{"id":194686,"date":"2026-02-26T11:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T11:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/194686\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T11:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T11:43:11","slug":"usc-football-to-face-san-jose-state-in-week-0-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/194686\/","title":{"rendered":"USC football to face San Jose State in Week 0 game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the historic Notre Dame series on <a href=\"https:\/\/dailytrojan.com\/2025\/12\/22\/usc-notre-dame-rivalry-game-off-the-table-for-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">indefinite<\/a> hold for USC football, the Trojans on Wednesday officially announced their third nonconference opponent, which they will face in Week 0: San Jose State University. USC will take on the Spartans on Aug. 29 at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, rounding out their twelve-game 2026 schedule.<\/p>\n<p>The Trojans had faced off against the Fighting Irish almost every year since 1926 before reported negotiation conflicts put the rivalry on pause until at least the 2030 season.<\/p>\n<p>Following the fallout, Notre Dame quickly shifted and signed a deal to play BYU, a top Big 12 opponent that nearly made the College Football Playoff in 2026, for the next two seasons. The Spartans, a member of the Mountain West Conference, however, are not as prestigious as an opponent, coming from outside the Power 4 and having lost all six of their meetings with USC previously.<\/p>\n<p>\tDaily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.<br \/>\n\tSubscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.<\/p>\n<p>In her November State of Troy address, Athletic Director Jennifer Cohen promised at least one Power 4 opponent in USC\u2019s nonconference schedule in an effort to create and embrace challenging matchups early in the season. While the rest of the Power 4 conferences require their teams to play other Power 4 squads, the Big 10 remains the only conference that does not mandate this rule.<\/p>\n<p>This effectively allows the Trojans to face San Jose State, Fresno State and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, all teams coming from non-power conferences.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, since San Jose State takes on Hawai\u2019i in Honolulu, the Hawai\u2019i exception is officially in play. This means that the Spartans are allowed to schedule a game during Week 0, and with USC being the perfect fit, it allows the Trojans to start the season with three easy home games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the historic Notre Dame series on indefinite hold for USC football, the Trojans on Wednesday officially announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":{"0":"post-194686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-san-jose","9":"tag-san-jose-headlines","10":"tag-san-jose-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}