per the The Sports Network

"SOUTHLAND CONFERENCE
The Southland has been a mess this season, but Northwestern State (6-3, 3-1) can put itself in the driver's seat for the auto bid with a victory over No. 16 Central Arkansas (7-2, 3-1) in a battle for first place on Saturday. The Demons close the season with No. 18 McNeese State (5-3, 2-2) at home and at Stephen F. Austin.

Central Arkansas is ineligible for the auto bid, or the playoffs as it completes its transition to FCS. McNeese State, Texas State, SFA and Nicholls State are lurking behind Northwestern State with two losses. Because of its poor record outside of league, the Southland is unlikely to get an at-large bid this year. "

what does the "at-large bid" mean exactly?

It means we need to win out!!!

That analysis is a week old, if I'm not mistaken. They lost to UCA.

The "at-large" bid is like a wildcard spot in the NFL. It's for a team with a strong ranking, but didn't get the conference championship.

Say, for example: If we went undefeated for the season, except for a loss to say... SELA. And at the same time, SELA went totally undefeated. It would be a travesty to have a team like ours (in this example) to sit at home for the playoffs, when they are clearly a good team.

We might've had a shot at an autobid (not a lock, but possible) had we beat UCA and SUU. That would have left us with 2 losses on the season. Texas Terror might know better if he thinks we would have been ranked high enough to get the autobid in that scenario, though.

We were an at-large team in 2005, Nicholls and Texas State tied for conference but Nicholls got the auto-bid because they won the head to head with us, we got the at large because of our top 10 ranking at 9-2 record.

For us to get in the playoffs this year two things have to happen, we have to win out and NW State has to lose to McNeese or SFA. An 8-4 record if we win out will not be good enough to get an at-large bid, we must get the auto-bid in my opinion. By the way only 7 of the 8 would count towards playoffs because D-2 wins don't count. Another reason we have to get the auto bid to get in.

2008: Eight Automatic Bids, Eight At-Large Bids

Playoff committee basically says you need to win seven Div I games to be considered. They do take hurricane called off games into account, but there's no precedent in them taking a team that has had one a wash.

SLC in 2005 had two teams in and before that, we used to always get two teams in and a few cases, three teams in. Miss those days, but we are heading back in the right direction (GPI and OOC wins). Still have a few scheduling things to work out and of course, the parity this year killed the chances (in addition to the hurricanes).