5 MVFC Teams Make 16-team Playoff

April 18, 2021 by Staff

The FCS Selection Committee awarded the Missouri Valley Football Conference with four at-large selections on Sunday as Missouri State, North Dakota, North Dakota State and Southern Illinois all received bids. Another MVFC team, automatic qualifer South Dakota State, is the over-all No. 1 seed.

Interestingly, the committee seeded James Madison 3rd even though the Dukes were NOT the CAA's automatic qualifier. The athletic directors of the CAA handed Delaware that honor in a tie-breaking vote on Saturday night.

Speaking of Delaware and James Madison, those two programs have the most playoff appearances with 17 apiece.

Automatic Bids (10)

Big Sky - Weber State
Big South - Monmouth
CAA - Delaware
MVFC - South Dakota State - #1 Seed
NEC - Sacred Heart
OVC - Jacksonville State - #4 Seed
Patriot - Holy Cross
Pioneer - Davidson
SoCon - VMI
Southland - Sam Houston State - #2 Seed

At-large (6)

Eastern Washington
James Madison - #3 Seed
Missouri State
North Dakota
North Dakota State
Southern Illinois

Of the above at-large bids, the surprises to us are Missouri State and Southern Illinois. We expected the committee to spread a little more joy among the various conferences and not be so bias in favor of the MVFC. The Bears were 5-1 this spring, but have an overall 2020 record of 5-4. The Salukis were just 4-3 this Spring after a 1-0 record in the fall.

The selections of Missouri State and Southern Illinois eliminated two teams we felt were no-brainers to invite - Kennesaw State and Austin Peay. We predicted the other four would get in.

Kennesaw State was 4-1 this spring (2-1 in the Big South), with its only loss to an undefeated Monmouth team which garnered the conference's AQ bid.  Austin Peay was 4-2 this spring after an 0-3 fall, but the losses came against Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Central Arkansas.

However, it must also be pointed out that the MVFC was rated as the nation's strongest conference. According to the Congrove Computer Rankings at CollegeFootballPoll.com, Missouri State played the nation's 5th-toughest schedule and Southern Illinois faced the 6th-most challenging slate.

The FCS playoffs began in 1978, the same year that Division I football was broken-up into 1-A and 1-AA. The divisions were renamed FBS and FCS in 2006.

This is the first time ever that Davidson and VMI will be part of the field. It's Missouri State's first playoff appearance since 1990.

Holy Cross (0-3), North Dakota (0-2) and Sacred Heart (0-2) are all winless in NCAA Playoff games.

San Diego, Wofford and Northern Iowa each had their playoff appearance streaks broken. The Toreros and Terriers had made four straight playoff fields while the Panthers had made the past three.