In what round does that potential Stagg Bowl rematch take place? Mount Union athletics photo

The bracket has been released! That's the last bit of drama left on Selection Sunday, since we already knew the at-large teams.

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• First-round schedule
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Indeed, the NCAA chose to save a flight by having Hardin-Simmons and Trinity (Texas) face off in the second round, even though both deserve a second-round home game. Since nobody could get to LaGrange in the first round, why not send them to Framingham State in a plane? This is a correction from the selection show: Framingham State is hosting because LaGrange's facility was not deemed sufficient to do so.

In Podcast 393, committee chair John Snell told us that the committee would be unlikely to deviate from having the No. 1 overall seed and the No. 8 seed in the same bracket, along with 4 vs. 5, 2 vs. 7 and 3 vs. 6, but they did indeed do so, as No. 2 overall seed Wartburg and No. 6 overall UW-River Falls are in the same quadrant of the bracket, as are No. 3 Christopher Newport and No. 7 Johns Hopkins.

According to their overall seed in the bracket, determined by the NPI, Endicott and Hardin-Simmons should have gotten second-round home games, but instead, those went to UW-Whitewater and Hope. In the first round, Susquehanna received a home game where Coe, seeded higher than Susquehanna, did not. 

Franklin & Marshall and Eastern will face off in the second round, a game between two teams which have never played in the playoffs -- F&M has been playing football for more than a century longer than Eastern has, however. Eastern is in just its third year of varsity football.

This bracket brings back some classic playoff matchups. Cortland travels to Springfield in the first round after Springfield ended Cortland's season in the playoffs last year. St. John's hosted Monmouth in the playoffs in 2005, and will do so again in 2025. John Carroll will get another crack at Randolph-Macon in the second round, after not being able to get past the Yellow Jackets in the irst round in 2018.

The MIAA hasn't had two teams in the playoffs in some time, and they will be greeted by two WIAC teams, as Hope hosts UW-La Crosse and Alma travels to UW-Platteville. The other WIAC teams are UW-Whitewater, which hosts DePauw in a second-round game, and UW-River Falls, which awaits the winner of Whitworth and Chapman.