There are certain games where one can break down film and stats to predict what is likely to happen.  There are other games where it comes down to more of a feel than cold analysis.  This is one of those games.

Anyone who knows recruiting knows that there is no team in the conference who gets higher rated recruits than USC.  They get more 5-star recruits than the rest of the conference combined in many years.  And while there is the issue of whether the ratings align to whether those kids are in fact the most talented players, one would have to take a very dim view of all of the rating services to believe that USC didn’t have a talent advantage.  I think this is particularly true of the 5-stars.  There are a number of 4-star players who get their rating from their in-game statistics and statistics can be misleading due to what team a player is on and the such.  But 5-stars have to have the whole package: size, speed, physically dominating tape plus the in-game statistics.  There are very few 5-stars who are not as talented as they appear.

All of that is a long way of saying that USC is more talented than any team in the conference.

But talent will only get a team so far.  They have to be motivated.  They have to be coached well in all aspects (technique, scheme, physical development).  As a result, USC has been under-performing now for the better part of a decade because the coaching just hasn’t been there.  In the most recent incident, it appears it has been because their head coach has been an alcoholic.

Now that Sarkesian has been fired, everything has changed.

And the worst part is that the way it has changed for USC is in a way that is deadly to Cal: the linemen.  When I’ve seen USC play up until the Utah game, I saw a team that looked marginal on the line.  They didn’t look bad, but they weren’t pushing anyone around.  What I saw at the Utah game was a physically dominating line performance.

That’s the worst case scenario for Cal, as Utah and UCLA both proved.  Both of those games were lost in the trenches.  And if Cal lost a game in the trenches (albeit marginally) to a team that lost badly in the trenches to USC, we should turn on the red-alert alarm.

So I’ll be blunt: Unless Cal has a HUGE improvement in line play today (or for some reason USC massively under performs on the line), Cal loses this one big.  And frankly I just don’t see that happening.  I think you might be surprised to see me discounting this game when previewing future games, because I don’t think the teams after USC (Stanford aside) are going to physically dominate Cal the way USC is likely going to.  I’ve got hope for the future against Oregon, OSU and ASU.  But today is going to be a blood bath.

Cal 17, USC 42

It’s wise on occasion to look at the common opponents of our up coming games.  Here’s a quick look:

USC:

• UW: Cal barely beat, USC lost to handily
• Utah: Cal barely lost, USC beat handily

Conclusion: Confused, if one doesn’t take a pre and post Sarkesian view… in which case Cal loses big time.

Oregon:

• Utah: Cal barely lost, Oregon lost big
• WSU: Cal barely won, Oregon barely lost
• UW: Cal barely won, Oregon barely won

Conclusion: In Cal’s favor, although harder to tell if one takes a with or without Vernon Adams view

Oregon State:

• WSU: Cal barely won, OSU lost big

Conclusion: A bit short on data, but in Cal’s favor

Stanford:

• UCLA: Cal lost big, Stanford won big
• UW: Cal barely won, Stanford won medium

Conclusion: Definitely doesn’t look good for Cal

Arizona State:

• UCLA: Cal lost big, ASU won big
• Utah: Cal barely lost, ASU lost medium

Conclusion: Some confusion, but leans more in ASU’s way than Cal’s.

What does one take away from that?  There’s a few ways to look at it.  The positive way is there is only one game that is clearly not in Cal’s favor.  The negative way is there’s not a single game where the evidence is thus far strongly in Cal’s favor (if one assumes the single OSU common opponent isn’t sufficient).  My conclusion, reading between the lines, based on the results, Cal should lose to USC (because of the Sark factor) and Stanford, should beat OSU, Oregon is a toss up (due to Adams factor), and I wouldn’t like needing to beat ASU for bowl eligibility to be on the table even if I don’t put it in the same category as USC and Stanford (because I generally view Cal’s performance as not indicative of the team’s potential).

No time for a full preview this evening, but I wanted to get my prediction out there.  The Bears win tonight and the difference maker is going to be the Bears run game which is going to bust some big ones tonight as UCLA struggles with Cal’s offensive balance.

Cal 45, Baby Bears 20.

I think 3 questions will determine the outcome of the game tomorrow:

1. Can the Cal offensive line hold up good enough for Goff to be effective?
2. Can the Cal defensive line force Travis Wilson to try and win the game through the air?
3. Will the home-field prove to be much of an advantage?

#3 is the hardest one for me to answer with my head and not my heart.  I was in SLC for the last Cal game there.  It was U.G.L.Y..  The team never looked like itself.  It had the scared look of an elderly couple lost in the backwaters of nowhere when a group of menacing looking people surround the car.  It was one of those horrific Tedford road games where you wonder how he prepared them to go on the road (2008 Arizona, 2009 UW, 2011 UCLA and 2012 Colorado come to mind as of the same vein).

So my heart has a hard time believing being the visitors won’t hurt the Bears.  But it’s important to note that this is not Tedford and Dykes has shown the leadership to have the Bears performing well on the road.  We saw it last year and we’ve definitely seen it this year.  So my head says it will be a non-factor.  For now I’m going to go with my head, but I reserve the right to pretend I didn’t say that on Sunday.

As for what is going to happen in the trenches, my gut tells me that both the Cal line will do what it needs (3rd and 1 rushing scenarios aside) for the offense to be productive and the Utah offensive line will impose it’s will enough to keep the game off of Wilson’s shoulders.

What that means to me is that the Bears are going to have to be VERY efficient on offense.  They can not afford to have many unproductive series.  Utah will happily play keep-away and shorten the game, scoring the needed 30 or so points deliberately with just enough passing to keep Cal’s defense balanced.

So the question is, does the Cal offense take the step to get back to the level of efficiency we saw early last year against Arizona, Colorado and WSU, where just about every series results in points?

I’d love to believe that, but I just don’t see it happening.  There have been a few too many inconsistencies thus far and the thinner air in SLC doesn’t exactly lend itself to clarity of thought and crispness of execution.  My gut tells me we’re going to spend most of the game waiting for the offense to kick it into high gear, with moments/drives that show promise but it being too stilted for comfort.  Then, even if it finally happens that the offense starts clicking, the defense will come up a couple of stops short of giving the offense a chance to win the game.

Bears lose a tough one: 23-34

What a difference a week makes.  Cal goes from an “also ran” to part of the biggest game in the Pac-12… the match-up of the lone undefeated teams!  Cal is now “predicted” to end up in the Rose Bowl according to ESPN (with Utah in the playoffs).

And somehow that all happened while Cal underwhelmed in their victory over lowly WSU and Utah was on a bye.

Yet from my way of thinking, nothing much really changed in the last week.

My gut instinct says that Utah looks to be a real Pac-12 south title contender and Cal still looks to be a middling Pac-12 north team.  Based on that, one should expect than an upset here (Utah is a 6-point favorite) would be a true upset.

However, as I dig deeper, I’m not so sure that Utah is as good as its #5 ranking would suggest.  Don’t get me wrong, I think they deserve it.  They’ve won all their games and it includes two marquee wins over Michigan and Oregon.

But what if Oregon is a lower than middling team?  They didn’t exactly overwhelm lowly Colorado this past Saturday.  And what if Michigan is a combination of both not as good as their ranking and also much improved from their season opening loss to Utah?  (I mean, it was Harbaugh’s first game as their coach.)  It’s very possible that Utah, while I’m sure a pretty good team, is really not as good as their #5 ranking would suggest.

And then what about Cal?  How good are the Bears?  My thinking is that the Cal offense hasn’t hit their stride.  If they are unable to do that versus Utah, then the Bears are doomed.  But if Cal can rise up to their potential on offense, they could probably put up a lot of points on Saturday.  And make no mistake, that’s what it is going to take.  The defense might be good enough to keep the Bears in this game, but it going to be the offense that will either win or lose it.

So call me unconvinced all the way around.  I’m unconvinced this is the lauded match-up that it is being billed as.  I’m unconvinced Utah is as good as they appear.  I’m unconvinced about whether the Cal offense is really what we think/hope it is.

So it’s going to take me a while longer to come up with my prediction.

In the build-up to this game, while last year’s thriller is repeatedly mentioned, it seems that it is rarely remembered.

There’s no other explanation for why the Bears are considered such a favorite in this one.  I mean, WSU absolutely TORCHED the Bears.  Holliday set an NCAA record passing the ball.  Not a WSU record, not even a Pac-12 record, but a NCAA record.  Usually those sorts of records are set when  USC or Oregon play somebody like Southern Wyoming Community College, not when it’s a match-up of two teams in the same conference.

Of course, the big question is, how good is the WSU passing game without Halliday under center.  For those who have forgotten, his replacement took over mid-last season when Halliday went down with a season-ending knee injury.  He managed to come back the very next week and beat Oregon State in Corvallis in a very similar fashion that Cal did a week prior.  In the 8 games he started, he’s thrown for nearly 3000 yards and completed more than two-thirds of his passes.  Those are nearly as good as Goff’s numbers.  This is not to say he’s as good as Halliday was (or Goff is), but it definitely shows he’s a capable replacement.

The next question becomes, how improved is the Cal pass defense?  To them I say watch these 20 seconds:

Or if you think that one was unfair because of the out of bounds thing, how about these 20 seconds:

OK, maybe it’s a bit unfair to use those examples.  Texas was a team that Cal had to respect the running game.  But to counter that, both of those plays were on 3rd and long. How could they NOT be expecting the pass? Yeah, they’ve done better in pass defense in every other game.  But none of them, not even Texas, have the passing game that WSU has.

So, I’m expecting a shootout.  I’m expecting the Bears to give up 40+ points, but I’m also expecting the Bears to put up even more.  #Drop50 as they say.

Bears win a wild one: Cal 52 – WSU 41

Early season previews are always the hardest, particularly when dealing with teams that have significant areas in flux.  And when in college football does a team not have significant flux from year to year?

For this game the two questions are whether the Cal defense is for real and whether the San Diego State offense can put up enough points to keep the game in doubt.

San Diego State had a mediocre year last year, losing all of their games to power-5 conference teams and the top teams in their conference.  But the general consensus is they will be better this year despite losing their starting quarterback, who was apparently nothing special.  But SDSU is a HUGE run-first team and they welcome back a lot of depth with their running backs, including their leading rusher, and 4 of 5 offensive linemen, who are bigger than average for a mid-major team.

For quarterback, they’re starting a senior transfer from Kentucky who went 9 for 21 for only 100 yards in his debut, so there’s no reason to think that this won’t be a run-first team on Saturday

And for me, that’s the key.

The Bears defense has done fine against the run and looks as good as ever in that regard.  Unless the offensive line is a top-flight, Alabama level line, there’s no team that is going to be the Bears with its run game alone.  Particularly when one adds that it is unlikely the SDSU defense is going to be able corral the Cal passing attack (side note: this will be a more interesting game to judge the progress of the Cal running game, even if it won’t meaningfully affect the outcome) and one has to like Cal’s chances.

Cal wins big again: Bears 51, Aztecs 16.

I’m going to make this short and sweet.  The Bears win and win big.  The could easily score 70, but let off the throttle before getting there.  The defense looks pretty good, but they give up more points late in the game than we’d like because they’re getting the less experienced guys time.

Cal 59, Grambling State 23

One of the problems with playing an FCS team is that it can give the illusion that the team is better than they are.  They can win big and have lots of impressive plays.  Those problems from last year?  Not so much against weaker opponents.

But then the “real” games start and all of a sudden everything that looked fixed turns out to still be broken.

However, if one looks closely, there are things that can observed even in a blowout win that might illuminate how much the Bears have improved since last year.  Here are my 7 things to look for in that regard:

• The Bears secondary in press coverage:  How often are they willing to commit to aggressive coverage schemes with their DB’s?  And when they do it, how successful are they?  Don’t look too much at the actual result of the play, but whether the guys were open.  Grambling State’s QB may not have seen it or been able to make the throw, but later QB’s will.  In any case, it will be a good sign if Cal shows more aggressive coverage, putting the DB’s “on an island” and they’re successful at it.
• Is the Bears secondary making plays on the ball?  One of the biggest things that disrupts opposing QB’s is seeing their passes picked off (or nearly so).  It makes them much more nervous to throw into tight spots and they’re more likely to hold onto the ball and look for something better.  But if the defense is never looking, is never able to make a play on the ball, the QB can throw into just about any spot and the worst case scenario is just an incompletion.  This has been part of what has been plaguing the Bears secondary.  Even when they’ve had reasonable coverage, the QB’s aren’t fearing throwing the ball and completions are made at times when the ball would never have been thrown if the DB’s had giving the QB that fear.  We need to see significant improvement in this area.
• How much penetration is the D-Line getting?  Where is the line of scrimmage 2 seconds after each play starts… is it where it started, or are the Bears physically moving Grambling State around?  Don’t worry too much about the number of sacks as FCS teams tend to modify their plays to get the ball out quickly against FBS opponents.
• How much of a push is the O-Line getting?  This is the same as the prior one, but in the inverse.  Are the Bears getting a forward push on run plays and somewhat holding their ground on pass plays?  Unlike the prior one, every sack should terrify us.
• How often is the defense confused or urgently making corrections right before the snap?  A good defense knows what it wants to do.
• When are the points scored?  Sometimes the final score will look good, but most of the points were scored in the 2nd half.  If the halftime score is 20-10, that should concern us even if the final score is 57-16.  Generally FCS teams come out and play really hard, but they can’t sustain it.  Eventually the bigger team wears them down and things get out of hand.  However, a good team manhandles the FCS team even when they’re giving that over-effort in the 1st quarter.
• How much player rotation are we seeing?  I’m talking about more than whether the coaching staff starts subbing in the 2nd string in the 4th quarter and the 3rd string for the last drive.  That just means the Bears were winning big.  I’m talking about through the majority of the game are we seeing more than 22 players out there.  How many different WR/TE/RB packages are we seeing?  Are they rotating in different D-Line guys?  What about in pass coverage… particularly when they go into nickle packages, what sort of variety are we seeing in personnel?  (Dont’ forget to include the LB’s in that assessment)  Finally, how does Chase Forrest look at QB when he comes in as a backup? (For the QB it’s OK if it isn’t until the 2nd half.)  For this team to win consistently they need depth.  One of the sure signs of depth is the team is playing lots of different guys throughout an FCS game.  Bring your depth chart and check off the 2nd string guys as you see them come in.

That is what strikes me as things to look for that can be illuminating, even if the Bears win big.

Now if the Bears have a tight game like they did against Portland State in 2013… LOOK OUT!  It could be a rough year.

I’m running late, so this will be a quick one:

It’s very hard to get a read on this BYU team.  They clearly stunk after they lost both their starting QB and RB.  But the last few games one (or both) of two things have happened:

1. The replacements have found their groove
2. The competition they’ve played has been VERY subpar

I honestly don’t know which one it is.

What I do know is that BYU is very big on both lines for a mid-major (ish) team and the Bears better be ready to be physical today to win on this wet, windy day where passing is not going to be as easy.  More than on a fair weather day, rainy days are won on the line of scrimmage.

Frankly, that scares the crud out of me.

Let’s hope the lines that showed up versus Oregon State show up and BYU is not as up for the challenge as their beating up on weak opponents the last few weeks suggest.

Cal wins an ugly one: Cal 27, BYU 23

I’ve been pounding the drum ever since Cal played UCLA close that Cal could beat anyone on their remaining schedule.  Not that they would beat them all, but Cal is good enough now to have a shot at anyone in the conference.  And thus far it has proved out.  Cal hung with Oregon longer than most.  Then the team left us wondering what would have been if they hadn’t spotted USC a 31-2 lead.  Plus watching the same Oregon State team Cal beat the prior weekend shock the Pac-12 south by upsetting ASU, really showed the parity in this conference.

It all makes me wish Cal had another shot at UW, the only team that beat Cal by a large margin and there was never any meaningful hope the Bears might win.

Which brings us to Stanford.  While it’s not uninteresting, doing a common opponent break down, which is coming shortly, probably misses the key “any given Saturday” point.  This year’s Big Game, more than any in recent memory comes down not to who’s the better team, but who plays the better game.  Stanford is right in the middle of the conference parity along with the Bears.

Nevertheless, here’s the common opponent analysis:

• Versus Washington: Cal lost 7-31, Stanford won 20-13
• Versus Oregon: Cal lost 41-59, Stanford lost 16-45
• Versus OSU: Cal won 45-31, Stanford won 38-14
• Versus USC: Cal lost 30-38, Stanford lost 10-13
• Versus WSU: Cal won 60-59, Stanford won 34-17

So Stanford won one that Cal lost big time, but otherwise the two teams did similarly.  One can argue Cal did better against Oregon and Stanford did better against WSU and maybe OSU, but to some degree it’s over analyzing to get too much into the details.

One thing that is beyond obvious is that Cal both scores and gives up more points.  Against those common opponents Cal scored 183 and gave up 218 whereas Stanford scored 118 and gave up 102.

Of particular note is that outside of Oregon, Stanford didn’t give up more than 20 points in regulation all season.  A similar, but in the reverse stat is that outside of Washington the Bears haven’t scored less than 30 points all season.

So, the two-fold question is, does the Cal offense share something in common with the Oregon offense that suggests Cal can put up numbers against Stanford or, in the inverse, does the Stanford defense share something in common with the UW defense that suggests Stanford can stop the Cal offense.

My gut says that the UW game, if played again, particularly after the experience at USC, Cal would put up 30 points. So whether or not Stanford shares something in common with them, it’s irrelevant.  Don’t get me wrong, I think Stanford has a good chance of frustrating the Cal offense, but it won’t be just because they follow the UW blueprint.  They’re going to have to be far more disruptive at the line of scrimmage without allowing too many open receivers for Goff to quickly zip the ball to than either UW or USC did.  It’s a tall order for the Stanford defense.

And yes, I do think Cal’s offense, while different in lots of ways, exposes Stanford in similar ways that Oregon did.  Cal is the most balanced of the “raid” offenses in the conference.  Oregon is the only team with the balanced running spread offense in the conference.

So I guess that’s a long way of saying I expect Cal to score a significant amount of points tomorrow.

However, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the other side of the ball.  Stanford has put up some points against weaker defenses and there is a reason to believe Stanford will do it against Cal.  The two conference games they did it, WSU and OSU, they really did it in the air.  Not the way Cal does, it was only high 200’s and low 300’s passing, but for Stanford, it was a strong passing game.  And there was nothing spectacular about the running game for the Cardinal in those two games.

So does Hogan channel himself from last year and throw with his hair on fire, or does Cal contain it enough to allow their offense to chip away at the stout Stanford defense?  My gut says Cal will contain it this year, and will have learned enough from UW and USC to keep the offense productive.  The Bears are all heart this year and I have my strong doubts about the resolve of Stanford this year.

This is the year the drought ends: Cal 37 – Furd 23 (but it will feel closer than that)

Tonight has the potential to be a VERY important night for Cal football.  Think USC 2003 important.  That win was the signature win that propelled the program to where it was for the peak of the Tedford years.  And actually, at the other end of the spectrum, imagine if Cal had beat USC in 2004, how much further that would have propelled the Bears.

USC is USC, even when they’re not playing like USC.

So the big question is can Cal win tonight.  My answer is that I’m 100% confident they CAN.  They don’t even need a bad performance by USC.  Cal can beat this team outright.  Cal has the offense to score enough points to win and the defense is slowly learning how to contain the opposition.  USC doesn’t have the depth to win a fast paced, shootout against any team with the offense firepower that Cal has.

And let’s linger on that firepower a bit.  Here’s a stat for you.  5 of the 8 FBS teams Cal has played, Cal put up the highest score against that team.  Oregon, Oregon State, WSU, Colorado, and Arizona all gave up more points to Cal than they gave up to anyone else.  Two of the remaining 3 (UCLA and NW) Cal was just a handful of points from the highest opponent score.  Now THAT’s firepower.

But just because that’s one storyline for how the game will play out, it’s not the only one.  As just mentioned, the Cal offense has put up points against everyone, with one exception: Washington.  What is scary to me is if you asked me to pick which team that Cal has played that most closely resembles USC’s defense, it is without question Washington.  So if you’re looking for my fears and worries, it is that the Cal offense is disrupted by the USC front seven the way they were against UW.

Thus I think what this evening’s game will come down to is whether Franklin has come up with schemes and changes to defuse what killed Cal against UW.

One final thought… There’s a part of me that won’t be surprised to see the Cal defense have a good game tonight.  USC’s new offensive scheme is one that generically speaking is one that Cal is well suited to defend.  And USC isn’t executing it at a particularly high level.  They’re a very high talent team, but they’re new to this scheme.  So it’s not unreasonable to think the Bears at least keep the totals on the lower side of their average.  (the counter thought is that the old UW coaching staff has had Cal’s number and now that they’re at USC, there’s no reason to think they won’t do it again)

When I sum it all up, my gut says that the Bears will be competitive, but there’s just a few too many reasons that USC might be a tad bit too much defensively for the Bears to put up their 40+ points and the defense, while it might do better than normal, won’t be good enough to win a defensive battle.

Cal loses out on an opportunity to re-assert the program: Cal 27 – USC 31.

This week’s preview is going to be a short one.  I am short on time, but I wanted to make sure I got it in.

Today’s game will come down to the Cal defense.  The offense will be able to put up points, of that I have little doubt.

Considering how much the Beaver offense has been struggling, that should be the start and end of the post.  However, the Cal defense has been the cure to more than one team’s offensive struggles and I fear that the OSU offense will find its rhythm tonight under similar circumstances.

Here is to hoping that the Cal defense turns a bit of a corner tonight.

Cal 45, OSU 24

After the last two weeks you won’t be seeing from me any delusions that the Bears are going to win tonight. It was really disappointing to see the Bears not win a game that was turning into a shootout. It has appeared that the Bears are built to win those sorts of games. Maybe it was just bad luck/bounce of the ball. Or maybe it was deceptively a shootout due to the turnovers. But my gut says that the less-than-horrible quality of UCLA’s defense was the main culprit in why the Bears weren’t able to hold-serve in the shootout last Saturday.

With that revelation, it’s hard to think the Bears can beat Oregon.

Cal’s defense has yet to show it can meaningfully stop anyone. We haven’t given up less than 31 points to anyone since Sac State. And while the defense is slowly improving, there’s no reason to believe that the trend ends tonight against Oregon’s high powered offense.

So the only question that remains is can the Bears score at will tonight and turn this into another shootout?

A very strong argument can be made that no, Cal’s offense will find itself more frustrated than successful against Oregon’s defense. While they haven’t been great, Oregon has yet to give up more than 31 all season, even in a loss. To compare, let’s look at how the last two defenses Cal played compares to Oregon’s defense:

…er… nevermind that. Can you believe Oregon, UW and UCLA have no common opponents yet? (minus playing each other, which doesn’t help from a comparing defenses perspective (because a team never plays their own defense).)

So I guess I’m stuck with comparing them qualitatively, and from that perspective my gut says that Oregon’s front 7 isn’t as good as UWs, but is probably about the same as UCLA’s, although they might just be a tad weaker. However, Oregon’s secondary is the fastest and likely the best of the three, even thought statistically they give up a lot of yards. A lot of that has to do with the scheme because they also give up the fewest points of the 3.

What that all leads up to is I don’t expect the Bears to “drop 50” tonight. If they improve on last week’s performance and everything goes their way, they could score 40+ in a shootout, but more likely in the 20’s or 30’s.

And frankly, I fear even the 40+ won’t even be enough. Unless something changes radically, or Kaufman has something up his sleeve (which all evidence of how vanilla he schemes suggests to the contrary), I expect Oregon to score in the 40’s.

So the Bears lose this one in all probability. The only question is whether the Bears can put up enough points to make a game of it.

Cal 30, Oregon 45

Games like Saturday’s are the toughest for me to preview. I have to fight between my logical side and my emotional side. Thus today you will get a dialogue format preview:

Emotional Side (ES): The Bears can beat this UCLA squad! What is their most impressive win? Texas? (They’re 2-4) The squeaker over Virginia (who couldn’t even beat BYU)? Or is it the other squeaker over 3-3 Memphis?

Logical Side (LS): Come on, you know their best win is over ASU who just beat USC.

ES: Yeah, but ASU was without their starting QB and was starting the backup for the 1st time. Not exactly an overwhelming performance!

LS: OK, let’s not get carried away. We can’t judge teams just by their victories alone. You do realize the Bear’s best conference victory is over a team that is now 2-4? We’ve got to use qualitative methods too.

ES: But I’m not done. Cal beat WSU, who beat Utah, who solidly beat UCLA!

LS: You’re really resorting to the transitive property with games that were all close? Look, UCLA only lost one game that they shouldn’t have (to Utah) but otherwise they’ve won all the games the were supposed to and lost the one game they were likely to lose. There’s a reason they were picked at the top of the South. This is one talented team.

ES: Yeah, but UCLA hasn’t won in Berkeley since Clinton was in the White House. UCLA always lays an egg in Berkeley.

LS: But that was pretty much all under Tedford, who’s team and style was much better suited to beat UCLA. And you’re comparing old UCLA teams with different coaches. In those days, Cal would win easily in Berkeley and then lose the most frustrating close loss of the season the following year in Pasadena. I seem to remember last year’s game being anything but close. Or do you not remember that with how long it took to find a parking spot, the score was already 17-0 when you got to your seat?

ES: OK, I’ll give you that one.

LS: Well, and since we’re in a conceding mood, I have to think this game hinges on the UCLA defense. If they can do what Washington did to Cal, then UCLA wins easily. But if Cal can return to its previous form offensively, Cal could have a real shot at this one.

ES: Yeah, and the Cal defense is playing better now!

LS: Let’s not get carried away. Yes, they did a better job against UW than they did against any of their previous opponents. But UW hasn’t been exactly lighting up the scoreboard. Plus, there were a couple too many big runs the Cal defense gave up, something they hadn’t been doing. And UCLA will probably try to control this game with the run game, between Perkins and Hundley running both on designed plays and when the passing game breaks down. We’ve seen nothing from the Bears front 7 to suggest they can contain a running QB. Plus with both Scarlett and Piatt out, things look even worse.

ES: OK, maybe UCLA scores some points too, but you have to like Cal’s chances in a shootout. Cal has done really well in those sorts of games and the defense seems to come up with just enough in the 4th quarter to win those.

LS: Yes, that’s probably the best scenario for the Bears, but don’t forget that next to UW, UCLA is probably the best defense the Bears have seen. Even if they don’t stop the Bears, they might just be good enough to come up with those critical one or two stops late in the game that could find the Bears on the wrong side of a shootout.

ES: Look, I don’t care what you say. You can quote stats and logical arguments all you want, but the Bears can win this one!

LS: Yes, they could. They’ve got a reasonable shot, but when you’re looking at this one logically, there’s a reason the Bears are a 7 point underdog at home, and in the end, the logical side needs to be the one running this blog.

Bears lose a frustrating one: Cal 31 – UCLA 41

Before the beginning of the season I predicted that it wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities the Bears could start 5-0 even if they weren’t that good. When it came to actually predicting the games, I predicted a 4-1 start, but swapped the loss with Arizona and WSU from what actually happened.

Thus the #1 question we need to ask ourselves is are we getting ahead of ourselves? I warned us not to get too excited about a 4-1 start and yet, here we are at 4-1 and we’re getting all excited. Is that because we qualitatively like what we see? Or are we letting the hype get to us? Are we just as doomed going into the back end as we were when we started?

To answer that question, let’s think about what has changed from pre-season predictions:

• Washington hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire, but won all the games it was expected to win and lost the one people thought they might (Stanford).
• But Stanford isn’t as good as we thought.
• Cal’s offense has clicked more than people thought it would.
• But the defense has improved less than we hoped.
• UW’s secondary has been more suspect than expected.
• UW’s offense has been inconsistent. Good at times, but surprisingly stifled at times.

Looking more specifically at the games played, Cal and UW have no common opponents yet. But we do have one chain of games that links the two teams together. UW beat Hawaii on the road, 17-16 whereas Colorado, who played Cal pretty straight up, beat Hawaii 21-12 at home. Overall that suggests all 3 teams are at least in the same general grouping, quality wise.

So I see three scenarios for this game:

• The UW secondary can’t do what no one else has been able to do… slow the Bear’s offense. At the same time Cal’s defense is relieved to finally be facing a more traditional defense and the defensive line asserts itself like it did against Northwestern and the Bears win big. (Unlike NW, there will be no 3rd quarter let-up this time.)
• The same as the 1st but instead the Cal defense shows just how far it has to go and we’re in another shootout. But with UW just not built to score points like Cal, Cal wins the shootout down the stretch.
• Cal’s offense runs into its 1st good defense and gets grounded. In this scenario, just like the inverse in a shootout, I just can’t see the Bears defense doing its part to win the game.

So it comes down to this, can the Bear-Raid put up the points this weekend? Because in both those scenarios, the Bears win. And the more I think about it, there’s nothing going on in Seattle right now that scares me. WSU’s defensive line was pretty stout and it didn’t hurt the Bears ability to put up 60.

Thus, not only am I sticking to the upset I called before the beginning of the season (although I guess the Bears are favored in Vegas as of this morning by 3.5 pts), I’m doubling down:

Bears 52, Washington 31

We’ve got a real interesting one tonight. For years WSU was one of the easiest teams on Cal’s schedule. WSU’s last good run was ending when Cal hired Tedford. He lost a shootout to them in 2002 and never lost again.

But WSU has been rebuilding and we need to resist the temptation to judge the team by their past. Leach has the Wougs on the right track and showed it in Berkeley last year jumping out to a 14 point lead over a shell-shocked Bears team. Cal actually inched back into it, only trailing 15-21 at half, but the defense just couldn’t hold through all the turnovers (5).

Cal actual won or tied a lot of the statistical battles last year. More yards. More yards per play. Matched WSU in 3rd down conversions and on total 1st downs (well, one short of that). But turnovers and penalties really hurt the Bears.

So what to expect from WSU this year? First off I wouldn’t judge them too much from their 2-3 record. Their 3 losses are to teams that are a combined 11-3 and they lost to none of them badly. Their defense looked really impressive last week in their come from behind win over Utah.

Overall I consider these teams fairly evenly matched and think the game will come down to Cal’s secondary. WSU likes to pass the ball… A LOT! 67 attempts against Cal last year and averaging 60 per game so far this season. They pass at the exclusion of rushing, averaging only 52 yards a game on less than 20 attempts a game. And they like to go 4 and 5 wide passing.

That’s the part that scares me. Cal’s secondary, which hasn’t been horrible from a qualitative perspective up until the Colorado game, showed its lack of depth when forced to defend 4+ receivers. There just aren’t enough experienced bodies to put on the field to cover that many guys. Frankly, what we have to hope is that Cal learned a lot from last week and will find the right combination of guys to slow WSU’s passing attack.

Frankly, it would really help for Stefan McClure to be back and healthy. He’s listed as questionable, which is not a positive sign.

The defensive line can provide some help by pressuring Halliday who in my opinion does get rattled a bit when pressured. He’s a rhythm QB and does not respond well when taken out of rhythm. The one qualifier to that is that he bounces back. Cal can’t expect to rattle him in the 1st quarter and expect it to affect him all game. They need to rattle him consistently throughout.

My gut says to call this game by the home field advantage, but so far, the Bears have looked just as good on the road. All of a sudden, that last minute loss to Arizona is looking a lot better after they knocked off Oregon in Autzen. And the Bears showed up great at Northwestern.

All of which leaves me very conflicted. The Bears can win this one and I’m sitting on a lot of hope. But there’s also this deep unease in the pit of my stomach. Which do I go with?

Let’s go with optimism: Cal 45, WSU 42.

The Colorado game is the one fans have circled as the easiest conference game on Cal’s schedule this year. Said another way, this is Cal’s most likely opportunity to get a conference game victory.

However, with Cal’s strong performance against Arizona (albeit with a very disappointing end) most Cal fans have set their sights a little higher than “let’s just win ONE conference game.” I think there are a lot of fans who assume that Saturday’s game is in the bag.

And there’s good reason to feel that way. Colorado is 2-2 with wins over 0-4 UMass and 1-3 Hawaii (their lone victory is over Northern Iowa). Not exactly overwhelming victories. Plus, Colorado lost to a pretty mediocre Colorado State game. Looking back to last season the Buffs only won one conference game. Admittedly, that one win was over Cal, but ignoring that for a moment, Colorado is clearly the weakest team in the conference.

But if you’re looking for reasons to fear Colorado it starts with who that lone conference victory was over: Cal. And for those who haven’t entirely blocked out that game, you’ll remember they didn’t just win, they handily won. After Cal tied it 10-10 midway through the 2nd quarter, Colorado all too easily scored two more touchdowns before halftime and never looked back. Cal’s two late touchdowns were after the result was no longer in question.

If we’re looking to this season, because there’s no doubt Cal is an improved team from last year, the Buffs did hang pretty well with Arizona State last week piling up significantly more yards than ASU, but got sunk by 3 turnovers. (small side note: the significance of CU holding with ASU was called into question last night when ASU let UCLA kick the ever-loving crud out of them on their home turf).

However, when one looks at Colorado games, one has to remember one huge advantage they have and that is playing at 5000 feet. It’s a tall order to make the trip up to the mountains on a Friday night and be ready to play the next day at altitude. In addition to the huge conditioning disadvantage, the ball flies differently through the thin air, disrupting the over-the-top passing game of their opponent and throwing a wrinkle into special teams.

Thus, if you look at their wins that make you think they’re better than they are, almost all of them are at home. Where did they hang with ASU? At home. Where did they beat Cal? At home. But when they play a team that also plays at altitude (Colorado State), they struggle mightily even if it’s at home.

And of course, as just stated, the Cal game was in Boulder last year.

So as much as I’d like to try to find ways to think this is going to be a tough matchup, I just can’t come up with it. Cal might have even won last year’s game if it was in Berkeley and they definitely win tomorrow in Berkeley. It might not be a huge blowout, but it will be a win. This is particularly true when one adds that Colorado struggles in the 2nd half. That’s JUST what Cal needs right now.

Cal wins going away: Cal 45, Colorado 23

The first thing I do before writing my preview post is to read all the various pundits thoughts on the matchup. I was expecting the consensus to more or less say that Arizona is favored but look out for those up and coming Bears. Surprisingly, I saw very little of that. If anything, there seemed to be consensus that Arizona should be much better than Cal and win handily if they don’t overlook Cal.

Frankly, as Cal fans, we should hope that the Arizona players and coaches are soaking in every word of the praise.

The reality is we know as little about how good Arizona is as we do about Cal. There’s nothing on their resume that’s the least bit impressive. UNLV is 1-2, losing badly to Northern Illinois as well as Arizona. UTSA challenged Arizona pretty good, but the thought was that UTSA was better than their reputation having beat Houston soundly in week 1. But they got stomped by Oklahoma State in week 3 and frankly the Houston win isn’t looking that good either (they’re 1-2 as well).

Which brings us to Nevada, the most interesting game in the list. Nevada has some history of success in recent years, but last year was a step back for them (4-8). So the question is whether the 2014 Wolf Pack is a return to previous form, in which case Arizona’s win, while not overwhelming, would be evidence of a reasonably good team. And the answer to that question lies in how good WSU is (who Nevada beat), because it’s the only potential impressive win on Nevada’s 3 game schedule.

My conclusion from all this is that Arizona is a middle of the road Pac-12 team that isn’t firing on all cylinders, at least not yet.

In my mind that makes them vulnerable to the much improved Bears, particularly if they let the betting line and the pundits define what they think of Cal.

Thinking as a longtime Bear fan, the biggest thing that worries me about this game is that it’s in Tucson. The Bears have a history of not doing well in the desert. I’ve been to Wildcat stadium. It’s a tough place to play. The fans are relentless and mean and surprisingly LOUD.

If there’s good news in the above, the Bear Raid always uses the silent snap count, even at home, so perhaps the noise won’t have as much as an effect as I’d fear. It didn’t seem to matter at Northwestern.

On the positive side of the ledger is that the Bears had two weeks to prepare and the KNOW how important this game is. It’s not quite at the level of Northwestern, which was circled on their calendar for the last 12 months, but this Cal team knows that Saturday is a critically important game for the program’s future. Win this one and all the long negative streaks are over. Win this one and a lot of 2nd guessing will go away. And with two weeks to prepare, you can be sure every second of it was used to prepare for Arizona (instead of general work the 1st week and game preparation the 2nd). From that perspective, the early season couldn’t have setup better for the Bears (multiple weeks to prepare for both of the key early matchups).

But are the Bears good enough?

That one is tougher to call. I think the offense is good enough to score points and Arizona’s defense hasn’t been overwhelming. It’s the other side of the ball that concerns me more. Cal’s defense looked pretty good against Northwestern, but I really think that team is in bad shape. Can the defensive line be as disruptive against Arizona as they were against NW? Can the secondary keep the plays in front of them and not give up those 2 or 3 big plays that can sink an otherwise good effort? It’s likely the Bears defense will show it isn’t as good as we’d hope.

In the end, I think these teams are close enough to each other that effort will be the difference and these Bears are hungry. REALLY hungry. Hungry and ticked off and ready to play like their lives depend on it. And that’s going to be the difference.

Bears win: Cal 38 – Arizona 30

It’s not hard to predict a winner of this game. You’d really have to be high on Sac State and low on Cal to predict anything but a Cal victory. I mean, just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong against a very similar caliber team (Portland State) last year and the Bears still squeaked out a victory.

So the question becomes, what sort of game should we expect.

I’m expecting the Bears to take a step back. Call this a “letdown game”. The Bears had the Northwestern Game circled on their calendar from the moment last year’s disappointing game ended. It got double and triple circled at the end of the season when it was clear that redemption for a miserable 2013 would only come in 2014.

And this was quite clear last Saturday. As an Oregon fan friend of mine said, “The Bears played the 1st quarter of the game like their lives depended on it.” Add to this various quotes from Dykes that he both played up the importance of the game and started game planning for Northwestern earlier than normal (two weeks into camp), and it’s quite clear the Bears were hyper-focused for the game.

Now, to be clear, I think this was wise. With Sac State next on the schedule and a bye after that, it allows the team to have that sort of singular focus on the Northwestern game.

However, as a result of that singular focus, I expect to see a flatter team tomorrow and more mistakes. I also expect to see a more generic game-plan, both because Dykes will want to hide the more creative aspects of his plans from future opponents and because they won’t have spent nearly as long optimizing the game-plan as they did for Northwestern.

Luckily, the Bears have the talent to easily beat Sac State.

Plus, Sac State is not the same team they were 2 and 3 years ago when they beat Pac-12 teams in huge upsets.

Let’s get down to the specifics… I expect the Bears to come out running the ball and until Dykes feels he’s gotten all the kinks worked out (or learned all he can), he’s going to keep running the ball. He’ll see this as a game to work on the area of the offense that still isn’t pleasing him.

The defense will be playing pretty vanilla coverages (again, don’t give future opponents too much revealing game-film) and as a result, the ‘giving 120% to try for the huge upset’ Sac State will probably have a little early success on offense.

So the 1st half will be a lower scoring affair than we’d expect and Sac State will likely score a couple times. Somewhere around 17-10 Cal at half.

But in the 2nd half, a tired Sac State team won’t be able to keep up with the more talented Bears and Cal will extend the lead in the 3rd quarter. By the middle of the 4th quarter, the backups will be in for both teams and Cal will comfortably cruise to the win, but overall people will be nervous about the slow start.

Final Score: Cal 41 – Sac State 20