Is it because they perennially suck at football?

They have their niche and they are sticking to it.
In 1977 Davis played Bethune Cookman in the D2 playoffs and won easily before playing Lehigh and losing in the semis

We played Winston-Salem back in 2009

One take-away from this is that the tv networks pay relatively more for a near meaningless lower tier FCS “bowl game” than they do for a FCS playoff game, or at least the schools and conferences involved get more profit. Why?

Just had a Dr. Appt. with my surgeon who do my rotator cuff surgery 2 years ago. He played football for Princeton. I mentioned Princeton’s great season 10-0 with a lot of blow-outs. I also brought up the fact that the Ivys don’t participate in the playoff. He said it would have been interesting to see how they would have done. He said the QB they will have next year accepted an offer at Bama, then decided to go to Princeton. I said “different culture” and “ at least he won’t have Nick Sabin screaming at him. “. Surgeon is not big and when I first met him and brought up that he played collegiate football he responded “yah, but it was Princeton”.