | 1 | Duquesne |
| Patriot | 1 | Lafayette |
| Pioneer | 1 | Drake |
| Southern | 2 | Furman |
| Southland | 1 | Nicholls St |
| Southwestern Athletic | 0 | No Auto Bid |
| Mid-Eastern Athletic | 0 | No Auto Bid |
| United | 1 | Austin Peay |
| Ivy League | 0 | No Auto Bid |