(Written by kencraw)

This will be a bit of a shorter preview as I’m a bit short on time.  UCLA might just be the scariest 0-5 team in the country.  First of all, the talent is there, at least when judged by recruiting stars.  Second of all, they’ve played a really hard schedule: Two top 10 ranked teams.  The only undefeated team in the Pac-12.  Heck, the worst record team they’ve played is 4-1 Fresno State.  Does anyone think Cal would be 3-2 against that schedule?  I guess it’s possible the Bears could have pulled that off with wins over Cincinnati, Fresno State and Colorado, but considering the disaster in the desert last week, it’s hard to argue the Bears would be better than 2-3 if they played UCLA’s schedule.  It’s also not hard to imagine they’d be 1-4.

Now admittedly, UCLA has not only lost, they’ve lost by sizable margins.  Only one was a single score loss.  But that’s where point #1 comes in… there’s talent on this team.  When one combines that with the fact they’re learning a whole new system with new head coach Chip Kelly, it’s not the most irrational fear to have that they’re starting to play to their potential, or will be by tomorrow in Berkeley.  Indeed, their best game was their most recent, a 24-31 loss to Washington.  And you know they’re looking at this game against Cal as one of their few remaining possibilities of a win.  They’ll bring everything they have to win this one.

At the same time, Cal has been under performing their potential the last two games.  Something tells me that this week they play a lot closer to it.  I’ve talked a lot about the history of matchups in my predictions this year: Struggling at altitude.  Struggling in the desert.  If I’m going to be fair, the history of the UCLA @ Cal matchups is *REALLY* favorable.  Since the turn of the century, the Bears are 7-1 against UCLA.  And that includes some really surprising wins: 2000, 2012 and 2016 in particular.  Those were some pretty crummy Cal teams, yet they seemed to be able to beat UCLA in Berkeley anyway.

So, while I’m really scared UCLA is better than their record indicates, getting better every week and I greatly fear this is the week UCLA puts all the pieces together, in the end I’m going to go with the Bears.  I think they also clean up the mistakes of the last two weeks.

Bears win: 34-20