2020 NCAA Division I FCS football season

Conference changes and new programs

Membership changes

Rule changes

• Players ejected for targeting will now be permitted to remain in the bench area. Previously, players ejected for targeting had to return to the locker room.
• Restricting the number of players on a team wearing the same uniform number to two; such players still cannot be on the field at the same time and must play different positions.
• Including the number "0" as a legal uniform number.
• Extending the official's jurisdiction prior to kickoff from 60 to 90 minutes, requiring a coach from each team be on the field during warm-ups, and identifying each player by number.
• Adopting as a guideline a maximum of 2 minutes for instant replay reviews. Exceptions will be allowed in "exceptionally complicated" or end-of-game situations.
• If the game clock expires at the end of a half, replay determines that time was remaining, and the game situation calls for the clock to start on the referee's signal, the half ends unless the replay determines that the clock should have stopped with 3 or more seconds left.

  Other headlines

• May 12 – Timothy White, chancellor of the 23-campus California State University system, announced that it would remain in a virtual learning model for the 2020 fall term. Because NCAA president Mark Emmert publicly stated that athletics could not take place on a campus without students, this left the 2020 season in doubt for the system's two FCS schools, Big Sky Conference members Cal Poly and Sacramento State. No decision on any school's football season has been made.
• May 19 – The NCAA announced its Academic Progress Rate sanctions for the 2020–21 school year. A total of fifteen programs in eight sports were declared ineligible for postseason play due to failure to meet the required APR benchmark, including the following Division I FCS football teams:
• *Howard
• *McNeese State
• *Prairie View A&M
• *Stephen F. Austin
• June 4 – Florida A&M University announced that it would leave the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference for the Southwestern Athletic Conference after the 2020–21 school year.
• June 15 – Robert Morris University announced its departure from the Northeast Conference for the Horizon League effective July 1, 2020. Football is one of six sports sponsored by RMU that are not sponsored by the Horizon League. The football program will join Big South Conference football in 2021. For the 2020 football team, the Colonials will play as an FCS independent. The schedule for the Robert Morris football team will still be played, yet will transfer those games as non-conference.
• June 25 – Bethune–Cookman University announced that it would leave the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference for the Southwestern Athletic Conference after the 2020–21 school year.
• July 8 – the Ivy League announced that no sports would be played until January 1, 2021, at the earliest, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has not yet been determined whether football will take place in the spring or not at all.
• July 13 – The Patriot League announced the cancellation of its fall sports season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly to the Ivy League, it has not been announced whether football will be cancelled altogether or played in the spring.
• July 16 – The MEAC announces that no sports will be played in the fall, but that the possibility of playing fall sports, including football, in the spring, is still open.
• July 17 – The Colonial Athletic Association announces that it will not play fall sports, but that teams still wishing to play football can compete as independents for the 2020 season. Due to the cancellation of the MEAC season, ESPN Events announced that the MEAC/SWAC Challenge and Celebration Bowl had both been cancelled.
• July 19 – The SWAC announces that it has cancelled fall sports but becomes the first conference to commit to playing football in the spring, with the announcement of a seven-game conference schedule preceded by an eight-week training schedule to start in January 2021.
• July 27 – The Pioneer Football League announces that it will play a conference-only schedule in 2020.
• July 29 – The Northeast Conference announces that it will postpone football and all other fall sports, and that its Council of Presidents will reconvene on October 1 to reevaluate its plans.

  "Week Zero"

• UC Davis at Nevada
• Southern Illinois at Kansas
• Missouri State at Oklahoma
• FCS Kickoff : Austin Peay vs. Central Arkansas

  FCS team wins over FBS teams

Non-DI team wins over FCS teams

Conference standings

Conferences playing in the fall

Conferences with possibility of playing in spring

Conferences playing in spring

Postseason

Coaching changes

Preseason and in-season

End of season