Eight days published, three that alumni travel for

Coastal Carolina has published Homecoming 2026 as a full week, Sunday 1 to Sunday 8 November, and it is easy to read that as eight nights of demand. It is not. The early part of the week is built for students and the campus: a men’s basketball game against Eastern Michigan at 7 p.m. on Monday 2 November in the HTC Center, Teal Nation Tuesday, the CAB Talent Show that evening in Wheelwright Auditorium, and on Thursday morning the ribbon cutting for the new PGA Academic Learning Lab.

The alumni programme is concentrated at the end:

• Friday 6 November: the Homecoming Golf Tournament at The Hackler. Check-in and registration open at 8 a.m., with a shotgun start at 9.
• Saturday 7 November: the Alumni TEALgate in Blanton Park, then the homecoming game against Old Dominion at Brooks Stadium.
• Sunday 8 November: the Homecoming Alumni Brunch at 11 a.m. in the Allen Ballroom of the Singleton Building.

That shape tells you how to book. If you are coming back as an alumnus, the nights that matter are Friday and Saturday, checking out on Sunday after the brunch. Come only for the game and Saturday night alone will do, but read the kickoff note below before settling on it.

Fifty years of the Alumni Association

This homecoming carries more weight than most. The Sunday brunch is billed as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the CCU Alumni Association, with remarks from university and alumni leaders and recognition of the people who built it. It is a $15 ticket with an RSVP, and the university describes it as come-and-go rather than a seated programme, so you do not need to arrive on the dot of eleven. An anniversary year tends to bring back graduates who would skip an ordinary homecoming, and they will all be looking at the same handful of nights.

The kickoff time is the missing piece

Coastal Carolina has named the opponent and the stadium but not the hour. The TEALgate page still lists the time as TBA, and it states that the TEALgate opens three hours before kickoff. Kickoff times for televised college games are often confirmed only a few weeks ahead, so check back before you lock in your plans.

Until it does, plan around two possibilities. An afternoon kickoff leaves a Saturday evening drive home within reach for anyone from the region. An evening kickoff does not: a TEALgate starting in the late afternoon and a game ending close to midnight is the case where a Saturday night room stops being optional. If you are holding off on booking, this is the one fact worth waiting for, and the only one.

The TEALgate is free for alumni and their guests, but only with advance registration. Bring your own cooler, drinks and chairs if you like; there is live music from The 100 Grand Band and food from vendors on site.

Where to stay in Conway, and when to look at the beach

Conway’s hotels sit along US 501, a few minutes from campus. A Coastal Carolina page names the Fairfield by Marriott in Conway as the closest hotel to the university, and Comfort Suites Conway is a little further along the same highway towards the coast. These are the rooms that go first on a homecoming weekend, for the plain reason that they are nearest.

If Conway is full, the answer is the Grand Strand. Myrtle Beach is about 21 minutes away by road, one of the largest resort hotel markets on the East Coast, and early November falls well outside its summer season. For this weekend the beach is a genuine alternative rather than a compromise, especially for a family that wants a second day out of the trip.

Our full hotel list, with distances and booking routes, is on the Coastal Carolina graduation hotels page. Those details were gathered for our commencement guide, not re-checked for homecoming, so treat the ring of towns there as a guide to where the rooms are rather than a forecast for these dates.

What has not been published yet

Stated plainly, so nothing here is mistaken for a guess: the kickoff time, the TEALgate start time that depends on it, and any hotel room blocks for the weekend. We will update this page when Coastal Carolina publishes them. If you are planning other campus weekends this autumn, our homecoming guides cover the rest.