FCS Daily Dose: Next Step For Ivy League Football? It Should Strengthen Its Non-Conference Scheduling

The FCS Daily Dose is a blog-style article series featuring an assortment of news, rumblings, quick hitters, and commentary on various topics.

A new Daily Dose will be published multiple times a week.

Next Step For Ivy League Football? It Should Strengthen Its Non-Conference Scheduling

I, and others, have expressed concern about the top-heaviness of the FCS playoffs.

How many more years of the same combination of teams filling up the semifinals and championship game until too many fan bases become too apathetic?

But that’s not to say there haven’t been exciting things happening to the FCS playoffs in recent years.

1) The bracket is seeding more teams, beginning last year, which made for less regionalization. 2) The title game has been moved to a Monday night, making it a fun, long weekend for fans and giving the FCS championship tremendous exposure as the only football game on TV. 3) Starting this year, the championship game has been moved to Nashville, a destination city after 15 years in Frisco, Texas. 4) Also starting this year, the Ivy League has accepted its auto-bid into the playoffs, a long-wanted addition to the postseason.

Now that the Ivy League will send at least one team to the bracket, the next question is what the Ivy League and its members do next. Are they OK with just making the playoffs? Or do they now want to fund things (NIL, facilities, support staff, nutrition, strength and conditioning, etc.) at the same level as the Dakotas and Montanas and be serious national title contenders? We all know the resources, generally speaking, are there for Ivy League schools. Do they want to tap into those resources? Will alum and boosters step up once they realize the level needed to compete for FCS titles?

The other question is, will the Ivy League adjust its scheduling?

As many know, positioning yourself well in the seeds is half the battle in how far a team makes it in the 24-team bracket. Home-field advantage is crucial in late November and December.

Strength of schedule and who you beat is a huge part of your playoff resume and where you get seeded.

The Ivy League starts its season three weeks after Week 1. Their first games are on Sept. 20 this year, while Week 1 for everyone else is on Aug. 30. The league also doesn’t schedule super tough in the non-conference, playing seven Ivy games and three non-conference opponents that are usually regional. Is going 9-1 overall and beating a Patriot League team, NEC team, and middle-of-the-road CAA team going to get the Ivy League a Top 8 seed and first-round bye?

Are Ivy League schools going to be fine with playing Round 1 on Thanksgiving Weekend, probably winning a home game on a weekend that’s hard to draw good crowds, then going on the road to see if they can advance to the quarterfinals?

In previous years, some Ivy League teams have been ranked in the final Top 25 media poll, but none have been viewed as Top 15 teams since 2018 despite having great records. That’s due to voters not having a good gauge of how they stack up nationally.

2024:
No. 25 Harvard

2021:
No. 24 Princeton
No. 20 Dartmouth

2019:
No. 25 Yale
No. 22 Dartmouth

2018:
No. 11 Princeton
No. 18 Dartmouth

What exactly do Ivy League schools, their leaders, their coaches, and their alumni want now that they’ll be in the playoffs? Of course, they’ll say they believe their top teams can compete with the very best in the FCS. But we see this a lot with first-time teams in the postseason — You don’t know what you don’t know until you see it. I remember Kennesaw State fans thinking they had a legit shot at winning a national title in their first year of making the playoffs. Same with Tarleton State fans. But until you see how high that bar is, you’re just unaware of how difficult it is to clear that bar. I wonder if a couple of lopsided postseason losses will change how Ivy League football teams fund things and if they change their non-conference scheduling to better position themselves for playoff runs.

Here are some of the best Ivy League non-conference games in 2025:

Brown vs Rhode Island
Columbia vs Lehigh
Dartmouth vs New Hampshire
Harvard at Holy Cross
Penn at Lehigh
Princeton vs Mercer
Yale vs Holy Cross
Yale at Lehigh

Of these opponents, Rhode Island, Lehigh, and Mercer are likely to be preseason ranked, New Hampshire has a chance to be preseason ranked, and Holy Cross could contend for a Patriot League title.

But overall, the Ivy League needs more needle-moving games if it wants to position itself better for postseason success. Not only for the conference to increase its national respect from Top 25 voters and the playoff committee so the auto-bid receives a favorable playoff seed. But also for at-large consideration. If the Ivy League’s second-place team has a win over a Top 3 SoCon team, or a Top 5 MVFC team, or a Top 3 UAC team, that’s a great argument to get more than one team into the field.

Going 8-2 with no ranked wins could be tough in getting an at-large bid. Playing 10 regular-season games (two fewer as the FCS nears an annual 12-game season) puts Ivy programs behind the eight ball for playoff resumes. Will Ivy League presidents allow their football teams to start sooner?

Are Ivy League schools — as tradition-rich as any in college football — going to be OK with being a one-bid league that occasionally makes the quarterfinals before losing to flyover state schools? Or are they going to go all-in on pursuing deep FCS playoff runs and put the necessary resources in place? One place to start is adding more non-conference games and playing against tougher competition.

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