The 2018 NCAA Division III football season is the component of the 2018

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

season organized by the NCAA at the Division III level in the United States. The regular season began on August 30 and culminated on November 17. The season's playoffs ended with the NCAA Division III Football Championship, also known as the Stagg Bowl, at

Woodforest Bank Stadium The Woodforest Bank Stadium is an outdoor Football stadium and natatorium located in Shenandoah, Texas. The stadium is the home to the Oak Ridge High School War Eagles, Grand Oaks High School Grizzlies, The Woodlands High School Highlanders, and ...

in Shenandoah, Texas. Hosted by the University of Mary Hardin–Baylor, this was the first Stagg Bowl since

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

to be played away from the Salem Football Stadium in

Salem, Virginia Salem is an independent city in the U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,346. It is the county seat of Roanoke County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combin ...

News

* July 5 – Frostburg State University announced that it had accepted an offer to become an all-sports member of the Division II

Mountain East Conference The Mountain East Conference (MEC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level and officially began competition on September 1, 2013. It consists of 12 schools, mo ...

. Pending NCAA approval, the Bobcats will join the MEC for the 2019 season. Frostburg State is currently a football-only affiliate of the New Jersey Athletic Conference. * August 9 – The Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, which had added its first member outside the state of Iowa (Nebraska Wesleyan) in 2016, announced a name change to American Rivers Conference. * September 22 – After previously announcing that they would be joining the Division II Great Lakes Valley Conference for the 2019 season, Benedictine University reversed course and will instead remain at the Division III level. The Eagles are currently all-sports members of the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference.

Conference changes and new programs

Conference standings

Postseason

Twenty-six conferences met the requirements for an automatic ("Pool A") bid to the playoffs. Other than the NESCAC, which does not participate in the playoffs, the NEWMAC was the only conference with no Pool A bid, being in the second year of the two-year waiting period after beginning football sponsorship in 2017. With the loss of Mount Ida, the ECFC fell one below the required seven members – not counting second-year provisional member Dean – and entered the first year of the two-year grace period, while the Liberty League was in the second year of the grace period. The American Southwest, which had fallen below seven members in 2013 and lost its Pool A bid after the grace period, regained it, having attained seven members in 2016 and passed through the waiting period. Schools not in Pool A conferences were eligible for Pool B. The number of Pool B bids was determined by calculating the ratio of Pool A conferences to schools in those conferences and applying that ratio to the number of Pool B schools. The 26 Pool A conferences contained 228 schools, an average of 8.8 teams per conference. Nine schools were in Pool B, enough for one bid. The remaining five playoff spots were at-large ("Pool C") teams.

Playoff bracket

References