(Written by kencraw)

In my pre-season predictions, I predicted Cal would lose the Colorado game 24-27. I mostly referenced that the Bears have a hard time on the road, particularly in non-conference games. While I didn’t spend a lot of time on it, I also felt that Colorado would be significantly improved over the team that lost in Berkeley. Heck, last year that was their worst game, so even last year’s Colorado team was better than the one that lost in Berkeley. They did beat Georgia last year after all.

However, another telling game is Hawaii. Last year Colorado handled Hawaii fairly easily, 31-13, at home. This year in their trip to Oahu, Colorado lost pretty big 17-34. Now, one possible explanation is the whole ‘Colorado sucks on the road’ factor. But to me, that just doesn’t seem like enough to justify that backwards step, particularly to the degree it happened.

Add to that, the particular problems they saw. The offensive line troubles which manifested itself in only 17 yards of rushing and 7 sacks on Tyler Hansen was quite troubling for Buff fans. Their inability to stop the running game of Hawaii, particularly their QB who ran for 91 yards was similarly troubling.

So, I just don’t see it yet for Colorado. I think the team is getting better, but not that much better. Their project is closer to WSU’s, i.e. a multi-year program overhaul, than UW’s, something that results in real meaningful changes the first year.

On the other side, as we all saw last Saturday, the Bears are ready to play even better than they did last year. Maynard is a definite improvement at quarterback (and by the way, that was quite clear after re-watching last years Nevada and Colorado games, back when Riley was healthy and supposedly at his best). Since he adds the scrambling QB factor that hurt Colorado last week, it’s even more promising. The defense looks to be every bit as good as last year and will be giving Colorado’s offensive line fits all day.

So the only question in my mind is the external factors: the altitude, the home-field for Colorado, the non-conference road game for Cal, Colorado’s desire for revenge. And the more I think about it, and perhaps it’s just the pre-game glow, I just don’t think that the differences in talent and coaching can be over-powered by these factors.

People seem to forget that our three examples of losing on the road were to fairly good teams. 2006 Tennessee was a 9 win team. They were much better than the team Oregon saw a year or two ago. 2008 Maryland was one of their better teams as well, beating #20 Clemson, #21 Wake Forest and #17 North Carolina. We were ranked 23 when we lost to them. Last year’s Nevada team was a 12 win team, beating Boise St to end their national title hopes on the same field they beat Cal.

Are we really going to compare Colorado to those teams? Maybe one could make an argument for Maryland being of the same quality, but I think even that’s a stretch. And even is one is willing to make that stretch, it’s not even close with the other two, and one game does not a trend make.

So that’s what we’re left with. The intangibles just don’t seem to be enough to overcome teams in very different places.

Bears win: 31-17