I never pay too much attention to the pre-season stuff. Appreciate the article though. Seems to me, so much changes once the season starts, with injuries, coaches and the orbit of Mars, it's just a highly chaotic system. You can play odds, for sure, but I'm not a gambling man. On any Saturday, I just want to see Cal play competitive games, which we we can certainly do with a better offense and typical Wilcox defense.
My bigger issue right now, I'm really wrestling with sadness about all the conference changes. Losing the LA schools, even though F*&^ them, is such a huge, huge bummer for me. I don't give a crap about SMU. I'm glad SDSU is great, but they aren't a UC. I just don't like College football in the world of conference realignment and $$$$. I'm still emotionally stuck in the Pac10 or Pac8. Football fandom is a big part of my goofy life. I'm sad for it.
Thank you Nick. I’m concerned about the N. Texas trip as well. Cal could very well be a decidedly better team next year, yet still struggle to eclipse 4 wins again due to the challenging schedule.
It’s a great year to recapture the elite, turnover producing defense of the early Wilcox years…
The first three games are crucial. If we can survive against North Texas, prevail over Auburn at home and then not overlook Idaho we could start 3-0 and get a sniff of a few AP Top 25 votes. Then maybe get a 6-win season, which would be enough to save Wilcox and appease most Cal fans since the schedule is beyond brutal.
Im in the minority here but I firmly believe that if our season is respectable but we don’t make a bowl, we should NOT make any drastic coaching changes (aka keep Wilcox). This season will be the strongest competition we will ever face. OSU, UW, Oregon, and Utah will all get weaker the following year. And we won’t play USC and UCLA anymore.
Knee jerk moves will be the downfall of Cal and we can’t lose our shit if we don’t make a bowl but still improve. I’m treating this like a rebuilding year
Percentage of returning production is usually a good indicator of stability and expectable improvement, but it has to be viewed in light of whether there actually was much production. 80% of very little could still be less than only 40% of a whole lot.
Returning talent is not a great measurement when evaluating a Justin Wilcox coached team. If it was, his 2021 team that returned almost the entire offense would have contended for a Pac 12 North title. If there was a team improvement measure from 2021 through the 2022 season, I think Cal would rank at the very bottom with Colorado. That's why I'm dreading every conference game next season. I mean, who is Cal going to be favored against outside of maybe LOL Stanford?
Pre-spring Reset: Pac-12 Returning Production rankings
A lot of Cal's low offense is losing both QBs (cuz of Sam Jackson), JMike, and our two TEs
I think Cal needs to really focus on OLine and QB portal recruiting after spring ball. Either way I have confidence that Spavital will be better
I never pay too much attention to the pre-season stuff. Appreciate the article though. Seems to me, so much changes once the season starts, with injuries, coaches and the orbit of Mars, it's just a highly chaotic system. You can play odds, for sure, but I'm not a gambling man. On any Saturday, I just want to see Cal play competitive games, which we we can certainly do with a better offense and typical Wilcox defense.
My bigger issue right now, I'm really wrestling with sadness about all the conference changes. Losing the LA schools, even though F*&^ them, is such a huge, huge bummer for me. I don't give a crap about SMU. I'm glad SDSU is great, but they aren't a UC. I just don't like College football in the world of conference realignment and $$$$. I'm still emotionally stuck in the Pac10 or Pac8. Football fandom is a big part of my goofy life. I'm sad for it.
Thank you Nick. I’m concerned about the N. Texas trip as well. Cal could very well be a decidedly better team next year, yet still struggle to eclipse 4 wins again due to the challenging schedule.
It’s a great year to recapture the elite, turnover producing defense of the early Wilcox years…
The first three games are crucial. If we can survive against North Texas, prevail over Auburn at home and then not overlook Idaho we could start 3-0 and get a sniff of a few AP Top 25 votes. Then maybe get a 6-win season, which would be enough to save Wilcox and appease most Cal fans since the schedule is beyond brutal.
Im in the minority here but I firmly believe that if our season is respectable but we don’t make a bowl, we should NOT make any drastic coaching changes (aka keep Wilcox). This season will be the strongest competition we will ever face. OSU, UW, Oregon, and Utah will all get weaker the following year. And we won’t play USC and UCLA anymore.
Knee jerk moves will be the downfall of Cal and we can’t lose our shit if we don’t make a bowl but still improve. I’m treating this like a rebuilding year
It would be a very Cal thing to happen for me to drive 4 hours to go see the UNT game only to find myself in a nail-biter... Oh well, I'm in!
Percentage of returning production is usually a good indicator of stability and expectable improvement, but it has to be viewed in light of whether there actually was much production. 80% of very little could still be less than only 40% of a whole lot.
Is it time for me to guess our record at 14-0 yet?
Returning talent is not a great measurement when evaluating a Justin Wilcox coached team. If it was, his 2021 team that returned almost the entire offense would have contended for a Pac 12 North title. If there was a team improvement measure from 2021 through the 2022 season, I think Cal would rank at the very bottom with Colorado. That's why I'm dreading every conference game next season. I mean, who is Cal going to be favored against outside of maybe LOL Stanford?