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David Hale
For the first time since 2008, the Atlantic Coast Conference will play its championship football game in the noon Saturday window on championship weekend — a move that will put the conference front and center for its TV window after years of competing with the Big Ten for evening viewership.
The announcement of the title game’s move from its usual 8 p.m. ET time slot was part of the ACC’s 2026 schedule release Monday, which also included details on a busy opening weekend that will include games spread out over at least four days, along with a pair of international contests scheduled for Week 0.
The ACC’s shift in championship game schedule comes as part of a drive to add more viewers to the game and draw more fans to Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the noon window, the ACC will be the lone Power 4 conference playing at the time, kicking off a Saturday slate of title games.
The earlier kick time also figures to make attendance more palatable given that the ACC is the lone power conference to play its championship game in an outdoor stadium. The temperature at kickoff at last season’s championship game between Duke and Virginia was 31 degrees.
The conference announced full schedules for all 17 teams Monday as well, a year in which the ACC plans to transition to a nine-game conference slate. Five teams — Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Boston College — will play only eight conference games, while the remaining 12 will play nine in 2026. Beginning in 2027, all but one school will play nine league games each season.
The ACC is also strengthening its commitment to maximize Friday night windows, with at least 19 games set to be played on a Friday in 2026.
The 2026 season kicks off with five ACC teams playing games in Week 0, including North Carolina, which will face TCU in Dublin, and NC State and Virginia, which will play each other in Rio de Janeiro. That game had initially been scheduled as a nonconference matchup but was switched to an ACC game after the league expanded conference play.
The ACC will again span the breadth of Week 1, as well. Wake Forest hosts Akron on Thursday, Sept. 3, and Miami travels to Stanford on Friday, Sept. 4, followed by a slate of games on Saturday and a Labor Day game between SMU and Florida State.
The dates for Week 1 nonconference showdowns between Georgia Tech and Colorado (either Thursday or Friday) and Louisville and Ole Miss (Saturday or Sunday) are still to be determined.
After its trip to Stanford, Miami — fresh off a trip to the College Football Playoff National Championship game — will host Florida A&M, travel to Wake Forest, host Central Michigan and travel to Clemson before an open date and a rivalry game against Florida State. Miami will not face a team that finished the 2025 season ranked until Nov. 7 when the Hurricanes travel to Notre Dame. The Wake Forest game is the only other matchup on Miami’s slate against a team that lost fewer than five games last season.
A year ago, it was Bill Belichick’s North Carolina that appeared to have one of the easiest slates in ACC play. In 2026, life gets a good bit more difficult for the second-year Heels coach. After the Week 0 game against TCU, UNC goes to Clemson (Sept. 19); hosts Notre Dame (Oct. 3); travels to both Pitt (Oct. 10) and ACC champion Duke (Oct. 17) in the first half of the season.
Florida State’s start to the season is even tougher. The Seminoles’ first eight games include New Mexico State in Week 0, then six of seven against teams that won at least nine games last season — SMU, at Alabama, vs. Central Arkansas, vs. Virginia, at Louisville, at Miami — before hosting Clemson on Oct. 31.
One more quirk of the new nine-game slate: Louisville, which opens with Ole Miss and plays a rivalry game against Kentucky to end the season, will play 11 total games against Power 4 competition, including 10 straight following a Week 2 game against FCS Villanova.
