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FCS playoffs selection show: Preview and TV schedule

Old Dominion, Richmond and Towson will be watching with hopeful eyes as the bracket is set during Sunday's Football Championship Subdivision Selection Show.

Derick E. Hingle-US PRESSWIRE

While college football's FBS schools are caught up in BCS madness, the sport's other divisions participate in a more traditional playoff. The bracket for its playoff will be unveiled Sunday during the Football Championship Subdivision Selection Show, televised at 1:30 p.m. ET on ESPNU.

The Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) is the second-highest division in college football, and the highest to determine its champion through a postseason tournament. The tournament will consist of 20 teams. Twelve teams will be given a bye and placed into a 16-team bracket, while eight teams must play a first-round game for the privilege of a place in the bracket opposite a top-four seed. Ten of the 20 teams are automatic qualifiers for having won their conference, while the other ten will be selected as at-large candidates.

North Dakota St. (10-1) and Montana St. (10-1) are widely considered to be the top two teams in the country and should grab the top two seeds in the tournament. The selection show will be considerably more stressful for a trio of Washington, D.C. area teams, two of which are considered "on the bubble" for an at-large selection.

Old Dominion (10-1) won the Colonial Athletic Association's regular season championship, but is ineligible for an automatic berth as they prepare to transition to the FBS ranks. That said, the Monarch should be a safe at-large selection. The picture isn't as rosy for Richmond (8-3) or Towson (7-4). Nobowls.com, which has successfully predicted 70 of the 72 teams in the field since 2008, predicts Richmond as an at-large selection, and has them traveling to Boone, North Carolina for a match-up with Appalachian St. However, it leaves Towson out of the field, placing them in the "bubble burst" category.