nine-game conference schedule<\/a> next season, and the schedule won\u2019t be much easier than last year\u2019s.<\/p>\nSyracuse will begin conference play rather early, hosting California for the first time since 1967 on Sept. 12. The Golden Bears are one of nine teams the Orange will play that were bowl-eligible in 2025. <\/p>\n
Things immediately become more difficult for the Orange.<\/p>\n
Syracuse will then travel to Pittsburgh, which has beaten SU by an average of 27.5 points the last two seasons, for a Thursday night game that begins a three-game road trip.<\/p>\n
The ACC has provided Syracuse some relief with an early bye, though. Syracuse\u2019s short week will be followed by its first, and only, bye week of the season. <\/p>\n
Bye weeks are different this year in college football. With Labor Day weekend being the traditional start to the year, the calendar has been pushed back.<\/p>\n
Labor Day lands on Sept. 7 this year, preventing the normal late August start to the season. So, there is just one bye week for teams to use between Labor Day weekend and Thanksgiving weekend. <\/p>\n
After the bye, SU will face Connecticut and finish its road trip at Virginia, which lost the 2025 ACC title game in overtime and was the second-highest ranked team in the conference.<\/p>\n
One bye week means Syracuse will play nine consecutive weeks to finish the season. If the Orange qualify for the ACC championship, SU will then play in the league\u2019s debut of noon Saturday title game on Dec. 5.<\/p>\n
Other highlights of the schedule include a possible prime-time game on either Oct. 30 or Nov. 6. Those home games, against Southern Methodist and Clemson, have been designated as flex options by the ACC. Either one of those games could be on Friday night; it\u2019s also possible that both will be Saturday games.<\/p>\n
The ACC said it is highly unlikely that both end up on Friday night, a Syracuse spokesperson told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard.<\/p>\n
Syracuse\u2019s season will end with a home game against Notre Dame, the first team out of the 2025 College Football Playoff. Traditionally, Notre Dame would be on the road against Southern Cal that weekend, but the Irish and USC did not extend their longtime rivalry.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the full schedule with kickoff times to be determined at a later date:<\/p>\n
Week 1 (Sept. 5): vs. New HampshireWeek 2 (Sept. 12): vs. CaliforniaWeek 3 (Sept. 17): at PittsburghWeek 4 (Sept. 26): BYEWeek 5 (Oct. 3): at ConnecticutWeek 6 (Oct. 10): at VirginiaWeek 7 (Oct. 17): vs. LouisvilleWeek 8 (Oct. 24): at North CarolinaWeek 9 (Oct. 30 OR 31): vs. Southern MethodistWeek 10 (Nov. 6 OR 7): vs. ClemsonWeek 11 (Nov. 14): at North Carolina StateWeek 12 (Nov. 21): at Boston CollegeWeek 13 (Nov. 28): vs. Notre Dame<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Syracuse, N.Y. \u2014 The ACC released Syracuse\u2019s 2026 football schedule Monday night, and it will feature no more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-432213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}