2026 Schedule

[SU94]

I'm not one to harp on media/writers too often, but it's ridiculous that in this very basic story on SU's 2026 schedule, Johntay Cook's uncle gets a mention. Exceedingly unnecessary. Has nothing to do with the 2026 squad.

 

[cuseguy]

A few schedule thoughts:

A bye in the fourth week in September isn’t cool.

A game af Pitt on a Thursday on a short week isn’t good.

Playing Pitt early in the season isn’t helpful. Pitt generally plays well early and falters late in the season.

Playing BC late on the road isn’t a reward. BC generally struggles early and is a tough out at home late in the season.

We likely won’t finish better than 6-6 if we don’t get at least a split against BC and Pitt.

Don’t quite understand the excitement with finishing at home against ND. The Irish will be looking to impress right before the playoffs and we’re the opponent.

Is SMU locked in for Halloween? Appears it coulf be the 30th of 31st.

It’s a bit softer schedule than last year, but not by much. Cal, Clemson, Louisville, SMU, NC State, North Carolina (on the road), Virginia, and Notre Dame will be a challenge. Even UConn will be a test. We never win at Pitt. And at BC in November will be a bear.

Fran seems to have done an adequate job in the portal. I’d like to see us grab a few more OL and DL. Still think we’re soft there.

But we have enough talent for 6-7 wins provided we don’t stumble in any of the games where we’ll be favored..

 

[Chip]

A few schedule thoughts:

A bye in the fourth week in September isn’t cool.

A game af Pitt on a Thursday on a short week isn’t good.

Playing Pitt early in the season isn’t helpful. Pitt generally plays well early and falters late in the season.

Playing BC late on the road isn’t a reward. BC generally struggles early and is a tough out at home late in the season.

We likely won’t finish better than 6-6 if we don’t get at least a split against BC and Pitt.

Don’t quite understand the excitement with finishing at home against ND. The Irish will be looking to impress right before the playoffs and we’re the opponent.

Is SMU locked in for Halloween? Appears it coulf be the 30th of 31st.

It’s a bit softer schedule than last year, but not by much. Cal, Clemson, Louisville, SMU, NC State, North Carolina (on the road), Virginia, and Notre Dame will be a challenge. Even UConn will be a test. We never win at Pitt. And at BC in November will be a bear.

Fran seems to have done an adequate job in the portal. I’d like to see us grab a few more OL and DL. Still think we’re soft there.

But we have enough talent for 6-7 wins provided we don’t stumble in any of the games where we’ll be favored..

I'm glad we're playing Pitt early. We usually play them late, when we're injury depleted and often lose.

Pitt didn't have a great start this year, hopefully the same next year.

Early bye week really does suck.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I mention this every year but why in the heck does the ACC give teams back to back home conference games? It ends up giving teams unbalanced schedules.

And if you have 5 ACC road games you cannot start off conference play at home. It just throws everything off leaving 5 road and 3 home still to go.

We technically have 2 home games each month, but the two September games are W1 and W2, while the 2nd October game is the last day of the month. It will be hard to keep casual fans and even many students engaged with the team when we have
0.0 home games over 34 days and only one home game over 48 days. No problem for the die hards.

At the same time it is rough having too many home games grouped together. It is hard to avoid in September given OOC games. But for many fans they end up not attending a game when they are grouped. We have 3 out of 4 weeks at home mid season which is a big commitment for a casual fan.

Hate having the bye after a Thursday game. Playing on Thursday usually is like a mini bye. It gives you 9 days until your next game. With the bye it gives us 16 days between games. If we are off to a good start that could kill momentum. If we are off to a bad start it does give us time to fix things. But if we are off to a bad start against those three we won't likely recover.

Thanksgiving weekend is a crowd killer. Do we really need a home game three straight that weekend? In this case it probably won't matter for the crowd though given the opponent.

Labor Day is also a crowd killer. I prefer when we start on the road.

BTW Parent's weekend is either early (Cal) or late (Louisville). And Homecoming? Either early (Louisville) or on Halloween (SMU)?

Boston in November stinks. I miss when they were our conference opener each year.

Travel wise great road slate.

I really like going to Pitt but Thursday takes that away. Back to back times too.

Would have been nice to give us Cal on a Friday so we had a extra day before Pitt.

Moving SMU or Clemson to where our bye is would have made the schedule a lot more balanced.

What are people sniffing when they think Cal is good? They had 2 nice upsets late in the year but that makes up for their garbage performance the rest of the year? And we have no clue how their HC or staff will turn out. I wouldn't bet on them. Very little experience across the board.

 

[bnoro]

UConn game is such an easy trip and I just can't motivate myself to make it. Hate that stadium and hate those fans so much

 

[SUinNWE]

I mention this every year but why in the heck does the ACC give teams back to back home conference games? It ends up giving teams unbalanced schedules.

And if you have 5 ACC road games you cannot start off conference play at home. It just throws everything off leaving 5 road and 3 home still to go.

We technically have 2 home games each month, but the two September games are W1 and W2, while the 2nd October game is the last day of the month. It will be hard to keep casual fans and even many students engaged with the team when we have
0.0 home games over 34 days and only one home game over 48 days. No problem for the die hards.

At the same time it is rough having too many home games grouped together. It is hard to avoid in September given OOC games. But for many fans they end up not attending a game when they are grouped. We have 3 out of 4 weeks at home mid season which is a big commitment for a casual fan.

Hate having the bye after a Thursday game. Playing on Thursday usually is like a mini bye. It gives you 9 days until your next game. With the bye it gives us 16 days between games. If we are off to a good start that could kill momentum. If we are off to a bad start it does give us time to fix things. But if we are off to a bad start against those three we won't likely recover.

Thanksgiving weekend is a crowd killer. Do we really need a home game three straight that weekend? In this case it probably won't matter for the crowd though given the opponent.

Labor Day is also a crowd killer. I prefer when we start on the road.

BTW Parent's weekend is either early (Cal) or late (Louisville). And Homecoming? Either early (Louisville) or on Halloween (SMU)?

Boston in November stinks. I miss when they were our conference opener each year.

Travel wise great road slate.

I really like going to Pitt but Thursday takes that away. Back to back times too.

Would have been nice to give us Cal on a Friday so we had a extra day before Pitt.

Moving SMU or Clemson to where our bye is would have made the schedule a lot more balanced.

What are people sniffing when they think Cal is good? They had 2 nice upsets late in the year but that makes up for their garbage performance the rest of the year? And we have no clue how their HC or staff will turn out. I wouldn't bet on them. Very little experience across the board.

Looks like Clemson was trying to get its travel to California out of the way early in the season.

 

[richmondcuse03]

UConn game is such an easy trip and I just can't motivate myself to make it. Hate that stadium and hate those fans so much

Really? I hate the fans but the stadium is at least better than BC’s HS dump. Wider concourses and food trucks make it more tolerable to me.

 

[bnoro]

Really? I hate the fans but the stadium is at least better than BC’s HS dump. Wider concourses and food trucks make it more tolerable to me.

They're both concrete dumps. At least BC's is on a beautiful campus right outside of Boston.

The Rent is in the middle of a field in Hartford. No thank you.

 

[TexanMark]

They're both concrete dumps. At least BC's is on a beautiful campus right outside of Boston.

The Rent is in the middle of a field in Hartford. No thank you.

Tailgating for visiting fans has one of the best setups in Football.

 

[richmondcuse03]

They're both concrete dumps. At least BC's is on a beautiful campus right outside of Boston.

The Rent is in the middle of a field in Hartford. No thank you.

as a visiting fan, I care about parking, ease of getting in and out and things like concessions. In every one, the Rent is easier. And as Mark points out, tailgating is plentiful.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[Bill Orange]

I'm glad we're playing Pitt early. We usually play them late, when we're injury depleted and often lose.

Pitt didn't have a great start this year, hopefully the same next year.

Early bye week really does suck.

Speaking of Pitt:

Pitt Athletics announced this afternoon that it will be reducing the capacity at Acrisure Stadium for football games to 51,416 — the East and West upper decks are going off-line.

 

[TexanMark]

Speaking of Pitt:

Pitt Athletics announced this afternoon that it will be reducing the capacity at Acrisure Stadium for football games to 51,416 — the East and West upper decks are going off-line.

Actually smart to do it. They can always open them back up for PSU or WVU.

 

[Archbold44]

But we have enough talent for 6-7 wins provided we don’t stumble in any of the games where we’ll be favored..

I think that might not be "any of the games" but "either of the games" where we'll be favored.

Cal has a good portal class and a new coach. I think they will be favored. If so, and we lose, we might not even be favored against UConn.

 

[OrangeinBoston]

I think that might not be "any of the games" but "either of the games" where we'll be favored.

Cal has a good portal class and a new coach. I think they will be favored. If so, and we lose, we might not even be favored against UConn.

Waaayyy too negative. With the portal, there is absolutely no way to know how difficult or easy our schedule may be because we have absolutely no way to know how good our opponents (or SU for that matter) will be. Case in point, last year's schedule was supposed to be extremely tough. In fact, it wasn't at all tough - it's just that we lost QB1 and had a lacrosse player as the only viable back-up.

 

[Archbold44]

Waaayyy too negative. With the portal, there is absolutely no way to know how difficult or easy our schedule may be because we have absolutely no way to know how good our opponents (or SU for that matter) will be. Case in point, last year's schedule was supposed to be extremely tough. In fact, it wasn't at all tough - it's just that we lost QB1 and had a lacrosse player as the only viable back-up.

I am just saying... which games do you have us as favorites as of today?

I am thinking that we would only be favored for NH, UConn, and maybe Cal.

If the wheels fall off at UNC/BC and we are healthy, maybe we are favored to win those two. But, as of today, I think they would both be favored. If NC State starts like Va Tech last year and fires Doeren, maybe we are favored due to that situation. But a lot of teams get an interim bounce too. Va Tech got better last year.

 

[bnoro]

I am just saying... which games do you have us as favorites as of today?

I am thinking that we would only be favored for NH, UConn, and maybe Cal.

If the wheels fall off at UNC/BC and we are healthy, maybe we are favored to win those two. But, as of today, I think they would both be favored. If NC State starts like Va Tech last year and fires Doeren, maybe we are favored due to that situation. But a lot of teams get an interim bounce too. Va Tech got better last year.

All of the ACC games are winnable. There's so much variability of what our team can be next season. If the defensive hires make that side of the ball more solid we will instantly be far more competitive, and with a healthy Angeli could be looking at stealing a few we aren't supposed to. Upside-wise I could see 8 wins with that schedule.

Who on the schedule do you look at and say "that team will blow us out"?

I see ND and that's it.

 

[Archbold44]

All of the ACC games are winnable. There's so much variability of what our team can be next season. If the defensive hires make that side of the ball more solid we will instantly be far more competitive, and with a healthy Angeli could be looking at stealing a few we aren't supposed to. Upside-wise I could see 8 wins with that schedule.

Who on the schedule do you look at and say "that team will blow us out"?

I see ND and that's it.

I agree, just ND.

But we didn't even have a nail biter loss last year. Our loss margins last year were 19, 35, 13, 17, 25, 17, 28, 63, and 22. And we were down 31-3 in the "13" in that list. We needed a defensive TD in one of the 17s. 22 was to a 2-10 team. I have a hard time believing in Fran right now. You can't lost 9 games by an average of almost 4 TDs and be fortunate because we scored some late TDs to even keep it that close in a few of them.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

All of the ACC games are winnable. There's so much variability of what our team can be next season. If the defensive hires make that side of the ball more solid we will instantly be far more competitive, and with a healthy Angeli could be looking at stealing a few we aren't supposed to. Upside-wise I could see 8 wins with that schedule.

Who on the schedule do you look at and say "that team will blow us out"?

I see ND and that's it.

The good news is all of the ACC games are winnable. The bad news is that when 9 games are right now toss ups and 5 of those are on the road, going 5-4 in those games is a big accomplishment for a young team.

 

[Frozen]

I’m thinking of making the trip to the UNC game. Do SU fans have a tailgate even if it isn’t an official TexanMark production?

 

[javadoc]

I agree, just ND.

But we didn't even have a nail biter loss last year. Our loss margins last year were 19, 35, 13, 17, 25, 17, 28, 63, and 22. And we were down 31-3 in the "13" in that list. We needed a defensive TD in one of the 17s. 22 was to a 2-10 team. I have a hard time believing in Fran right now. You can't lost 9 games by an average of almost 4 TDs and be fortunate because we scored some late TDs to even keep it that close in a few of them.

Off-season changes not to your liking, eh?

 

[orangmannc1]

Off-season changes not to your liking, eh?

Are the off-season changes worth 4 TDs per game? It is hard to believe.

 

[javadoc]

Are the off-season changes worth 4 TDs per game? It is hard to believe.

For you maybe!

 

[upperdeck]

they dont need to 4 tds better. 1 td better in first half and many of those games are tossup games. smu miami pitt bc unc were all there for the taking. ND too for the first 30 secs .

 

[TexanMark]

I’m thinking of making the trip to the UNC game. Do SU fans have a tailgate even if it isn’t an official TexanMark production?

Pretty sure something will happen.

I should know if I'm going in a couple weeks