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Emails obtained by The State via public records request show that Clemson athletic director Graham Neff and other administrators pushed in the fall for a waiver to play a 2026 Week 0 game, citing athlete recovery concerns related to the football team’s 2026 road game at Cal in Berkeley, California. A Week 0 game would’ve created an opportunity for a second off week.
Clemson likely would’ve played a home game against FCS Charleston Southern the last weekend of August before traveling to LSU,
Playing in Week 0 would’ve given Clemson football a guaranteed second off week during the season, because the Tigers would be playing 12 games in 14 weeks instead of 12 games in 13 weeks.
Clemson executive senior associate athletic director Kyle Young, who is the football team’s schedule coordinator, wrote in an October email to the ACC that Clemson’s “rationale” for playing in Week 0 was to “create more recovery opportunity.”
The ACC ultimately submitted a group waiver request on behalf of Clemson and every other ACC school that plays a 2026 road game at either Stanford or Cal. That blanket request was intended to give each school an opportunity to schedule a Week 0 non-conference game or be placed in a Week 0 ACC game, emails show. The ACC’s request covered every non-West Coast team scheduled to play at Cal (Clemson, Pitt, Virginia and Wake Forest) and Stanford (Georgia Tech, Miami, N.C. State and SMU).
The NCAA Division I football oversight committee denied the ACC’s group waiver during its early December meeting. The ACC informed schools of the denial via email on Dec. 15. In total, the NCAA football oversight committee denied about 20 individual and group waivers from schools and conferences across the country asking to play in Week 0.
