January 17th, 2025 2:00pm
Automatic qualification is coming to the Division II football championship in the fall of 2025.
Division II's football-sponsoring delegates at Friday's business session of the 2025 NCAA Convention approved a membership-sponsored proposal to provide automatic-qualification privileges to all conferences that sponsor football, eliminating the current earned access legislation.
Supporters of the proposal, which passed with 60% of the vote and is effective Aug. 1, emphasized that football is the only team sport in Division II that does not require that all conferences be represented in the championship bracket. Division II football is also the only team sport across all three divisions that does not use automatic qualification, including Division I Football Championship Subdivision football and Division III football. The selection of automatic qualification will remain the purview of each conference. This proposal was sponsored by the Northeast-10 Conference and co-sponsored by the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Great Lakes Valley Conference and Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.