Automatic bids for Division II football conference winners

TROY HULL | THE CHARLOTTE POST

Delegates from NCAA Division II football schools voted to award automatic berths to the postseason playoffs starting with the 2025 season. The change was co-sponsored by the CIAA, which has raised its football profile in recent seasons.

A Division II football conference title is now worth an automatic berth to the NCAA playoffs.

Delegates from the division’s football-sponsoring programs approved a proposal on Jan. 17 at the NCAA Convention to guarantee automatic access to all conferences that sponsor football, which replaces the current earned access format. The change, which was approved with 60% of votes cast, starts with the 2025 season. The legislation, sponsored by the Northeast-10 Conference, was co-sponsored by the CIAA as well as the Great Lakes Valley and Pennsylvania State Athletic conferences.

“I think getting the automatic bid is definitely a plus for Division II because it does two things for sure,” Johnson C. Smith coach Maurice Flowers said. “First off, it keeps up along the lines of what the Division I FCS level does, and the FBS. The conference champions in the major conferences automatically get … in the playoffs. Anything you can do to stay along the same lines as the higher levels you’re doing the right thing.”

Advocates of the change pointed out that football is the only Division II team sport that didn’t award automatic berths or guarantee representation by every conference in the playoffs. Division II football is also the only team sport in all three divisions that does not use automatic qualification, including Division I FCS and Division III football. Every conference has the right to decide whether to participate in automatic qualification.

“It will provide more schools with the ability to access the football championship due to winning their conference championship,” Division II Student-Athlete Advisory Committee member Darius Satterfield, who plays football and golf at Elizabeth City State, told the NCAA’s website. “Winning your conference championship is worthy of a postseason selection, and all football student-athletes should get the opportunity to fight for a chance to win a national championship.”

Virginia Union, which won the 2024 CIAA title, advanced to the 28-team postseason. The Panthers won a pair of playoff games – a first for the school. The CIAA’s recent postseason success makes the automatic qualifier even more valuable for conference champions.

“CIAA teams have shown that they can win in the playoffs,” Flowers said. “To be able to have an automatic bid is just tremendous. Rally, it really lets your work be shown, that if you’re the conference champion, you’re going to be rewarded where it has not in the past.”

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