Eight 2026 College Football Dates Worth Saving

August 27 and 29: a soft opening with two passports

Mercyhurst calls its August 27 visit to Youngstown State a Week Zero opener, and Youngstown State lists the kickoff at 6 p.m. Eastern. On Saturday, August 29, two early FBS games arrive in very different rooms. North Carolina and TCU play at Aviva Stadium in Dublin at noon Eastern on ESPN, while San Jose State visits USC at 3 p.m. Eastern on NBC. They are landmarks in a larger Week Zero slate. A season that begins in northeast Ohio, Ireland and Los Angeles before dinner has already shown some personality.

The Dublin game is also unusually kind to the luggage. TCU's official schedule has no game on September 5 and resumes at home on September 12. North Carolina explicitly marks September 5 as a bye before its September 12 home opener. Nobody has called that a jet-lag policy, so neither will we. It is simply a graceful blank square after a 5 p.m. Irish kickoff and a long trip home.

September 6: Sunday night belongs to Lambeau

Opening week spills beyond Saturday. The Big Ten television schedule puts Washington State at Washington on Sunday, September 6, at 4 p.m. Eastern, then Wisconsin and Notre Dame at Lambeau Field at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on NBC. That second game has been waiting a while. Notre Dame says it was originally scheduled for 2020, then rescheduled, and will now serve as the Irish's season opener. A college game in an NFL landmark on a Sunday night is exactly the sort of pleasant calendar oddity worth writing in ink.

September 12: three heavyweight appointments, no overlap required

The second full Saturday offers an unusually neat television relay. Oklahoma visits Michigan at noon Eastern on Fox. Oregon plays at Oklahoma State at the same hour on ESPN, so the remote will have work to do. Ohio State at Texas waits until 7:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC. Texas confirms the evening kickoff in Austin, the second game of a three-game home opening run. The humane detail is the empty afternoon between the noon choices and the nightcap. There is time to take a walk, make something that needs an oven, and return without pretending the sofa is a test of endurance.

October 10: the Cotton Bowl gets a real time, not a placeholder

Texas and Oklahoma meet at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on Saturday, October 10, at 2:30 p.m. Central, with ABC or ESPN carrying the game. That much is fixed on the Texas schedule update. Many later games still have broad windows rather than exact kickoffs, which makes this rivalry an especially useful midseason anchor. Put it on the calendar now. Decide what belongs in the slow cooker later.

November 26 through 28: Thanksgiving weekend gets three acts

TCU and Texas Tech open the holiday run on Thursday, November 26, at 7 p.m. Central on ESPN. TCU describes it as the regular-season finale for both teams. Friday brings Nebraska at Iowa at noon Eastern on CBS, Texas at Texas A&M at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC, and Minnesota at Wisconsin in the same evening window on NBC. Then Michigan visits Ohio State at noon Eastern on Fox on Saturday, November 28. One weekend, three distinct moods: leftovers, rivalry, leftovers again.

December 4 and 5: the title games stagger themselves

The Big 12 starts the conference-title weekend on Friday, December 4, at 7 p.m. Central on ABC at AT&T Stadium. On Saturday, the ACC championship kicks at noon Eastern on ABC in Charlotte, while the Big Ten championship takes the 8 p.m. Eastern slot on Fox in Indianapolis. Those are confirmed appointments, not projections about which teams will arrive. The staggering is a small gift to the neutral viewer. It is possible to watch a trophy lifted without abandoning another game in the third quarter.

December 12: Army-Navy keeps its own Saturday

The 127th Army-Navy Game is set for Saturday, December 12, at 3 p.m. Eastern on CBS at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Army announcement places it seven days after the December 5 conference championship slate and six days before the playoff's December 18 opener. On a calendar crowded with brackets and selection debates, one named opponent and one standalone time feel almost luxuriously simple.

December 18 to January 25: campus lights, bowls, desert finale

The 12-team playoff begins with one campus game Friday, December 18, at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. Three more follow Saturday, December 19, at noon, 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Eastern. The official CFP calendar then sends the quarterfinals to the Fiesta Bowl on December 30 and the Cotton, Peach and Rose bowls on January 1. The semifinals are January 14 at the Orange Bowl and January 15 at the Sugar Bowl.

The championship lands Monday, January 25, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC and ESPN in Las Vegas. It is worth keeping the rest of the schedule in pencil. Conferences still use in-season selection windows for many kickoffs and networks, and the CFP will not know its first-round campus sites until Selection Day on December 6. The dates above are the sturdy beams. Everything else can move around them. That is the pleasure of this calendar: it starts small, travels well and leaves one Monday night glowing at the far edge.