The 2021 NCAA Division II Football Championship Game was a postseason

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 ...

game that determined a national champion in

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

for the 2021 season. It was played at McKinney ISD Stadium in

McKinney, Texas McKinney is a city in and the county seat of Collin County, Texas. It is Collin County's third-largest city, after Plano and Frisco. A suburb of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, McKinney is about north of Dallas. The U.S. Census Bureau l ...

, on December 18, 2021, with kickoff at 9:00 p.m. EST (8:00 p.m. local CST), and television coverage on

ESPNU ESPNU is an American multinational digital cable and satellite sports television channel owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between the Disney Media Networks division of The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and the Hears ...

. The championship featured the top-seeded

Ferris State Bulldogs The Ferris State Bulldogs (FSU Bulldogs) are the athletic teams that represent Ferris State University, located in Big Rapids, Michigan, in NCAA Division II intercollegiate sporting competitions. The Bulldogs compete as members of the Great Lakes ...

from the

Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference The Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) is a competitive List of NCAA conferences, college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the NCAA Division II, Division II level. ...

easily defeating the second-seed

Valdosta State Valdosta State University (VSU or Valdosta State) is a public university in Valdosta, Georgia. It is one of the four comprehensive universities in the University System of Georgia. , VSU had over 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students. VSU a ...

from the

Gulf South Conference The Gulf South Conference (GSC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level, which operates in the Southeastern United States. History Originally known as the Mid ...

, 58–17. The win gave Ferris State their football program's first national championship.

Teams

The participants of the 2021 NCAA Division II Football Championship Game were the finalists of the 2021 Division II Playoffs, which began with four 7-team

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

to determine super region champions, who then qualified for the national semifinals. The 2021 game featured the winners of those national semifinal games: No. 2 seed

and No. 1 seed

Ferris State Ferris State University (FSU or Ferris) is a public university with its main campus in Big Rapids, Michigan. It was founded in 1884 and became a public institution in 1950. Ferris is the ninth-largest institutions of higher education by enroll ...

. This was the second meeting between the two teams. The first meeting was for the 2018 Championship game, which

defeated Ferris State by two points, 49–47. This was Ferris State's second championship game appearance, and Valdosta State's fifth; the Blazers were 4–1 in previous appearances.

National semifinals

Super region champions were seeded 1 to 4 for the national semifinals.

Game summary

Statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2021 NCAA Division II Football Championship Game

Championship Game In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

NCAA Division II Football Championship Games Ferris State Bulldogs football games Valdosta State Blazers football games American football in Texas NCAA Division II Football Championship Game NCAA Division II Football Championship Game

Teams

National semifinals

Game summary

Statistics

See also

References