From playoff changes to North Dakota State's move up, here's what's new for the 2026 college football season
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Every college football season brings tweaks and changes and 2026 is no different. Here's what's new ahead of the upcoming season, and yes, the College Football Playoff format has once again been altered.
Changes to the College Football Playoff (again)
No, the playoff hasn't expanded to 16 or 24 teams. Yet. But the third season of the 12-team playoff will feature its third different format.
This season, the winner of all four power conference championship games are guaranteed to make the field. Remember the handwringing a season ago that five-loss Duke could deny the ACC a spot in the CFP with its conference championship game win? The Blue Devils would have made the field if this season's rules were in place.
That means that the six non-power conference champions will be fighting amongst themselves for the fifth guaranteed bid into the playoff.
Notre Dame is also guaranteed a spot in the CFP if it's ranked in the top 12 of the final College Football Playoff rankings. A season ago, Notre Dame infamously missed the playoff after being leapfrogged by Miami for the final at-large berth. But the Irish were ranked No. 11 in the final CFP rankings.
If the same scenario played out this season, Miami — since it didn't win the ACC — would be out of the playoff while Notre Dame would be in since the Irish were in the top 12.
Additionally, the top teams in the CFP rankings will have the ability to pick which bowl they want to go to. Over the past two seasons, the teams with byes were assigned to bowl games based on the tie-ins their conferences have historically had. While Indiana might have chosen to go to the Rose Bowl anyway as the No. 1 seed in 2025, the Hoosiers were assigned to the bowl game because of the Big Ten's longstanding relationship with the Rose Bowl. No. 2 Georgia went to the Sugar Bowl because of the SEC's tie-in.
This year, the No. 1 team will have the ability to pick from among the Cotton, Fiesta, Peach and Rose Bowls while the No. 2 team will get to pick from the remaining three bowl sites.
As with the first two iterations of the 12-team playoff, don't get too used to this format, either. We still don't know what the playoff will look like for the 2027 season as college sports leaders keep kicking the expansion can down the road. It's anyone's guess whether next year's playoff will stay at 12 teams or move to 16 or even 24 as conferences have been unable to agree on a preferred expansion path.
The Pac-12 is back as a real conference
After two seasons as a two-team league with Oregon State and Washington State, the two holdovers are joined by six other teams in a remade Pac-12.
The reinvented Pac-12 now features Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State. It's a conference of states, if you will.
Each team in the league will play six teams once and another opponent twice in 2026. The two-game series this season are Washington State vs. Oregon State, Boise State vs. Utah State, Fresno State vs. San Diego State and Texas State vs. Colorado State. The league will still host a championship game too, meaning there's a slight chance that teams could play each other three times this fall. The title game will be on Dec. 4.
North Dakota State moves up
Five of the teams that joined the Pac-12 came from the Mountain West and significantly diluted that conference's relevance. The loss of Boise State is especially significant in football, given how the Broncos had emerged as one of the pre-eminent non-power conference stalwarts.
Enter North Dakota State. The FCS powerhouse is now at the top level of college football and in the Mountain West. The Bison have won 10 FCS titles since 2011 and now have a real shot to win the Mountain West in their first season in the conference.
The conference schedule doesn't do them any favors, however. NDSU plays Air Force, UNLV, New Mexico and Hawaii all on the road.
Northern Illinois is in the Mountain West and Sacramento State is in the MAC. Seriously.
If you're still not used to the absurdity of Cal and Stanford in the ACC, prepare for more geographic incorrectness with Northern Illinois' move to the Mountain West and Sacramento State's presence in the Mid-American Conference.
Northern Illinois left the MAC for some more football money in the Mountain West after a disappointing 3-9 season. The Huskies won just two MAC games in 2025 and will probably be somewhere at the bottom of the Mountain West in 2026. Notably, the Huskies will now play all other sports in the Horizon League.
Sacramento State has been desperate to move to the FBS level for years, and found its spot in the MAC as a football-only member thanks to Northern Illinois' move. The Hornets will compete in the Big West in all other sports — the Big West does not have football.
The school paid over $20 million to move up, counting the fee to the NCAA to transition to the FBS level. It's a cost considerably larger than North Dakota State's to move to the Mountain West that comes with a lot of long road trips too.
Sacramento State will visit Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green, Ball State and Central Michigan in conference play before ending the season with a trip to Hawaii.
Rule changes
North Dakota State and Sacramento State are eligible to play in bowl games if they each get to six wins. Previously, schools in their first season at the top level needed a waiver to play in a bowl game. That necessity is gone.
On the field, the biggest change is to the NCAA's targeting rules. The governing body is trying an experimental rule that eliminates the carryover suspension for a player who commits a targeting foul in the second half of a game. All confirmed targeting fouls will still lead to an ejection, but a player tossed for targeting in the fourth quarter will now no longer have to sit out the first half of his team's next game.
Additionally, coaches will now be given a third challenge if one of their first two challenges is successful. In the NFL, a coach has to be successful on both of his challenges to earn a third. In college, a third challenge will be given immediately if the first challenge is successful, or if the second challenge results in an overturned call and the first one did not.
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