There are still four teams competing for the national championship at both the Football Championship Subdivision and Football Bowl Subdivision levels. How each team got to the top four couldn’t be more different.
In the FCS, making it to the semifinals is a major accomplishment accomplished on the field. The same applies to FBS – to some extent.
The College Football Playoff made its debut in nearly 10 years with the promise of crowning an undisputed national champion in the FBS. That didn’t quite work out as planned.
The latest edition of the four-team playoffs puts an end to the short-lived system with its most controversial results to date. The omission of undefeated Atlantic Coast Conference champion Florida State highlights the half-measure that was adopting a four-team field.
Compare the turmoil inherent in the current College Football Playoff and the history of the FCS playoffs. Despite its changes over the years, the FCS has crowned a champion without the controversy that has characterized some of the playoffs in the last ten years.
For a primer on how the FCS Playoffs format and seeding work, click here.
Here’s a look at this season’s College Football Playoff matchup if you used the FCS format.
FCS Playoffs Format
Automated bidding
Since being expanded to its current 24-team format, the FCS playoffs feature the champion of each conference except the Southwest Athletic Conferences and Mideastern Athletic Conferences, which send the winners to the annual Celebration Bowl. And the Ivy League, which is opting out of the postseason altogether.
The Big South and Ohio Valley formed a scheduling coalition and sent one representative. The ASUN and Western Athletic Conferences combined to form the soccer-specific United Athletic Conference.
In total, FCS has 10 automatic bids – the same amount FBS would get if it used the FCS Playoffs format. This makes it easy to compare between two people.
- SMU, American Athletic
- Florida, Atlantic coast
- Texas, Big 12
- Michigan, Big Ten
- Freedom, USA Conference
- University of Miami, Central America
- Boise State, Mountain West
- Washington, Pac-12
- Alabama, Southeast
- Troy, Sun Belt
General selections
To avoid a subjective debate about who is or isn’t deserving, let’s apply the College Football Playoff Committee’s rankings to determine the 14 overall berths. Doing so produces the following playoff participants:
Administrative Coordination Committee: Louisville, North Carolina
Big 12: Oklahoma
The Big Ten: Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa
independent: Our Lady
Pac 12: Oregon, Arizona, Oregon
second: Georgia, Missouri, Ole Miss, LSU
National seeds
Applying the same seeding determines the top eight national seeds, which will receive a bye in the first round.
- Michigan*
- Washington*
- Texas*
- Alabama*
- State of Florida*
- Georgia
- Ohio State
- Oregon
First round matches
The FCS Playoff Brackets establish first-round matchups based on region as applicable. The committee also avoids replaying regular season games during the first two rounds, which would require some adjustments to the default FBS bracket.
For example, North Carolina saw both Notre Dame and Louisville in the regular season. This adjusts the Wolfpack matchup. Committing to a regional pairing is mostly smooth sailing without sacrificing position in the playoff poll, though Oregon State will have to make an equally effective long trip in the last at-large bid in the field.
Miami U.* in Missouri
Miami captured its second MAC championship in five seasons with a win over Toledo. The RedHawks hold what could ostensibly be the lower seed, traveling to take on the College Football Playoff Committee’s ninth-seeded Missouri Tigers.
Missouri State enjoyed a 10-2 regular season, with its only losses coming to two-time defending champion Georgia and LSU — both of which qualified for the FCS Playoffs. The Tigers reached the 10-win mark with plenty of close contests along the way, including a month-long stretch in which they beat MTSU by a score of 23-19; Kansas State, 30-27; and Memphis, 34-27.
This is all to say that Miami U could be a potential Cinderella story. The winner of this game moves to Autzen Stadium in the second round to face Oregon.
Liberty* in Pennsylvania
Undefeated CUSA champion Liberty heads to Happy Valley for a first-round playoff game. Flames coach Jamey Chadwell is uniquely familiar with the tournament format, having coached both Gulf South Conference member North Greenville to the NCAA Div. Second qualifying quarter-final in 2011 when NGU was independent. He twice led Charleston Southern to the FCS playoffs.
Since Penn State faced Ohio State in the regular season, the winner will be bracketed to meet No. 6 Georgia in the second round.
Troy* at Ole Miss
Sun Belt Conference champion Troy put together back-to-back double-digit winning seasons for the second time this decade, having won more than 10 times from 2016 through 2018.
The Trojans’ success in FBS continues an impressive legacy that includes a pair of Div. Second national championship. The first, claimed in 1984 under Chan Gilley, culminated in a semifinal win over Towson and a championship game defeat over long-time powerhouse North Dakota State.
Ole Miss welcomes Troy to The Grove for the first round. The winner heads to Columbus for a second-round meeting with Ohio State.
SMU* in Oklahoma
Once upon a time, this would have been a meeting of the powers that be the Southwest Conference and the Big Eight conferences. In 2023, this will be a precursor to a future pairing between the ACC and SEC.
With its defeat of Tulane in the American Athletic Conference Championship, SMU made its biggest strides in the 36 years since the NCAA hit it with unprecedented sanctions. The chance to pick up a win for Oklahoma in a meeting with their regional counterparts will create a particularly exciting atmosphere in Norman, with the chance to head to Florida State in the second round on the line.
NC State at LSU
Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels leads LSU to first-ever matchup between the Tigers and North Carolina State offers some intrigue. NC State’s defense finished the season holding opponents to 15.4 points per game over a five-game losing streak.
The winner in Baton Rouge heads to Austin to take on Texas, where LSU faced both fourth-seeded Alabama and fifth-seeded Florida State in the regular season.
Boise State* in Arizona
In a rematch of the 2014 Fiesta Bowl season, Mountain West Conference champion Boise heads to Grand Canyon State to take on Arizona. The circumstances that led to this meeting being set up are as remarkable as they were nine years ago, as the Broncos rallied from an uncharacteristic regular-season slump to win the conference under a new coach (in this case, Spencer Danielson, recently given the “interim”). The mark has been removed.)
Meanwhile, Arizona is under a third-year head coach in Jedd Fisch as it was in 2014 under Rich Rodriguez. The surprising Wildcats went 9-3 and finished the regular season with six straight wins after freshman Noah Fifita took over at quarterback.
The winner sees Florida State as the result of otherwise potential rematches on that side of the bracket.
Iowa at Louisville
A pair of 10-win teams and two of the top 21 defenses in the FBS, and facing off against Iowa-Louisville in the first round of a 24-team division, an FCS Playoffs-style postseason offers plenty of intrigue. Furthermore, this will be a first-time matchup between the two programs.
The winner heads to Seattle to face No. 2 seed Washington in the second round.
Oregon State at Notre Dame
The greatest season of the modern era for Oregon State culminated with the Beavers pounding Notre Dame in the 2001 Fiesta Bowl.
A hypothetical playoff berth sends Oregon State to South Bend — not exactly a regional game, but the most realistic circumstances for the Beavers’ postseason positioning.
Waiting for the winner is No. 1 seed Michigan.
The College Football Playoff has become a major point of contention and debate among football fans, coaches, and players alike. Many critics argue that the current format does not provide opportunities for all teams to compete for a national championship. As a result, there has been growing interest in examining the possibility of implementing the FCS playoff format in college football. This format would allow for a larger field of teams to participate in a playoff system, providing a more inclusive and fair opportunity for teams to compete for the national championship. In this paper, we will explore the potential benefits and drawbacks of adopting the FCS playoff format in the College Football Playoff.