2027 college football calendar gets overhaul that Mario Cristobal and others will celebrate

The Division I FBS Oversight Committee adopted a package Thursday that shortens the January transfer portal, replaces traditional spring practice with an NFL-style offseason model and moves the start of the regular season up a week beginning in 2027.

The Cabinet still has to approve the changes on Oct. 6-7, and if it does, most of the new rules take effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Changes to the transfer portal

The January transfer window goes from 15 days to 10.

It will open on the first business day after Jan. 1. College football dropped the spring portal and now that remaining window is five days shorter.

Spring ball will be very different moving forward

The old model of 15 spring practices inside a 34-day window is out, as well as the current summer activity rules. In their place: two out-of-season practice periods totaling 21 on-field sessions.

Combined, those periods cannot run longer than seven weeks. Neither period can last more than five weeks. Schools also have to designate at least nine discretionary weeks with no required athletic activity.

Fall camp will be shorter and Week 1 is moving up

Preseason practice drops from 25 sessions to 21, packed into 27 calendar days instead of 31.

Starting in 2027, the Thursday of what is now Week 0 becomes the official start of Week 1. The Saturday after Thanksgiving remains the end of the regular season.

Coaches will be happy with the changes

Some of these aspects will still need to be finalized, but the college football calendar needed to be reworked and it's good to see some progress with that.

Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, along with most head coaches at the FBS level, were hoping for a calendar that made more sense and matched better with the current state of the sport.

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