Cal's first ACC game under Tosh Lupoi is its second game of the 2026 season
Cal will play an early-season conference game and could play three Friday night ACC games next season. The ACC announced its conference schedule for the 2026 season, which will be the first season for new Cal head coach Tosh Lupoi.
The Bears will play just one nonconference game – their season-opener against UCLA on September 5 – before playing their first ACC game of the season – a September 12 road game against Syracuse. The 2026 Big Game will be played on November 21, when Cal hosts Stanford. That is the next-to-last game of the season. Cal’s 2026 ACC opponents and sites had been announced in December, but the dates of those games was announced on Monday. Cal will definitely play at least one Friday game and that will be the Bears' ACC home opener against Clemson on September 25. Two other ACC games could be played on a Friday or a Saturday -- a road game against SMU on October 23 or 24, and a road game the following week against North Carolina State on October 30 or 31. The ACC season will be an odd one because 12 conference teams, including Cal, will play nine ACC games, which is one more than last season, but five ACC teams will play just eight ACC games because of scheduling conflicts. How that will work itself out in the final standings could provide some debate. Because Cal had to add a ninth ACC opponents, whiuch turned out to be Pitt, the Bears had to eliminate one nonconference opponent. The originally scheduled 2026 and 2027 games against BYU were canceled as a result. Cal’s five 2026 ACC home games are against Clemson , Virginia Tech , Wake Forest , Stanford and Pitt .Cal will not face seven ACC teams in 2026. The Bears will not play Miami, the College Football Playoff national runnerup, in 2026, nor will the Bears play 2025 ACC champion Duke, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Boston College and North Carolina. The dates of Cal’s three nonconference games has not changed -- UCLA , BYU Wagner and UNLV .Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.
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