Let's see how everyone is about predicting the outcome of the remaining games and our final record.

ducky23 said:

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I said it in another thread, but I'm on record saying if we beat NC state, we're running the table until SMU

I get we're stuck with Wilcox and we have some serious flaws. But we are at home (except WF) and also better than the rest of the teams on our schedule. I don't see us losing if we can beat NC state and get some positive vibes back.

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well stated

How can you predict when we have been in so many winnable games? Impossible.

ducky23 said:

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I said it in another thread, but I'm on record saying if we beat NC state, we're running the table until SMU

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Even with our lousy coaching, defense is good enough to win every game until we get to Dallas, unless we have other injuries

Anarchistbear said:

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4-2 for 7-5.

It doesn't matter who we beat or lose to- they are all interchangeable

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Ditto.

alarsuel said:

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ducky23 said:

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I said it in another thread, but I'm on record saying if we beat NC state, we're running the table until SMU

I get we're stuck with Wilcox and we have some serious flaws. But we are at home (except WF) and also better than the rest of the teams on our schedule. I don't see us losing if we can beat NC state and get some positive vibes back.

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This makes sense conceptually, but I'm not sure it matters. We're better than FSU and Pitt and had a 25 point lead at home late against Miami. We haven't beaten anyone with a pulse.

What makes you think us being better than our opponents matters? We find ways to lose.

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I think being at home is going to matter. The only away game is Wake, and if we can't beat them…I don't know

ducky23 said:

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alarsuel said:

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ducky23 said:

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I said it in another thread, but I'm on record saying if we beat NC state, we're running the table until SMU

I get we're stuck with Wilcox and we have some serious flaws. But we are at home (except WF) and also better than the rest of the teams on our schedule. I don't see us losing if we can beat NC state and get some positive vibes back.

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This makes sense conceptually, but I'm not sure it matters. We're better than FSU and Pitt and had a 25 point lead at home late against Miami. We haven't beaten anyone with a pulse.

What makes you think us being better than our opponents matters? We find ways to lose.

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I think being at home is going to matter. The only away game is Wake, and if we can't beat them…I don't know

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Wake stinks and if we drop that game then the wheels on this thing are gonna go

Ok let's look at this game by game

I'm assuming they beat ncst cause if they don't, the wheels have officially come off and all of this is irrelevant anyways

Osu - just lost to Nevada. They have bigger injury problems than we do and they have less depth. I think shocky's yoga instructor is playing DL for them at this point. Has to be a W

Wake - worst team in the league

Furd - we better f'ing win this one. I honestly can't imagine us losing this game

Cuse - this may be the toughest one, but they are at best mediocre. And we have them at home. We "should" be on a 3 game win streak once we play them. Losing this would be a pretty big disappointment.

So let's beat ncst and just take it game by game after that.

Yikes -10.5 v NCST. That's a bit aggressive.

Based on that line and assuming we keep winning, we are gonna be substantial favorites in the rest of our games up till smu. Closest line may be cuse and that'll still probably be around 7.

Cuse is 5-1.

alarsuel said:

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Cuse is 5-1.

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And?

FPI isn't perfect but provides a rough estimate of future lines.

According to FPI cal is 84% over NC st. (Which perfectly equates to -10.5)

According to FPI cal is 76% over syrcause (which is roughly -7)

ducky23 said:

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I said it in another thread, but I'm on record saying if we beat NC state, we're running the table until SMU

I get we're stuck with Wilcox and we have some serious flaws. But we are at home (except WF) and also better than the rest of the teams on our schedule. I don't see us losing if we can beat NC state and get some positive vibes back.

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See it the same way. I think we end the season 9-4.

Most likely, somewhere in between 6-6 and 9-4.

Okay I'll be the overly, optimistic Cal fan… we are going
9-3 and Wilcox gets another 8-year extension… let me know everyone's heart rate once you read this…

calumnus said:

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alarsuel said:

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ducky23 said:

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I said it in another thread, but I'm on record saying if we beat NC state, we're running the table until SMU

I get we're stuck with Wilcox and we have some serious flaws. But we are at home (except WF) and also better than the rest of the teams on our schedule. I don't see us losing if we can beat NC state and get some positive vibes back.

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This makes sense conceptually, but I'm not sure it matters. We're better than FSU and Pitt and had a 25 point lead at home late against Miami. We haven't beaten anyone with a pulse.

What makes you think us being better than our opponents matters? We find ways to lose.

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Knowlton/Wilcox has completely squandered this opportunity. I truly believe that with just average, competent coaching we are 6-0, ranked, and headed to the ACC Championship Game and likely CFP, However, even at the low level he has the team playing we should still go 5-1 and finish 8-4 (4-4). However, he has shown over and over that even in games we are winning big he is capable of slamming on the brakes and coaching us to a loss. He has shown he is capable of coaching the team to a loss even against winless teams, so no game on the schedule is safe. Especially if he is blaming players and not correcting the coaching.

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I think it's more complicated than that. We have a lot of great players and a lot of injured players. We've done some great things on offense and especially defense that we take for granted. A lot of work went into building that huge lead against Miami. Beating Auburn on the road, and winning the 3 games we've won. A lot of work goes into building a family culture of players who care about each other, and the team. You can't just take that for granted. Wilcox was out doing Markeisha's job for god's sake, getting students to come to the game. Wilcox works his ass off and cares, and does a better job at a lot of things that we will have a hard time replacing. You get a new coach, you lose some of that, and the culture changes. This is why it's so frustrating. I love this team. I want them to succeed, but Wilcox just can't manage a live football game and is terrible at coaching personnel decisions. We may find a guy who is great at those, but sucks with donors, or parents, or the media, or the players. To find someone who does it all is really hard to do. This was the same thing with tedford. He had to go. So we got a guy who only did offense and it sucked. Now we have a guy who only does defense and can't manage a staff or a game, but does literally everything else pretty well. We have to get this next hire right.

We need a madsen of the gridiron.

6-6 different conference same result.

I'm going to go ultimate sunshine pumper here and say 9-3. In that crazy scenario, a bowl win gets us to 10-3 and the best record we've had in many many years. Knowleton then extends Wilcox and commissions a statue of him to be built just outside of Memorial Stadium.

Eyeballing the probability of winning each game based on SRS (plus home field adv):

NC State: 80%
Oregon State: 60%
Wake Forest: 70%
Syracuse: 50%
Stanford: 80%
SMU: 20%

Taking those probabilities as win shares = 3.6 wins

So on paper 7-5 and 6-6 are the most likely outcomes, with 7 wins slightly more likely than 6. I believe we'll go 7-5.

Last year was an obivious give up spot being 3-6 and getting dominated for weeks by better team but they won 3 in a row to get to a bowl season.

It was an obvious give up spot against a ranked Pitt team on the road after blowing the Miami game and should have won the game.

So clearly there is a disconnect between prep-first 80% of the game vs late game coaching for Cal because realistically they have superior talent in only 2 of the game so far this season yet should have won 6. If you **** on the coaching staff for the late game execution (very fair) then it's only fair to give them credit for the gameplan that leads them to have a better statistical game with an awful o-line. So a mixed bag but the late-game execution really dampers it.

So the coaching staff is doing a great job of putting Cal in position to win (look at all the post game-expectancy) they just choke at the end or turtle up which makes it a very furious situation. Now for the most part Cal should out talent everyone but SMU (slightly similar to Cuse) so coaching should matter less but I think the most likely outcome is 7-5 unless SMU starts sputtering at the end.

ducky23 said:

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I said it in another thread, but I'm on record saying if we beat NC state, we're running the table until SMU

I get we're stuck with Wilcox and we have some serious flaws. But we are at home (except WF) and also better than the rest of the teams on our schedule. I don't see us losing if we can beat NC state and get some positive vibes back.

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I agree, except we will lose one - probably OSU. So, 7-5. SMU is too early to predict, though. If we played them today, we'd be dogs.

Grigsby said:

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6-6 at best and it never needed to be this way. While the rest of the schedule isn't overwhelming, however this staff is abhorrent. It's strange people forget how bad Cal was in the first half of UC Davis and SDSU.

Against the middle of the ACC Cal cannot afford to play a miserable half of football and expect to come back.

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Historically, OLs do better as the season progresses. Let's see if ours can do the same. It's a patchwork that, if it can stay together for the rest of the year, could coalesce into a coherent group. We have decent size. Do they have the power? Reasonably mobile. Do they have the aggressiveness? Center can stabilize the group. NCS is not an overpowering DL as the last two have been. It should give our guys a chance to mesh.