The 2026 Atlantic Coast Conference football season starts Saturday, August 29, with five ACC teams spread across four Week 0 matchups. The opening slate reaches from Dublin to N.C., and it includes the first conference game of the season plus two broadcasts with Enhanced Instant Replay Access.
North Carolina opens against TCU in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, Ireland, while Stanford welcomes Hawai’i to close out the opening-day slate. In between, NC State meets Virginia in the first conference game of the season, and Florida State hosts New Mexico State. That mix gives college football this weekend an early ACC footprint that is wider than a single showcase game.
The replay coverage is where the day gets more interesting. NC State at Virginia and New Mexico State at Florida State will both feature Enhanced Instant Replay Access, which gives viewers live access to real-time replay discussions during the broadcasts. One of those games also doubles as the first conference game of the season, so the league is putting extra technology on a matchup that already carries the earliest league stakes.
The overlap matters because Week 0 is not just a warmup for the ACC schedule; it is the schedule start. By putting four games on the opening day, the conference gets an immediate read on teams, travel and television presentation before the rest of the season settles in. Fans looking for college football this weekend will not have to wait long for the ACC’s first test to arrive, and the next one comes immediately after that with the same opening-day pressure.
