Cal Will Play a Friday ACC Football Game at Wake Forest Next Fall
The Atlantic Athletic Conference on Tuesday released its 2024 schedule of football games that will be played on Thursday and Friday next season, and Cal is playing one of those games.
Cal will play a road game against Wake Forest on Friday night, November 8, on the Deacons' home field in Winston-Salem, N.C. It will be the first meeting ever between Cal and Wake Forest on the football field. The Demon Deacons went 4-8 in 2023, including 1-7 in the ACC.
That will not be Cal's first ACC game.
The entire 2024 ACC football schedule will be released Wednesday at 2 p.m., and will be televised on ESPN2 and the ACC Network.
Here are the 2024 ACC "specialty" games that will be played on Thursday or Friday.
Cal already knows it will have 2024 ACC home games Miami, North Carolina State, Stanford and Syracuse and road games against Florida State, Pittsburgh, SMU and Wake Forest. But the Bears do not know when each of those games would be played, except the Wake Forest game.
Cal also already knows that its four nonconference games of 2024 will be against UC Davis (at home August 31), Auburn (on the road September 7), San Diego State (home, September 14) and Oregon State (home, September 28).
And Cal knows the date of one of its ACC games. Wake Forest had a difficult 2023 season under Dave Clawson, who completed his 10th season as the Demon Deacons' head coach. But Wake Forest played in bowl games each of the previous seven seasons, and won five of those postseason games. Clawson was named ACC coach of the year in 2021, when Wake Forest went 11-3 overall and 7-1 in the ACC and finished ranked No. 15 in the final AP poll.
The Bears' game at Wake Forest is Cal's only ACC game not scheduled for a Saturday, although some teams, such as Wake Forest, have more than one game scheduled for a Thursday or Friday.
Cal's game at Wake Forest will be the last of the ACC's 14 "specialty" games for 2024, with six games scheduled for a Thursday and eight set for a Friday.
The travel from Berkeley to ACC destinations was considered a concern when the Bears joined the ACC. The distance from Berkeley to Winston-Salem, N.C., is about 2,300 miles, and flying time is bout five hours.
Stanford also has one ACC "specialty" game scheduled. The Cardinal will play a road game against Syracuse on Friday, September 20, and that will be Stanford's first ACC game.
Cover photo of Wake Forest football by Rich Barnes, USA TODAY Sports
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