Cal Football Adds Home Game with Pitt to 2026 Schedule

The California Golden Bears will be dropping one of their four non-conference games.

The ACC announced earlier this season they’d be moving toward a nine-game conference schedule to align with most of the major conferences. Today, the new 2026 schedules were finalized throughout the conference.

In 2026, 12 teams will play nine ACC games. The other five will play eight due to existing contractual obligations. With 17 teams and the existing Notre Dame scheduling arrangement, there will be one ACC team playing only eight games, to be rotated among all 17 teams in the next 17 years.

Cal is one of those teams scheduled to play nine, as they’ve now added the Pitt Panthers for a home date in Berkeley. Their other eight opponents had already been previously announced. Here is their ACC slate below for next season:

Home

• Clemson Tigers

• Pitt Panthers

• Virginia Tech Hokies

• Wake Forest Demon Deacons

• Stanford Cardinal

Road

• NC State Wolfpack

• SMU Mustangs

• Syracuse Orange

• Virginia Cavaliers

Cal is now likely to drop one of their four non-conference games. These games already have scheduled dates.

• September 5: UCLA

• September 12: at BYU

• September 19: Wagner

• October 3: at UNLV

It is unlikely that UCLA will be dropped, since it will probably be one of the top three home-attended games. And Cal will likely want to keep their cupcake game against Wagner. That leaves one of the road trips to BYU or UNLV.

The full Cal football (and the ACC by extension) schedule will be announced in late January on the ACC Network.

Below is the full ACC announcement: