The USF Bulls have added the Kent State Golden Flashes to their 2026 football schedule, according to an announcement Friday morning.
USF will host Kent State at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. The matchup will mark the first-ever meeting between the two programs.
Kent State competes in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and is led by head coach Mark Carney, who guided the Golden Flashes to a 5-7 record in his first season at the helm.
With Kent State added to the slate, USF has finalized its non-conference schedule for the 2026 season, the program’s first under new head coach Brian Hartline.
USF is set to open the 2026 campaign at home against FIU in Tampa on Sept. 5. After a likely American Conference matchup, the Bulls will host Delaware State on Sept. 19 before traveling to face Bowling Green on Sept. 26.
In American Conference play, USF is scheduled to host Memphis, Temple, Tulane, and UAB, while making road trips to Army, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, and UTSA.
The full American Conference schedule for 2026 is expected to be released in mid-February.
USF becomes the fourth and final non-conference opponent for Kent State in 2026. The Golden Flashes are slated to visit South Carolina to open the season on Sept. 5. Other opponents include Wofford at home on Sept. 12 and Ohio State on the road on Sept. 19.
Football Schedules
Why the Mid-October non-conference matchup, I thought we left those in the 2000s?
October & November are built for conference games.
September is built for OOC games.
I do not understand the fascination with NOT playing out of conference games in October and November. The benefit to the school in the case of larger schools, is to spread out home games. Indiana, the defending national champions, plays four straight home games to open 2026 then plays just 3 more home games iover the next 9 weeks. This makes no sense. If you flip Western Kentucky to October and the Hoosier’s road game to Ann Arbor from October to WKU’s spot, Indiana has a more balanced schedule.
Another benefit is better September games for TV partners. Do we really need Nevada at Penn State and New Mexico at Michigan on national TV? The ACC and SEC has played conference games Week 1 and that makes better TV all around.
It would be nice if USF renamed themselves.
The real USF is University of San Francisco, established 100 years before University of South Florida, which isn’t even in South Florida.
Maybe you should do your research on the history on why it’s named USF. When established it was the southern most public university and all universities were required to have “Florida” in the name.
You can say the same thing with OSU for Ohio State University, Oklahoma State University & Oregon State University.
And how good is this FBS University of San Francisco team? Oh. Wait…..
Evan, I’m an alumnus of the Tampa Bay university and we go by USF, too. We did get the usf(dot)edu domain name back in the day FWIW. Also, the West Coast Conference member doesn’t have anywhere near the relatively high profile that the American member has now.