With PAC-12 Media Days underway in Los Angeles today, it seemed fitting that we would drop our predictions for the upcoming season. With the Bears selected to finish 9th in the conference in the media poll, do our writers feel the same way?
TD_24
Season Prediction: 5-7
This season is going to remind you a lot of 2018. A great defense that will carry the squad and sometimes outright win us games, with an offense that may or may not carry its weight under a questionable offensive system. I think the linebackers are going to be amazing for this team, both on the inside and outside and will be the best position group we have in terms of starters and depth.
I think Cal gets off to an ok start, beating UC Davis and UNLV before heading into South Bend for the seasons first loss. They probably beat Arizona thanks to the defense and Colorado because the Buffaloes can't get out of their own way. Other than that, I think Cal wins the Big Game and that's it because they can beat the teams who don't necessarily have the best top end talent or athletes but not those who are well established much like 2018. I think Femi Oladejo becomes the star of the team this year and illustrates the preview for next years movie when he becomes a legit NFL prospect. Hopefully the chaos variable doesn't rain on our parade like last year and the young guys get a lot of solid experience this season since it is a bit of a rebuild.
Piotr Le
Season Prediction: 7-5
1. BRETT JOHNSON becomes a Khalil Mack level "black hole where offenses go to die" level DE
2. We lose to ND by 10 points but we make sure they never feel like they are running away with it and have to earn every yard.
3. Wilcox will begin a tradition of trashing Furd in the way they trashed us and as they shift to being a more QB/offense centric team they struggle against a stifling defense same way Goff era Cal did against Furd.
Rob Hwang
Season Prediction: 8-4
I have two versions as to how the season unfolds. Rolling with my positive spin on the season. The Bears defense carries the Bears the first half of the season and the offense takes off with the new QB for the second half of the season. Cal finishes above .500 in conference play for the first time under Coach Wilcox. The front 7 will betop 2 in the conference by the end of the season. The offense finds its weapons and identity heading into the Week 6 bye week.
Ruey Yen
Season Prediction: 9-4
Cal pulls off an upset at Notre Dame to give the program some much needed national attention.
Christopher_h
Season Prediction: 7-5
Cal does unexpectedly well OOC. They cruise through the first half of their schedule and receive AP Top 25 votes. They struggle against Oregon and USC (and maybe UW), but finish out the season strong enough to get to a bowl game. David Shaw is unexpectedly fired, and Chip Kelly receives an extension. Cal beats the hell out of Miami in the Holiday Bowl.
Berkelium97
Season Prediction: 6-6
Same as it ever was. A solid defense keeps the Bears competitive in most games, but an inconsistent and often sputtering offense regularly lets down the defense. An impressive upset over ND, Oregon, or USC will be offset by a head-scratching loss in Boulder.
Avinash Kunnath
Season Prediction: 6-6
Cal has one major upset--Oregon or Notre Dame.
Cal has one inexplicable home loss, which will 1000% be Arizona.
Cal beats Stanford by even more than last year.
DaneStopper
Season Prediction: 8-4
This is the best defense in the Wilcox era. Better than the Takers with four draft picks.
Nick Kranz
Season Prediction: 6-6
Cal returns to the early Wilcox days with an extreme gap between strong defense and struggling offense as a result of various issues at offensive line and quarterback. Seven of Cal's nine Pac-12 games feature a final margin of 7 points or less. Nobody in the Pac-12 ends the conference season with fewer than 2 Pac-12 losses.
Alex Khalifa
Season Prediction: 5-7
Tight end Jermaine Terry II will thrive in his expanded role as a sophomore.
I attended the CAL event tonight in downtown LA where AD Knowlton, Head Football Coach Justin Wilcox, Head Basketball Coach Mark Fox, and Head Golf Coach Mark Chun attended.
Starting with Mark Chun he said they have a solid team and there is a new Collin Morikawa in his group. All good news. Coach Fox was great, humble, funny as hell and very solid considering the difficult job he has.
I arrived at the event a half hour early and saw Coach Wilcox so I beelined straight over to him with one other CAL alum. We had his undivided attention for probably an hour as a couple more alums joined us, but the group never got larger than 5 people. It was an opportunity I never would have thought would come my way. I got to talk football, not only that, CAL football for an hour with Coach W. I will give an overview of our conversation and I will give some detail on what he shared later with the entire crowd when he had the microphone, but I won’t share details that he shared just with our group because we aren’t press and I don’t know if we were off the record or not.
My impression of Coach Wilcox: he’s a great dude. He was confident, comfortable and you could tell that he really believes that CAL Football is on the verge of something special; it’s not talk, he truly believes it. He was definitely just one of the guys in the conversation and he talked with us the same way you all would talk with your buddies over a beer watching football. It was straight forward, humorous at times, laced with excellent observations and a few expletives (never saw this side of Coach before).
I had a chance to talk with him about a lot of stuff. We talked about metrics that measure improvement, aside from the W’s, even though he said in the end it was the W’s that counted. He says the team has more talent now than since he came to CAL. Without telling you specifically what I heard, it is clear the players who did not come back for a final year was because they would have been challenged by new players that had more talent. That’s the best way to say it. He talked about how they know that certain player must be targets for so many touches of the ball every game and that some of the guys who left, while they were excellent football players, that we now had new elite players who were going to be the targets of those touches. We talked about last season, and he had three big metrics that need to change in order to go from a 6 win team to a 10 win team: 1. We need to make teams pay when they line up in zero/press defensive coverage and bring the entire defense. If you can’t make them pay, then you can’t keep them honest. We talked about UNR, TCU, WASU and UCLA games where they shut down our run game and Chase couldn’t convert in the passing game. He said we need to make guys miss (tackles) or complete the longer ball. He says we have the talent to do that now. (I’ll get to the players in a bit). 2. We need to make stops on 3rd down defensively. He said that last year our defense had as many stops on 3rd and 7+ yards as the had on third and 3. And finally he said the third thing we need to improve upon is red zone scoring. He also mentioned that they had to change play calling so they would not put themselves in a situation where the opponent could score late in the first half and early in the first half. He specifically mentioned games where we lost by a single score where not putting ourselves in this position might have changed the outcome of the game.
He said as of today Jack Plummer is the starter at QB, but that Kyle Milner is solid and needs to be coached up to be ready. He said a twisted ankle could mean Kyle becomes the starter. He said Plummer has surprised them and is better than advertised and while he may not have the legs of Garbers, he is very good on the reads and the passes. They might even let him air it out more often. I asked about Musgrave’s pro playbook and if Plummer had time to learn it and get reps. To my surprise Coach W said Musgrave’s playbook is no bigger than Beau Baldwins and that Plummer has assimilated it. They will change formations and looks, but they can do that during weekly installs as long as the concepts are in place. This is great news.
He is very excited about the receiving corp. He says CAL has a number of ‘playmakers’ that can actually ‘make things happen’. Again, good news. I’m not going to mention any names
He is excited at the RB room. He says Damien Moore is really deceptive and just finds ways to slither and gain 5, 6 or 7 yards when there is not much there. He said Jaden Ott is special and has a burst of speed which has been missing since Wilcox has been at CAL. He said if Ott continues the way he played in Spring, he will get touches this Fall, and it sounded like more than a few.
We talked about my favorite subject: O-Line. We talked about talent, the problems from last year and the need to establish a reliable consistent run game. First, there is no doubt about our talent being a big upgrade from last year. He said Coleman is probably a better guard than tackle but will probably play left tackle. He also said Coleman is a legit pro prospect, maybe not early round but he will play on Sundays. ‘Cindo’ is solid at center. I won’t mention the other guys he talked about because I think it all has to be resolved in Fall Camp, but we have the horses to get the job done and the competition will bring out the best. I talked with him about pass protection issues and schemes and to my surprise not only did he really know the details but he actually told me they had looked at their schemes to try and simplify them. We talked about relationship of tackles to edge rushers, set up (I told him I hate the shuffle step and he smiled in agreement). We talked about positioning, angles and more. I was genuinely impressed with his knowledge of the inner workings of the o-line and the thought processes regarding adjustments. It’s all good stuff and along with the talent should translate into more success.
He said our D-Line and inside linebackers were stout and plugs…my words but he feels real good about these two groups. Our edges and OLB are not a concern but as of right now we don’t have a guy that he feels has shown to be our next Cameron Goode, although there are a few guys who have shown some flashes that may demonstrate Goode’s ability during Fall Camp.
The secondary is solid but he says they need one guy to step up and be a great cover guy.
So that’s my report. I’ll close by saying I also had the opportunity to chat with AD Knowlton. I won’t go into a lot of detail here, but I will say I came away very impressed with him. I’ve always thought well of him but after he told me what he and his staff went through to keep all our sports programs alive when he first arrived with a $110m budget but $165m in expenses, I was incredibly grateful that we have him. He says Chancellor Christ is all in and he greatly appreciates her support. Lastly, he says regarding CAL’s future Conference moves, he has 10 permutations he is constantly working with regarding all the Conference realignments. He said it was like being in the military again. He had some great nuggets as well, but I won’t share them here. I’ll conclude that if his naysayers actually knew what he was doing I think they would have an entirely different and good opinion of him.
I’m posting this on Write for California and Cal Rivals
Roll on you Bears!
It seems like we can't get out of the 5-7 or 7-5 track.
Realistically I have to accept 5-7 as a more likely outcome than 7-5 due to the mystery of the offense and in general, lack of success on the O over the past few years outside of Chase scrambles and improvisation, which doth not an offensive system make.
EDIT: I promise I'll get the Dokkaebier IPA prior to the Notre Dame game (4 of the pint-size cans) and will have 1 or 2 before kick-off. That is rather early. After the Bears W I will have another (or two).