Slippery Rock, Carnegie Mellon earn bids into NCAA football playoffs
Slippery Rock received an at-large bid from the NCAA on Sunday, joining Carnegie Mellon as the only Western Pennsylvania college football teams qualified for the Division II or III playoffs.
Carnegie Mellon already was assured a spot in the 32-team Division III playoffs as an automatic qualifier from the PAC, but Slippery Rock needed help from the selection committee to join the 28-team Division II bracket.
Both teams have first-round games on the road at 1 p.m. Saturday.
PSAC runner-up Slippery Rock (9-2) visits Notre Dame College in South Euclid, Ohio. Carnegie Mellon (8-2) travels to North Central in Naperville, Ill. North Central (10-0) is the top-ranked team in Division III, according to the AFCA coaches poll. Carnegie Mellon is not ranked.
Notre Dame (10-1) is ranked sixth in Division II with Slippery Rock 10th.
This will be the Rock’s third consecutive appearance in the NCAA playoffs and the team’s sixth in eight years. It also marks the third time in a row that Slippery Rock and Notre Dame met in the NCAA playoffs.
Notre Dame won in 2018, and SRU won in 2019.
Carnegie Mellon earned an automatic bid by defeating Case Western Reserve in the PAC championship. The NCAA appearance is CMU’s seventh overall and first since 2006.
Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.
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