2025 NCAA Division I FBS season | |
---|---|
Number of teams | 136 |
Duration | August 23, 2025 – December 13, 2025 |
Postseason | |
Duration | December 13, 2025 – January 19, 2026 |
Bowl games | 41 [a] |
College Football Playoff | |
2026 College Football Playoff National Championship | |
Site | Hard Rock Stadium Miami Gardens, Florida |
NCAA Division I FBS football seasons | |
← 2024 |
The 2025 NCAA Division I FBS football season will be the 156th season of college football in the United States, the 120th season organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and the 50th of the highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The regular season will begin on August 23 and is scheduled to end on December 13. The postseason will begin on December 13, and, aside from any all-star games that are scheduled, end on January 19, 2026, with the College Football Playoff National Championship at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. This will be the second season of the 12-team College Football Playoff (CFP) system.
Two schools are playing their first FBS seasons in 2025; Delaware (from the Coastal Athletic Association) and Missouri State (from the Missouri Valley conference) began their transitions from Division I FCS in 2024 and will join Conference USA (CUSA) in July 2025. [1] [2] One formerly independent school, UMass, will rejoin the Mid-American Conference (MAC) in 2025. [3] [4]
Team | Conference in 2024 | Conference in 2025 |
---|---|---|
Delaware | CAA Football (FCS) | CUSA |
Missouri State | Missouri Valley (FCS) | CUSA |
UMass | Independent (FBS) | MAC |
The 2025 season will be the last for seven FBS teams in their current conferences. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
School | Current conference | Future conference |
---|---|---|
Boise State | Mountain West | Pac-12 |
Colorado State | Mountain West | Pac-12 |
Fresno State | Mountain West | Pac-12 |
Northern Illinois | MAC | Mountain West |
San Diego State | Mountain West | Pac-12 |
Utah State | Mountain West | Pac-12 |
UTEP | CUSA | Mountain West |
The regular season will begin on Saturday, August 23 with three games in Week 0.
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Conference USA (CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference of member institutions in the Southern and Western United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. CUSA's offices are located in Dallas, Texas.
The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twelve full member schools are in Ohio and Michigan, with single members located in Illinois, Indiana, and New York. For football, the MAC participates in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision.
National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision independent schools are four-year institutions whose football programs are not part of an NCAA-affiliated conference. This means that FBS independents are not required to schedule each other for competition like conference schools do.
The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located mostly on the East Coast and Midwest of the United States: Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic powers, with large budgets, more elaborate facilities and more athletic scholarships than Division II and Division III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition.
The power conferences are the most prominent athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I, the highest level of collegiate football in the nation, and are considered the most elite conferences within that tier. Power conferences have provided most of the participants in the College Football Playoff (CFP) and its predecessors, and generally have larger revenue, budgets, and television viewership than other college athletic programs. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, and Southeastern Conference (SEC) are currently recognised as power conferences.
The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As of the 2024 season, there are 10 conferences and 134 schools in FBS.
The UMass Minutemen football team represents the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The Minutemen compete as an FBS independent. Since 1965, their home games have been played at Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium on the university's campus in Hadley, Massachusetts.
The 2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment was a set of extensive changes in conference membership at all three levels of NCAA competition—Division I, Division II, and Division III—beginning in the 2010–11 academic year.
In college football, the Group of Five (G5) are five athletic conferences whose members are part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), in contrast to the power conferences, who are granted a degree of autonomy from certain NCAA rules. In collegiate sports other than football, the conferences are collectively known as mid-majors.
The 2021 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the 152nd season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at its highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision. The regular season began on August 28, 2021, and ended on December 11, 2021. The postseason began on December 17, with the main games ending on January 10, 2022, with the College Football Playoff National Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, and the all-star portion of the post-season concluding with the inaugural HBCU Legacy Bowl on February 19, 2022. It was the eighth season of the College Football Playoff (CFP) system. It was the first time since 2016 that no major team finished the season undefeated as the Cincinnati Bearcats, the season's last undefeated team, were defeated in the 2021 Cotton Bowl Classic. The season's Heisman Trophy winner was Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Bryce Young.
The 2022 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the 153rd season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at its highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The regular season began on August 27 and ended on December 10. The postseason began on December 16, and, aside from any all-star games that are scheduled, ended on January 9, 2023, with the College Football Playoff National Championship at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
Beginning in the 2021–22 academic year, extensive changes occurred in NCAA conference membership, primarily at the Division I level.
The 2023 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the 154th season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at its highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The regular season began on August 26 and ended on December 9. The postseason began on December 15, and, aside from any all-star games that are scheduled, ended on January 8, 2024, with the College Football Playoff National Championship at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
The Coastal Athletic Association Football Conference, formerly the Colonial Athletic Association Football Conference, branded as CAA Football, is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I whose full members are located in East Coast states, from Maine to North Carolina. Most of its members are public universities, and the conference is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. The conference is run by the same administration as the multisport conference Coastal Athletic Association but is legally a different entity.
The 2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the 155th season of college football in the United States, the 119th season organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and the 49th of the highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The regular season began on August 24 and ended on December 14. The postseason began on December 14, and, aside from any all-star games that are scheduled, end on January 20, 2025, with the College Football Playoff National Championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. This was the first season of the new College Football Playoff (CFP) system, with the bracket being expanded to 12 teams.
The 2024–25 NCAA football bowl games are a series of college football bowl games in the United States, primarily played to complete the 2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season. Team-competitive bowl games in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) began on December 14, 2024, and concluded with the 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship on January 20, 2025. Some all-star games then follow.
The 2024 Conference USA football season is the 29th season of college football play for Conference USA (CUSA). The season began on August 31, 2024, and concludes with the Conference Championship Game on December 6, 2024. CUSA consists of 10 members, and conference play is part of the 2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season.
The 2025 NCAA Division I Softball season, play of college softball in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I level, begins in February 2025. The season will progress through the regular season, many conference tournaments and championship series, and will conclude with the 2025 NCAA Division I softball tournament and 2025 Women's College World Series. The Women's College World Series, consisting of the eight remaining teams in the NCAA Tournament will be held annually in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at Devon Park, will end in June 2025.