I too forgot that I needed to keep track of my scores to record my prediction average...you'd think after 13 years I'd catch on! I think I'm in that 7-8 range with my worst prediction a toss up. I tell myself I'm a voice of reason, but rarely make it to the top three, if ever. But fuck all that...we are about to play some California Golden Bear Football and I could not be happier!
8 wins, almost on the dot. I'm more of a middler than many of you; not many slam dunks, but not many "can't wins" either (well....none). I think we're going to take some people by surprise.....maybe even OURSELVES!
I'll have an "idea" of W/L once I see the OL against Nevada and TCU until then I'll sip a Whiskey roll a phatty and wait until I read "what's his name" game analysis. Seriously, what is that dude's name? Best pre-game analysis of our opponents. Haven't seen him around lately.
hmmm, I was thinking about the guy that watches all the football games in the conference and takes notes while doing it. He had the hilarious Big Game write up a few years ago.
I always forget to write down my numbers but I've got about 7-8 wins. I'm confident of a win at UW as we've owned them, though when you read the local papers here in Seattle they talk of the Huskies as being certain National Champions. I've never read a more sunshine pumping press about a local team than these puppies. I'm wary of the little bruins, but I think we go after Furd with a vengeance again. Can't wait for the Nevada game to see some early indications of our capabilities.
HAHAHA forget to write down your numbers PLEASE BRO!? If you don't have some sort of spreadsheet with at least a third order polynomial and other such wizardry, then how exactly are you wasting your time here?
Ha! That's the most Cal alum mockery any blog site could have. Go Bears! My double major in science did not include any of that voodoo math those engineering and math geeks had to take. My mind is pure and unsullied by those things. My Cal fandom is only maintained through the most extraordinary discipline of non-rational approaches.
a couple weeks ago I started looking for an API to get Cal's schedule results from the last decade into python so I could do some analysis... didnt find it then started collecting the data manually.. then stopped what I was doing and told myself to get the hell back to work.
True story. I am a contractor working for a terrible group of people who don't know what I do, how to do it, or how long it takes, so I fold this into the invoice and am technically wasting their time.
He's 5 star recruit (Sam Huard) and I'm sure he will be very good, and even better with time and experience. But he will be a true freshman, and I don't care what people think, the jump from high school to P5 football is YUGE. There are very few Trevor Lawrence's and even fewer situations where a Trevor Lawrence level QB gets a supporting cast like he had at Clemson. If we are going to test UW's new QB this is the year.
I like our recruits. I wouldn't trade them for Oregon's 4 star recruit list. Every single recruit on the list of every school still needs to lift weights and develop into a P5 player. Just cause you are a 4 star doesn't mean you are guaranteed to play. Our kids are smart, have a work ethic, are mature and are solid athletes. Wilcox is recruiting just fine; he's getting what he wants. If you have time watch the Youtube video where Mike Pawlawski interviews Wilcox and Wilcox tells Pawlawski what they look for in recruits. Great athletes always help, but if they don't have a work ethic, aren't smart, don't apply themselves at school, are not coachable or are immature, then athleticism counts for little. Both Oregon and USC have had far superior talent to us over the years, but we have managed to beat both of them, Oregon more recently than USC. I expect more wins as we go forward. ;-)
I have us at a pretty flat 7 wins, but like most here are saying that's because there are very few "sure" wins. I think we have upside from there, but obviously 5-6 wins is also likely if the ball rolls the wrong way.
Has anyone noticed that the 2021 schedule is a bunch of Bear crap? A tough road schedule and a lighter home schedule means I look into my crystal Bear and see 6 wins with 3 highly probable losses. Inverting the home and away schedule would still get 6 wins but with more single digit deltas and only 1 highly probable loss. The caveats are (1) my method is rather flawed, and (2) I am quite bitter about the reality that I will most likely not be able to attend a single game this year.
TBPH, I'm not trying to be an a-hole. This schedule sucks extra big time IMO due to: OOC home slate bad, OOC road trip TCU (NTYVM), and then closing out the season with two away games. Again I am all bitter because I will be out of the country until like a week before the last home game and will probably not make any. Grrr Bears.
I would gladly take a 1-2 start of the season if it meant that we finished 9-3.
I am so tired of the hot start to the season and good OOC record and then falling apart in conference play. I would happily trade a two OOC losses if it meant two more conference wins.
Yeah, but we've only lost 1 OOC game since Wilcox joined and that was an insane game. I'm actually happy about this because conference wins we can fix with a better offense and special teams. The OOC record against similarly-ranked teams to us at the time (Ole Miss, UNC, etc.) shows that our coaches are doing good things, we just need to be able to score like 1-2 more TDs per game TBH and that would send us to like 8-9/wins per season. Beyond that, we're going to need a talent upgrade and pull in more blue chips to consistently beat the likes of Oregon and USC.
I've got 7.2 wins. Other than Sac St., it's hard to find any guaranteed wins. I think our likely wins are OSU, WSU, Arizona (I'm tempting fate in the house or horrors that is Tuscon), Colorado, and Nevada (thanks to QB injuries at the latter two). Toss-ups are UW, LSJU, and TCU. And unlikely wins are Oregon, USC, and UCLA (that running game scares me).
Nevada will be interesting because their stud QB has been hampered by a knee injury and if he plays seems certain to be under 100% I think we have a better chance to win than we think. I feel confident against Sac, WSU, CO, and AZ(though you just never know) but everything else feels like a toss up
I've been nervous about Nevada for a while since reading about Carson Strong and all the #1 draft hype earlier in the summer. I've been thinking we'll really know a lot more about this team after that opening game, and have been in Wait and See mode this offseason more so than previous years. Didn't realize he was injured. I'm sure the team has heard the hype as well..
Snuck over to catch a glimpse of their fall camp yesterday and it was the first time he practiced since the beginning of the fall camp. Video footage from the Nevada social media confirmed that he has a beautiful deep ball. The loft is nice. But his right knee is heavily wrapped and I don’t think he’s very mobile so i think a good rushing D will feast on him
I am going with 6 wins. The first game against Nevada scares me. Nevada is coming off a 6-2 season and is picked to win their division in the Mountain West. Cal has lost its last two games against Nevada. I cannot go any higher in win predictions because of Cal's offense in the Wilcox era. Every team that Cal plays - even Sacramento State - is going to know they can be in the game into the fourth quarter because Cal lacks a knockout punch in the scoring department.
And we all know those fourth quarters can be scary. Even making an extra point to stay in the game is not totally certain. I am ordering some extra bottles of Pepto Bismol as we speak.
You watched the Oregon State game last year, obviously. And I have vivid memories of last year's Oregon game when Cal could have iced the game by getting a first down. Instead, three predictable running plays up the gut and rely on the defense to win. It's apparently in the man's DNA. It's why I believe we will have a ton of games this year where the outcome will be in doubt until the last possession.
Anyone have any info about the Under Armour deal?
If we don't CRUSH these dregs of college football, just fold the dam program once and for all
I too forgot that I needed to keep track of my scores to record my prediction average...you'd think after 13 years I'd catch on! I think I'm in that 7-8 range with my worst prediction a toss up. I tell myself I'm a voice of reason, but rarely make it to the top three, if ever. But fuck all that...we are about to play some California Golden Bear Football and I could not be happier!
8 wins, almost on the dot. I'm more of a middler than many of you; not many slam dunks, but not many "can't wins" either (well....none). I think we're going to take some people by surprise.....maybe even OURSELVES!
I'll have an "idea" of W/L once I see the OL against Nevada and TCU until then I'll sip a Whiskey roll a phatty and wait until I read "what's his name" game analysis. Seriously, what is that dude's name? Best pre-game analysis of our opponents. Haven't seen him around lately.
Go Bears.
I think it was Nick. Holy shit, it's been so long my memory fails me.
hmmm, I was thinking about the guy that watches all the football games in the conference and takes notes while doing it. He had the hilarious Big Game write up a few years ago.
Christopher H, just saw him mentioned below, phew now that is out of the way.
7.04 wins..... I don't know how to feel about that to be honest
No predictions but I expect us to win 10. ;-)
I always forget to write down my numbers but I've got about 7-8 wins. I'm confident of a win at UW as we've owned them, though when you read the local papers here in Seattle they talk of the Huskies as being certain National Champions. I've never read a more sunshine pumping press about a local team than these puppies. I'm wary of the little bruins, but I think we go after Furd with a vengeance again. Can't wait for the Nevada game to see some early indications of our capabilities.
I thought it was just me who forgot!
That's cause there's never any fucking sunshine in Seattle.
HAHAHA forget to write down your numbers PLEASE BRO!? If you don't have some sort of spreadsheet with at least a third order polynomial and other such wizardry, then how exactly are you wasting your time here?
Ha! That's the most Cal alum mockery any blog site could have. Go Bears! My double major in science did not include any of that voodoo math those engineering and math geeks had to take. My mind is pure and unsullied by those things. My Cal fandom is only maintained through the most extraordinary discipline of non-rational approaches.
Says the guy with TWO majors in advanced nerdery SMDH.
a couple weeks ago I started looking for an API to get Cal's schedule results from the last decade into python so I could do some analysis... didnt find it then started collecting the data manually.. then stopped what I was doing and told myself to get the hell back to work.
It's entirely possible that I've used Cal Football rosters as training exercises for handling data sets.
Sounds like me when I was in grad school
True story. I am a contractor working for a terrible group of people who don't know what I do, how to do it, or how long it takes, so I fold this into the invoice and am technically wasting their time.
He's 5 star recruit (Sam Huard) and I'm sure he will be very good, and even better with time and experience. But he will be a true freshman, and I don't care what people think, the jump from high school to P5 football is YUGE. There are very few Trevor Lawrence's and even fewer situations where a Trevor Lawrence level QB gets a supporting cast like he had at Clemson. If we are going to test UW's new QB this is the year.
I'm sure he'll be good, but UW is recruiting worse than we are right now. He won't have any tools around him at this rate.
I like our recruits. I wouldn't trade them for Oregon's 4 star recruit list. Every single recruit on the list of every school still needs to lift weights and develop into a P5 player. Just cause you are a 4 star doesn't mean you are guaranteed to play. Our kids are smart, have a work ethic, are mature and are solid athletes. Wilcox is recruiting just fine; he's getting what he wants. If you have time watch the Youtube video where Mike Pawlawski interviews Wilcox and Wilcox tells Pawlawski what they look for in recruits. Great athletes always help, but if they don't have a work ethic, aren't smart, don't apply themselves at school, are not coachable or are immature, then athleticism counts for little. Both Oregon and USC have had far superior talent to us over the years, but we have managed to beat both of them, Oregon more recently than USC. I expect more wins as we go forward. ;-)
15-0
receipts please Owen
Intuition
I have us at a pretty flat 7 wins, but like most here are saying that's because there are very few "sure" wins. I think we have upside from there, but obviously 5-6 wins is also likely if the ball rolls the wrong way.
Has anyone noticed that the 2021 schedule is a bunch of Bear crap? A tough road schedule and a lighter home schedule means I look into my crystal Bear and see 6 wins with 3 highly probable losses. Inverting the home and away schedule would still get 6 wins but with more single digit deltas and only 1 highly probable loss. The caveats are (1) my method is rather flawed, and (2) I am quite bitter about the reality that I will most likely not be able to attend a single game this year.
Nevada 78
TCU 20
Sacramento is not a State 98
Washington 19
Washington is a nice State 65
Oregon 16
Colorado 68
Oregon is a messed up State 71
Arizona 67
Southern California 30
stanfurd 32
UCLA 38
It's always like that for odd years
TBPH, I'm not trying to be an a-hole. This schedule sucks extra big time IMO due to: OOC home slate bad, OOC road trip TCU (NTYVM), and then closing out the season with two away games. Again I am all bitter because I will be out of the country until like a week before the last home game and will probably not make any. Grrr Bears.
Yes, but that doesn't make it not garbage.
6.95 wins, at Oregon is obviously the toughest outing but I have USC, UCLA, UW and Arizona (due to bad luck) as all in the 40-45% range.
About right...too many toss ups on the schedule and Wilcox's penchant for playing close games....
If we could actually close out games comfortably then it would be much easier to bump games like Arizona up from ~70ish to ~85ish
Yeah, all the toss-ups mean that an over/under of 6 wins is defensible, but our actual win total being anywhere between 4 and 9 is not unexpected.
I would gladly take a 1-2 start of the season if it meant that we finished 9-3.
I am so tired of the hot start to the season and good OOC record and then falling apart in conference play. I would happily trade a two OOC losses if it meant two more conference wins.
Yeah, but we've only lost 1 OOC game since Wilcox joined and that was an insane game. I'm actually happy about this because conference wins we can fix with a better offense and special teams. The OOC record against similarly-ranked teams to us at the time (Ole Miss, UNC, etc.) shows that our coaches are doing good things, we just need to be able to score like 1-2 more TDs per game TBH and that would send us to like 8-9/wins per season. Beyond that, we're going to need a talent upgrade and pull in more blue chips to consistently beat the likes of Oregon and USC.
I've got 7.2 wins. Other than Sac St., it's hard to find any guaranteed wins. I think our likely wins are OSU, WSU, Arizona (I'm tempting fate in the house or horrors that is Tuscon), Colorado, and Nevada (thanks to QB injuries at the latter two). Toss-ups are UW, LSJU, and TCU. And unlikely wins are Oregon, USC, and UCLA (that running game scares me).
Nevada qb injured? Isn’t that Carson Strong?
It is. He has been held out of several practices
https://twitter.com/FBSFantasyFoot/status/1425950821347385354?s=20
I was pretty close to this at 7.4, but something about 7 wins would feel a little underwhelming TBH.
Nevada will be interesting because their stud QB has been hampered by a knee injury and if he plays seems certain to be under 100% I think we have a better chance to win than we think. I feel confident against Sac, WSU, CO, and AZ(though you just never know) but everything else feels like a toss up
I'm glad it's at home (and no Kapernick....). I'm chalking it up as a win!
I've been nervous about Nevada for a while since reading about Carson Strong and all the #1 draft hype earlier in the summer. I've been thinking we'll really know a lot more about this team after that opening game, and have been in Wait and See mode this offseason more so than previous years. Didn't realize he was injured. I'm sure the team has heard the hype as well..
Snuck over to catch a glimpse of their fall camp yesterday and it was the first time he practiced since the beginning of the fall camp. Video footage from the Nevada social media confirmed that he has a beautiful deep ball. The loft is nice. But his right knee is heavily wrapped and I don’t think he’s very mobile so i think a good rushing D will feast on him
I am going with 6 wins. The first game against Nevada scares me. Nevada is coming off a 6-2 season and is picked to win their division in the Mountain West. Cal has lost its last two games against Nevada. I cannot go any higher in win predictions because of Cal's offense in the Wilcox era. Every team that Cal plays - even Sacramento State - is going to know they can be in the game into the fourth quarter because Cal lacks a knockout punch in the scoring department.
And we all know those fourth quarters can be scary. Even making an extra point to stay in the game is not totally certain. I am ordering some extra bottles of Pepto Bismol as we speak.
I don't think it helps that our strategy if we're up is to start ending the game at the start of the 2nd half.
You watched the Oregon State game last year, obviously. And I have vivid memories of last year's Oregon game when Cal could have iced the game by getting a first down. Instead, three predictable running plays up the gut and rely on the defense to win. It's apparently in the man's DNA. It's why I believe we will have a ton of games this year where the outcome will be in doubt until the last possession.