(Written by kencraw)

The last week has been an absolute blur for me. Between a busy week at the day job, bookshelves and desks in the woodshop that I’m furiously trying to finish before the deadline I promised my wife of “before football season starts” (I got an extension until Labor Day), going to practices and press conferences for BearTerritory.net and a TV interview, the amount of time I’ve had to think about the upcoming game is pretty small.

But as I showed on TV, not having time to think has never stopped me from blathering away.

So I looked up my post-Spring Practice game-by-game predictions to see what I had to say about MSU (as an aside, expect updated preditions for the season before tomorrows game):

Cal 41, MSU 27

While I think the numbers might be a bit high (perhaps 34-24 feels more right at this moment), I think my thoughts on MSU were about right. Cal is not going to overlook MSU because they’re a mediocre Big-10 team, which is good, and the fact is that they’re a mediocre Big-10 team, which is even more good.

In an lot of ways I expect MSU to be very similar to Minnesota who Cal played in 2006. They’re just a little too one-dimensional to be a true threat to the Bears. The one thing that the Pac-10 teaches its teams is balance. Defenses need to be ready to stop both the pass and the run. There’s not a single team in the conference that shutting down one aspect of their game is going to completely shut them down.

As such, when Cal faces a one-dimensional team, whether they be run-oriented or pass-oriented, they usually do well. Playing defense is A LOT easier, when the other team is one-dimensional. MSU would be well suited to start the game on a passing spree because the Bears are going to be very geared up to stop the run. They won’t at all be expecting a pass-heavy set of play-calling.

But here’s to thinking that MSU is just as incapable of doing that as Minnesota was a couple years back. I expect this game to be easier than everyone expects. While it won’t be a walk in the park, when it’s all said and done I expect there to be a lot of fans thinking “what were we so worried about?”.

So I’m sticking with my spring prediction: 41-27