College Football 2026 Season: Week 0, Schedule and Playoff Dates

Week 0 is Saturday, August 29, 2026, the traditional soft opening before the full slate arrives the following weekend. But televised football starts a night earlier: ESPN's coverage opens on Friday, August 28 with an FCS Big Sky game, Idaho at Cal Poly, kicking off at 10:00 p.m. ET (7:00 p.m. PT). Sources: ESPN, FBSchedules.com.

Week 0 is a small set of games played the weekend *before* the official Week 1 opener. The NCAA allows it in seasons where the calendar leaves an extra Saturday, and it is typically filled with teams that have a built-in scheduling exemption, most often the ones travelling abroad for a season opener, plus a handful of FCS kickoff showcases. For fans it means the sport returns roughly a week earlier than expected, with a near-empty TV window and no competition for attention. Sources: NCAA.com, ESPN.

Five stand out on Saturday, August 29. The Aer Lingus College Football Classic at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland puts North Carolina against TCU on ESPN. San Jose State faces USC on NBC and Peacock. Southern meets Alabama State in the Birmingham Football Classic at Legion Field (ESPNU, 3:00 p.m. ET). Virginia hosts NC State in a genuine ACC conference game (ESPN, 3:30 p.m. ET). And Mercer plays East Texas A&M in the FCS Kickoff (ESPN, 7:00 p.m. ET). Sources: ESPN, NBC Sports, FBSchedules.com.

Ohio State tops the preseason rankings, ahead of No. 2 Oregon and No. 3 Georgia. It is worth being blunt about what that means: these are preseason projections, built on returning production, recruiting classes and portal hauls, not on anything that has happened on a field. Preseason No. 1 teams routinely fail to reach the title game, so treat the list as a starting point rather than a forecast. Sources: ESPN, CBS Sports.

Rights are split across ESPN and its family of networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ABC, plus the SEC Network and ACC Network), Fox and FS1 (with the Big Ten and Big 12), NBC and Peacock (Notre Dame home games and a Big Ten package), CBS, and The CW. For Week 0 specifically, USC vs San Jose State is on NBC and Peacock while the rest of the slate sits on ESPN channels. The College Football Playoff runs on ESPN platforms. Sources: ESPN, NBC Sports, College Football Playoff.

Monday, January 25, 2027, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. The bracket builds toward it over five weeks: first-round games on Friday, December 18 and Saturday, December 19, 2026, the first quarterfinal on Wednesday, December 30 with the other three on New Year's Day, Friday, January 1, 2027, then semifinals on Thursday, January 14 and Friday, January 15. Sources: College Football Playoff, FBSchedules.com.

Several, and they mostly hit outside the Power conferences. The Pac-12 is rebuilt as an eight-team league: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Oregon State, San Diego State, Texas State, Utah State and Washington State. The Mountain West absorbed the damage of losing five programs to that new Pac-12, and responded by adding Northern Illinois from the MAC, UTEP from Conference USA and North Dakota State for football. Louisiana Tech left Conference USA for the Sun Belt. And North Dakota State and Sacramento State move up from FCS to FBS, taking the FBS to 138 teams. Sources: ESPN, FBSchedules.com.

The Aer Lingus College Football Classic has become a fixture at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, and 2026's edition is North Carolina vs TCU. The appeal is mutual: teams get a scheduling exemption that lets them add a game (which is precisely why these matchups land in Week 0), the sport gets an international showcase, and the host city gets a large travelling American audience for a weekend. Sources: ESPN, FBSchedules.com.

Twelve. The format expanded from four teams for the 2024 season and has stayed at twelve since, with first-round games hosted on campus and the quarterfinals and semifinals rotating through the New Year's Six bowls. The 2026 postseason follows that structure, running from the December 18-19 first round to the January 25 final. Sources: College Football Playoff, ESPN.

Week 0 on August 29 is only a handful of games. The full Week 1 slate arrives the following weekend, over Labor Day weekend (September 5-7, 2026), when essentially every FBS program is in action and the season properly begins. If you only want one date in your calendar, that is the one. Sources: FBSchedules.com, ESPN.