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College football’s scheduling calendar took another hit Thursday, with a pair of high-profile series scrapped, new matchups announced to fill the gaps, and a confirmed international opener that pushes the sport further into new territory.
Florida State and Georgia mutually agreed to cancel their planned 2027-28 home-and-home series. Both programs pointed to the same familiar culprits: larger conference slates in the ACC and SEC, plus existing rivalry commitments that leave little room for nonconference flexibility. The two schools are still talking about a potential neutral-site game down the road, but the original two-game format is gone.
Alabama and Oklahoma State also pulled the plug on their 2028-29 home-and-home series. Aligning open dates had been a known issue for that matchup, which was set to begin in Stillwater before heading to Tuscaloosa the following year. Other nonconference commitments on both sides made it increasingly hard to keep the series intact.
Oklahoma State and Michigan State Fill the Void
Oklahoma State didn’t sit on the cancellation for long.
The Cowboys announced a home-and-home series with Michigan State in 2028 and 2029, the first time these two programs will have ever met on the football field. Michigan State travels to Stillwater in 2028; Oklahoma State returns the trip to East Lansing in 2029.
The Spartans have been busy building out their future schedule. Along with the Oklahoma State series, Michigan State also announced a home-and-home with Cincinnati in 2030 and 2031, plus a 2027 nonconference home game against FCS program Duquesne at Spartan Stadium.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Across the Power Four (the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC), schools are managing tighter nonconference windows than ever before. Conference expansions and internal scheduling mandates have squeezed the calendar, and long-term agreements that once seemed secure are now increasingly on the chopping block. Rivalry games and required conference matchups already eat up most of the available slots before anyone gets to thinking about marquee nonconference series.
College Football’s International Push Heads to Canada
While schedules reshuffled stateside, the ACC confirmed another step in college football’s growing international footprint.
Syracuse and Wake Forest will open the 2027 season in Toronto, Canada, playing a Week 0 conference game at BMO Field, home to the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts and MLS club Toronto FC. It’ll be the first NCAA football game ever played at that venue, with Wake Forest designated as the home team for the contest.
Kickoff is set for either Aug. 28 or Aug. 29, 2027, with broadcast and timing details still to come.
The ACC has been leaning into overseas openers for a while now. The conference has sent multiple teams to Dublin, Ireland, through the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, with North Carolina taking on TCU there this August and Pittsburgh scheduled to face Wisconsin in Dublin to open the 2027 season. The conference’s international calendar also stretches to South America, where NC State and Virginia are set to meet in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in another conference matchup.
Toronto adds yet another pin to a map that keeps getting bigger.
