The FBS Oversight Committee approved a package of legislation this week that rewrites big chunks of the football calendar, and the changes touch everything from your spring practice plan to when players can put their name in the portal.
The portal is the piece every staff will have their eyes on initially. The notification-of-transfer window shrinks from 15 days to 10, and it opens the first business day after January 1. That one takes effect January 1, which makes it the next cycle, not a down-the-road change.
The spring gets a full rebuild too, also effective January 1. The old spring practice and summer activity rules go away, replaced by two out-of-season practice periods that add up to 21 on-field practices. Those two periods can cover a combined seven weeks, with no single period running longer than five. Built into the model is a minimum of nine discretionary weeks where no required athletic activity happens, which is the part players and position coaches will notice most.
Preseason camp comes down with it. Starting in 2027, camp runs 27 calendar days, and the number of practices drops from 25 to 21. The committee tied that reduction directly to the added spring and summer work. The logic seems straightforward. If you get more time on the front end, you give some back in August.
The move fans have been keeping tabs on is the start of the season. The regular season will undergo a slight shift starting in 2027. It begins on the Thursday of Week 0 and ends the Saturday after Thanksgiving, 14 weeks to play 12 games.
One piece is still open. The off-campus recruiting model, the part that governs how and when you can get out on the road, goes to the Division I Cabinet at its October 6-7 meeting. If it clears there, it is in line for a January 1 start alongside the rest.
Josh Brooks, the Georgia athletic director and vice chair of the FBS Oversight Committee, said the group "dedicated a tremendous amount of time and energy to ensure we built a calendar that best fits the needs."
There should be a real adjustment period on the spring changes, especially for staffs that built their developmental model around the old 15-practice spring. Twenty-one on-field practices spread across two windows is a different animal to plan, and the nine discretionary weeks force some hard choices about when you actually get your guys.
Stay tuned to The Scoop as the recruiting piece works its way through the Cabinet in October.