Beginning this fall, the NAIA has announced that the playoff field is expanding.
The field, which had previously been set at 16 teams, will expand to include 20 teams.
In addition to more teams, qualifying for the playoffs will also work a bit differently.
Previously, to qualify for the NAIA post season field, teams needed to win their conference championship and be ranked in the top 20 in the national poll. With that logic, a conference champion ranked 17-20 would take the place of a top 16 team.
Starting this fall, regardless of their national ranking, the 13 conference champions will get an automatic bid. The seven highest ranked teams outside of those conference champions will make up the rest of the field.
Due to the closure of two of its member schools in Presentation (SD) and Iowa Wesleyan, the North Star Athletic Association has been left with just five schools that play football.
So instead of trying to fill open dates at this point in the year, they have instead decided to play a double-round robin within their league along with two non-conference games.
The NAIA requires leagues to have six teams to be eligible to be an automatic qualifier conference, so the NSAA will have two years to find at least one new member or they'll lose that automatic qualifying bid.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.