* – Provisional Division III member ** – Dean was accepted as a Division III football program for the 2016 season, but did not play against any varsity level teams.
Postseason
Twenty-five conferences met the requirements for an automatic ("Pool A") bid to the playoffs. Besides the NESCAC, which does not participate in the playoffs, two conferences had no Pool A bid. The American Southwest, which had fallen below the required seven members in 2013 and lost its Pool A bid after the two-year grace period, was in the first year of the two-year waiting period, having now attained seven members; the SCAC had only four members.
Schools not in Pool A conferences were eligible for Pool B. The number of Pool B bids was determined by calculating the ratio of Pool A conferences to schools in those conferences and applying that ratio to the number of Pool B schools. The 25 Pool A conferences contained 222 schools, an average of 8.9 teams per conference. Twelve schools were in Pool B, enough for one bid.
The remaining six playoff spots were at-large ("Pool C") teams.