STEPHENVILLE, Texas — Tarleton State Football's first loss of the season didn't affect its ranking much according to the Division I Football Championship Committee. The Texans were ranked No. 5 in the second and final midseason FCS Top 10 release of the season.
 
In the initial FCS Top 10 ranking midseason release on Oct. 15, the Texans were slotted No. 3. Since then, the Texans have gone 2-1, with a dominant ranked win over No. 23 West Georgia 45-10, a blowout road win at Eastern Kentucky 31-7, and a ranked road loss as time expired at No. 24 Abilene Christian 31-28.
 
Live on ESPN2 Wednesday during College Football Live, the committee released its second of two "snapshots" of how teams stack up at this point of the season. Tarleton State Football was announced as the No. 5 team in the Top 10, behind North Dakota State, Montana State, Montana and Lehigh. The rest of the Top 10 is No. 6 South Dakota State, No. 7 Tennessee Tech, No. 8 Monmouth, No. 9 Harvard and No. 10 UC Davis.
 
The Division I Football Championship Committee decides the 24-team field for the FCS Playoffs. The 2025 championship field will consist of 11 automatic qualifiers and 13 at-large selections. The FCS Selection Show will air November 23 at 11 a.m. CT on ESPNU.
 
This year in selecting at-large teams, the FCS championship committee considers each team's won-lost record, their strength of schedule, Regional Advisory Committee rankings/feedback and games reviewed by the committee on video. A secondary tool are four metrics that may be considered, all including only games from the current season (KPI, Massey Ratings and ESPN's two Football Power Indexes).
 
The 2026 FCS Championship game will be held January 5, 2026 at FirstBank Stadium on the campus of Vanderbilt.