College football’s calendar has become a puzzle, and Week 1 is showing all the seams.
Virginia’s Week 0 win over North Carolina State is a good place to start. That game was originally set up as a nonconference meeting in Rio De Janeiro before it was moved and converted into an ACC matchup after the league shifted to a nine-game schedule. It’s a clean example of how conference realignment and scheduling tweaks can turn one game into something else entirely.
The oddity isn’t limited to Virginia and NC State, either. With the NCAA announcing Friday, Aug. 28, that Week 1 will now begin in the same week Week 0 starts now, the old Week 0 slot is effectively gone from the calendar. That change will only add to the weirdness already baked into the early season.
Some of the matchups below are conference games in name only, while others are former league rivals now meeting outside conference play. Either way, they stand out.
Miami at Stanford
Miami didn’t have many openings left for a Week 1 game in 2026. With only Stanford, Florida State and North Carolina still available among its opponents, the ACC matched the Hurricanes with the Cardinal for Friday, Sept. 4, on ESPN, giving the game the spotlight the night before most teams open.
The setup is unusual even by college football standards. Miami begins with a conference game, while Stanford already got its season started in Week 0 with a 37-27 win over Hawai'i. Stanford’s scheduling path may keep looking strange, too, because its place in the ACC means nearly every conference game requires cross-country travel.
And after Hawai'i, the Cardinal’s nonconference slate gets even more unconventional. Stanford plays Notre Dame in Week 6 and Elon in Week 7.
UNLV at Hawai’i
Hawai’i’s Week 0 opener against Stanford came with a built-in scheduling benefit, thanks to an NCAA bylaw that allows teams traveling to Hawai’i to play in Week 0 and earn an extra week off during the regular season.
Now Hawai’i and UNLV are both trying to bounce back from opening losses - UNLV fell to Memphis, while Hawai’i lost to Stanford - and they’ll do it in a Week 1 Mountain West conference game. It’s another reminder that putting Hawai’i on the schedule can create all kinds of complications.
UCLA at California
UCLA and California have a long history together from their Pac-12 days, but now they’ll meet in Week 1 as nonconference opponents after UCLA moved to the Big Ten and Cal joined the ACC.
This is the first game in a four-game nonconference agreement that runs through the 2029 season. After that, there are no games currently scheduled, and with both schools now outside the same conference, keeping the series going annually could be difficult.
Even so, seeing UCLA and Cal play without league implications attached will take some getting used to.
Washington State vs Washington
The Apple Cup lives on, even if it no longer looks the way it used to.
Washington is now in the Big Ten and Washington State is in the newly formed Pac-12, but the in-state rivals are still scheduled to meet through the 2028 season. That’s a good thing for the sport, because this is one of those games that should not disappear.
From 2011 through 2023, the matchup usually landed on the final week of the regular season or the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year, though, it will be played at the earliest date ever in its 117-year history.
SMU at Florida State
The ACC’s Week 1 conference slate also includes SMU and Florida State, two of the league’s bigger brands facing each other right away.
It’s not the ideal way to start a season, although Florida State has already dealt with one early conference-style test after opening in Week 0 with a 34-17 win over New Mexico State.
The larger point is that scheduling in college football has become a chain reaction. A nonconference move here can ripple into a conference game there, and the ACC’s shift to a nine-game league schedule for most teams in 2026 has only made things more complicated. Five ACC programs - Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech and North Carolina - are still on eight-game conference schedules because of scheduling conflicts.
Those five teams will remain on eight-game league slates through the 2032 season, which the conference is treating as a transitional period.
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