As the sun rose on Wednesday, Aug. 5, so did it rise on the 2026 college football season. FBS teams on Wednesday joined divisional programs in buckling their chin straps, thereby beginning preparation for the season.
From now until Monday, Jan. 25, when FBS crowns its champion in Las Vegas, college football will be underway. FCS will crown its champion Jan. 11 in Nashville, Division II on Dec. 19 in McKinney, Texas, Division III on Jan. 9 in Salem, Va., and NAIA on Dec. 19 in Fort Worth, Texas.
But the journey that 766 four-year football-playing universities just embarked upon is about so much more than the destination. It's about a lifetime of work, an offseason of strain, and a week's worth of preparation pouring into a 4-hour period on Saturday. (Or Friday, or Thursday, or Tuesday or Wednesday later in the season.) It's about the relationships, forged under struggle before the sun has come up and/or after it's gone down, that will last a lifetime.
Some coaches will coach their ways out of jobs. Others will coach their way into jobs. Every single coach has his position today because it was vacated by a coach before him. As the poets in Semisonic once wrote, Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
Someone's going to win a game they will always remember. Someone else is going to lose a game they'll never be able to forget.
For now, every slate is clean and every team is undefeated. It will remain that way until 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, Aug. 27, when a handful of games kickoff the season -- the first games of Week 0.
Waiting for us in late August, and September, October, November, December and January are incredible performances, unbelievable finishes, classic games and, eventually, champions crowned. This season's breakout star is out there somewhere, with no idea what awaits him on the other side of training camp. Wherever he is, right now he's doing the same thing every other player and coach is doing -- studying and straining, preparing and planning.
Best of luck, everyone.