The 1982 NCAA Division I-AA football season, part of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the Division I-AA level, began in August 1982 and concluded with the 1982 NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship Game on December 18, 1982, at Memorial Stadium in Wichita Falls, Texas.

The Eastern Kentucky Colonels won their second I-AA championship, defeating the Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens in the Pioneer Bowl, 17−14.

[1][2][3] Upon the expiration of the four-year limit for compliance with Division I-A football criteria (set in January 1978), 41 NCAA Division I-A teams were reclassified from Division I-A to Division I-AA:[4] The successful appeals of Cincinnati (effective 1982) and the MAC schools (effective 1983) meant that 40 Division I-A members joined I-AA in 1982, of which 32 remained in 1983.

Big Sky Conference – Montana (tiebreaker over Idaho, Montana State) Ivy League – Dartmouth, Harvard, and Penn Mid-Continent Conference – Eastern Illinois Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference – South Carolina State Ohio Valley Conference – Eastern Kentucky Southern Conference– Furman Southland Conference – Louisiana Tech Southwestern Athletic Conference – Jackson State Yankee Conference – Boston University, Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts The playoffs expanded from eight to twelve teams this season; four years later, in 1986, the field was expanded to sixteen teams.

The top four teams were seeded, and received first-round byes.