Early season and special date kickoff times and TV will be announced this coming Wednesday, May 27th. Last year they showed up at 12pm ET. Here's some other considerations beyond the those dates.
* Let's start with the SEC. We know each school is supposed to have one non-conference home game per season on the SEC+ streaming companion to SEC Network. I tried to take this into account for the guesses for Weeks 1-3. Here's my guesses for the season of the SEC+ games:
Week 1 (9/5)
Austin Peay at Vanderbilt, Youngstown State at Kentucky, Tennessee State at Georgia, North Alabama at Arkansas, Furman at Tennessee
Week 2 (9/12)
* Let's start with the SEC. We know each school is supposed to have one non-conference home game per season on the SEC+ streaming companion to SEC Network. I tried to take this into account for the guesses for Weeks 1-3. Here's my guesses for the season of the SEC+ games:
Week 1 (9/5)
Austin Peay at Vanderbilt, Youngstown State at Kentucky, Tennessee State at Georgia, North Alabama at Arkansas, Furman at Tennessee
Week 2 (9/12)
Towson at South Carolina, Campbell at Florida
Week 3 (9/19)
Week 3 (9/19)
New Mexico at Oklahoma, Troy at Missouri, UTSA at Texas
Week 5 (10/3)
Week 5 (10/3)
McNeese at LSU
Week 7 (10/17)
The Citadel at Texas A&M
Week 12 (11/21)
Week 7 (10/17)
The Citadel at Texas A&M
Week 12 (11/21)
Wofford at Ole Miss, Tennessee Tech at Mississippi State, Samford at Auburn, Chattanooga at Alabama
Since 2021 when SEC+ streaming was added as an option, 71.2% of the games chosen for the platform have been the game vs. a FCS opponent. Certainly possible that I've overloaded the schedule with FCS games.
* The Big Ten allows their schools to put start time parameters around their homecoming games, if they so choose. Here's the known homecoming games for 2026:
TBA: UCLA, Washington (listed as a November weekend)
Since 2021 when SEC+ streaming was added as an option, 71.2% of the games chosen for the platform have been the game vs. a FCS opponent. Certainly possible that I've overloaded the schedule with FCS games.
* The Big Ten allows their schools to put start time parameters around their homecoming games, if they so choose. Here's the known homecoming games for 2026:
TBA: UCLA, Washington (listed as a November weekend)
Week 4 (9/26)
Wisconsin at Penn State
Week 5 (10/3)
Purdue at Illinois, Maryland at Nebraska, Indiana at Rutgers, Washington at USC, Michigan State at Wisconsin
Week 6 (10/10)
Illinois at Michigan State, Ball State at Northwestern, Maryland at Ohio State
Week 7 (10/17)
Rutgers at Maryland, Penn State at Michigan
Week 8 (10/24)
Iowa at Minnesota
Week 9 (10/31)
Wisconsin at Iowa, Minnesota at Indiana, Northwestern at Oregon
Week 10 (11/7)
Maryland at Purdue
* Compared to the first two seasons of the Big Ten rights agreement, 2026 will be a more compressed season with one less week of TV windows, and really every conference will be dealing with this to some degree. Here's hoping we don't see any major weather rescheduling.
* Compared to the first two seasons of the Big Ten rights agreement, 2026 will be a more compressed season with one less week of TV windows, and really every conference will be dealing with this to some degree. Here's hoping we don't see any major weather rescheduling.
Think of it as a couple more places where BTN might have to double up on games or have a late evening TV window. CBS's agreement calls for 14-15 games, so its possible they'll have one less game. NBC's schedule calls for 14-16 games on the broadcast network and we know they'll have one extra regular season game by selling the Big Ten Championship game back to FOX.
* We know ESPN leans heavily into the SEC to fill the ABC football schedule. What games from the ACC. Big 12 and American could help fill out that schedule, excluding games not already set for ABC? I look at these five games:
* We know ESPN leans heavily into the SEC to fill the ABC football schedule. What games from the ACC. Big 12 and American could help fill out that schedule, excluding games not already set for ABC? I look at these five games:
- SMU at Louisville (Week 3, September 19th) - Its a stretch, but both could end up as ranked coming into the week. I had this as on ACCN, but it might be worth a push.
- Notre Dame at BYU & Miami (FL) at Florida State (Week 7, October 17th) - For the Big 12 game, might need to work on whether this ends up at 12pm ET / 10am local time.
- Notre Dame vs. Navy from Foxborough, MA (Week 9, October 31st) - Would expect Florida vs. Georgia to occupy one ABC slot.
- BYU at Utah (Week 10, November 7th) - Georgia at Ole Miss and Alabama at LSU will likely occupy the other two ABC. Could be another 10am local start.
EDIT: I ommitted Tennessee at Georgia Tech which I guessed would be an ABC game in Week 2. Forgot about that one probably because its a SEC school on the road. Its an ACC controlled game, but I was thinking of games where the SEC didn't have a school playing at all in the game.
