(Written by kencraw)

The long talked about game-by game predictions are here:

UC Davis @ Cal => 13-38: Many will be picking a bigger score here, and if were purely based on talent and coaching, I would as well, but Davis will come out strong under the delusion that they can repeat their upset over Stanford, keeping the score in check early and Tedford will pull off the accelerator in the 4th quarter right when we could have exploded into a very high score.

Colorado @ Cal => 13 – 35: I know Colorado scares some people, but they don’t scare me. This is a team that is in a free-fall. They were 3-9 last year, losing to teams like Toledo and Colorado State. The feeling on campus is that coach Hawkins would have been fired last year if his buyout wasn’t so big. I expect the Bears to win this one easily.

Cal @ Nevada => 42-24: This is another one that has some people nervous and why shouldn’t they be. We’ve struggled on the road in non-conference play, anyone remember 2008 Maryland? I think that just like last year against Minnesota, these Bears are weary of treating road games lightly and will come with all their force to an over-appreciated (and that’s good, in this case) Nevada team that won’t be able to handle the size and speed of Cal. I do expect Nevada’s quirky offense to give the Bears a little bit of trouble, and that’s why they get 24 points, but the game should never be in doubt.

Cal @ Arizona => 20-24: For whatever reason Cal can’t seem to get the job done in Arizona. I expect it to feel very similar to the 2008 contest in that one feels like the Bears could win this game if they could get firing on all cylinders, but for whatever reason they don’t. I also expect a heroic effort by the Bear defense that keeps our hopes alive for way too long. This game will feel bigger than it is because both teams will be ranked and undefeated coming in and Arizona will be able to milk the win for quite a while.

UCLA @ Cal => 17-45: UCLA is to Cal in Berkeley as Cal is to Arizona in Tucson. They just can’t get it done. Plus, this is a UCLA team that couldn’t beat the Bears in their home stadium, the Rose Bowl. This “pistol” offense at UCLA will have long since been exposed after losses to K-State, Stanford and Texas have them at 2-3, maybe even 1-4 if Houston can have some of their 2009 magic back.

Cal @ USC => 24-31: At first I had this as a defensive struggle because there’s something about Tedford and Carroll that generally result in a defensive struggle. But as much as everyone likes to think USC is some uninterrupted set of greatness and it doesn’t matter that Carroll left like a flash as soon as sanctions looked eminent, it DOES matter. Nevertheless, I think the Bears will come up short in this one even though for the first time since 2004, they’ll actually get some offense going.

ASU @ Cal => 12-35: Dennis Erickson is not long for the Pac-10 and the way I’m reading their schedule, they’ll be on a 4 game losing streak and on the back-end of a 3-game road stretch when they come to Cal. That’s going to be a recipe for a team that has given up and gives up the ghost pretty early in this one, scoring only 4 field goals.

Cal @ OSU => 17-20: The Bears have struggled against Oregon State and generally it’s been the OSU defense stifling the Bear offense. I expect that to remain true in 2010 and the Bears are going to come home from Corvallis a frustrating 5-3. There’s a chance that the Bears come away with this win. The defense is going to have to come away with another strong performance and Tedford is going to have to FINALLY beat coach Riley’s press coverage that has given the Bears so much trouble. It also could be that OSU is pretty beat down as well, as it’s conceivable they’re 2-4 after tough road games to Arizona and UW, back up their tough non-conference schedule. At the same time, this is a team that could be undefeated and very highly ranked when the Bears come a knocking. I’d prefer to take a wait-and-see approach to this game, but a game-by-game prediction post doesn’t have much room for that.

Cal @ WSU => 38-17: WSU will look better this year and be 3-6 (wins over Montana St., SMU and ASU), riding high off keeping their bowl hopes alive versus ASU the previous week in Tempe. They’ll end up falling three games short though and Cal will put an end to those dreams. Hope for a 4 PM kickoff on TV. The 7 PM TV slot could be a more dicey game and we’d prefer for the game to be on TV wouldn’t we?

Oregon @ Cal => 20-31: It’s payback time and the Bears will know it. They’ll be playing loose and hard having ensured bowl eligibility the week before and wanting to show every citizen of Oregon how much of a fluke last year’s game was. Oregon will still be struggling to get back to their former selves with Masoli off the team. Plus, expect them to be a little over-confident with their easy early schedule. They’ll be 8-1, the lone loss being to USC who won’t be in Rose Bowl contention and think too little of the Golden Bears. Then we’ll find ourselves in the odd situation of rooting for them to beat Arizona the following week to keep our Rose Bowl hopes alive and then praying for OSU to take them down.

Stanford @ Cal => 17-38: I’ve got only two things to say: Tedford: 7-1 vs. the Trees. Harbaugh: 1-2 and 0-1 on the road. IT. AIN’T. GONNA. HAPPEN. TREES! As the guy from Berkeley Toyota used to say: Nobody Beats Berkeley! They never have and they never will!

Washington @ Cal => 24-35: This has trap game written all over it. The good news is that if things go the way we hope, the Bears, even after these results, will still have a very real shot at the Rose Bowl. We’ll need the above sequence with Oregon and Arizona, but that should be about it. The bad news is that I have UW at 4-6 coming into this game. With WSU after the Bears, they’ll know bowl eligibility is in striking distance if they can win this one. Add in that the stadium should be half empty and it’s a perfect trap game. You can put that out of your mind now because this game is revenge part II. The Bears won’t forget the debacle in Seattle and will keep their high level bowl hopes alive.

So there you have it, 9-3 with 6-3 in conference play. If the conference beats itself up, with USC out of the mix, the Bears could be Rose Bowl bound. But OSU and Arizona will be the trouble-makers who need to lose those key games as will Oregon, albeit two less since a tie with the Ducks is OK and they’ve got the loss from us on the schedule, where a tie with OSU or Arizona won’t do us any good, so they’ll need to lose two others.

Let’s see how it plays out.