Lafayette and Lehigh have played every year since 1884 — 160+ meetings, the most in college football history. They play in the Lehigh Valley, 50 miles apart, with fan bases that have spent generations treating this game as the only game that matters. The FCS bracket, national rankings, conference titles — all secondary to what happens between these two programs in late November.

Holy Cross has reached the FCS bracket four times in five seasons under Fordham's Bob Chesney-era descendants. They recruit a specific kind of student-athlete — Catholic schools pipeline, Northeast corridor — and develop them into FCS playoff performers. Their 2026 roster returns the core of a group that went 9-3 and earned an at-large bid. The Patriot's automatic qualifier plus their at-large resume is the conference's best path to multiple bracket entries.

Colgate reached the FCS quarterfinals, beating a seeded program in the bracket before losing. Their program identity — Hamilton, New York, small liberal arts school, near-zero name recognition nationally — is exactly what the FCS bracket exists to give a platform to. When Colgate makes a deep run, it is the format working as designed.