STEPHENVILLE — Tarleton State Football has been No. 3 in both the Stats Perform and AFCA Coaches polls for six straight weeks, the two major national rankings used at the FCS level. But the ranking that determines every team’s playoff fate comes via the Division I Football Championship Committee. The committee agreed that Tarleton State is No. 3 across all of the FCS on Wednesday in its initial FCS Top 10 ranking release.
Live on ESPN2 Wednesday during College Football Live, the committee released its first of two “snapshots” of how teams stack up at this point of the season. Tarleton State Football was announced as the No. 3 team in the Top 10, only behind North Dakota State and South Dakota State. The rest of the Top 10 is No. 4 Montana State, No. 5 Montana, No. 6 UC Davis, No. 7 Lehigh, No. 9 North Dakota, No. 9 Monmouth and No. 10 Tennessee Tech.
The Division I Football Championship Committee plans to announce another midseason look at its FCS Top 10 ranking on Wednesday, Nov. 5, also during the College Football Live broadcast at 1 p.m. CT on ESPN2. That will come following Week 10, just three weeks away from selections for the Division I Football Championship.
This year in selecting at-large teams, the FCS championship committee considers each team’s won-lost record, their strength of schedule, Regional Advisory Committee rankings/feedback and games reviewed by the committee on video. A secondary tool are four metrics that may be considered, all including only games from the current season (KPI, Massey Ratings and ESPN’s two Football Power Indexes).
The 2025 championship field will consist of 11 automatic qualifiers and 13 at-large selections. The FCS Selection Show will air November 23 at 11 a.m. CT on ESPNU.
The 2026 FCS Championship game will be held January 5, 2026, at FirstBank Stadium on the campus of Vanderbilt.
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