College football leaders evaluating Week 0 start to season

Field Level Media|published: Fri 20th June, 13:52 2025

Aug 27, 2022; Dublin, IRELAND; A general view of event branding on the pitch before the Aer Lingus college football series game between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and Northwestern Wildcats at Aviva Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brendan Moran-Imagn Images

As the back end of the college football season keeps expanding for upper-echelon teams, a proposal is now on the table to turn the early Week 0 window for select games into the new start to the season.

By moving the season up one week for all teams, not just those who obtain a waiver for an early start, the college football season would gain a 12th week as soon as 2026. It would also give teams an option for an additional bye week during the season.

All of the discussion about when to start the season comes as changes to the College Football Playoff format have been tabled for now. After moving to a 12-team playoff last season, the postseason could expand to as many as 16 teams with five automatic qualifiers and 11 at-large teams.

The proposed changes to the front and back ends of the schedule have come at the current gathering of Division I conference commissioners this week at Asheville, N.C.

"My view is we should have a consistent start date," SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told Yahoo Sports. "The adage is teams make their most substantial improvement between games one and two. I think we should have a consistent start date. Labor Day weekend has been a good start date for college football."

The new start date proposal would move Labor Day weekend to the second week of the season.

There are four games scheduled for Week 0 this season (Aug. 23): Kansas State and Iowa State will meet in Dublin, Ireland, while Fresno State is at Kansas, Sam Houston is at Western Kentucky and Stanford will play at Hawaii.

--Field Level Media