Despite not playing on Saturday, the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks have claimed the 2010 Ohio Valley Conference Football Championship and automatic bid into the expanded 20-team Division I Football Championship after Jacksonville State lost 35-24 at Tennessee Tech.
Southeast Missouri (No. 10 in national polls) finished the season 9-2 overall (the nine wins tying a school record) and 7-1 in OVC play. The OVC Championship is the first for Southeast Missouri since joining the OVC and the Division I ranks in 1991. The playoff berth marks the first-ever for the program at any level in its 104-year history football history.
Jacksonville State (No. 4 in the national polls) finished 9-2 overall and 6-2 in OVC play and is expected to get an at-large berth into the field.
The field for the 2010 NCAA Division I Football Championship will be announced on Sunday morning (Nov. 21) at 9 a.m. CT in a 30-minute special on ESPNU.
The playoffs start with first round action (8 teams) on Saturday, Nov. 27; 12 teams will receive first round byes and not play until Saturday, Dec. 4. Quarterfinal games will be played on December 10 and 11, the semifinals will be held on December 17 and 18 and the National Championship will be held for the first time in Frisco, Texas (Pizza Hut Park), this year on January 7.
Both teams are expected to receive a first round bye in the playoffs but whether they host a game or go on the road is unsure.
In the 31 years of the FCS playoffs (which started in 1979, the OVC has placed two teams in the playoffs 16 total times, including most recently in back-to-back years (2006 and 2007). Only twice has an OVC team with eight Division I teams been left out of the playoffs, something that happened in 1984 (Murray State - when there was only an 8-team field and two other OVC schools did make the field) and in 2008 (Jacksonville State).