CAA’s James Madison and Delaware make FCS playoffs
16 teams begin road Saturday to crown a Football Championship Subdivision champ.
The Delaware Blue Hens’ bid for their seventh national championship in football, but first in the springtime, will begin with a home game against Sacred Heart.
Delaware and Northeast Conference champ Sacred Heart (3-1) will kick off at 7 p.m. ET Saturday at Delaware Stadium in the NCAA’s Division I Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.
A victory over the Pioneers would put the Blue Hens up against Jacksonville State of Alabama or Davidson in the quarterfinals.
The tournament bracket was announced Sunday morning on ESPNU.
The Blue Hens (5-0 overall, 4-0 Colonial Athletic Association) locked up a playoff spot in Saturday’s 27-20 win at Villanova that closed the regular season and ended an eight-game losing streak to the rival Wildcats.
The CAA announced Saturday night that Delaware had been awarded the league’s automatic tournament berth and been named conference champion in a vote of athletic directors. Delaware had not won or shared the CAA title since 2010.
James Madison (5-0, 3-0) had downed previously unbeaten Richmond 23-6 Saturday to nail down the CAA South title but had one fewer league win than Delaware due to COVID-19 cancellations. No. 1-ranked JMU, the FCS champ in 2016 and runner-up in 2017 and 2019, was expected to be seeded No. 1 based on recent NCAA projections.
Only four teams are seeded, and they turned out to be No. 1 South Dakota State, No. 2 Sam Houston State, No. 3 JMU and No. 4 Jacksonville State.
“We’ve been playing the chip-on-our shoulder, no-respect card for the last few weeks,” JMU coach Curt Cignetti told ESPNU, “because we felt it in a number of different areas. We got a little dose of it again (Saturday) night (with the CAA decision). And then to get this today. I just want to thank everybody for making my job easier.”
The FCS spring tournament has a 16team bracket, as 96 schools have played at least one game after most canceled football in the fall due to COVID-19. There are 10 automatic conference qualifiers and six at-large entries. The fall FCS tourney involves 24 teams (124 FCS schools had seasons in 2019).
Earning automatic league berths in addition to Delaware and Sacred Heart were Holy Cross (3-0/Patriot League); VMI (6-1/Southern Conference); South Dakota State (5-1/Missouri Valley Football Conference); Monmouth (3-0/Big South); Weber State (5-0/Big Sky); Sam Houston State (6-0/Southland); Davidson (4-2/Pioneer League); and Jacksonville State (9-2/Ohio Valley Conference), which played several fall games.
The six at-large berths went to JMU; North Dakota State (6-2), which has won eight of the last nine NCAA titles; its MVFC rivals Missouri State (5-4), Southern Illinois (5-3) and North Dakota (4-1); plus Eastern Washington (5-1).
The FCS title game remains at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, on May 16.
All games in every round are being televised on the ESPN family of networks, with the title game on ABC at 2 p.m. ET.
The Blue Hens have won six national titles in football.