HAMMOND - The Southeastern Lions are back in the NCAA FCS playoffs and unlike in years past, this season the 15th ranked Lions are hosting postseason play at home in Strawberry Stadium.

Southeastern and Illinois State will tee it up on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. in the first round of the FCS Playoffs with the Lions expecting homefield advantage to play into their favor.

"Vegas gives you three points for home field advantage, right? So we're going to take them," Lions head coach Frank Scelfo said of the advantages of playing at home.

"To play at home, not have to travel. There's a lot of arrangements got to go through. You know that you got to go through to get all that done. So being able to play at home, especially here, we play really well here, we're very comfortable here, " Scelfo said of being at home where the Lions are 5-0 this season.

"We practice on the same field and coming out of the same place, the locker room, everything's the same. So being able to have that, I guess the routine already in place is that, I think it does. You have a good feel for that." 

Southeastern (9-3) moved up five spots in the coaches’ poll and four spots in the Stats Perform list after a 38-26 victory over Nicholls in the 36^th edition of the River Bell Classic last Thursday.

The No. 16 seed Lions will host Illinois State (8-4) in the first round of the playoffs Saturday at noon in Strawberry Stadium. SLU and the Redbirds are tied for 17^th in the Stats Perform Poll, while ISU is 17^th in the coaches poll as well – two spots behind Southeastern.

All three of the Southland Conference schools participating in the postseason are in both polls. SFA, which was named the No. 7 seed and received a bye into the second round, is No. 10 in both polls, while Lamar, which will travel to 10^th-seeded Abilene Christian Saturday for a first round game, is No. 24 in the AFCA Coaches Top 25 and No. 25 in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25.