Game: NCAA FCS Championship
Association: NCAA
Location: Toyota Stadium
MVPs: 2009 Matt Szczur, 2010 Bo Levi Mitchell, 2011 Travis Beck, 2012 Brock Jensen, 2013 Brock Jensen, 2014 Carson Wentz, 2015 Carson Wentz, 2016 Bryan Schor, 2017 Easton Stick, 2018 Darrius Shepherd
The NCAA Football Championship Subdivision, or NCAA FCS, was formerly known as the NCAA Division I-AA from 1978 until 2005. In 2006, it was renamed as the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. The NCAA Division I Football Championship is a postseason college football game that is used to decide the national champion of the NCAA FCS. The champion is the winner of the final matchup between the two still-standing teams from the original 24-team bracket. The 24 teams that are in the bracket are chosen from a ranking system used by the NCAA. These teams are comprised of automatic conference winners and other teams that are selected by committee. The
North Dakota State Bison
football team has seven wins over a period of eight seasons, stretching from 2011-2018. Find out who will win the 2019 season game by grabbing your NCAA FCS Championship game tickets at StubHub, the world's largest ticketing marketplace.
The North Dakota State Bison has the most FCS Championship titles with seven as of 2018.
Georgia Southern
is a close second with six titles under its belt. Georgia Southern's last win was in 2000.
Florida A&M
won its first and only time in 1978, the first year the NCAA Division I-AA championship game was played.
The original postseason format of the games included only four teams, which were three regional champions of the East, South and West divisions and one at-large choice. This grouping increased to eight teams in 1981 with champions from the
Big Sky
, Mid-Eastern,
Southwestern
,
Ohio Valley
and Yankee conferences receiving automatic entry. The top four teams were seeded and matched against the other four. The Championship was expanded to include 12 teams in 1982 and then was increased several more times until the current number of 24 teams was reached in 2013. The number of automatic bids has changed as well, but bids to the series are typically granted to conferences with six or more teams. The teams are chosen the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and the game is held the following weekend.
The FCS is the former Division I-AA, and the Football Bowl Subdivision, or FBS, is the former Division I. The FBS has bowl-style postseason games, and the FCS has a bracket style of playoffs. The FBS is governed by a separate body from the NCAA known as the BCS. Today, the FBS champion is decided by the
College Football Playoff
, which was instituted in 2014.
The FCS Championship game is played at
Toyota Stadium
in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas. This stadium is a multipurpose venue and is used primarily by the
FC Dallas MLS soccer
team. The stadium was formerly called the Pizza Hut Park and later was known as the FC Dallas Stadium. It has been the Toyota Stadium since 2013. The stadium has a contract for hosting the FCS Championship game through the 2025 season.
The Big Sky, Big South,
Colonial Athletic Association
,
Missouri Valley Football
,
Northeast Conference
, Ohio Valley,
Patriot League
,
Pioneer Football League
,
Southern
and
Southland
conferences all participate in the postseason championship series. The
Ivy League
, the
Southwestern Athletic Conference
and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference opt out.
The Missouri Valley Football Conference leads the pack with nine titles won by its conference. Its latest win was for 2018. The MVFC also is the only conference to have competing teams for the title, which happened in 2014. The Southern Conference is hot on the MVFC's heels with eight titles so far. The Big Sky Conference has won six times.