FBS, FCS, Division II and Division III: How College Football Is Organized
Nearly 700 NCAA schools play football across four levels. Here is what separates them, how each one crowns a champion, and where to follow them all.
On a typical fall Saturday our scoreboard carries well over 300 college games. They are not all playing for the same trophy. NCAA football is split into four levels, and understanding the split explains everything from who appears on national television to why a powerhouse hosts a school you have never heard of in Week 1.
The four levels at a glance
| Level | Full name | Roughly how many teams | Champion decided by |
|---|---|---|---|
| FBS | Division I Football Bowl Subdivision | About 135–140 | College Football Playoff, plus bowl games |
| FCS | Division I Football Championship Subdivision | About 125–130 | 24-team NCAA playoff bracket |
| D-II | Division II | About 160 | NCAA playoff bracket |
| D-III | Division III | About 240 | NCAA playoff bracket |
Team counts drift every year as schools move up or down, so treat those as approximate.
FBS: the top tier
This is the football most fans mean by "college football": the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, the rebuilt Pac-12, the American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, MAC, Conference USA and a couple of independents such as Notre Dame.
- Postseason: the College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams starting with the 2024 season. Teams that miss the playoff can still be selected for one of the traditional bowl games, which is where the "Bowl Subdivision" name comes from.
- Rankings: the AP Top 25 and the Coaches Poll run all season; the CFP selection committee publishes its own rankings in the second half of the year, and those are the ones that decide the bracket. You can follow both human polls on our rankings page.
- Resources: FBS programs historically could offer up to 85 full scholarships. Following the 2025 House settlement, schools that opted in now operate under roster limits rather than the old scholarship caps — one of several reasons the gap between the richest programs and everyone else is a live debate.
FCS: a real bracket, and proud of it
FCS is still Division I; the difference is in football only. Think Montana, the Dakota schools, the Ivy League, the SWAC and MEAC, the CAA and the Big Sky.
- Postseason: a 24-team single-elimination playoff with automatic bids for conference champions and at-large selections, ending in a national championship game in early January. It is the oldest true playoff in Division I football.
- Scholarships have historically been fewer than in FBS and could be divided among more players as partial awards.
- Why FBS teams schedule them: an FCS opponent gives a big program a home game and gives the smaller school a large payout that can fund much of its athletic budget. Upsets are rare — and legendary when they happen.
Division II
D-II schools offer athletic scholarships, but far fewer, and almost always as partial awards combined with academic aid. Rosters tend to be regional and rivalries are close to home. The season ends with an NCAA playoff bracket.
Division III
The largest level by number of schools. D-III does not award athletic scholarships at all — players receive the same academic and need-based aid as any other student. It also runs an NCAA playoff bracket, and some of the sport's most dominant dynasties live here.
Moving between levels
Schools reclassify regularly, usually upward: a successful FCS program accepts an invitation from an FBS conference and goes through a transition period during which it is not eligible for the postseason. That is why you will sometimes see a team with a strong record sitting out the playoff or a bowl.
Following all of it on 4Football
- Top 25 scores and the full FBS scoreboard
- FCS, Division II and Division III scoreboards, with the game clock while games are live
- Conference standings for FBS and FCS
- A page for every FBS and FCS program under Teams
And for the level below all of these — Friday nights — our high school hub routes you to local score roundups state by state.