The FCS playoffs have seen some positive changes in recent years.
The 24-team bracket increased its number of seeds from eight to 16 in 2024, reducing regionality in the first and second rounds, along with more straightforward first-round hosting.
The championship game found a great TV spot starting last year, airing on Monday to get the football spotlight to itself on ESPN, resulting in the second-highest viewed title game in the last 10 years (2.41 million).
The title game moved to Nashville this season, giving fans a different experience after 15 years in Frisco. So far, it’s been a hit.
The Ivy League accepted its auto-bid into the FCS playoffs for the first time ever this season, bringing brand names to the bracket.
But what has transpired in the 2025 bracket has bucked trends and narratives that we haven’t seen in more than a decade. All positive for the FCS.
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There is no parity in the FCS, and the home teams just win a majority of the time.
No. 1 seed North Dakota State and No. 14 seed South Dakota State both lost in the second round this season.
NDSU has won 10 FCS titles since 2011, and this was the first time since 2009 that the Bison didn’t reach the quarterfinal round. SDSU won two FCS championships in 2022 and 2023. The Jackrabbits had reached at least the semifinals every year from the spring 2021 season to 2024.
In 2022, all eight seeds made the quarterfinals. Seven of the eight seeds made the 2023 quarterfinals. And the top eight seeds all made the quarterfinals in 2024. This season, only five of the top eight seeds made the quarters.
Every single home team won in the semifinals from 2017 to 2024. This season, unseeded Illinois State snapped that streak by going to No. 12 seed Villanova and getting a win.
Oh, and Illinois State is the first team to win four road games in FCS playoff history.
In the 2025 bracket, home teams went:
5-3 in the first round
5-3 in the second round
2-2 in the quarterfinals
1-1 in the semifinals
“My first three years on the committee, we ended up with the top four that were consistent to the championship game, but this year’s a little different,” FCS committee chair and Chattanooga AD Mark Wharton said. “It shows, in this day and time of college athletics, say what you want about it, but there is some parity … I think it’s exciting for FCS football, and we’ve got two great teams.”
“As we’re watching games over the course of the year and we’re selecting teams we’re going to really focus on week-to-week, you could see it early on. You could see it early on that there wasn’t a situation where maybe in some years there was a major gap in terms of the quality of play in the teams,” vice chair and Holy Cross AD Kit Hughes added. “And frankly, that goes for the teams that made the tournament and even some teams that didn’t. There was a lot of parity across these games … I think that the results really just are a reflection of that.
Well, with brand names like NDSU and SDSU out of the bracket, TV viewership is going to suffer.
Nope!
The quarterfinal games that were broadcast on ABC and ESPN averaged 1.4 million viewers, which was up 34% year-over-year and the highest for the quarterfinal round since 2011.
The South Dakota at Montana game on ABC drew 1.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched FCS quarterfinal game since 2016. For comparison, the 2024 ABC quarterfinal game between Mercer at NDSU drew 1.4 million viewers. The Friday night SFA at Montana State game on ESPN averaged 864,000 viewers, up 17% from last season’s Friday quarterfinal game of Idaho at Montana State. And the Saturday late morning Villanova at Tarleton State game on ESPN averaged 1.5M viewers, up 61% from last season’s Saturday ESPN game of UIW at SDSU.
Well, the FCS quarterfinals usually outdraw the semifinals for TV numbers. The quarterfinals have no FBS competition besides Army-Navy. The semifinals will get buried behind the NFL and CFP.
Nope!
The two FCS semifinal games averaged 1.6 million viewers, the most-watched semifinals since 2009.
The Montana at Montana State semifinal game on ABC did most of the lifting on that. It was the most-watched FCS playoff game on record, averaging 2.8 million viewers. ESPN2’s Illinois State at Villanova game averaged about 400,000 viewers.
“Windows and ratings are a combination of factors, but a lot of things that we hear from the ratings folks is, does the game look interesting?” the NCAA’s Ty Halpin said. “Is there a buzz about it when you flip it over? Why do people stop on it? And that’s a testament to FCS football and the environments that have been created.”
Is this just an anomaly year? Maybe. Could it be a similar title game matchup of Montana State vs. NDSU next year? Maybe. Could the FCS playoffs start to see a decline in viewership if the CFP expands and plays on quarterfinal weekend? Maybe.
All of the positives, bucked trends, and narrative-flippers may not last. But in this year’s bracket, it sure was fun and increased the intrigue in the championship race. It added to a strong list of positives that the FCS playoffs have seen in recent years. And in a college athletics landscape where the mid-majors need a win, the FCS playoffs added some more wins this season.
