Cal Sports Report

Cal's First ACC Football Game Next Season Will Be Against Boston College

The Bears' four 2025 nonconference games have been set, and the dates of Cal's other seven ACC games will be announced Monday
Jake Curtis|
Cal head coach Justin Wilcox
Cal head coach Justin Wilcox | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

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California Golden Bears

The ACC announced on Friday that Cal’s first 2025 conference football game will be a road game against Boston College on September 27.

Cal had already scheduled its first four 2025 games, all against nonconference opponents – Oregon State, Texas Southern, Minnesota and San Diego State. The fifth game will be against Boston College.  Cal’s other seven 2025 ACC opponents and the sites for those games have already been set, but the dates of those games will be announced on Monday on ESPN2 and the ACC Network. (See the Bears’ 2025 schedule below.)

Boston College went 7-6 in 2024 and was 6-1 at home.

Next season, which will be Justin Wilcox's ninth season as Cal's head coach, will be an interesting one for the Bears, who have overhauled their offensive coaching staff. Bryan Harsin is the new offensive coordinator. Nick Rolovich was hired as a senior offensive advisor. Kyle Cefalo is the new wide receivers coach, and Famika Anae is the Bears new offensive line coach.  Northwestern reportedly was looking to add Cal running backs coach Aristotle Thompson as the Wildcats running backs coach, so Cal might have a new person at that position too.

The competition to determine the starting quarterback will be closely watched.  Incoming freshman Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele and Ohio State transfer Devin Brown will battle to become Cal’s No. 1 quarterback in 2025 now that Fernando Mendoza has transferred to Indiana.

Cal finished with a 6-7 record in 2024, including a loss to UNLV in the LA Bowl. The Bears have not had a winning season since 2019.

Here is the 2025 Cal football schedule that is known so far:

August 30 – Cal at Oregon State

September 6 – Texas Southern at Cal

September 13 – Minnesota at Cal

September 20 – Cal at San Diego State

September 27 -- Cal at Boston College

Cal will play the following ACC opponents at home (dates to be announced Monday)

North Carolina

Duke

SMU

Virginia

Cal will play the following ACC opponents on the road (dates to be announced Monday)

Louisville

Virginia Tech

Stanford

The only four 2025 Cal opponents that the Bears faced in 2024 are Oregon State (Cal win in 2024), San Diego State (Cal win in 2024), SMU (Cal loss in 2024) and Stanford (Cal win in 2024). The ACC has 17 teams for football.

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

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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