NORFOLK, Va. — You desperately miss college football. Noon-to-1 a.m., viewing marathons that make binge-watching “Ted Lasso” look like a sprint. Overserved and overcaffeinated student sections. Inexplicable plays and unfathomable results.
You are beyond exhausted by the offseason’s foolishness. Protect College Sports Act machinations. Conflicting eligibility rulings. Unfettered free agency.
You just want to kick back, scarf a wing or 10 and watch tackle football. You want to be entertained!
Well, though your favorite school’s roster still may not be finalized, the blessed news is that Week 0 is upon is, to be followed by the traditional five-day feast that is Week 1. And once again, no conference offers more compelling early-season fare than the ACC.
— Exhibit A: Of the seven Power Four teams playing in Week 0, five hail from the ACC. Moreover, the lone clashes of P4 squads involve the ACC: NC State at Virginia in a 3:30 p.m. league matchup, preceded by North Carolina versus the Big 12’s Texas Christian in Ireland at noon.
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— Exhibit B: Seven of Week 1’s nine matchups of P4 programs involve at least one ACC squad, bookended by Georgia Tech welcoming the Big 12’s Colorado on Thursday, Sept. 3, and Florida State hosting conference rival SMU on Labor Day night.
Neither of the above should surprise, for the collective ACC, augmented by its scheduling arrangement with Notre Dame, annually plays the sport’s most ambitious nonconference docket.
“It’s a reflection of the confidence of our coaches, the commitment of our institutions and our belief that championship teams should play championship schedules,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said last month.
The dividends are real.
Consider Miami last season. The Hurricanes’ Week 1 conquest of Notre Dame vaulted them into the College Football Playoff, where they defeated Texas A&M, Ohio State and Ole Miss to reach the national championship game.
Such interconference tests are wildly popular with fans. Witness Week 1 last year, when Georgia Tech-Colorado, Miami-Notre Dame, Florida State-Alabama, Clemson-LSU, Virginia Tech-South Carolina and North Carolina-TCU helped to produce a 68% bump in ACC football’s season-long viewership.
But let’s start our 2026 discussion with a league contest between programs that first collided in 1904.
Virginia-NC State was originally ticketed for Week 1 in Charlottesville. Then Athlete Advantage, a Kentucky-based sports marketing outfit, sold the Cavaliers, Wolfpack and ACC on shifting the game to Rio de Janeiro.
The international venue — this would have marked college football’s South American debut — qualified the event for the Saturday before the three-day Labor Day weekend, aka Week 0. To mitigate grueling travel, the date has been reserved for overseas games and domestic contests that include Hawaii or a team that faces Hawaii later in the season.
But logistics, security concerns and apathetic fan response intervened, and in early June, the parties announced that Athlete Advantage was unable to stage the game in Brazil. The 62nd meeting of the Cavaliers and Wolfpack was headed back to Charlottesville.
The site was an easy call, the date more complex since the contest no longer met Week 0 specs. But a late pivot back to Week 1 would have inconvenienced legions, primarily athletes, coaches, staffs and their families.
Plans had been finalized for early returns to apartments, houses and campus for training camp. Practice schedules were set. Moreover, the conference’s television partner, ESPN, had already filled its Week 1 windows.
“Issues is an understatement about what that would have done from a broadcast window perspective,” Michael Strickland, the ACC’s senior vice president for football, said of shifting back to Week 1.
The final arbiter was the NCAA’s Bowl Subdivision Football Oversight Committee, on which Strickland and Clemson athletic director Graham Neff represent the ACC. Virginia, NC State, the conference and ESPN submitted a comprehensive packet to the committee detailing the good faith they had demonstrated with Athlete Advantage and the myriad problems of returning to Week 1.
Norfolk State and Richmond, the respective Week 2 opponents for UVA and NC State, also endorsed keeping the Cavaliers and Wolfpack in Week 0. Though Neff and Strickland were recused from voting, the committee in late June approved the Aug. 29 date.
The decision gives the ACC a day-long presence on the season’s kickoff Saturday. There’s the aforementioned Carolina-TCU at noon, NC State-UVA at 3:30, plus Hawaii at Stanford and New Mexico State at Florida State, both at 7 p.m.
None of the five ACC schools was “compelled to do any of these games,” Strickland said. “They all scheduled these Week 0 games of their own choosing. That’s marketplace behavior and suggests there are reasons to want to play in Week 0.”
For example, a Week 0 contest means an extra open date later in the season, which Stanford desired to soften five subsequent trips to the Eastern time zone: Duke, Wake Forest, Notre Dame, Louisville and Virginia Tech. FSU wanted a dress rehearsal before encountering SMU on Labor Day and Alabama on the road Sept. 19.
North Carolina, Virginia and NC State were attracted to Week 0 for not only the international experiences, but also television windows with no or minimal competition. With the ACC distributing TV revenue based largely on viewership, that consideration is paramount.
For Virginia-NC State “to be exclusive, 3:30, ESPN, nationwide is just huge,” Strickland said, “and we know the metrics of the Dublin game. … The ratings are through the roof, and the uniqueness of that trip, and the experience for players, their families, the coaches, the staff, the donors, the fans. It’s … epic.”
The four most recent Week 0 contests in Dublin have averaged 4.36 million viewers, according to Sports Media Watch, with the 2024 ACC contest between Georgia Tech and Florida State leading the pack at 4.99 million.
Three more teams from the conference are traveling internationally for their Aug. 28, 2027, openers. Pitt will face the Big Ten’s Wisconsin in Dublin, with Wake Forest and Syracuse kicking off the league schedule against one another in Toronto.
But they will have considerable company in what is now designated Week 0.
As recommended by the Oversight Committee in April and approved by the Division I Cabinet in June, future FBS seasons will afford every team 14 weeks to play 12 contests. The regular season will start two Thursdays before Labor Day and end Thanksgiving Saturday.
No more applying for Week 0 status. Week 0 becomes the new Week 1.
Phillips was a leading advocate for the change.
“That has to happen,” he said at the league’s spring meetings. “There’s too much compression in the system.”
Virginia Tech and Virginia have already adjusted to the new calendar. The Hokies will host The Citadel next Aug. 28, the same day the Cavaliers welcome Arkansas State.
Strickland expects all 17 ACC teams to start that week in 2027 and in subsequent seasons.
“It feels like most of Power Four football will be scheduling non-premium nonconference games in the new Week 1,” he said. “It’s likely that the majority of those schedules will be filled with their FCS opponents or (Group of Six) opponents.”
But Labor Day weekend will remain a Thursday-Monday college football holiday, brimming with top-shelf matchups, especially since all teams will have had the opportunity for a Week 1 dress rehearsal.
Nonconference games already on the ACC’s Week 2 ledger next season include Cal at UCLA, Miami versus Utah in Las Vegas, SMU against Oklahoma in Arlington, Texas, and Syracuse at Penn State. Expect some league matchups that weekend as well.
“We’ve always been intentional about Labor Day weekend, coming out strong,” Strickland said, “and we’re doing it again this year.”
This following a Week 0 appetizer that features the start of Bill Belichick’s second season at North Carolina, Tavita Pritchard’s head-coaching debut for Stanford and a clash of ACC rivals that combined for 19 victories last season: Virginia (11-3) and NC State (8-5). The Cavaliers and Wolfpack have dynamic quarterbacks in Beau Pribula and CJ Bailey, respectively, and the winner could well enter October undefeated.
Saturday can’t get here fast enough.
“It’s a nice precursor to what 2027 is going to look like,” Strickland said, “for all of college football.”
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