Cal Football Cancels BYU Series For 2026, 2027
The California Golden Bears now appear to have finalized their 2026 schedule.
With Cal expanding their ACC schedule to nine games, they had to choose to remove one of their four games from the non-conference schedule. The Bears will not be making a return trip to Provo, as the BYU home-and-home has been pulled.
Cal had to choose remove one of their four non-conference games for 2026.
UCLA was a non-starter. Both UC campuses are aligned in playing each other regularly in out-of-conference matchups, with Cal recently beating UCLA in men’s basketball. Cal is slated to play UCLA the next four years from 2026 to 2029. UCLA is also slated to pay Cal $10 million a year in Calimony for going rogue and joining the Big Ten, accelerating the Pac-12’s implosion without consulting its UC big brother.
UNLV has already been rescheduled once (it was supposed to be played in 2020 to inaugurate the new Allegiant Stadium, but was cancelled due to COVID), and there is a definite eagerness to keep the Vegas game for travelling Cal fans likely to make the trip.
Wagner is not a fun game to keep for any Cal fan looking for a good matchup, but with every FBS school scheduling an FCS team, placing 11 Power 4 games on the schedule would put Cal at a significant disadvantage.
That left BYU, which would probably also be Cal’s toughest game on the schedule next year, as they just barely missed the playoff as the second team out behind Notre Dame. Cal is already playing road trips against ACC title contenders Virginia and SMU, four other ACC teams with winning records on the schedule (Clemson, NC State, Pitt, and Wake Forest), and likely resurgent UCLA and Virginia Tech teams under Bob Chesney and James Franklin respectively. It’ll be a significantly more difficult slate than 2025. It made sense that the Cougars would be the odd team out for Tosh Lupoi’s inaugural campaign.
Cal’s 2026 football schedule should now be finalized. The full announcement will take place in late January.
Home:
UCLA Bruins (September 5)
Wagner Seahawks (September 19)
Clemson Tigers
Pitt Panthers
Virginia Tech Hokies
Wake Forest Demon Deacons
Stanford Cardinal
Away:
UNLV Runnin’ Rebels (October 3)
NC State Wolfpack
SMU Mustangs
Syracuse Orange
Virginia Cavaliers
This was the logical choice. No need to go get pummeled by a bunch of 27yo dads
If this was year 3 of Tosh then I’d say bring it on BYU. We needed an easier, first year schedule to build momentum and confidence. Still it’s a challenging schedule.