(Written by kencraw)

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.