(Written by kencraw)

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.