Jacksonville State is top seed in FCS playoffs

Sam Houston Sate (8-3), Chattanooga (8-3), James Madison (9-2), Charleston Southern (9-2) and Montana’s first-round playoff opponent South Dakota State (8-3) finished off the top 10.

Montana’s third straight victory boosted the Grizzlies to No. 16 in the final STATS FCS top 25 poll of the regular season.

And while the Ohio Valley Conference doesn’t have a strong history in the playoffs, Jacksonville State will look to reverse that trend.

“It’s great for us and the community as well to have home field advantage throughout the playoffs”, “I know the guys would love to play them here, especially after a heartbreaking loss we had in the championship game”, said Kyle Avaloy, a Redbird redshirt junior left guard from Glenbard South. “Guys know if we played them a second time around it would have been different”.

It’s the lowest seed NDSU has received in the last four years, which have all resulted in national titles for the Bison. That win positioned the Griz for an at-large bid in the playoff bracket. They’re a strong program.

The Bison will get a first round bye and play the victor of the South Dakota State University at Montana. Then it was Fordham (9-2); Northern Iowa (7-4); Montana (7-4); Big Sky champion Southern Utah (8-3); The Citadel (8-3), a Southern Conference co-champion which knocked off SC 23-22 on Saturday; and Harvard (9-1) and Dartmouth (9-1), which were part of a three-way tie for the Ivy League title with unranked Penn.

Instead Stitt becomes the first first-year Griz head coach to lead UM into the postseason since Bobby Hauck in 2003.

A win would also set up a rematch showdown with North Dakota State, the bracket’s third seed, in Fargo the following weekend.