Editor’s Note: The bracket will be updated as the playoff games are completed.
The 2025 FCS Playoff bracket is set, with North Dakota State expected to take the top spot. Montana State is likely the second overall seed. Those two met in the previous FCS National Championship in January 2025, with NDSU winning a thriller 35-32. Montana received the third seed, Tarleton State received the fourth seed, and Lehigh received the fifth seed. The Missouri Valley Football Conference led the way with 6 bids. The Big Sky Conference, CAA, and the Southland Conference each had three bids, while the Ivy League and United Athletic Conference received two bids.
The opening round of the FCS Playoffs will begin on Saturday, November 29, with teams seeded 9 through 16 hosting first round games. Those 8 winners will advance to the second round to play at one of the top 8 seeded teams on Saturday, December 6. The quarterfinals are scheduled for Friday, December 12, and Saturday, December 13, followed by the semifinals taking place the following week on Saturday, December 20. The highest remaining seeds will host the games in each round unless the host has a scheduling conflict. If two unseeded teams play each other, the NCAA will determine the school that hosts the contest.
The 2026 FCS National Championship will be played on Monday, January 5, 2026, in Nashville, Tennessee, with a kickoff time and network to be determined. The entire playoff bracket is provided below. The bracket below shows the home team at the bottom of each matchup. The bracket will be updated as the games are played and completed. Additional information for each game, including the date, kickoff time, broadcasting station, and location, is provided by hovering or clicking on the matchup.
An asterisk* denotes the number of overtimes played in a game
2025 FCS Playoff Teams
The table below shows all 24 FCS Playoff teams, including the seed, record, conference, method of qualification, and how many total appearances they have (including the 2025 season). 11 teams reached the FCS Playoffs as their conference’s automatic qualifier, thanks to the Ivy League’s participation for the first time in 2025. The remaining 13 teams were at-large selections. The table is sortable by each column.
The FCS Playoff Committee noted that the last four teams in the bracket were Harvard (9-1), Illinois State (8-4), Lamar (8-4), and New Hampshire (8-4). The first four teams out were Austin Peay (7-5), Monmouth (9-3), Presbyterian (10-2), and Southern Utah (7-5).
Photo Credit to Lehigh University Athletics
