Accept Cal football for what it is this year

This is who they are, for better or for worse. Will you ride with them?

Credit: Cal Football

On Friday night, I reached acceptance.

As Cal mostly dominated a first half of football in Winston-Salem, yet found themselves only up one to two scores again in a loseable football game, I discarded my preconceptions of this team and just went along with the ride.

Cal is better than they have been. They’re just not better enough.

Yes, it is exasperating that Cal cannot close these games against teams they are better than. It sucks to see the majority of the team play over their heads only to find ourselves in another game of inches and “a few plays here and there”.

But Cal has one unit that has constantly underachieved, and it is arguably the most important unit on the field. Cal has a very talented starting 22, but it still not a deep enough team (donate to NIL, we will need it), so an injury here or there to a key player is immediately felt on the field. Small variables like these shrink all our other margins to near perfection, which is why we’re standing at 5-4 instead of those other worlds.

At this point, after nine games, we have enough of a sample size. The juggernaut we were hoping the Golden Bears could be this year probably isn’t coming. Aside from a monstrous final three game stretch, Cal will be battling to the wire in closer than expected games until proven otherwise.

So, time to accept it. Cal won on Friday. In almost every circumstance, the wins will have to be hard-fought, and sometimes we’ll lose them. Enjoy them.

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Enjoy Fernando Mendoza (also re-elect him), blossoming into one of the greatest success stories in Cal football history. A last minute addition in the 2021 recruiting class, Mendoza was thrown into the fire against four top-25 caliber Pac-12 teams. He made it out on the other side with an Axe, and now a chance at two straight bowl seasons.

With the Cal running game bottled up for much of 2023, Jaydn Ott clearly not at 100%, and Jaivian Thomas still learning how to handle a full workload, Mendoza has had to transition to be the focal point, and has produced a season on par nationally with Mike Pawlawski 1991 in his second season of eligibility.

Enjoy the Cal receiving corps, which is finally getting a chance to show us what we were all excited about this offseason. With Tobias Merriweather and Kyion Grayes back, even in a limited capacity, the spacing on the field finally opened up enough for the Bears to feel confident to sling it 55 times. Nyziah Hunter, Mikey Matthews, Jonathan Brady, Jack Endries, Trond Grizzell, even Jordan King are getting looks and touches. This unit could make some noise to finish November.

Enjoy a Cal defense that continues to step up for one another. The usual suspects like Nohl Williams, David Reese, Craig Woodson and Xavier Carlton were everywhere. But so too stepped up Hunter Barth and Liam Johnson and Chiekh Fall and a host of others. Without Cade Uluave for much of the game, things got tighter, but a collective effort helped everyone raise their game.

Enjoy a Cal special teams unit that has finally broken into its own, with Lachlan Wilson continuing to boom punts, Derek Morris working into his future role as full-time Cal kicker, and the coverage units forcing blocks and turnovers. And enjoy the pure joy the entire team experienced when Ryan Coe boomed two clutch kicks that arguably made the difference between victory and defeat.

As I’ve discussed many times, Cal has been dreadful in these situations for years. The Bears have lacked the ability to close games like this, particularly on the road in conference play, particularly after bye weeks, particularly with the season falling away from them. It’s a credit to the players that they finally broke through. Just an incredibly gritty group.

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Have we been unluckier than most teams? Sure.

But Cal has now been in six one-score games in the 4th quarter, and is 2-4 in those games. Aside from Oregon State, every one of their games has been in doubt at halftime. Despite the advanced metrics telling us Cal is top-30 caliber, the eye test reflects a team that isn’t exactly blowing past its competition. Our flaws are evident, and probably unfixable.

Cal has a very tough and consistent defense, except when it’s holding a late lead. Cal has a plethora of offensive weapons, but they can’t run the football. Cal can drive up and down the field, but things always seem to go wrong in the red zone. Cal seems to make the right coaching decisions, up until the biggest one seems to come up. You can go up and down and find the contradictions. A potentially very good team, hamstringing itself in one way or another.

Cal is probably better than their 5-4 record shows. But they have not been good enough to run from the margins, and sometimes the coin flips tails more than it should. Wake Forest was our first time turning heads in two months.

In our mind, we came into this season with the hope that the schedule would provide us with the buffer to uplift the Bears from middling Power team to surprise squad with upward trajectory. That didn’t bear fruit. We’ll have plenty of offseason to stew on how we can get better.

What we have now is a Cal team that has a very winnable path ahead, that hasn’t given up, and looks ready to close on the right foot.

There are many things we’d love Cal to be. But in the end, it’s not going to be many of those things this season.

Accept who Cal is in 2024. Then ride with them.