Welcome to our weekly predictions post from our writers. You’ll see what they expect the score to be and any wacky or rational predictions they expect to see in each game!
Christopher_h
Scoreline: Cal loses 20-33
Cal is not allowed to have nice things. I would love to be wrong, but a lot of the issues I saw last Saturday did not appear to be easily fixable, and pointed towards deeper systematic issues. I don't usually reach this level of pessimism until midseason.
Rob Hwang
Scoreline: Cal wins 35-33
We have to hope our execution improves and that Steve Angeli still isn’t a 100% coming off that injury from last season.
Ben Rossi
Scoreline: Cal wins 35-31
Another fairly high scoring affair but Cal will manage better ball security when it matters most, getting their first win in the Tosh Lupoi era.
Berkelium97
Scoreline: Cal wins 28-27
There's still too much variance to have any reasonable expectation of what this team is going to do each week.
Ben
Scoreline: Cal wins 23-20
Cal shows life, and grinds one out against all odds.
Nick Kranz
Scoreline: Cal wins 30-29
First, I want to make something clear: I have maybe 5% confidence in this prediction. Syracuse hasn't played a relevant game of football in more than a year thanks to QB injuries, and we learned nearly nothing from the New Hampshire game. I ultimately think that Cal will do better against a team that has typically been more effective passing the ball vs. running it, but who the hell knows?
Yoav Shames
Scoreline: Cal wins 28-24
We leave this game with a win but perhaps not the redemptive clarity that is desired. The defense shows more signs of life and better discipline, but we rely on a few too many lucky breaks on 3rd and Long from our quarterback.
Ruey Yen
Scoreline: Cal wins 28-24
Cal's stadium operations team was actually playing 5D chess by encouraging noise during offense!?!? Bears is fine with the road noise at Syracuse in week 2.
Cal wins 45-21. Glitches and rust are fixed and shaken off. Receivers get separation, Oline opens holes and gives JKS time to make a snack. D got a royal chew out from coach T and shows up ready to play. (I know, I know. Old sunshine pumper here).
GO BEARS!!
Just like me, the WFC prognosticators show real restraint for week 2. I salute your honesty after week 1! In listening carefully to Tosh over the last few weeks, he repeatedly says he is concerned with process, not W/L. This might be his way of telling us the program has a long way to go to be the winning program we all desire, especially Tosh!