FCS Playoff Projections (After Nov. 15th)

Auto-bids
Big Sky - Weber State*
Colonial - James Madison*
MEAC - South Carolina State*
Missouri Valley - Southern Illinois
Ohio Valley - Tennessee-Martin
Patriot - Colgate
Southern - Appalachian State*
Southland - Texas State

* Indicates Auto-Bid Clinched

At-large
Montana (Big Sky)
Villanova (Colonial)
Northern Iowa (Misouri Valley)
Cal Poly (Great West)
New Hampshire (Colonial)
Wofford (Southern)
Elon (Southern)
Richmond (Colonial)

Match-ups
South Carolina State at #1 James Madison

Wofford at Southern Illinois

Richmond at #4 Montana

Elon at Cal Poly

Texas State at #3 Weber State

New Hampshire at Northern Iowa

Tennessee-Martin at #2 Appalachian State

Colgate at Villanova

Commentary

Many of the online projections I have seen for this year's FCS playoffs have placed Cal Poly at either Weber State or Montana with the rationale being that Cal Poly is "close" to both of these schools. The NCAA does use a 400 mile rule when trying to pit teams together in the bracket, however, Cal Poly is 879 miles from Ogden, UT and 1,367 miles from Missoula, MT. Given these distances and Cal Poly's high ranking, I suspect that Cal Poly will instead get a home game against a team from east of the Mississippi. Weber then matches up with the Southland champion and Montana gets another East Coast team.