North Dakota State is now the reigning champions and the dominant force in the FCS. Since 2011, it has won ten NCAA FCS national football titles. That’s good enough to give the Bison four titles ahead of the next closest program for the most FCS all-time national championships.

North Dakota State broke a tie with Georgia Southern (now a member of the FBS Sun Belt) with its seventh national title in 2018. over Eastern Washington. A year later, The Bison won their eighth championship with a win over James Madison. So North Dakota State beat Montana State in the 2021 season And returned in the 2024-25 season to beat MSU again and capture its 10th title.

South Dakota State is the most recent first-time FCS national champion after defeating North Dakota State for the 2022 title. Since 1978, 23 different schools have now won the trophy.

Here is a list of every institution that has won an FCS championship, ranked in order from most titles to least.

Schools with the most NCAA FCS football championships:

FCS Championship information and tickets

5 facts worth knowing about FCS football

• Five schools have won titles in at least two consecutive seasons. North Dakota State has the longest streak with five in a row (2011-15) and was also a three-time champion from 2017-19. Appalachian State won three straight titles from 2005 to 2007. The last school to win consecutive titles is South Dakota State from 2022-23. Georgia Southern (1985-86, 1989-90, 1999-00) and Youngstown State (1993-94) are the other two schools that occurred one after the other.
• Jim Tressel (Youngstown State) and Chris Klieman (North Dakota State) are tied for the most championship wins in FCS history with four head coaches each. Klieman joined Tressel in 2018 before leaving to coach Kansas State in the FBS. Craig Bohl (North Dakota State), Jerry Moore (Appalachian State) and Erk Russell (Georgia Southern) won all three championships as head coaches.
• KC Keeler was the first coach to win FCS titles at multiple schools – one at Delaware (2003) and one at Sam Houston (2020).
• North Dakota State (10-1 title game record) has the most championship game appearances ever with 11, ahead of Georgia Southern (6-2) and Montana (2-6) with eight. They are followed by Youngstown State (4-3), which has been to the final seven times each.
• Thirty-five different programs appeared in the FCS national championship game. Only one school – McNeese – has reached this level twice without a trophy to show for it. Sam Houston was already on this list before his 2020 title, having finished second in 2011-12.

RELATED: Complete FCS Championship History | Future locations and dates