Anarchistbear said:

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philly1121 said:

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calumnus said:

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Strykur said:

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MrGPAC said:

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UCLA IS good, but no one wants to go. Stanford WAS good, but no one wanted to go to those games... Cal being lumped in with these schools is bad for optics and bad for reallignment....because the assumption (until proven otherwise) will be that we are just like Stanford/UCLA and that even if we are good we won't draw a crowd (or viewers).

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This is all irrelevant to TV execs, if nobody is in Pasadena but a few million folks at home are watching they won't care

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Agreed, but while channel surfing, all things being equal, I am more inclined to stop and watch a game if it is a packed stadium than i am if it is an empty stadium.

Which is just one more reason why it makes sense to offer free game day general admission to anyone with a student ID, especially Cal students, with the only limit being stadium capacity.

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There were only 211k viewers for the Wake-Cal game. That's a dreadful number. And it was on ESPN2. Numbers for the CW for the Cal-SMU game aren't available. But SMU is winning and their stadium was empty. UCLA got 2 million viewers to an empty stadium. Well it wasn't empty but would have been without all the Wisconsin fans.

Seems like more and more fans are staying home. Ticket prices. Length of games. Its too much.

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380 000 for SMU. I have to say they seem to be another poor cousin despite being in football mad Texas

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That football fandom is spread over the Dallas Cowboys, Houtson Texans, Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, Texas Tech, Houston, TCU, Rice, North Texas, Utep, UTSA… SMU is more the later than the former. SMU is a small private school for spoiled rich kids with a small stadium that had to buy their way into a Power conference three years ago. Their fanbase is wealthy, not big.

Someone on the "Sky is not falling thread" claimed SMU as a school thst would get an invite to the SEC or B1G and bolt the ACC. No way. They are peaking right now. If Cal had their success since joining the ACC we would be selling out CMS and our games would be on ESPN with good ratings instead of the ACC Network.

Oregon, Maryland, Wisconsin, San Diego State, Michigan State, all scored fewer points against UCLA than we did. None scored more than 1 TD against them.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/ucla/2026-schedule.html

Maybe if ucla had a tougher schedule against quality opponents they could generate a bigger turn out. Coliseum and $C sell out and Rose Bowl is half full with #5 team.

Don't look now, but UCLA is now the highest ranked B1G team.

Strykur said:

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01Bear said:

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Grrrrah76 said:

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Maybe if ucla had a tougher schedule against quality opponents they could generate a bigger turn out. Coliseum and $C sell out and Rose Bowl is half full with #5 team.

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Cal had the softest schedule in generations last year and it didn't do squat with it. Before criticizing UCLA's schedule, maybe it would behoove Cal fans to recognize the planks in our own eye.

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Also the only team on our 2026 schedule that would give the bear runts problems is Wake Forest, otherwise they would probably still be 9-0 with our slate

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Agreed.

If they win out they will have have wins over USC and likely Indiana or Ohio State

01Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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Oregon, Maryland, Wisconsin, San Diego State, Michigan State, all scored fewer points against UCLA than we did. None scored more than 1 TD against them.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/ucla/2026-schedule.html

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I see that as UCLA has a competent coaching staff that is always looking to improve the team. It's able to make adjustments and coach up players. We clearly haven't see that at Cal this year. Heck, we haven't seen that at Cal (at least on both sides of the football) since the Tedford years.

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And the first half of the Tedford years at that.

Grrrrah76 said:

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If they win out, that would be very impressive considering they are playing with a second string quarterback that started at Cal Poly SLO last year.

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SC looks rejuvenated but the games before that (Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan) are not tough, maybe the Gophers can pull it off but the bear runts have a defense capable of handling that whole slate

Strykur said:

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Grrrrah76 said:

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If they win out, that would be very impressive considering they are playing with a second string quarterback that started at Cal Poly SLO last year.

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SC looks rejuvenated but the games before that (Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan) are not tough, maybe the Gophers can pull it off but the bear runts have a defense capable of handling that whole slate

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I would've gotten a kick out of being at the meeting where somebody said, "Hey, we should be the Gophers!'

And then... was it an immediate consensus? ("Gophers! What a great idea!!!")