2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season

The 2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season will be the 155th 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 will begin on August 24 and will end on December 14. The postseason will begin on December 20, 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 will be the first season of the new College Football Playoff (CFP) system, with the bracket being expanded to 12 teams.

Conference realignment

One school will play its first FBS season in 2024; Kennesaw State (from FCS independents) began its transition from Division I FCS in 2023 and will join Conference USA (CUSA) in July 2024. One formerly independent school, Army, will join the American Athletic Conference in 2024. SMU announced it would join the ACC in 2024.

Overall, 10 schools from the Pac-12 are leaving for another conference in 2024. The 10 teams and conferences are:

• Big 12: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah
• ACC: California and Stanford
• Big Ten: Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington

The remaining two schools in the Pac-12, Oregon State and Washington State, made an agreement with the Mountain West Conference (MW) such that each remaining Pac-12 team will play six MW teams in 2024.

The 2024 season will be the last for one team as an FBS independent.

Two FCS schools, Delaware and Missouri State, will start transitioning their programs to FBS in the 2024 season. The two schools will respectively play that season in CAA Football and the Missouri Valley Football Conference, but will not be eligible for the FCS playoffs due to NCAA transition rules. Both will join CUSA in 2025.

Rule changes

The following rule changes were approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel for the 2024 season:

• Implementing a time-out at the first dead ball on or after the two-minute mark of the second and fourth quarters (similar to the NFL's Two-minute warning). All timing rules such as stopping the game clock on first downs and implementing the 10-second runoff will be synchronized to begin at that time. Previously the use of the ten second runoff did not occur until the last minute of each half.
• Allowing use of coach-to-player communications via the helmet for one player (indicated by a green dot on the helmet), which would be turned off either with 15 seconds on the play clock or when the ball is snapped, whichever occurs first. Also the use of tablets on the sidelines for in-game video only will be permitted.
• Division III will be adopting the first down timing rules that were implemented for FBS, FCS, and Division II in the 2023 season.
• Allowing conferences to use a collaborative instant replay system as a regular (instead of an experimental) rule.
• Horse-collar tackles within the tackle box will now be penalized as a personal foul (15 yards). Previously this action was not penalized within the tackle box.
• Head coaches will be permitted to be interviewed by the media at the end of the first and third quarters, making permanent an experimental rule.

Headlines

• January 25, 2024 – The Mid-American Conference announced that it would eliminate its football divisions, effective immediately. The championship game will instead involve the top two teams in the conference standings.
• April 22 – The NCAA Division I Board of Directors announced the following:
  • Effective immediately, all student-athletes who meet certain academic requirements will be immediately eligible when transferring to a new school, regardless of whether they had transferred before. Previously, all transfers after the first, except for graduate transfers, required that the student-athlete receive an NCAA waiver in order to be immediately eligible.
  • Also effective immediately, schools will be allowed to directly assist their athletes in reaching name, image, and likeness deals.
  • After the end of the Pac-12 Conference's operating year on August 1, the conference will be officially removed from autonomy status, effectively turning the Power Five conferences into a Power Four.

Kickoff games

Week 0

The regular season will begin on Saturday, August 24 with four games in Week 0.

• Aer Lingus College Football Classic
  • Florida State vs. Georgia Tech (at Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Ireland), 12:00 p.m. ESPN
• SMU at Nevada
• Montana State at New Mexico
• Delaware State at Hawaii

Week 1

• Aflac Kickoff Game:
  • Clemson vs. Georgia (at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Georgia), 12:00 p.m. ABC
• Vegas Kickoff Classic:
  • LSU vs. USC (at Allegiant Stadium, Paradise, Nevada), 7:30 p.m. ABC

Week 2

• Duke's Mayo Classic:
  • NC State vs. Tennessee (at Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, North Carolina), 7:30 p.m. ABC

Conference standings

Rankings

The Top 25 from the AP and USA Today Coaches Polls

Preseason polls

Postseason

There are 41 team-competitive FBS post-season bowl games, with two teams advancing to a 42nd – the CFP National Championship game. Normally a team required to have a .500 minimum winning percentage during the regular season to become bowl-eligible (six wins for an 11- or 12-game schedule, and seven wins for a 13-game schedule) if there are not enough winning teams to fulfill all open bowl slots, teams with losing records may be chosen to fill all 82 bowl slots. Additionally on the rare occasion in which a conference champion does not meet eligibility requirements, they are usually still chosen for bowl games via tie-ins for their conference.

College Football Playoff

All-star games

Each of these games features college seniors, or players whose college football eligibility is ending, who are individually invited by game organizers. These games are scheduled to follow the team-competitive bowls, to allow players selected from bowl teams to participate. The all-star games may include some players from non-FBS programs.

The NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, which debuted in 2012 and was played 12 times through January 2023, was discontinued. The East–West Shrine Bowl relocated from Nevada (where its prior two editions had been played) to Texas.

Coaching changes

Preseason and in-season

This is restricted to coaching changes taking place on or after May 1, 2024, and will include any changes announced after a team's last regularly scheduled game but before its bowl game. For coaching changes that occurred earlier in 2024, see 2023 NCAA Division I FBS end-of-season coaching changes.

Television changes

This is the first year of a new 10-year television deal for the Southeastern Conference. SEC games will air exclusively on ESPN networks. ABC replaces CBS as the over-the-air television home of the SEC and exclusive television home of the SEC Championship Game. CBS will start airing Big Ten games in the 3:30 ET slot full-time this season.

Oregon State and Washington State, the two remaining members of the Pac-12 Conference, announced a one-year agreement with The CW and Fox (2 games) on May 14, 2024.

After extending their contract with the College Football Playoff in March, ESPN will sublicense two first round games to TNT Sports. These games will be the first games to air on the Warner Bros. Discovery networks since 2010. ESPN will also sublicense two quarterfinal bowl games to TNT beginning in 2026.

Notes

See also

• 2024 NCAA Division I FCS football season
• 2024 NCAA Division II football season
• 2024 NCAA Division III football season
• 2024 NAIA football season
• 2024 U Sports football season

References