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There's a desire to seed 16 teams in the FCS playoffs, but is it feasible?

UND athletic director Bill Chaves said he welcomes discussion on how to improve the NCAA tournament.

NCAA FOOTBALL 2022: North Dakota vs Weber State NOV 26
UND wide receiver Bo Belquist looks for extra yardage during the NCAA FCS playoff football game between the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks and the Weber State Wildcats at Stewart Stadium in Ogden, UT on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022.
Russell Hons / UND Athletics

GRAND FORKS — Missouri State athletic director Kyle Moats was on the FCS Championship Committee for five years.

The ongoing debate about seeding more than eight of the 24 teams in the FCS playoffs is nothing new to him.

"When I was on the Committee, it was something that was talked about," Moats said. "Those that represent each one of the conferences (on the Committee) want there to be more seeds, whether it's 16 or something else. We all wanted more seeds. We all felt it would become more of a true national (focused) championship instead of a regionalized championship. I don't think you'd have any opposition to having more seeds from within the membership."

So, what's the hold up?

"It's a financial issue," Moats said.

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The FCS playoffs already loses money for the NCAA.

Only five of the NCAA's 90 national tournaments are profitable — men's basketball, men's hockey, baseball, men's lacrosse and wrestling. The rest are supported by the massive profits from the men's basketball tournament.

To try to minimize losses, tournaments in all sports outside of basketball are regionalized in various ways. If the FCS playoff structure becomes more based on seeding than regionalization, it would likely lose more money due to increased travel.

"We're not the only championship that has this discussion," Moats said. "There are other championships — I think the NCAA has 90 of them — and not all of them are requesting to have more seeds, but a lot of them are. (The NCAA tournaments) have become geographical and a lot of (sports) don't want that. They would rather be seeded like men's and women's basketball. That's really the argument membership has, but it becomes a financial issue."

That being said, both Moats and UND athletic director Bill Chaves expect FCS leaders will try to come up with a way to make a 16-seed, 24-team tournament financially viable enough for the NCAA to give it the thumbs up.

This desire to expand the number of seeds is back in focus after a controversial NCAA FCS bracket was released last month.

First-round hosts have traditionally been determined by financial bid. But the NCAA Playoff Committee reversed course this year when it sent UND to Weber State for a first-round game, despite UND's substantially higher bid ($127,500) than Weber State's ($41,683.50).

FCS Playoff Committee chair Jermaine Truax told the Herald the Committee rewarded Weber State with a home game due to a better regular season.

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That decision irked Chaves and Missouri Valley Football Conference commissioner Patty Viverito because it went against past precedent.

"Playing at home makes a difference and you have to know the rules of engagement," Chaves said. "We need to help the Committee. The Committee is only as good as the principles they have to work with. To me, we have to help the Committee with really good conversation to give them the best chance to formulate, hopefully, a true national bracket."

First-round bids vary

Bids submitted by FCS programs to host first-round games vary greatly.

On the high end, Montana State bid $141,243.75. On the low end, Idaho bid $30,392.93, which barely surpassed the minimum of $30,000.

Among the region teams, UND bid $127,500 and rival North Dakota State bid $106,875. South Dakota law does not require its schools to release bidding information.

It's possible that not every team even submitted a bid.

Southeast Missouri State, which is renovating its stadium, responded to an open-record request from the Herald saying there was no record of a bid submitted to the NCAA to host an FCS playoff game. Southeast Missouri State was sent on the road to Montana in the first round and lost.

Home teams went 20-2 in the playoffs this year.

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Considering the importance of hosting games in the playoffs, Chaves and others have pushed the tournament to seed 16 teams, meaning every game's host would be determined by on-the-field resumes rather than by bids.

"I've been an advocate for 16 teams seeded for a long while for a variety of reasons," said Chaves, who served as an athletic director at Eastern Washington before coming to UND in 2018. "I think there's been enough conversation since the brackets were released that, at a minimum, we're going to have that conversation."

Making it financially viable

The biggest hurdle will be making it financially viable so it can pass through an oversight committee and get a final stamp of approval from the NCAA.

Moats said that probably involves studying the worst-case scenarios — the highest possible number of Eastern-based vs. Western-based games between seeds — and offsetting expenses somehow so the NCAA doesn't have to pour more money into the tournament to cover greater losses.

"If every single one of those seeded games is East Coast vs. West Coast, and you've got to charter to all of them, what is that (cost) number?" Moats asked. "Let FCS football maybe figure it out among our membership how we can best attack that and make it happen. If (the NCAA) continues to put 'X' dollars into the tournament, we'll put in the other 'X.'"

Is it feasible? Moats thinks so.

"I don't think it's impossible," Moats said. "I would never want to say that. I think it's being considered — not just in FCS football, but I think it's being considered across the board. It would have to be equitable based on what we have with other sports. I would hope we'd be able to find a financial way to increase the number of the seeds to make it a more nationally focused and non-geographical tournament."

Chaves said he looks forward to the discussion.

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"These are conversations I hope we'll be having," Chaves said, "because I love this tournament."

Schlossman has covered college hockey for the Grand Forks Herald since 2005. He has been recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors as the top beat writer for the Herald's circulation division four times and the North Dakota sportswriter of the year once. He resides in Grand Forks. Reach him at bschlossman@gfherald.com.

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