Who's in, who's out, and who's on the bubble for the 24-team FCS field -- recomputed live from this site's own national rating and conference data.
If the season ended today. 24-team field: one automatic bid per eligible conference champion (13 conferences on file: Big Sky, CAA, Ivy League, MEAC, MVFC, NEC, OVC/Big South, Patriot, Pioneer, SoCon, Southland, SWAC, United Athletic) + 11 at-large teams by this site's own rankings (half record vs. schedule, half power rating). Top 8 overall get a national seed and a first-round bye; the rest are paired with same-conference protection only (see methodology note -- this library has no travel-distance data for FCS teams, so the real geographic-pairing rule isn't modeled). Every round below is simulated forward to a projected national champion -- a matchup marked "ADVANCES (seed default)" means there isn't enough completed-game data yet to project it, so the better seed carries forward without a fabricated score.
| RANK | TEAM | RATING | SOS | QUALIFIED AS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 BYE | 32.4 | 12.9 | Southland champion | |
| 2 BYE | 38.7 | 17.1 | Big Sky champion | |
| 3 BYE | 32.2 | 12.0 | United Athletic champion | |
| 4 BYE | 31.3 | 20.5 | At-large | |
| 5 BYE | 29.8 | 22.6 | At-large | |
| 6 BYE | 37.8 | 16.6 | MVFC champion | |
| 7 BYE | 24.2 | 24.9 | At-large | |
| 8 BYE | 25.6 | 12.8 | Ivy League champion | |
| 9 | 24.9 | 15.1 | SoCon champion | |
| 10 | 32.0 | 19.8 | At-large | |
| 11 | 26.5 | 15.6 | At-large | |
| 12 | 29.7 | 12.2 | At-large | |
| 13 | 12.8 | 13.9 | At-large | |
| 14 | 31.3 | 19.6 | At-large | |
| 15 | 18.2 | 15.7 | At-large | |
| 16 | 26.0 | 13.2 | At-large | |
| 17 | 19.1 | 13.6 | CAA champion | |
| 18 | 24.7 | 25.5 | At-large | |
| 19 | 23.0 | 11.7 | Patriot champion | |
| 20 | 17.9 | 18.9 | OVC (Big South-OVC) champion | |
| 21 | 18.7 | 1.6 | MEAC champion | |
| 22 | 6.6 | -0.8 | Pioneer champion | |
| 23 | 7.7 | 11.3 | NEC champion | |
| 24 | 5.4 | -1.3 | SWAC champion |
| TEAM | RATING | SOS | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -- | 19.5 | 11.8 | Next in line | |
| -- | 20.5 | 27.8 | Next in line | |
| -- | 23.2 | 16.3 | Next in line | |
| -- | 24.8 | 22.9 | Next in line |
Ranking and seeding use the same record-plus-power blend as /rankings. RATING/SOS use the same joint national solve and plain average-opponent-rating as the FBS CFP page. "Conference champion" is a joint-simulation PROJECTION of each conference's remaining schedule (same methodology as the CFP page's own "Conference champion" note -- see there for the full explanation), not simply today's best record; still a disclosed proxy, since no title-game result is tracked in this library. First-round pairing applies same-conference protection via a best-effort swap, not an exhaustive solve, and does NOT model the real committee's geographic/travel-distance rule -- this library has no location data for FCS teams to do that with. Second Round byes-vs-winners pairing is this site's own disclosed assignment (best bye faces the closest-ranked unseeded pairing's winner, not necessarily the single strongest unseeded team's own game) -- not a claim to the real committee's actual draw.
