The Cal-Stanford Big Game is getting a late-afternoon kickoff, not a prime-time one, and not an early one either.
On Monday, the ACC announced that Cal and Stanford will meet on November 21 at 4:30 p.m. Pacific time at Cal.
That puts the game in the 7:30 p.m. Eastern window, and it will air on the ACC Network.
The matchup is part of an ACC Network tripleheader. Syracuse and Boston College will get things started at 9 a.m.
Pacific time, followed by North Carolina State at Florida State at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time before the Big Game closes out the slate in Berkeley.
Fans on both sides usually brace for a strange kickoff time, and this one fits that pattern without landing in the middle of the night or the early afternoon. For anyone heading to Berkeley, it should leave plenty of room for tailgating. The tradeoff is that the game won’t wrap up until about 8 p.m., when it will already be completely dark.
This year’s Big Game will be the 129th meeting between the programs, with Stanford holding a 66-51-11 edge in a series that started in 1892.
Both teams still have work to do before they get there. Cal travels to Virginia on Saturday, while Stanford is on the road against Virginia Tech.
The rivalry took a painful turn for Cal last season, when Stanford beat the Bears 31-10. That loss was especially hard on Cal fans and general manager Ron Rivera, and it led to the firing of head coach Justin Wilcox the next day, with one regular-season game and a bowl game still left to play. Cal had won four straight Big Games before that defeat and gave up The Axe.
This year’s edition will feature new head coaches on both sidelines. Tavita Pritchard had never been a head coach at any level before being hired by Stanford for the 2026 season. Tosh Lupoi also had no previous head-coaching experience before taking over Cal after the 2025 season.
The Big Game is usually a sellout or close to one, but this year’s crowd in Berkeley will be worth watching with both teams carrying losing records into this weekend’s action.
And unlike in some years, this won’t be the final regular-season game for either school. Cal hosts Pitt on November 28, while Stanford will be home against SMU that same day.
Cal needs to win its final three games to become bowl-eligible for the fourth straight season and stay in the hunt for a winning record. Stanford has to take at least two of its last three to get to a bowl game for the first time since 2018.
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