NCAA Division I College football is coming to the UK for the first time on September 19th, as the University of Kansas Jayhawks take on the Arizona State Sun Devils at Wembley in the Union Jack Classic.
Some of the biggest rivalries, traditions, fandoms, and pageantry are seen within NCAA Football, so with the 2026/27 season kicking off this weekend in Dublin, where North Carolina will face TCU on Saturday, here is a reminder of all you need to know.
Over 130 college football teams compete annually in the NCAA Division I, playing at the highest level of college football and within the main pathway to the NFL. Due to the number of teams and atmosphere at games, college football has been compared as America’s
answer to European ‘soccer’, with deep local connections and family ties causing intensely passionate fandom, traditions and rivalries.
The NCAA season runs from late August to early January and is made up of three main divisions:
Division I, Division II, and Division III.
Division I is then split further into the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).
Division I FBS is the most elite level of American Football before the NFL. This is where hopeful college football players aged between 18-23 can prove themselves as top picks in the NFL draft.
The FBS is made up of conferences, including the “Power Four” of SEC, Big Ten, ACC and
Big 12. There are also the Sun Belt, Mountain West, MAC, American, Conference US and Pac-12 conferences.
This year, one of the Big 12 conference games lands in the UK for the first time on September 19th, with two teams from the conference facing off as Kansas University host Arizona State at Wembley in the Union Jack Classic.
Most FBS teams play 12 regular-season games. The small number of games means that winning is everything as rankings can change quickly, with the best teams go on to play in the College Football Playoff (the CFP).
At the end of the season, each conference holds its own championship title game to determine their conference champion, and therefore who makes the playoffs. In the Big 12’s case, their best two teams meet in the Big 12 Football Championship. ASU are recent
champions, having captured the Big 12 title with an 11-3 record in 2024 and earning a first-ever CFP berth as a result.
The top four champions receive automatic places, followed by the highest-ranked champion from the remaining FBS conferences. The final seven places go to the best remaining teams in the CFP rankings. Teams are judged based on a combination of win-loss record,
quality of opposition, conference standing and national ranking.
