The Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) will move to a standardized 14‑week regular‑season format beginning in fall 2027, following Cabinet approval of a proposal advanced by the FBS Oversight Committee.
Under the new structure, the FBS season will begin in Week Zero (i.e. the weekend prior to Labor Day weekend) and conclude the week after Thanksgiving, and programs will continue to be permitted to schedule up to 12 regular‑season games.
In years when the stretch from the Thursday before Labor Day through the final Saturday in November includes 14 Saturdays, FBS programs are expected to open their seasons in the traditional Week 1 window. The next time that calendar alignment occurs is in 2030 and again in 2031.
The Cabinet also signed off on two postseason policy changes that will take effect sooner, beginning with the 2026 football season. Most notably, teams reclassifying from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) to the FBS will become eligible for bowl participation during the transition period, provided they meet all FBS sport‑sponsorship and reclassification requirements and otherwise qualify as a “deserving team.”
That new rule applies to North Dakota State, which joined the Mountain West Conference, and Sacramento State, which joined the Mid-American Conference.
In addition, the Cabinet approved a revision to the process used when there are not enough bowl‑eligible teams to fill all postseason slots. In those cases, teams with between five wins and seven losses may be selected as alternates. The Academic Progress Rate (APR) will no longer determine the order in which those teams are chosen, though programs must still maintain at least a 930 APR to be considered.
The changes mark one of the most significant adjustments to FBS scheduling and postseason access in recent years, aligning the regular season across conferences while expanding opportunities for transitioning programs.
View Comments (13)
As long P4 have a nine-game conference schedule That will be excellent.
Be nice if all p4 teams would be required to play 1 Out of conference P4 team as well. A couple big 10 teams are skating out of that.
It's not a priority however I would accept it
Hope you do not mind me being more relaxed.
Wish they had gone to allowing 13 games as long as the extra game is a non-con. We need more non-con matchups.
We can do that while staying at 12 games (in most cases) but reducing the amount of conference games in some conferences.
Fans always want more games, but college football players already may potentially play up to a maximum of 17 games (the same as the majority of full time NFL pros who don't make the playoffs) even without an even more expanded CFB playoffs as (at least nominally) student-athletes who are full time college students. Actually, the theoretical maximum is 18 games (if they play at a school that utilizes the Hawaii exemption to schedule 13 regular season games + play in a CCG + start in the first round of the CFP and make the national title game).
Then again, now college football players can be paid and they don't have a union, so *shrug*
Nine game conference schedule will help CFB.
Reducing conference games will not help.
Kevin, does this effectively do away with Week 0, starting in 2027? It will just be week 1 through week 14?
Good job. Now, just move the start of the playoffs up by 1 week and we'll be in a better position.
Why change it for NDSU when you slammed the door on JMU?
NDSU paid big money to get there and JMU did not perform nearly as well in FCS as the Bison (10 Championships in 15 years). Plus the Bison have a pretty good track record against FBS schools.
EVERYONE GETS IN😂
I think Independents should have to play 13th game since they don't have a comf champ game.