FCS preseason top 25 shows crowded title race beyond the favorites

Montana State may be the defending champion, but the 2026 FCS preseason top 25 is really an argument about how deep the race gets after the first few names. The Bobcats, South Dakota State and Montana sit in the title neighborhood, and everything behind them already looks crowded before a snap is played.

That matters because the postseason now carries a 24-team field, with the top 16 teams seeded. In a subdivision where one ranking can change a road map, those seeds shape more than bragging rights. They help decide who gets the cleaner path through December and which programs can realistically sell themselves as national contenders in September.

Montana State earned the top-line respect by beating Illinois State 35-34 in overtime on Jan. 5 at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee. The championship was the Bobcats’ first national title since 1984, and it came in front of an announced crowd of 24,105. That finish did more than end a 41-year drought. It reinforced how narrow the margin is at the top of the FCS, where one bounce or one defensive stop can separate a trophy from another year of waiting.

South Dakota State has the sharpest counter to Montana State’s claim, because it was the only FCS team to beat the Bobcats during the 2025 season. Montana remains in the same national conversation, and preseason analysis keeps circling the same trio as the core title contenders. That is why the board feels less like a clean top 25 and more like a tiered map, with the Big Sky and Missouri Valley once again supplying most of the programs that can credibly argue they belong in the championship lane.

The wider shift is structural. North Dakota State’s move from the FCS to the FBS removes one of the subdivision’s most dominant brands and opens more space in a race already shaped by conference realignment, returning production and playoff résumés. Stats Perform remains part of the preseason rankings conversation, but the bigger takeaway is that the early board is not a final verdict. It is the first public draft of the 2026 hierarchy, and it already shows a field where the favorites are clear, but the path behind them is anything but settled.