CBS Sports predicts the 2020 Pac-12 Football season, with Cal winning the Pac-12 North
Cal fans would have to be pleased if these predictions come true.
Though we’re still unsure if the 2020 college football season will even take place, the world is still talking sports with a very, very interesting take on Cal Football.
CBS Sports posted their predictions for the 2020 Pac-12 and they have lofty expectations for the Bears.
The Bears closed the 2019 season on a three-game winning streak with sophomore quarterback Chase Garbers slinging touchdowns and the defense playing some of its best football of the season. Now after three straight years of improvement under Justin Wilcox, Cal is poised for a breakout year. The Bears return more starters than any other team in the league and are giving an offense that struggled when Garbers was hurt last season a reboot under long-time NFL offense coordinator Bill Musgrave. The schedule is favorable, too, as the Bears play Utah, Oregon and Washington at home. A mid-season home showdown against the Ducks looms large as a potential swing game in the race for a division title.
To CBS Sports, this translates to an 11–1 season—with our lone loss against USC—and outright winning the Pac-12 North. Oregon looks to be scary-good on defense next year, but they gave us the nod due to our greater amount of returning starters. Winning the conference, however, may be tricky as they project the Pac-12 South will be won by USC, so the conference championship would come down to us against a team that would have already beaten us in the regular season.
The most Cal thing to do is to miss the Rose Bowl with potential like this because the season gets called off due to pandemic. Sigh.
Even if a season is played, some of the reasoning for Cal having the advantage in toss-up games (aka home advantage) may not be applicable to this year (if it's played in front of a limited or zero audience).