Jul. 24—SIOUX FALLS — ‘Week 0’ isn’t a new frontier in college football.
But teams in the Missouri Valley Football Conference are embracing the first chance to get on the field for 2026, which means the opening games of the new season are coming sooner on the calendar.
Eight of the nine Missouri Valley teams are playing on the first weekend of the season, a week before the traditional Labor Day weekend start as in past seasons. (Only Northern Iowa is not in action for Week 0 this year.) Seven of the eight MVFC schools in action on the opening weekend are playing fellow Division I schools.
“I’m a huge supporter of not only starting earlier but getting the season done earlier,” UND coach Eric Schmidt said. “There’s no reason not to. Especially with everything that happens at the end of the season with championship games and trying to get kids into school. College football has always been a New Year’s Day-ish postseason sport, where the season is coming to a close. I think it makes sense for these (players) as far as their schedules go, as well.”
Schmidt noted that the last weekend in August is expected to become the new opening week for both FBS and FCS college football in the future, so FCS teams are getting a taste of what the schedule is expected to be going forward. That is a potential downside for the FCS: whatever standalone spotlight they’ve gotten in the past with their games is likely to be short lived as the FBS moves more games to Week 0, as well, making room for the expanded postseason at the end of the year.
The season will continue to go earlier based on how the calendar lines up. FBschedules.com, which tracks future football opponents, reported earlier this month that USD will play Drake University in Vermillion in 2027 and 2029. Both of those games are contracted for the first Thursday of the season: in 2027, that’s Aug. 26, and in 2029, that’s Aug. 23. The website also reported that SDSU will host St. Thomas on Saturday, Aug. 28, 2027 to open the season before the Labor Day weekend.
Rarely has the entire Missouri Valley embraced Week 0 games until now. None of the league teams played one in 2025.
However, this is the first season in which all FCS teams can begin their seasons in Week 0 and can play 12-game schedules after a formal NCAA rule change.
That had plenty of approval among Valley coaches, who aren’t shy about the chance to play a game early, face a different opponent and potentially get an off week later in the season.
Another point of agreement among the league’s coaches? The Week 0 moniker is obtuse and irrational.
“Let’s just call it Week 1,” USD coach Matt Vitzthum said. “This Week 0 thing, it is what it is.”
South Dakota State will open practice on Thursday, July 30, with the first game coming on Aug. 29 when the Jackrabbits host Stetson University, of Florida. The most important aspect for SDSU coach Dan Jackson was getting 12 Division I opponents for the football schedule.
“I appreciate the work that our administration did and that our staff put in and really utilized a lot of our connections to be able to make that happen. It was not an easy process, but I didn’t want the players to play a Division II game,” Jackson said. “We weren’t going to play 11 games, and we certainly didn’t want to have a situation where our bye fell in a unique position. I’m really excited about the schedule. It really isn’t going to matter to me too much who we play this first week.”
This year, according to FBSchedules.com, there are 22 games involving FCS teams on Thursday, Aug. 27, seven more on Friday, Aug. 28, and 40 more games on Saturday, Aug. 29. Notably, the Big Sky Conference has conference matchups on the slate in Week 0 in August. Last season, there were only five Week 0 games involving FCS teams and two of them were neutral site contests.
Playing college football in August is a relatively new concept for the FCS teams in the Dakotas. For example, USD never played a game in August until 2000. This year’s Aug. 29 matchup with Central Connecticut State will be the second-earliest Coyote game on record, only behind an Aug. 28 game in 2004. SDSU’s first August game was in 2007 and its 2008 game at Iowa State is the earliest on record for Jackrabbit football, an Aug. 28 contest.
Vitzthum, the new head coach for USD, noted that the opener with Central Connecticut State is one against a playoff team and one of the few showdowns in a season opener to involve two FCS playoff teams. The Coyotes have the Blue Devils, then two games against Big Sky foes with Eastern Washington and Northern Colorado and then an FBS game at Boise State before Valley play begins.
“I think we’re really going to be able to come through with a non-conference schedule and know exactly who we are as a football team,” Vitzthum said. “The other thing I can tell you is that it’s a lot better than it was last year. We got to go through practice with our team that we’re going to be out there with. I’m excited to have a little bit better start than we had last season, and I know our guys are anxious to get out there and make sure we do well.”
The Fighting Hawks host Long Island on Thursday, Aug. 27, which is two days after classes begin on campus at UND, which Schmidt hopes will help create an amped home environment to start the season.
“We start here at the end of July. Our guys are ready to go,” Schmidt said. “I think you get to a certain point, end of July, early August, you’re tired of running gassers and chewing meat and bending iron and doing all that stuff. It’s time to put the helmet back on and get back to playing football.”
