2026 College Football Opening Weekend: Dates, Games, TV & Streaming
- The 2026 season starts on Thursday 27 August, not 29 August. Thirteen games are played on 27 and 28 August — all of them FCS, mostly on ESPN+ and FloSports. The FBS season is what starts on Saturday 29 August.
- Week 0’s FBS slate is eight games, running from noon ET to 10 p.m. ET. It opens in Dublin with North Carolina against TCU on ESPN and closes with Memphis at UNLV on FOX.
- Week 1 is the real opening weekend: Thursday 3 September through Monday 7 September, with the bulk on Saturday 5 September over Labor Day weekend.
- The biggest game of the two weeks is Clemson at LSU, 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday 5 September on ABC. Boise State at Oregon on CBS and Wisconsin against Notre Dame in Green Bay on NBC are the other two that need no explanation.
- There is no single streaming service that covers it. The opening fortnight is split across ESPN, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, The CW, BTN, SEC Network, ACC Network, CBS Sports Network, ESPN+, Peacock, FOX One and FloSports.
Most of the coverage will tell you the college football season starts on Saturday 29 August. It starts on Thursday 27 August.
The gap is not a mistake so much as a habit: 29 August is when the FBS season opens, and FBS is what people mean when they say college football. But thirteen games are played on the 27th and 28th, all of them FCS, and they are real games you can watch.
Here is the whole opening fortnight — Week 0 and Week 1 — with kickoff times and where each game is carried.
When does the 2026 college football season start?
Thursday 27 August for the FCS, Saturday 29 August for the FBS. Both dates sit inside Week 0.
| Date | What is on |
|---|---|
| Thursday 27 August | 8 games, all FCS — mostly ESPN+, plus FloSports |
| Friday 28 August | 5 games, all FCS |
| Saturday 29 August | The FBS opens: 8 games, plus a full FCS and HBCU slate |
| Thursday 3 – Monday 7 September | Week 1, the main opening weekend |
If you only follow ranked teams, your season starts on the 29th. If you want football on, it starts Thursday.
Week 0: the full FBS slate, Saturday 29 August
Eight games, ten hours, and only one of them involves a preseason ranked team.
| Time (ET) | Game | TV | Stream |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 p.m. | North Carolina vs TCU — in Dublin, Ireland | ESPN | ESPN app |
| 3 p.m. | San Jose State at USC | NBC | Peacock |
| 3:30 p.m. | NC State at Virginia | ESPN | ESPN app |
| 5:30 p.m. | Jacksonville State at North Dakota State | CBS Sports Network | — |
| 6:30 p.m. | Sacramento State at Eastern Michigan | ESPN+ | ESPN+ |
| 7 p.m. | Hawai’i at Stanford | ACC Network | — |
| 7 p.m. | New Mexico State at Florida State | The CW | — |
| 10 p.m. | Memphis at UNLV | FOX | FOX One |
The Dublin game is the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, which is why an ACC team and a Big 12 team are playing a noon Eastern kickoff in Ireland.
USC is the only preseason-ranked side in the FBS slate. For where everyone sits going in, see our AP preseason poll breakdown .
What else is on that Saturday
The FBS eight are not the whole day. Two Week 0 games on that Saturday are worth knowing about because they are on broadcast networks:
- MEAC/SWAC Challenge: Alabama A&M vs Howard, 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC — in Atlanta
- Southern vs Alabama State, 3 p.m. ET, ESPNU — in Birmingham
There is more on ESPN+, FloSports and HBCUGO across the afternoon.
Week 1: Thursday 3 to Monday 7 September
This is the weekend most people mean. It is five days long, it straddles Labor Day, and it ends with a Monday night game.
Thursday 3 September
| Time (ET) | Game | TV |
|---|---|---|
| 6 p.m. | UMass at Rutgers | Big Ten Network |
| 7 p.m. | Akron at Wake Forest | ACC Network |
| 8 p.m. | Colorado at Georgia Tech | ESPN |
| 8 p.m. | Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Missouri | SEC Network |
| 8 p.m. | Eastern Illinois at Minnesota | Peacock |
| 9 p.m. | Idaho at Utah | ESPNU |
| 9 p.m. | UAB at Illinois | Big Ten Network |
Friday 4 September
| Time (ET) | Game | TV |
|---|---|---|
| 7 p.m. | Indiana State at Purdue | Big Ten Network |
| 8 p.m. | LIU at Kansas | ESPNU |
| 8 p.m. | Toledo at Michigan State | ESPNU or FS1 — sources disagree |
| 9 p.m. | Fresno State at USC | FOX |
| 9 p.m. | Miami (FL) at Stanford | ESPN |
Saturday 5 September
| Time (ET) | Game | TV |
|---|---|---|
| 12 p.m. | East Carolina at Alabama | ABC |
| 12 p.m. | North Texas at Indiana | FOX |
| 12:30 p.m. | Ball State at Ohio State | Big Ten Network |
| 3 p.m. | Tennessee State at Georgia | SEC Network+ |
| 3:30 p.m. | Baylor vs Auburn — in Atlanta | ABC |
| 3:30 p.m. | Boise State at Oregon | CBS |
| 3:30 p.m. | Texas State at Texas | ESPN |
| 3:30 p.m. | Tulane at Duke | ACC Network |
| 7:30 p.m. | Clemson at LSU | ABC |
| 7:30 p.m. | Western Michigan at Michigan | NBC / Peacock |
| 10:30 p.m. | UCLA at California | ESPN |
Sunday 6 September
| Time (ET) | Game | TV |
|---|---|---|
| 12 p.m. | Labor Day Classic: Texas Southern at Prairie View A&M | ESPN2 |
| 3 p.m. | Orange Blossom Classic: South Carolina State vs Florida A&M | ESPN |
| 4 p.m. | Washington State at Washington | NBC / Peacock |
| 7:30 p.m. | Louisville vs Ole Miss — in Nashville | ABC |
| 7:30 p.m. | Wisconsin vs Notre Dame — in Green Bay | NBC / Peacock |
Monday 7 September
| Time (ET) | Game | TV |
|---|---|---|
| 7:30 p.m. | SMU at Florida State | ESPN |
The five games that matter most
If you are picking rather than watching everything:
- Clemson at LSU — Saturday 5 September, 7:30 p.m., ABC. Two programmes with playoff expectations, in Baton Rouge at night. This is the marquee.
- Wisconsin vs Notre Dame — Sunday 6 September, 7:30 p.m., NBC. Played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, which is most of the appeal.
- Boise State at Oregon — Saturday 5 September, 3:30 p.m., CBS.
- Baylor vs Auburn — Saturday 5 September, 3:30 p.m., ABC, in Atlanta. A neutral-site opener that goes straight into SEC scrutiny.
- North Carolina vs TCU — Saturday 29 August, noon, ESPN. Not the best matchup of the fortnight, but it is the first FBS game of the year and it is in Dublin.
How do I stream college football in 2026?
There is no single answer, and anyone telling you one service covers it is selling something. The opening fortnight runs across fourteen different outlets.
| If the game is on | You need |
|---|---|
| ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network | The ESPN app, signed in with a TV provider or a streaming bundle that carries them |
| ESPN+ | A standalone ESPN+ subscription — it is not the same thing as the ESPN app |
| ABC | A TV provider, an antenna, or a live TV service carrying your local ABC station |
| NBC | Peacock, which simulcasts every NBC game live |
| FOX, FS1, Big Ten Network | FOX One, or a TV provider |
| CBS, CBS Sports Network | A TV provider or a live TV service |
| The CW | Free over the air with an antenna |
| FloSports, HBCUGO | Separate subscriptions of their own |
The practical shortcut for the opening weekend: ESPN’s app plus Peacock plus an antenna gets you almost all of the games listed above. FOX One adds the FOX and Big Ten Network slate on top.
Is there a free way to watch any of it?
Yes, a few. The CW is a free over-the-air broadcast network, so New Mexico State at Florida State on 29 August needs nothing but an antenna. The same is true of ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS games if you can receive your local affiliate — that covers Clemson–LSU, both Notre Dame and Washington games, Boise State–Oregon and the whole ABC slate.
What time do the games start?
Every time on this page is US Eastern. Week 0’s FBS slate runs from noon to 10 p.m. ET on Saturday 29 August. Week 1’s Saturday runs from noon to a 10:30 p.m. ET kickoff on the West Coast, and Sunday and Monday both finish with 7:30 p.m. ET games.
When is Week 2?
Saturday 12 September, and it is a considerably bigger day than either of these: Oklahoma at Michigan at noon on FOX and Ohio State at Texas at 7:30 p.m. on ABC are both Week 2.
Sources
| Source | Used for |
|---|---|
| NCAA.com: when does the 2026 season start | The 27 August start, the full Thursday and Friday FCS slates, and the complete Week 1 schedule by day with times and networks |
| FOX Sports: Week 0 and Week 1 schedule | Cross-check on Week 0 and Week 1 times, the FOX and Big Ten Network games, FOX One as the streaming route, and the Monday 7 September game |
| NBC Sports: 2026 Week 0 matchups | Independent confirmation of the eight-game FBS Week 0 slate, and the NBC and Peacock listings |
| Drawpie: AP preseason poll 2026 | Where the ranked teams sit going into the season, and the Week 0 and Week 1 date framing |
How we verified this
🔴 Every kickoff time and channel here was cross-checked across at least two of three independent listings, and where they disagree this page says so instead of picking one. The three are NCAA.com’s season-start article, FOX Sports’ own Week 0 and Week 1 guide (published 5 August, updated 20 August 2026) and NBC Sports’ Week 0 piece by Aidan Berg (11 August 2026). All three carry control-group-clean URLs — an invented path on each returns HTTP 404.
⚠️ One game is listed on two different networks by two credible sources and is flagged rather than resolved. Toledo at Michigan State, 8 p.m. ET on Friday 4 September: FOX Sports lists it on FS1 and FOX One, NCAA.com lists it on ESPNU. Both are 8 p.m. Nothing here adjudicates between a network’s listing of its own game and the NCAA’s own site.
⚠️ A widely repeated kickoff time for Ball State at Ohio State is wrong by half an hour. Aggregated summaries give noon ET; FOX Sports and NCAA.com both give 12:30 p.m. ET on Big Ten Network. The 12:30 figure is used here.
🔴 The “season starts 29 August” line that dominates coverage is FBS-only, and this page separates the two. NCAA.com’s article states the season begins Thursday 27 August, and lists eight games that day and five more on the 28th — every one of them FCS. Our own AP preseason poll page says Week 0 is 29 August, which is correct for the FBS teams that poll ranks and is the sense almost all coverage means.
⚠️ Week 1 times and windows can still move. Networks finalise the 3:30 p.m. and primetime slots close to the date. Everything here reflects listings as read on 23 August 2026, and the further into Week 1 a game sits the more likely it is to shift.
🔴 No betting line, spread, total or prediction-market number appears on this page, and no game is picked. Which games are called big here is a judgement about matchup and ranking, not about who wins.
Times are US Eastern throughout, because that is how all three source listings publish them. Nothing has been converted.