2024 ACC Football Schedule: Cal Will Host Miami, Visit Florida State

Next seven years of Cal conference schedule released. Golden Bears will face Stanford, SMU every year

The Atlantic Coast Conference announced its schedule model for conference games for the next seven years, and Cal will host Miami in one of its four home conference games in 2024.

Cal's most significant ACC road game in 2024 will be a trip to Florida State. The Seminoles are currently ranked No. 4 in the country. Cal has never faced Florida State on the football field.

Cal is scheduled to face archrival Stanford and SMU every year, a move that will help minimize the travel.

In 2024, Cal will have home games Miami, North Carolina State, Stanford and Syracuse and road games against Florida State, SMU, Virginia and Virginia Tech.

Here are the Bears' all-time records against those eight future foes:

-- 2024 home opponents:

Miami 2-2 all-time (most recent meeting 2008)

North Carolina State first meeting

Stanford 43-53-6

Syracuse 1-1 (most recent meeting 1968)

-- 2024 road opponents: 

Florida State first meeting

Pitt 2-3 (most recent meeting 1966)

SMU 0-1 (only meeting 1957)

Wake Forest first meeting

In 2025, Cal will host Duke, North Carolina, SMU and Virginia, and travel for ACC games Boston College, Louisville, Stanford and Virginia Tech. Boston College is the longest trip Cal would have to make, a five-hour, 2,700-mile flight.

Assuming Mack Brown is still the North Carolina coach in 2025, it will bring to Berkeley the man who politicked his way into the Rose Bowl in the 2004 season, preventing Cal a berth in the Rose Bowl

Cal, Stanford and SMU agreed to join the ACC starting next season, giving the ACC 17 schools for football. Cal will face only eight of the possible 16 opponents each year, with each team having four nonconference games. Pac-12 teams currently play nine conference games, so Cal will have one more nonconference game than it has had in recent years.

The Golden Bears' current nonconference schedule for 2024 includes home games against UC Davis and San Diego State and a September 7 road game against Auburn.

The dates of next season's conference games have not been established, nor has the rotating schedule involving Notre Dame.  The Irish are an independent in football, but typically play several ACC schools each year, so presumably Cal will face Notre Dame at some time in the future.

The highlight of the Golden Bears' 2026 ACC schedule is a home game against Clemson, and Cal will host Florida State in the 2027 season.

Cal travels to Florida State again in 2028, and hosts Clemson again in 2030.

Cal does not play a road game against Miami until 2027, which means Cal redshirt freshman quarterback Fernando Mendoza will not get a chance to play in his home city.  Assuming he does not sit out a season due to injury or some other issue, Mendoza, who attended high school in the Miami area, will play his final college season in 2026.

A number of matchups are "protected," which means those teams will play each other every year.  For this seven-year model the annual protected matchups are:

Cal-Stanford, Cal-SMU, Stanford-SMU, Boston College-Syracuse, Boston College-Pittsburgh, Syracuse-Pittsburgh, North Carolina-Virginia, North Carolina-Duke, North Carolina-North Carolina State, North Carolina State-Wake Forest, North Carolina State-Duke, Duke-Wake Forest, Virginia Tech-Virginia, Florida State-Clemson, Miami-Florida State, Miami-Virginia Tech.

Here are the ACC schedules for the next seven years:

Cover photo by Alicia Devine, Tallahassee Democrat,  USA TODAY