Predict the 2024 Cal Football Season: Results!
Without having to face juggernauts like Oregon, Washington, or Utah, we've reached levels of optimism not seen since the 2010 preseason!
Last week I invited you all to participate in our annual season predictions. Clearly there is some enthusiasm heading into this season, because we received almost 200 submissions, more than twice as many as last season. And the results may show why folks are excited about the 2024. It seems our perpetually downtrodden fanbase is feeling…optimistic?!
The table below shows our game-by-game predictions along with the standard deviation, which is a measure of how widely our predictions varied for that game.
That adds up to 7.7 projected wins! Rounding up gives us 8, which would be the first time since 2009 that the team achieved 8 regular-season wins. Interestingly, the standard deviation of 1.14 is much smaller than last year’s SD of 1.63 (on 6.38 wins), so we’re both more optimistic and more certain in that optimism this year.
Looking over the schedule game-by-game, we only have two games where the Bears are underdogs: at Auburn and at Florida State (although these predictions predate the Seminoles’ season-opening loss in Dublin). In fact, we can break these games out into three categories:
Likely wins: UC Davis, SDSU, OSU, at Wake Forest, Syracuse, and Big Game
Toss-ups: at Auburn, Miami, at Pitt, NC State, at SMU
Likely losses: Florida State
Of course, not all the likely wins are guaranteed to be wins, so let’s say Cal wins 5 out of those 6. They likely win 2 or 3 of the toss-ups and probably lose Florida State, which gives us 7 or 8 wins.
The trajectory of the season could pose some challenges if the Bears struggle to adjust to the wildly varying quality of opponents over the first four games. The opening month is tough, but every game in October and November is winnable, especially with the Bears’ favorable 5-3 split of home games and road games during that stretch. The next plot more clearly highlights the back-and-forth swing between winnable and tough games over the first four weeks.
It wouldn’t be a post of mine without boxplots, so here’s a quick refresher: the horizontal line in each box represents the median, or midpoint, of the predictions. The box itself represents the span between the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile. The vertical lines, or whiskers, represent the more extreme ends of the data and the single dots represent outliers. The tl;dr is that this represents a simple way to visualize the distribution of the data. The median tells us the midpoint of the data and the box and whiskers tell us how spread out the data points are. Got it? Of course you do—even Oregon fans can grasp boxplots (Florida State fans? ehh, I’m not so sure…).
The patterns of the medians show three distinct periods in the schedule: an up-and-down start, a bunch of toss-ups, and then a gentle finish against the dregs of the ACC (except SMU, who should be decent). The team starts the year bouncing between likely wins (Davis, SDSU) and tough matchups (at Auburn, vs. FSU). 2-2 seems likely after those first four. Then comes a three-game stretch that will define the season. Cal plays three consecutive toss-up games vs. Miami, at Pitt, and vs. NC State. Win none? Bowl eligibility will be a struggle. Win 1? 6-7 wins seems likely. Win 2? We’re well on our way to 8 wins. Win all 3? ACC CHAMPIONSHIP HYPE TRAIN LEAVES THE STATION! After those toss-ups Cal plays a relegated Oregon State team and then three games against teams that combined for 5 wins and 20 losses in conference play in 2023. Based on the probabilities, it seems likely Cal will lose one of those. But it’s a much easier November than any schedule in recent memory. Finally, the Bears end the season with a toss-up against SMU.
Simulating the Season
To give us a better sense of how the season is likely to unfold, I used our predictions to simulate the entire season one million times. Fun fact: for the first time ever we did not have a single 0-win season in all those simulations. That actually broke my code for generating the next plot and made me painstakingly dig through the data to see where things went wrong. It was quite an amusing realization that my code broke because it did not account for a Cal team that would be this good.
This next plot shows how likely each win-loss outcome is after each game. After UC Davis we have a 93% chance of being 1-0 and a 7% chance of being 0-1. After Auburn it’s a 4% chance of being 0-2, 52% chance of being 1-1, and 44% chance of being 2-0. And so on down through the schedule.
After the tough, four-game start to the season Cal is most likely to be 2-2 heading into that critical stretch of toss-up games. A 4-3 record is most likely after the NC State game, setting the Bears up well to achieve bowl eligibility during a favorable 4-game stretch. For the first time in ages, the Bears look to be on track to secure bowl eligibility with several games to go, as 6-wins is the likeliest outcome after the Wake Forest game. 8 wins is the most likely outcome after SMU to cap a 4-1 finish to the year after the 4-3 start. That kind of momentum might be enough for the Bears to flirt with a top-25 ranking going into bowl season for the first time in a long, long time.
Awards
As is customary, we have three awards to hand out to our most optimistic predictions, our most pessimistic predictions, and those predictions that were most representative of the larger community.
Sunshine Pumpers
For the second year in a row Calamo and LABear predict perfect seasons.
Old Blues
nedbear finished in the top spot once again, but the 4.91 projected wins nearly double last year’s most pessimistic prediction of 2.5 wins. With nearly 200 predictions, it’s quite impressive that only a handful had the Bears failing to achieve bowl eligibility.
The Voice of Reason
Finally, we have those whose predictions were closest to the community averages for each game. We calculated the number of standard deviations each prediction was from the hivemind’s prediction, and then added them up across all twelve games.
Goldenone has the most reasonable predictions. Let’s hope we’re still saying the same thing when we reflect on a pleasant 8-win season. Although if the prediction proves to be entirely unreasonable because the Bears go 12-0, I’ll be perfectly fine with that outcome…
Thanks to all who participated. 3 days until kickoff!
0% chance we go 12-0? Your model is broken. 100% chance we go 16-0, BITCHES!
I am focused on how the Bears execute in the first three games. If we go 2-1 and play with poise and look solid, then if we can remain healthy thru the remainder of the season perhaps optimism is called for.