Weekly Writer Predictions: The 128th Big Game - Cal v. Stanford Football 2025

Presented by Dokkaebier

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 wins 27-24

No comment. Just Go f***ing Bears.

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Callie Wake

Scoreline: Cal wins 34-17

Nothing more needs to be said. See you on the 50.

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Rob Hwang

Scoreline: Cal wins 55-16

Kitchen Sink. Drop 50. Celebrate on the 50.

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TD_24

Scoreline: Cal wins 31-17

For once I’ll predict with my head as opposed to my 100-0 blowouts. Cal is the better team. They need to play like it. No excuses.

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Berkelium97

Scoreline: Cal wins 31-13

Despite all the challenges and consternation of the Wilcox Era, his teams usually take care of business against the Lobsterbacks. It may be close for a while, but this is a bad LSJU team and Cal should put the game away during the 3rd quarter.

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Ben

Scoreline: Cal wins 45-20

The JKS party roars to life and the Cal fans enjoy a comfortable win in Palo Alto. Is this a prediction or wishcasting?

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Nick Kranz

Scoreline: Cal wins 31-13

I understand that the Bears have not been particularly good this year. I understand that Stanford has a new quarterback who has shown the potential to be an improvement upon Ben Gulbranson. I understand that Vegas has the Bears just as narrow favorites. I understand that Cal has been the better team each of the last three years without ever actually winning this game decisively. I understand that Cal has played down to bad opponents on multiple occasions already this season.

But ultimately, I believe two things are true:

1. This Stanford team is *remarkably* bad. They are without strengths. They are a deeply uninteresting football team treading water while they wait to find out if they can hire a coach that will give them any kind of identity. Their wins this season have come in games in which they were comprehensively outplayed but won thanks to comic unforced errors by their opponents.

2. Football is a quarterback game, and Cal has the most preternaturally talented quarterback I have seen. Stanford has a redshirt freshman who took nine sacks against North Carolina. I know which one is going to be holding the Axe on Saturday night.

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Rex Volcano

Scoreline: Cal wins 33-27

It feels like Stanford (without a quarterback who can reliably navigate the ball forward) will need to score points in this game through dark and nefarious methods typically reserved for Youth Football (the “wrong ball” trick, trick plays designed by Philip Zimbardo, etc). Look out for some really evil football to compensate for their general lack of being good. Ultimately, Cal having a QB who is 600-700x better than any QB on the Stanford roster will be the difference that breaks through the rivalry-game BS and earns Cal the win.

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Jesse Miller-Gordon

Scoreline: Cal wins 28-10

It’s the axe, you’ve got the players for this one, run it up and shut em down.