Ivy League Takes Rare Step Into Modern Era of College Sports With FCS Playoff Berth

As college sports have rapidly evolved in recent years, the Ivy League has stayed relatively the same. 

The Northeast schools known for their academics have been allergic to name, image, and likeness payments, despite their enormous endowments, and the conference has continued to ban grad transfers and fifth-year players in the era of the transfer portal. It has never offered athletic scholarships, and a group of Ivy League athletes suing the league over the policy had their case thrown out by a judge in October. In an era when college athletes are trending more toward becoming employees, the Ivy League has remained stubbornly in the past.

On Wednesday, the conference took a small, rare step into the modern era. 

Starting with the 2025 season, the Ivy League will participate in the FCS playoffs, with the conference winner clinching an automatic berth, the league announced. Now, the Ivy League champion could play for the national title. 

The 2025 Ivy League could see as many as five games added to its schedule, should it go all the way to the FCS final. The FCS playoffs include 24 teams with the top eight seeds all getting byes to the second round. Should an Ivy League team receive a bye, its path to the final would be only four games. This year’s FCS playoffs started Nov. 30, and the final will be held Jan. 6. 

Before Thursday, the Ivy League’s stance on the playoffs was rooted in the conference’s academic foundation. The additional burden of postseason games, which overlap with final exams, made the FCS playoffs a nonstarter. 

The idea of reexamining the conference’s stance on the FCS playoffs was brought up by its SAAC (student-athlete advisory committee) roughly a year ago and was approved by school presidents Wednesday. 

“The Ivy League prides itself on a storied tradition of impact, influence and competitive success throughout the history of college football. We now look ahead to a new chapter of success and to further enhancing the student-athlete experience with our participation in the NCAA FCS playoffs,” said Ivy League executive director Robin Harris in a release. 

Previously, the eight-member league had one of the shortest seasons in college football, with schools playing 10 regular-season games, seven of which were conference matchups. This season, Columbia won a share of the league for the first time since 1961, along with Dartmouth and Harvard. Instead of adding a conference title game, the league said it will develop tiebreakers in the coming months to determine the automatic qualifier if there are future co-champions. In basketball, the conference used to award its regular-season winner an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament, but it installed a four-team tournament in 2017. 

Princeton was the last Ivy League school to go undefeated in 2018 and finished ninth in the final FCS poll. The league’s three co-champions this season all received votes in the FCS poll.