Week 0 started in 1983 during the Kickoff Classic between #1 ranked Nebraska (damn the Huskers have fallen off the face of the planet) facing off against #4 ranked Penn State. The kickoff classic was held at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey the weekend before Labor Day weekend, the official opening week of the season. Lee Corso was on the call as the Cornhuskers mopped the floor with the Nittany Lions beating them 44-6. The kickoff classic would last until 2002 when the NCAA put new rules on extra games and early openers and it was over. Only two games were played on week 0 in 2003 and 2004 and then it would be over a decade until another week 0 game was played.
There are multiple reasons why a team may play on week 0. Hawaii has been allowed to schedule 13 game seasons for quite some time, teams that play at Hawaii have been allowed to schedule an extra home game and play on week 0 since 2016, and the NCAA can also grant waivers to teams that don’t meet that category to allow them to get an extra game in on week 0.
In 2016 the NCAA put in an exemption to play on week 0 if you played Hawaii on the big island. The NCAAs rationale was that if you played in Hawaii then you could schedule one extra home game to make up the revenue from flying all your staff and equipment out there, thus you could schedule an extra game on week 0. This was quite the win for any Mountain West team as they had a monopoly on what would be the unofficial kickoff week, however in 2016 not many teams took advantage of this, as a matter of fact no one took advantage of this. There was one week 0 game, Hawaii vs Cal however Cal was the home team (technically) in the first collegiate football game played in Australia.
That game got great media ratings and schools and TV networks realized the importance of having a “primetime” game when others aren’t playing. After the success of the Sydney bowl there was an uptick in week 0 games. In order for teams to get a game on week 0 that don’t meet the Hawaii rule they needed to get a waiver from the NCAA (2026 will be the last season this is required) to play on week 0, somehow teams were starting to be able to justify having a 14 week season out of thin air.
The week 0 waiver was a great thing for college football as it gave us all another week of college games, sure maybe we weren’t getting top 25 matchups like we did with the Kickoff Classic, but who is going to complain about more football? Certainly not me.
Week 0 truly blew up in 2021 after the NCAA reinstated the Emerald Isle bowl, an international annual game that takes place in Ireland every year on week 0. We have seen quite a few great moments since they have made this a week 0 staple with Notre Dame laying the absolute hammer on the Navy Midshipmen (honestly not a great look for the country but hey, still good ball), FSU absolutely shitting the bed and watching the start of the end of Mike Norvell and the seminoles taken down by Georgia Tech, and then a preseason top 25 matchup ending in a one possession game between Kansas State and Iowa State.
After this season the term week 0 may be irrelevant as the NCAA made a move to make week 0 the official week 1. Starting in the 2027/28 season teams will not need to request waivers to have a game on week 0 and the college football season will officially be 14 weeks. Going back to what I already said earlier, I think this is a great move considering we get more college football, and get it one week earlier. I really hope that we get some good matchups for the entirety of the season and week 0 becomes another week of having loaded games with the new conference re-alignment and doesn’t just stay the current course of week 0 with one or two matchups worth watching. But who knows what’s going to happen season to season with the state of college football right now with how many rules and NIL changes are happening week to week and year to year.
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