Cal Football Schedule 2026 Revealed
Cal fans can start making their plans for next fall.
The ACC schedule was announced today, and all California Golden Bears can start planning out their first year of the Tosh Lupoi era.
And Cal Football socials went cooking with Top Dog flavors.
A few things to call out:
Cal will play five of its first seven games at home, highlighted by a season-opener against UCLA and a Friday Night clash with Clemson.
Cal will then play three straight games on the road, buffered by a bye week, meaning a month without Golden Bear football in Strawberry Canyon before the Big Game at its traditional pre-Thanksgiving Saturday slot.
Two of Cal’s road games against SMU and NC State could be Friday night contests at the end of October—they appear to be flex possibilities based on importance of matchup. But these probably will not be determined until the regular season.
The Cal-SMU end-of-season matchup has been switched for Pitt.
Here’s this year’s schedule:
September 5: UCLA Bruins, California Memorial Stadium, Berkeley
September 12: at Syracuse Orange, JMA Wireless Dome, Syracuse, NY
September 19: Wagner Seahawks, California Memorial Stadium, Berkeley
September 25*: Clemson Tigers, California Memorial Stadium, Berkeley
October 3: at UNLV Runnin’ Rebels, Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas
October 10: Virginia Tech Hokies, California Memorial Stadium, Berkeley
Oct. 17: Wake Forest Demon Deacons, California Memorial Stadium, Berkeley
Oct. 23* or 24: at SMU Mustangs, Gerald Ford Stadium, University Park, TX
Oct. 30* or 31: at NC State Wolfpack, Carter-Finley Stadium, Raleigh, NC
November 7: BYE
November 14: at Virginia Cavaliers, Scott Stadium, Charlottesville, VA
November 21: Stanford Cardinal, California Memorial Stadium, Berkeley
November 28: Pitt Panthers, California Memorial Stadium, Berkeley
December 5: ACC Championship, 9 am Pacific, noon Eastern
There are a few notable changes from earlier announcements.
With the ACC moving to a nine-game conference schedule, Cal brought on Pitt as one of their new home games and cancelled BYU. Only 12 of 17 schools will participate in 2026, and it’ll move to 16 of 17 in 2027 and beyond (having all 17 participate is currently mathematically impossible).
The ACC title game has been moved from its primetime spot to the noon/early Saturday time next year. The Big 12 title game previously held the early spot, but has been moved from that Saturday spot to Friday night in primetime.
My main takeaways;
Who puts ketchup on their frankfurter? All the other dogs have proper condiments and the Top gets disrespected?
Syracuse should be the bockwurst, home matchup against Clemson gets the slightly spicy Calabrese.
It seems strange to move SMU to the middle of the season given that they are trying to establish a rivalry. Then again, all ACC scheduling seems strange to me.