The 2026 NCAA Division I FBS football season will be the 157th season of college football in the United States, the 121st season organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and the 51st of the highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The regular season will begin on August 29 and is scheduled to end on December 12. The postseason will begin on December 12, and, aside from any all-star games that are scheduled, end on January 25, 2027, with the College Football Playoff National Championship at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada. This will be the third season of the 12-team College Football Playoff (CFP) system.
On September 12, 2024, the Pac-12 announced that MW members Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, and San Diego State would join the Pac-12 in 2026. On September 24, 2024, the Pac-12 announced that another MW member, Utah State, would also join alongside the four aforementioned schools in 2026. This brought the new Pac-12 to seven members, one short of the number needed to preserve its status as an FBS conference. On October 1, 2024, UTEP announced that it would join the Mountain West from Conference USA starting in 2026. This gave the MW seven full football-sponsoring members in the 2026 season; it had to add at least one more such member no later than 2028âÂÂ29 to preserve its FBS status. The needed eighth member proved to be current football-only member Hawaii. On October 14, Hawaii athletic director Craig Angelos confirmed outside reports that the school would upgrade to full MW membership in 2026. The MW officially announced this move the next day.
On January 7, 2025, the Mountain West added a ninth member in Mid-American Conference member Northern Illinois joining as a football-only affiliate. February 2026 saw two conferences add football-only membersâÂÂfirst the MW with 10-time FCS champion North Dakota State, and then the MAC with another FCS upgrader, Sacramento State.
On July 15, 2025, the Sun Belt announced its addition of Louisiana Tech for all sports no later than July 1, 2027. Louisiana Tech and Conference USA are in a pending legal battle over their early departure to the Sun Belt by July 1, 2026.
The following playing rule changes were approved by the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee on March 19,2026:
The Regular season will begin on Saturday August 29 with Week 0.
Voters were divided in the first poll of the 2026 college football season.
Rankings through Week 8 reflect the AP poll. Rankings for Week 9 and beyond list College Football Playoff Rankings first and AP poll rankings second; teams that were not ranked in the top 10 of polls are noted.
This section lists unranked teams defeating AP Poll-ranked during the season.
The Top 25 from the AP and USA Today Coaches Polls
The College Football Playoff (CFP) selection committee announced its final rankings on December 6, 2026.
The four Power Four conference champions plus the highest ranked Group of Six team, along with the seven highest ranked at-large teams, will be selected to compete in the College Football Playoff. This is a change from the 2025âÂÂ26 season, when the five highest ranked conference champions earned an automatic bid regardless of what conference they were in. The top four ranked teams will receive a first-round bye.
This is the first year that Notre Dame would receive an automatic bid if they were ranked in the top 12 during the final rankings.
Rankings in this section are based on CFP rankings released prior to the games (Week 13âÂÂDecember 1).
Note: Clicking on a link in the Conference column will open an article about that conference's championship game, where applicable.
For conference champions not part of the College Football Playoff.
This will be the third year under the expanded College Football Playoff format. Under this format, the five highest-ranked conference champions will receive automatic bids, while the next seven highest-ranked teams will receive at-large bids. The top four seeds will receive first-round byes, even if they are not conference champions.
Winners are listed in boldface.
After the completion of the regular season and conference championship games, seven teams had secured CFP berths: TBD champion TBD, Big Ten champion TBD, Big 12 champion TBD, SEC champion TBD, and TBD champion TBD, who qualified as the highest-ranked CFP non-AQ conference champion.
Normally, a team is required to have a .500 minimum winning percentage during the regular season to become bowl-eligible (six wins for an 11- or 12-game schedule, and seven wins for a 13-game schedule). If there are not enough winning teams to fulfill all open bowl slots, teams with losing records may be chosen to fill available bowl slots. Additionally, on the rare occasion in which a conference champion does not meet eligibility requirements, they are usually still chosen for bowl games via tie-ins for their conference.
Winners are listed in boldface.
The 2026âÂÂ27 bowl season will have two fewer games than the previous year, as the LA Bowl and the GameAbove Sports Bowl will no longer be played.
The bowl games that are not part of the College Football Playoff are:
CFP bowl games are denoted in bold type. First-round CFP playoff games are included, and denoted as CFP1.
Berths to be determined:
Notes:
The below lists of teams are based on team records as published by the NCAA and bowl eligibility criteria.
Number of postseason berths available: 0 <br> Number of bowl-eligible teams: 0
Number of bowl-ineligible teams: 2
Source:
The Heisman Trophy is given to the year's most outstanding player
The following players were recognized as consensus All-Americans for 2026. Unanimous selections are followed by an asterisk (*).
This is restricted to coaching changes taking place on or after May 1, 2026, and will include any changes announced after a team's last regularly scheduled game before it's bowl game. For coaching changes that occurred earlier in 2026, see 2025 NCAA Division I FBS end-of-season coaching coaches