Playoff Question

[purplehorse123]

When they say teams from the same conference cannot play each other the first round…

I know that if Furman and Western were both seeded in top 8 and had a bye, we would then each get a “se cond” round game at home but could meet in the quarters.

BUT (my question) if say Western was not a top 8 seed and won their first round game, would we maybe have to play them in the round of 16???

With Western being # 9 by the FCS committee today, I want them to keep winning so we would not play them again until the quarters (if we both win out and both make it to the quarters).

[The Jackal]

Teams from the same conference technically can play one another in the first round. The prohibition, as I understand it, is that the teams not have met in the regular season. That's not an issue in the SoCon, but it may come into play in some of the other mega-conferences.

Your question depends a bit on the playoff field, but generally speaking it is not uncommon to find the committee putting SoCon teams together in the second round, especially after the "power" of the FCS conferences has started to move westward to schools that are much further apart geographically.

It doesn't always happen, though. Furman didn't go to Samford last year after beating Elon.

[The Jackal]

The most egregious example the second round firing squad was, I believe, when the committee matched up Top 10 Wofford, Top 10 the Citadel, and Charleston Southern in the same trio in 2016.

Both Wofford and the Citadel were good enough to beat a lot of the teams nationally, but the committee guaranteed we weren't going to be able to find that out because only one would advance.

[apaladin]

WCU/FU matchup likely in quarters.