The NCAA on Friday established that teams must play at least four games in this spring season to achieve consideration for an at-large bid to the FCS playoffs.
The NCAA has established a slimmed-down bracket for this spring's event, which is scheduled to begin April 24 and wrap up with the FCS title game on May 15 or 16.
The field will shrink from 24 teams to 16, and 11 of those bids will go to conference champions. (The MEAC, which does not usually participate in the FCS playoffs, will join the field for the spring campaign.) The NCAA will leave a minimum game eligibility for conference champions to each respective league, but teams must play in at least four games to receive eligibility for the five at-large spots.
"With the potential for canceled games this fall and spring because of the pandemic, the Division I Football Championship Committee thought it was important to set the minimum number of games required for at-large consideration," the NCAA said in a statement.
"Committee members believe that a minimum of four games should provide both maximum flexibility for teams while also producing adequate win-loss results for the committee to compare them against other deserving teams that played more games.
"The committee felt that evaluations will be difficult enough with only four games played. Three or fewer games played would make those evaluations exponentially more problematic."
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.