Cal picked up a little more respect in the preseason AP college football poll than it did in the coaches poll, and that small bump may tell part of the story about the Bears’ outlook entering 2026.
In the AP poll released Monday, Cal received two voting points. Two weeks earlier, the Bears had collected just one point in the coaches poll.
With the AP ballots, that likely means one voter placed Cal at No. 24, or two voters slotted the Bears at No. 25.
The bigger takeaway is what the first AP top 25 says about Cal’s path. The Bears do not have to deal with any team ranked in the top 15, and only one ranked opponent appears on the schedule at all: SMU, which is No. 19 and will host Cal in Dallas on Oct. 24.
The ACC picture also looks manageable on paper. Only three league teams made the rankings: SMU, No.
7 Miami and No. 24 Louisville.
Cal does not play Miami or Louisville this season.
Clemson sits just outside the rankings at what would be No. 26, only five voting points behind No. 25 Missouri.
That makes the Tigers a notable presence anyway, especially with Cal set to host Clemson in a Friday night ACC game on Sept. 25.
The Bears’ two biggest nonconference names also failed to crack the top 25. UCLA and UNLV both went unranked, though UNLV received two more voting points than Cal.
Cal opens against UCLA on Saturday night, Sept. 5, at home, then visits UNLV on Oct. 3.
FanDuel lists Cal as a 1.5-point favorite against UCLA, a number that points to a near-even matchup. Both programs are starting fresh with new head coaches: Tosh Lupoi at Cal and Bob Chesney at UCLA.
Last season, Cal went 7-6 overall and 4-4 in ACC play. That marked the first time since 2009 that the Bears avoided a losing conference record, though they are still chasing a winning league mark for the first time since that 2009 team finished 5-4 in the Pac-10 under Jeff Tedford.
This year’s setup leaves no path to a .500 conference record, since Cal will play nine league games rather than eight.
In Other News...
Cals New Defensive Front Faces Pressure To Fix The Pass Rush
Cals defensive front is in the middle of a real reset under Tosh Lupoi, and the work started long before camp. With key contributors gone to the NFL, the Bears went into the transfer portal and brought in seven defensive linemen to rebuild the group around a mix of newcomers and returning pieces, a clear sign that the pass rush is being treated like a priority rather than a side project.
The new faces come with different backgrounds and body types, from Solomon Williams and Jayden Wayne to Justin Beadles, Emmanuel Okoye, Jericho Johnson, Ashun Shepphard and Nate Burrell, giving Cal a deeper and more varied front to sort through. The bigger question now is how quickly that overhaul turns into pressure off the edge and disruption in the backfield, because for this defense, the talent influx only matters if it can translate into production when the season starts. [Read more 🡒]