SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. – The Shippensburg University football team remains ranked at No. 8 in the third edition of the 2021 NCAA Super Region One rankings released Monday. The NCAA regional rankings are annually used to determine the teams that qualify for the NCAA Division II Football Championships.

This is the final edition of the regional rankings before the announcement of the tournament field, which is set for 5 p.m. Sunday. Each set of rankings includes all games played through the previous Sunday.
 
Seven teams from each of the four super regions will advance to the 2021 NCAA Division II Football Championships following the completion of the regular season, and the top seed in each super region will receive a first-round bye.
 
Shippensburg is in Super Region 1, the largest of the four super regions. Super Region 1 is comprised of all football teams in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC), the Mountain East Conference (MEC), the Northeast-10 Conference (NE-10) and the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC) as well as independents Bluefield State and Post.
 
The qualifying process for the NCAA Division II Football Championships has some layers to it. In short, each super region has a committee comprised of administrators from each of the member conferences who are tasked with ranking the teams for the playoffs. A whole host of criteria (outlined below in the notes section) is used by the committees to rank the teams.
 
Another important note: conference champions do not receive automatic berths into the NCAA Division II Football Championships. However, simply being ranked among a region's Top 7 teams does not guarantee qualification for the postseason due to the NCAA policy of earned access.
 
Earned access to the NCAA Division II Football Championships can be gained by a conference if its highest-ranked team is in the Top 9 of the final super region rankings on selection Sunday. All four conferences in Super Region 1 qualify for earned access.
 
Based on the current rankings, earned access would occur in Super Region 1 because Tiffin, the highest-ranked GMAC team, is ranked ninth. The Dragons would therefore bump the No. 7 seed (at the moment, Cal U.) out of the playoffs and gain the No. 7 spot. More information about Earned Access pairings is included in the notes section below.
 
There is still the possibility of change between now and Sunday's selection show. Among the key regional matchups this weekend include No. 1 regional seed Kutztown hosting No. 6 regional seed Slippery Rock and No. 9 regional seed Tiffin playing No. 10 regional seed Findlay.  
 
Shippensburg has qualified for the NCAA Division II Football Championships six times, most recently earning the No. 4 seed in 2017. The Raiders host Mercyhurst at 1 p.m. Saturday.
 
2021 NCAA Division II Football Championships Notes:
 
• Teams that are selected in the No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7 seeds in each Super Region will be considered 'unseeded' and can be paired with any No. 2, No. 3 or No. 4 seed in the first round IF doing so reduces the number of flights in the first/second round.
 
• Teams that reach the NCAA Division II Football Championships via Earned Access will be paired with a No. 2 seed in the opening round in their home Super Region unless preliminary round flights can be reduced by being paired with a No. 2 seed in an alternate Super Region. In the event that multiple teams earn berths in the field via earned access, those teams shall compete against No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the first round in an appropriate seed order as determined by the committee.
 
• The regional rankings committees are tasked with assigning teams based on the following criteria, per the NCAA pre-championship manual: Division II in-region winning percentage; Division II winning percentage; Division II strength of schedule (opponents' average winning percentage and opponents' opponents' average winning percentage); Division II head-to-head competition and results versus Division II common opponents. Additional criteria specific to football includes: Division II results vs. teams with a winning record, Performance Indicator (PI), and results versus ranked Division II opponents.
 
• More information can be found in the NCAA's Pre-Championship manual here:
https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/championships/sports/football/d2/2021-22D2MFB_PrechampsManual.pdf