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Leaders throughout college football are discussing the idea of making Week 0 the permanent and official start of the FBS season, according to a report from Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.
During an annual multi-day conference in Asheville, North Carolina, this week, Division I conference commissioners discussed moving the college football season start date up a week to create an extra bye opportunity for teams during the regular season and provide some added relief to a calendar that has only grown longer with the expansion of the College Football Playoff. According to Dellenger, no formal proposal was introduced, but there is “growing support” for the move.
Currently, Labor Day weekend signals the start of the new college football season. Teams can petition to play in Week 0, but they must get a waiver from the NCAA governance committee to do so.
In 2016, an exception to NCAA bylaws was created that allowed the University of Hawaii and teams that travel to the Hawaiian islands for a game to play in Week 0. In recent years, another exception was added to allow teams to travel overseas for games, leading to the popularization of an annual game at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland.
Iowa State and Kansas State are set to play each other in Dublin this season on Aug. 23. North Carolina and TCU are scheduled to open the 2026 season against each other in Ireland. Pitt and Wisconsin play in the game in 2027.
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“We had a good discussion about the calendar and a uniform start date for FBS instead of continuing to deal with waiver requests, case by case,” American Athletic Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti told Yahoo Sports. “A consistent start date is a key element to the future of FBS.”
Not everyone is completely sold.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told Yahoo Sports that he believes a consistent start date is necessary, but he’s not sure if moving the start of the season away from Labor Day weekend is the right move.
“The adage is, teams make their most substantial improvement between Games 1 and 2,” Sankey told Yahoo Sports. “Labor Day weekend has been a good start date for college football.
“The fact we are taking another look at it could be interesting. … I’m not opposed to that. I want to make sure it’s a broad view of the issues and not something narrow.”
When the College Football Playoff initially discussed expansion, leaders discussed shifting the entire season up a week, moving rivalry weekend off of Thanksgiving, and instead playing conference championships that weekend to create more space for Playoff games in December.
According to Dellenger, the current conversation is centered on moving the start date, not shifting the entire calendar. Presumably, that might satisfy both sides of the conversation. Annual rivalry games that have historically been played around Thanksgiving would remain in place, everyone would start the season at the same time, and teams would get an extra week during the season to rest.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
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