The 2022 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the 153rd season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at its highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The regular season began on August 27 and ended on December 10. The postseason began on December 16, and, aside from any all-star games that are scheduled, ended on January 9, 2023, with the College Football Playoff National Championship at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. The Georgia Bulldogs successfully defended their national championship when they defeated the TCU Horned Frogs, 65–7. It was the first time in the College Football Playoff era that a team won back-to-back championships. This was the ninth season of the College Football Playoff (CFP) system.

Rule changes

The following rule changes were approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel for the 2022 season.^[1]

• In games featuring instant replay, when players are disqualified for a targeting call in the second half or in overtime (which requires a carryover penalty of sitting out the first half of the next scheduled game), an appeal process will be available to allow the National Coordinator of Officials to review tapes of the targeting penalty for consideration of not requiring the player to sit out the first half of the following game.
• Injury timeouts awarded due to "deceptive actions" during a game will also be able to be reviewed by the National Coordinator of Officials to determine what sanctions, if any, against teams who use this tactic, enforced at the conference or school level.
• Blocking below the waist will only be permitted inside the tackle box by linemen and stationary backs. Blocks below the waist outside of the tackle box are not allowed.
• The penalty for players who commit illegal blocks or contact after a signal for a fair catch is changed from 15-yards to 10-yards, and is no longer considered a personal foul.
• Defensive holding will remain a 10-yard penalty but will now always carry an automatic first down. Previously automatic first downs on defensive holding were awarded if the quarterback attempted a pass.
• Codifying the rule change made shortly after the 2021 ACC Championship Game, ball carriers who simulate a feet-first slide will be declared down at that spot. This rule has informally been referred to as the "Kenny Pickett Rule".
• Defensive players who commit unsportsmanlike conduct penalties during a pass or run play will have the 15-yard penalty enforced from the end of the run/pass like a personal foul penalty.
• Uniform rules were changed to require the sock/leg covering to go from the shoe to the bottom of the pants, similar to the NFL rule.
• Illegal touching (intentional) of a forward pass by an ineligible receiver now includes a loss of down penalty in addition to the yardage (5-yards).

Other headlines

• March 1 – The Sun Belt Conference released its 2022 football schedule. Notably, the schedule included Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss, schools that had announced their departure from Conference USA and were then in a dispute with C-USA regarding their departure date, with Marshall having sued C-USA. The SBC release did not mention the dispute or the possibility that the three schools would not be able to join for the 2022 season.^[2]
• March 29 – C-USA and the three aforementioned schools reached a settlement that allowed said schools to join the SBC in July 2022.^[3]
• May 18 – The NCAA Division I Council voted to approve multiple changes to football administrative rules. Among these changes:^[4]
  • Restrictions on how conferences determine which teams qualify for their conference title games were removed. The Pac-12 Conference was the first conference to scrap its divisions for the 2022 season. While it will continue its division-based scheduling model for that season, it announced that it would consider other models for future seasons.^[5]
  • All annual signing limits were removed for the 2022–23 and 2023–24 academic years. Only the overall scholarship limits (85 players receiving athletically related financial aid throughout D-I football, with 63 full scholarship equivalents in FCS) remain in place for those seasons.
  • A win over an FCS team will count toward bowl eligibility if the FCS team awards at least 80% of that subdivision's limit of 63 scholarship equivalents over a two-year rolling period, down from the previous 90%. This made permanent a change that the NCAA had made on an ad hoc basis in 2020.
  • The council made permanent a set of criteria, originally established on an ad hoc basis in 2020, for filling bowl slots in seasons when the number of bowl slots is greater than the number of teams with .500 records.
• May 20 – The Mountain West Conference announced that it would eliminate its football divisions starting with the 2023 season.^[6]
• June 10 – The American Athletic Conference and the three schools set to depart from that league (Cincinnati, Houston, UCF) announced that they had reached a buyout agreement that will allow those schools to join the Big 12 Conference in 2023.^[7]
• June 16 – The American confirmed the 2023 entry date for the six schools scheduled to join that league from Conference USA—Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB, and UTSA.^[8]
• June 28 – The ACC approved a new football schedule format after the May 18 NCAA ruling. Starting in 2023, the conference will abandon its divisional model in favor of a "3–5–5" format in which each team plays 3 permanent rivals and 5 other conference teams each season, with the non-permanent opponents rotating so that each team will play every other conference member at least once home and once away in a four-year cycle. Under this format, the championship game will feature the top two teams in the conference standings.^[9][10]
• June 30 – The Big Ten Conference announced that UCLA and USC would join from the Pac-12 Conference in 2024, immediately after the current Pac-12 media contracts expire.^[11][12]
• August 18 – The Big Ten announced a new all-sports media rights deal, running from 2023 to 2030, with Fox, CBS, and NBC that will provide the conference a reported $7 billion. By the end of the deal, each of the 16 members (including 2024 arrivals UCLA and USC) will receive as much as $100 million annually.^[13]
• August 31 – The Division I Board of Directors adopted a series of changes to transfer rules.^[14]
  • Transfer windows were adopted for all Division I sports. Student-athletes who wish to be immediately eligible at their next school must enter the NCAA transfer portal within the designated period(s) for their sport. For football, two windows were established: a 45-day window starting with the day after championship selections are made (in FBS, the College Football Playoff), and a spring window from May 1–15. Accommodations will be made for participants in the College Football Playoff National Championship.
  • Student-athletes who experience head coaching changes, or those whose athletic aid is reduced, canceled, or not renewed, may transfer outside designated windows without penalty.
  • Transferring student-athletes will be guaranteed their financial aid at their next school through graduation.
• September 2 – The Board of Managers of the College Football Playoff voted to expand the playoff from four teams to twelve teams starting in 2026, but encouraged CFP's commissioners to implement by 2024. The model is similar to the one discussed in 2021; the six highest rated conference champions plus six at-large teams would make up the playoff.^[15]
• October 14 – Conference USA announced that Kennesaw State, currently a member of the FCS ASUN Conference, would start a transition to FBS after the 2022 football season^[16] and join C-USA in 2024.^[17]
• October 19 – Mississippi State announced that freshman offensive lineman Sam Westmoreland had died two days before his 19th birthday. The cause of death was being investigated, but foul play was not suspected.^[18]
• October 21 – San Jose State freshman running back Camdan McWright was killed when he was struck by a school bus while riding an electric scooter near the university campus. The Spartans' scheduled game for the next day against New Mexico State was postponed and was planned be made up later in the season, however this never occurred.^[19]
• October 26 - The Big Ten Conference released its 2023 schedules and retained the divisional alignment. The conference is expected to eliminate divisions once USC and UCLA join in 2024.^[20]
• November 5 – SMU defeated Houston 77–63, with the two teams combining for a new FBS record of 140 points in regulation. The previous record of 137 had been set when Pittsburgh defeated Syracuse 76–61 in 2016. SMU quarterback Tanner Mordecai also set school and American Athletic Conference records with 9 touchdown passes, and tied an FBS record for touchdown passes in a half with 7 in the first half.^[21]
• November 12 – Carlton Martial of Troy recorded his 546th tackle to break the Division I FBS record for most tackles in a career.^[22][23]
• November 13 – Three Virginia players—junior receivers Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr., and junior edge rusher D'Sean Perry—were killed in a mass shooting in a parking garage on UVA's campus in Charlottesville. Junior running back Mike Hollins and another UVA student were wounded in the incident, which took place as a group of students was returning from a class field trip. Another student on the trip, former Cavaliers running back Christopher Jones Jr., was arrested the next day on multiple felony charges, including three counts of second-degree murder.^[24][25]
• November 16 – In the wake of the on-campus shooting three days earlier, Virginia canceled its final home game of the season against Coastal Carolina.^[26]
• November 17 – During a meeting in San Francisco, the Regents of the University of California, the governing board of the University of California system, set a date of December 14 for a special meeting to make a final determination on UCLA's planned move to the Big Ten.^[27]
• November 21 – Virginia and Virginia Tech agreed to cancel their rivalry game, originally set for November 26, in the wake of the UVA shooting. Both teams had already been eliminated from bowl eligibility.^[28]
• November 30 - The Rose Bowl signed an agreement to expand the College Football Playoff to 12 teams, clearing the way to begin the new playoff structure starting in 2024.^[29]
• December 11 – Mississippi State coach Mike Leach had been hospitalized from a personal issue.^[30][31]
• December 12 – Mike Leach in the evening had passed away “from complications due to a heart condition”.^[32][33]
• December 14 - The UC Regents approved UCLA's move to the Big Ten. Additionally, conditions were made to mitigate athletes such as investing $12 million in beneficial services including nutritional support and charter flights to reduce travel time. UCLA must also pay the University of California, Berkeley an additional $2 to $10 million due to the move affecting the latter's athletic program, with the precise total being made once the Pac-12 completes its upcoming media rights deal.^[34][35][36]

Conference realignment

One team played its first FBS season in 2022. James Madison started a transition from Division I FCS in 2022, joining the Sun Belt Conference. As a full Sun Belt member, it met FBS scheduling requirements in the 2022 season, allowing it to be counted as an FBS opponent for scheduling purposes and to skip the first year of the normal two-year transition process.^[37]

Three other teams joined the Sun Belt from Conference USA in 2022. Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss, while initially reported to be making said move in 2023, announced their intent to move in 2022. C-USA had insisted that all three were bound to that league through the 2022–23 school year. Following a brief legal dispute,^[38] the parties reached a settlement allowing the schools to leave at the end of June.^[3]

The 2022 season was the last for 12 FBS teams in their current conferences or as FBS independents:

In addition to James Madison, two other FCS teams started transitions to FBS in the 2022 season.^[39] They will not join their future FBS conferences until 2023.

• Jacksonville State will leave the ASUN Conference for C-USA.
• Sam Houston will leave the Western Athletic Conference for C-USA.

Stadiums

This was the first season for San Diego State at Snapdragon Stadium, replacing the since-demolished San Diego Stadium after playing at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson for two seasons in 2020 and 2021. The Aztecs played their first game in the new stadium against the Arizona Wildcats on September 3, 2022.^[40]

Kickoff games

Rankings reflect the AP Poll entering each week.

"Week Zero"

The regular season began on Saturday, August 27 with eleven games in Week 0.

• Aer Lingus College Football Classic (Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Ireland): Northwestern 31, Nebraska 28
• Florida State 47, Duquesne 7
• North Carolina 56, Florida A&M 24
• Illinois 38, Wyoming 6
• Vanderbilt 63, Hawaii 10
• Western Kentucky 38, Austin Peay 27
• UNLV 52, Idaho State 21
• Nevada 23, New Mexico State 12
• Utah State 31, UConn 20
• Florida Atlantic 43, Charlotte 13
• North Texas 31, UTEP 13

Week 1

The majority (85%) of FBS teams opened the season on Labor Day weekend. Three neutral-site "kickoff" games were held.

• Chick-fil-A Kickoff:
  • No. 3 Georgia 49, No. 11 Oregon 3 (at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA)
  • No. 4 Clemson 41, Georgia Tech 10 (at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA)
• Louisiana Kickoff:
  • Florida State 24, LSU 23 (at Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, LA)

Top 10 matchups

Rankings through Week 9 reflect the AP Poll. Rankings for Week 10 and beyond list College Football Playoff Rankings first and AP Poll second. Teams that were not in the top 10 in one of the two polls are noted.^{[clarification needed]}

Regular season

• Week 1
  • No. 2 Ohio State defeated No. 5 Notre Dame, 21–10 (Ohio Stadium, Columbus, OH)
• Week 5
  • No. 5 Clemson defeated No. 10 NC State, 30–20 (Memorial Stadium, Clemson, SC)
• Week 7
  • No. 6 Tennessee defeated No. 3 Alabama, 52–49 (Neyland Stadium, Knoxville, TN)
  • No. 5 Michigan defeated No. 10 Penn State, 41–17 (Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor, MI)
• Week 8
  • No. 10 Oregon defeated No. 9 UCLA, 45–30 (Autzen Stadium, Eugene, OR)
• Week 10
  • No. 3/1 Georgia defeated No. 1/2т Tennessee, 27–13 (Sanford Stadium, Athens, GA)
  • No. 10/15 LSU defeated No. 6/6 Alabama, 32–31 ^OT (Tiger Stadium, Baton Rouge, LA)
• Week 13
  • No. 3/3 Michigan defeated No. 2/2 Ohio State, 45–23 (Ohio Stadium, Columbus, OH)
• Week 14
  • No. 10/13 Kansas State defeated No. 3/3 TCU, 31–28 ^OT (2022 Big 12 Championship Game, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX)

Bowl games

• Orange Bowl
  • No. 6 Tennessee defeated No. 7 Clemson, 31–14 (Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL)
• Sugar Bowl
  • No. 5 Alabama defeated No. 9 Kansas State, 45–20 (Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, LA)
• Fiesta Bowl (CFB Playoff semifinal)
  • No. 3 TCU defeated No. 2 Michigan, 51–45 (State Farm Stadium, Glendale, AZ)
• Peach Bowl (CFB Playoff semifinal)
  • No. 1 Georgia defeated No. 4 Ohio State, 42–41 (Mercedes Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA)
• National Championship
  • No. 1 Georgia defeated No. 3 TCU, 65–7 (SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA)

FCS team wins over FBS teams