Auburn football: When does the 2023 college football season start?

Since the hiring of head coach Hugh Freeze in late November, it seems as though the Auburn football program has finally turned the page on the last few tumultuous years and is ready to make its mark as one of the top college football programs in the nation, once again.

The Tigers’ 2023 spring training began earlier this week on February 27, giving Freeze and the rest of his coaching staff their first chance to truly evaluate the players they have and some of the roster additions garnered from the transfer portal and the 2023 recruiting cycle.

But when does the real action, the 2023 college football season, actually start? The season will kick off with Week Zero on Saturday, August 26 with seven matchups, including the second game in the Hawaii-Vanderbilt series in Nashville and the Navy-Notre Dame contest all the way in Dublin, Ireland.

The official Week 1 of the season features games over a five-day span, beginning with nine games on Thursday, August 31, and ending with Clemson versus Duke on Tuesday, September 4. Auburn football’s first game falls on Saturday, September 2, when the Tigers will host UMass on the Plains.

The Tigers’ bye week comes early this season, on Saturday, October 7, in between matchups against Georgia at home in Jordan-Hare Stadium on September 30 and LSU in Baton Rouge on October 14.

Auburn’s first conference game will take place on September 23, and the Tigers will travel to College Station to take on the Texas A&M Aggies. The “cupcake” game ahead of the Iron Bowl will be on November 18, when the Tigers will host the New Mexico State Aggies before the Alabama Crimson Tide comes to the Plains on November 25.

With a new coaching staff, new schemes, and a new outlook on success, the Auburn football team certainly has a lot to prove in the upcoming season, the first in the Hugh Freeze era on the Plains.