LocoOso;842308853 said:

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agree. also, there seems to be an assumption that Cal will be much improved next season, but that no one else in the league will be. Pac-12 is going to be very tough next season.

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At this early stage, I could see a much improved Cal win from 2 to 4 games. If everybody returns from the injured list, 3 to 6.

The stars would have to align perfectly to even approach a minor bowl.

:gobears:

After last season I think it is hard to rank Goff. He clearly has talent, but because of Sonny's pass-first offense and the fact that the Bears were almost always well behind in games (and were forced to throw), it is difficult to make evaluations based upon Goff's stats.

Connor Halliday at WSU is in the same situation -- prolific passer with padded stats because he was on a team that was usually behind in games..

Bobodeluxe;842308857 said:

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At this early stage, I could see a much improved Cal win from 2 to 4 games. If everybody returns from the injured list, 3 to 6.

The stars would have to align perfectly to even approach a minor bowl.

:gobears:

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Agree. Even if Cal is improved, wins could be hard to come by simply because the league and the schedule are so tough. Thinking 2-3 wins is about where it lands.

Bobodeluxe;842308857 said:

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At this early stage, I could see a much improved Cal win from 2 to 4 games. If everybody returns from the injured list, 3 to 6.

The stars would have to align perfectly to even approach a minor bowl.

:gobears:

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this is why i hate these arguments because i really dont see how the team could be much improved and win two games when one game is against a D2 school. if they win two games, it really means that they havent improved and if they have improved probably not enough where thered be much justification for keeping the coaching staff around, although they probably still would be given one more year. i can see an argument where if they win 4 theyve really improved.

beating one D1 team when you have NU, BYU, WSU, AZ, CU and USC and UW going through a lot of change with their coaching changes shouldnt be that difficult. those are essentially 7 games where we should not be getting blown out, so if theyre in the game at least, youd think that winning one by simple dumb luck would occur

Bobodeluxe;842308857 said:

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At this early stage, I could see a much improved Cal win from 2 to 4 games. If everybody returns from the injured list, 3 to 6.

The stars would have to align perfectly to even approach a minor bowl.

:gobears:

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I think all of us assume Sac. State is a sure W. Other than the home game vs. Colorado, I expect Cal will be the underdog. So for those of you that predict (or hope for) more than 2 wins, what teams do you expect us to beat?

77Bear;842308869 said:

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I think all of us assume Sac. State is a sure W. Other than the home game vs. Colorado, I expect Cal will be the underdog. So for those of you that predict (or hope for) more than 2 wins, what teams do you expect us to beat?

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If Cal plays with swagger(!) and few injuries, the Bears could steal a win or two.

I just don't see the talent to scare anybody.

:cheer

i think if we improve a few touchdowns on offense and and a few on defense, we can maybe win 1 game, 2 if we're damn lucky, am i doing this right??

77Bear;842308869 said:

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I think all of us assume Sac. State is a sure W. Other than the home game vs. Colorado, I expect Cal will be the underdog. So for those of you that predict (or hope for) more than 2 wins, what teams do you expect us to beat?

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well we almost beat arizona last year and probably should have beat them last year. NU was almost as bad as us last year, theyll be suffering from a lot of the same questions as us coming into the year, can they bounce back? etc etc. We should have an advantage athletically if nothing else on Oregon st and BYU although both are well coached teams. i still dont have think that washington st is that great. UW and USC are going through coaching changes and i actually think USC downgraded in sark from Ed O. we may not be favored in all these games but at least some id put the odds at 45/55. i wouldnt consider us huge underdogs if underdogs at all against AZ, NU, BYU, WSU. i think the expectation should be to go 2 for 4 out of these 4. along with Oregon st none of these teams are running more talent out onto the field than we are

when you have avery and scarlett running around on our defense it just changes things immensely. look at our defense, although still not a good defense when avery was there ,when he wasnt, it was just a big difference.

Goff should improve a lot and the receiving core is a year better and deeper than last year.

lasco and khalfani should hopefully be adequate and i do think that we'll be fine on the o-line in 4 out of 5 spots. the darkhorse at the rb position may be tre watson, with him i see skills that may translate very quickly to the college game, mainly his vision.

and regardless of what people think of dline depth or linebacker depth, you really cant play much worse than those two units did last year, so just on that we should see some improvement.

Davidson;842308878 said:

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i think if we improve a few touchdowns on offense and and a few on defense, we can maybe win 1 game, 2 if we're damn lucky, am i doing this right??

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Looking through the depth chart, it shows a lot of guys with RS or 1L ... blue(red)shirt freshman and true sophomores. We're still a very young team.

We got clobbered last year by injuries. If those who missed spring can do summer S&C and come back, we might be okay for some wins, building depth. We also have some promising JCs coming in, guys who will either start or increase the depth.
How many wins? Nobody can know, only guesses.

Jared is the least of our problems.

77Bear;842308869 said:

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I think all of us assume Sac. State is a sure W. Other than the home game vs. Colorado, I expect Cal will be the underdog. So for those of you that predict (or hope for) more than 2 wins, what teams do you expect us to beat?

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if nothing changes from last yr, how is it possible we get more than 1 win??????????????

Davidson;842308885 said:

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if nothing changes from last yr, how is it possible we get more than 1 win??????????????

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I think you answered part of your question yourself in another thread.
There are lots of changes from last year. The biggest change so far is the lack of new injuries from spring ball.

Quote:

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QUOTE=Davidson;842308882]i like the DB unit with Darius White coming in and getting Sebastian back.
Then we have Cameron Walker and McClure and sprinkle in some Piatt. Oh yea, and actual coach.

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Yea but we are probably 3-4 years away from a 2 win season lets be real

Davidson;842308892 said:

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Yea but we are probably 3-4 years away from a 2 win season lets be real

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Davidson, you're killing me. :p

Bobodeluxe;842308857 said:

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At this early stage, I could see a much improved Cal win from 2 to 4 games. If everybody returns from the injured list, 3 to 6.

The stars would have to align perfectly to even approach a minor bowl.

:gobears:

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The stars have aligned perfectly for Cal a handful out of the last 50 years.

gobears725;842308880 said:

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well we almost beat arizona last year and probably should have beat them last year. NU was almost as bad as us last year, theyll be suffering from a lot of the same questions as us coming into the year, can they bounce back? etc etc. We should have an advantage athletically if nothing else on Oregon st and BYU although both are well coached teams. i still dont have think that washington st is that great. UW and USC are going through coaching changes and i actually think USC downgraded in sark from Ed O. we may not be favored in all these games but at least some id put the odds at 45/55. i wouldnt consider us huge underdogs if underdogs at all against AZ, NU, BYU, WSU. i think the expectation should be to go 2 for 4 out of these 4. along with Oregon st none of these teams are running more talent out onto the field than we are

when you have avery and scarlett running around on our defense it just changes things immensely. look at our defense, although still not a good defense when avery was there ,when he wasnt, it was just a big difference.

Goff should improve a lot and the receiving core is a year better and deeper than last year.

lasco and khalfani should hopefully be adequate and i do think that we'll be fine on the o-line in 4 out of 5 spots. the darkhorse at the rb position may be tre watson, with him i see skills that may translate very quickly to the college game, mainly his vision.

and regardless of what people think of dline depth or linebacker depth, you really cant play much worse than those two units did last year, so just on that we should see some improvement.

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This is a nice concise set of false assumptions. Well done.
According to your logic we also have a chance against furd and Oregon because they are dealing with changes at DC.
Oh and since we beat more UCLA last time they were in Berkeley then pencil that in as well. It looks like Cal has a chance to go undefeated.

heartofthebear;842308902 said:

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This is a nice concise set of false assumptions. Well done.
According to your logic we also have a chance against furd and Oregon because they are dealing with changes at DC.
Oh and since we beat more UCLA last time they were in Berkeley then pencil that in as well. It looks like Cal has a chance to go undefeated.

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so you think USC will be better this year? or UW will be better without sankey and breaking in a new qb? why is it false to say that will go two for four against mediocre competition. if we could pull out a win against Sacramento State and Colorado then that would put us at four wins. let alone if god forbid they actually upset someone.

or how about this for logic

win less than 4=fans will say fire sandy and sonny
win 4=give him another year or two they seem to be improving
win 5 or more= 1-11 is forgiven

Yea i just dont see it happening man i mean if all the stars align and praise be jebus we might be better but the other teams will certainly be better too so you know

not all of them, im not up to date on each team but i think NU loses 1or both of their qbs. AZ go ahead keep that lefty in he was terrible. OSU is losing maybe the best receiver theyve ever had. i can see where teams we face could also be facing issues of their own

gobears725;842308912 said:

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or how about this for logic

win less than 4=fans will say fire sandy and sonny
win 4=give him another year or two they seem to be improving
win 5 or more= 1-11 is forgiven

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that's probably what the post mortem will be.

As for what will happen this next season? A couple teams will be better than expected (hopefully us). A couple teams will lay an egg. Oregon will be tough with Marriota back. Stanford graduated a lot of D so we will see about them. Wazzu may progress, may not because there really isn't that much talent up there (yeah I know they killed us). OSU...due for a slide. Washington will probably see a plus from Peterson, but a minus breaking in new QB/RB etc.

In the South...USC will be about the same. Sark is NOT an upgrade, but they do have a ton of talent. UCLA will be decent, but not overwhelming per last couple of years. ASU....good question. I'm not so in love with their QB like many others are. UA....again how much talent do they really have? I'm not sure.

gobears725;842308912 said:

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so you think USC will be better this year? or UW will be better without sankey and breaking in a new qb? why is it false to say that will go two for four against mediocre competition. if we could pull out a win against Sacramento State and Colorado then that would put us at four wins. let alone if god forbid they actually upset someone.

or how about this for logic

win less than 4=fans will say fire sandy and sonny
win 4=give him another year or two they seem to be improving
win 5 or more= 1-11 is forgiven

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In all honesty, how Cal does next year has nothing to do with how well Cal needs to do to save Dykes' job. So I don't know why you are bringing that up. Washington won't be as good this year. But that doesn't mean Cal will be as good as Washington. I think Cal has a small chance to upset Washington, but that's if Cal is 100% healthy, more or less.

As for NU, they will be considerably better. Cal is playing in Tucson...not good. I do think we have a decent chance against WSU and even OSU this year, even though they are road games. We also might have a chance against BYU and AZ if we are 100%. I'm guessing maybe 4 wins.

As for USC, they will be at least as good as last year. Folks around here have been predicting a Cal victory over Washington and/or USC even since I joined. We have not come close against USC.

I don't get the ragging on Sark as a coach. As a human being he is rather marginal. But he beat us all 5 years he coached at Washington so how is it going to help us that he is at USC now? He also improved the Huskies pretty consistently every year he was there, despite many injury problems. Sark is certainly better than Kiffin, who wipped us every year we played USC.

heartofthebear;842308928 said:

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I don't get the ragging on Sark as a coach. As a human being he is rather marginal. But he beat us all 5 years he coached at Washington so how is it going to help us that he is at USC now? He also improved the Huskies pretty consistently every year he was there, despite many injury problems. Sark is certainly better than Kiffin, who wipped us every year we played USC.

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I would argue he didn't. They were pretty static for most of his tenure

heartofthebear;842308928 said:

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In all honesty, how Cal does next year has nothing to do with how well Cal needs to do to save Dykes' job. So I don't know why you are bringing that up. Washington won't be as good this year. But that doesn't mean Cal will be as good as Washington. I think Cal has a small chance to upset Washington, but that's if Cal is 100% healthy, more or less.

As for NU, they will be considerably better. Cal is playing in Tucson...not good. I do think we have a decent chance against WSU and even OSU this year, even though they are road games. We also might have a chance against BYU and AZ if we are 100%. I'm guessing maybe 4 wins.

As for USC, they will be at least as good as last year. Folks around here have been predicting a Cal victory over Washington and/or USC even since I joined. We have not come close against USC.

I don't get the ragging on Sark as a coach. As a human being he is rather marginal. But he beat us all 5 years he coached at Washington so how is it going to help us that he is at USC now? He also improved the Huskies pretty consistently every year he was there, despite many injury problems. Sark is certainly better than Kiffin, who wipped us every year we played USC.

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kiffin<sark<Ed O in my opinion

You guys are a bummer. We're gonna win every game... Until we don't...

gobears725;842308930 said:

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kiffin<sark<Ed O in my opinion

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If Sark is better than Kiffin and Kiffin beat us every year we played him then...what's your point?

BTW: NU has the same QB that beat us last year.

NYCGOBEARS;842308931 said:

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You guys are a bummer. We're gonna win every game... Until we don't...

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rolling with this !!!!!

heartofthebear;842309006 said:

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If Sark is better than Kiffin and Kiffin beat us every year we played him then...what's your point?

BTW: NU has the same QB that beat us last year.

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NU voted this morning on the union issue , hope its a distraction lingering into aug 30

heartofthebear;842309006 said:

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If Sark is better than Kiffin and Kiffin beat us every year we played him then...what's your point?

BTW: NU has the same QB that beat us last year.

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I'm thinking with the union issue and terrible post-season momentum that NU will in fact be worse this time around when facing us. I think our changes will be greater than their changes and since it was a fairly close game decided by some inopportune turnovers that Goff's improvements and our defensive improvements could very well swing things in our favor even when it's an away game.

Stanford has more questions on offense than defense. Ferinstance, last year Stanford's defense was able to control Oregon because it kept the ball (mostly) out of Oregon's hands. When the offense didn't at the end, the game started to get scary even w/ its best defense in a decade or so. Same with some other teams. Stanford's interior line didn't look great in Spring game vs. the one D or the two D this year. Take heart.

BeteRouge;842309122 said:

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Stanford has more questions on offense than defense. Ferinstance, last year Stanford's defense was able to control Oregon because it kept the ball (mostly) out of Oregon's hands. When the offense didn't at the end, the game started to get scary even w/ its best defense in a decade or so. Same with some other teams. Stanford's interior line didn't look great in Spring game vs. the one D or the two D this year. Take heart.

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Bless you. Sympathy from the Devil.

heartofthebear;842309006 said:

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If Sark is better than Kiffin and Kiffin beat us every year we played him then...what's your point?

BTW: NU has the same QB that beat us last year.

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im with NYC, we're winning every game until we lose them. frankly HOB theres no right answer in this debate because we're basically trying to predict the future. i feel like that if we improve, that it will also reflect in our W-L record and i feel that we at least made some moves regarding coaching and are getting some key players healthy which should at least give us a decent chance to improve. to each their own on this type of discussion

going4roses;842308248 said:

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see link below

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1) Hundly
2) Mariota
3) Goff
4) Chryst replaces Hpogan at Stanford.
5) Kessler

1_B_T_F;842309132 said:

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1) Hundly
2) Mariota
3) Goff
4) Chryst replaces Hpogan at Stanford.
5) Kessler

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Only if Hogan is hit by a train OR Shaw has a personality transplant.

Hogan is good. Maybe not a top 3 Qb in conference, but if Stanford's system is working, it doesn't need an Andrew Luck to be good enough. In 99% of the cases, Shaw values experience and performance over pure talent. In Hogan he has the first two and enough of the latter.

i dont know about chryst replacing hogan this year. he doesnt look all that great to me and supposedly he struggled in the camps and was outplayed by our own rubenzer in a lot of camps

BeteRouge;842309135 said:

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Only if Hogan is hit by a train OR Shaw has a personality transplant.

Hogan is good. Maybe not a top 3 Qb in conference, but if Stanford's system is working, it doesn't need an Andrew Luck to be good enough. In 99% of the cases, Shaw values experience and performance over pure talent. In Hogan he has the first two and enough of the latter.

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Spot on. I'm not convinced Chryst is an elite caliber QB despite his measurables and hype anyway. Even if Chryst does end up being good, I don't see it happening his frosh year.

SonOfCalVa;842308884 said:

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Looking through the depth chart, it shows a lot of guys with RS or 1L ... blue(red)shirt freshman and true sophomores. We're still a very young team.

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If we can't get more guys to stick around for 4-5 years, we'll always be a young team.

gobears725;842308880 said:

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well we almost beat arizona last year and probably should have beat them last year. NU was almost as bad as us last year, theyll be suffering from a lot of the same questions as us coming into the year, can they bounce back? etc etc. We should have an advantage athletically if nothing else on Oregon st and BYU although both are well coached teams. i still dont have think that washington st is that great. UW and USC are going through coaching changes and i actually think USC downgraded in sark from Ed O. we may not be favored in all these games but at least some id put the odds at 45/55. i wouldnt consider us huge underdogs if underdogs at all against AZ, NU, BYU, WSU. i think the expectation should be to go 2 for 4 out of these 4. along with Oregon st none of these teams are running more talent out onto the field than we are

when you have avery and scarlett running around on our defense it just changes things immensely. look at our defense, although still not a good defense when avery was there ,when he wasnt, it was just a big difference.

Goff should improve a lot and the receiving core is a year better and deeper than last year.

lasco and khalfani should hopefully be adequate and i do think that we'll be fine on the o-line in 4 out of 5 spots. the darkhorse at the rb position may be tre watson, with him i see skills that may translate very quickly to the college game, mainly his vision.

and regardless of what people think of dline depth or linebacker depth, you really cant play much worse than those two units did last year, so just on that we should see some improvement.

---

We did not almost beat Arizona and you certainly can't say we SHOULD have beaten them. We were down by two scores for much of the game including almost the whole 4th quarter. We scored at the end to give us an opportunity for an onside kick. That is not almost winning. We were competitive for one of the few times in the season, and that was nice, but I think it is only seen as good relative to the rest of the season.

We had a better chance of beating tOSU the year before, and we know how that worked out the next season.

If we have improved the way we need to, we should beat Sac State, CU, NW and at least 1 out of UA, WSU, and OSU. However, we have to improve a lot to achieve that. I think some have not recognized how bad we were last year. We only lost one game by less than two touchdowns.

Also, some are saying that this year's schedule is easier. I don't agree. It is easier for a GOOD team, because we have the tough games at home. If we were an 8+ win kind of team, that would be great. But we aren't. Of the games we should have a good chance of being competitive in, we have NW, OSU, WSU, UA on the road, all of whom we had at home last year. THOSE are games we can win and thus are more difficult this year than last. CU is the only close one that flips in our favor. The other teams that we get at home beat us by 24, 27, 39, and 50. I don't think it makes it better for us to play teams at home that we haven't even been competitive with. Obviously swapping OSU and BYU gives us a chance of winning another nonconference game, although I'm concerned about our motivation at that point if the conference season doesn't go well.