Cal Football's 2026 schedule finalized
When the initial 2026 schedule was announced for first year Head Coach Tosh Lupoi and Cal Football back in January, there were multiple dates that included potential “flexes”, akin to the National Football League shifting games around late in the season. Cal’s road dates at SMU and NC State, taking place in the last week of October were listed among these flexible game days, with options listed for Friday night.
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) announced this past week that the Golden Bears games against the Mustangs and Wolfpack will officially take place on Saturday, October 24 in Dallas and Saturday, October 31 in Raleigh respectively, finalizing all the dates in the 2026 season. It is the first time in program history that Cal will play at Carter-Finley Stadium when it takes on NC State.
Cal’s only Friday game of the season, part of its seven game home slate this year, will be the Week 4 showdown vs Clemson in Berkeley. This upcoming season’s schedule is as follows:
Week 1: Saturday, September 5 vs UCLA (network and time TBD)
Week 2: Saturday, September 12 at Syracuse (network and time TBD)
Week 3: Saturday, September 19 vs Wagner (network and time TBD)
Week 4: Friday, September 25 vs Clemson (network and time TBD)
Week 5: Saturday, October 3 at UNLV (network and time TBD)
Week 6: Saturday, October 10 vs Virginia Tech (network and time TBD)
Week 7: Saturday, October 17 vs Wake Forest (network and time TBD)
Week 8: Saturday, October 24 at SMU (network and time TBD)
Week 9: Saturday, October 31 at NC State (network and time TBD)
Week 10: BYE
Week 11: Saturday, November 14 at Virginia (network and time TBD)
Week 12: Saturday, November 21, The 129th Big Game vs Stanford (network and time TBD)
Week 13: Saturday, November 28 vs Pitt (network and time TBD)
Week 14: Saturday, December 5, ACC Championship (9 am PT, ABC)
Game times and TV assignments for Weeks 1-4 of the season will be released on Wednesday, May 27 by the ACC.
I expect the UCLA and Clemson games to be apart of the after dark TV windows on ESPN/ESPN2, with the Wagner game slotting during the mid afternoon on ACC Network Extra (accessed via the ESPN website or app). Information relating to specific broadcaster assignments will be released during those individual game weeks while additional Cal Football TV assignments for week’s 5-13 come out roughly two weeks before the corresponding game.
