bearwithfangs;842374642 said:

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Can't believe this is actually a thread, but FWIW, we haven't beaten a team with a winning record yet (though I think there's a solid chance NW is a bowl team by the end of the season).

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And squeaked by the ones we did beat.

Can't quite say we're a joke, not with this offense. Granted, we all know we have defensive troubles and opponents are probably
going to be salivating at the prospect of facing our defense. But, conversely, defensive coordinators are going to spend sleepless
nights quaking in their boots worrying about facing our offense. With our offense, we have a team that can be flat out scary to play.
I just hope we can build a defense by next year when we have most of our offense coming back. At any rate, it should be fun---and
certainly not boring......

ducky23;842374602 said:

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Why the rush to get ranked?

That's when things usually turn to **** for us.

Better to lay low and keep winning games.

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+50000

ducky23;842374602 said:

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Why the rush to get ranked?

That's when things usually turn to **** for us.

Better to lay low and keep winning games.

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Recruiting. But for us, yeah, better to be below radar.

Strykur;842374493 said:

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I am optimistic and say #20.

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The Northwestern win looks better as a quality road win, now that they've knocked off Wisconsin. The Arizona loss looks like a better road loss, as we led the top Pac-12 team in their house until the final play of the game.

The bad news: the defense is porous, and the voters will see that.

The good news: this weekend proved that we have a realistic chance in every game going forward.

Someone else said 33rd. I think that's about right.

I hope if we do get ranked, we know how to handle it.

As ducky said, there are times that we ended up in the 20s one week, and out of it the next week.

most voters were sound asleep by the time our game finished last night, so we won't get the kind of recognition we've earned.

dimitrig;842374584 said:

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We lost to Arizona. We can't get too excited about a loss and the wins were against the dregs. Things will definitely get tougher from here on out.

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You're very familiar with dregs. Life is tough for you, a bytch and then ya die, right.

Our pass defense get's no respect, no respect I tell you! We should be ranked #1 in passing yards given up. Wins and losses don't mean anything, it's the game stats that really count. I would rather be 0-5 instead of 4-1 and number one in pass defense in the country, wouldn't you? :sarc:

bearsandgiants;842374777 said:

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Recruiting. But for us, yeah, better to be below radar.

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Yes recruiting. Having that name go across the ticker with the Big Boys all day long can be great marketing, especially for a team that went 1-11 last year. It's a real thing. Whether being on that ticker causes other teams to plan or try harder against us, or causes our players to get too big for their britches, or angers the We Can't Have Good Things Gods...well, if the team is playing well enough to persuade poll voters to rank us, I'll take those challenges. Whether the team deserves to be ranked this week...that's another story.

Cal88;842374850 said:

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most voters were sound asleep by the time our game finished last night, so we won't get the kind of recognition we've earned.

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We made it on ESPN College Football Final. Rece Davis gave us extensive coverage. Though I don't know how many people watch that. I recorded the 12 am PT edition.

But if there was one ESPN College Football Final to check out, this one was the one.

I doubt we'll be ranked, but we will HAVE to pick up some votes, due to the fact that we are the current leaders of the Pac 12 North.
What a week! Oregon, Stanford, USC, UCLA all lose. And Cal, by almost Divine intervention is in first place!
I really like our chances of a bowl game now. We need only two more games, and it seems that we might win two games among Washington, Oregon State, BYU, Arizona State, and Stanford.

who cares? we are in first place in the PAC 12 North. every sportswriter will write stories about us which decry the pinball machine scores, and trumpet the big numbers posted against us, while ignoring the big picture. we were 1-11 last year. we have the best offense in the PAC 12, and arguably the best QB. The essence of coaching is to do the most with what you've got. Based on that Sonny and Art are doing a great job.

We'll be one of those teams listed just outside the top 25.

Count me among those who would rather not be ranked.
Plus, our game ended so late so we probably don't get a few votes. Most of the teams that lost won't drop out of top 25.
If we beat UW we're in.

If we beat UW it means we played some defense.

75bear;842374577 said:

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Would be awesome and a huge milestone of the rebuild to get to a bowl this year. What bowl wouldn't be salivating to have us play our exciting brand of football in their event?

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It really would, as most reasonable people would not have predicted it.

As for people saying we always blow it when we're ranked, this is no longer a Tedford squad. I'm not saying we should be ranked or that we don't have major issues, but we are no longer playing not to lose.

For what it's worth, Sagarin has us ranked 44th in his combined rankings this week. I think we were in the mid 50s last week, so that's significant improvement. The individual rankings are 51st in the Golden Mean, 43rd in Predictor and 32 in ELO_Score. That puts us 8th in the Pac-12. Sounds about right to me.

Pac-12 and other teams
11 Oregon
12 UCLA
15 Stanford
19 USC
26 Utah
31 Arizona
33 Arizona State
41 Northwestern
46 Washington
55 Oregon State
60 Washington State
100 Colorado
172 Sacramento State

The looks on the faces on the Cal sideline after the missed field goal at the end of the game says it all...

The depths that those players had been to from the locker room dissension under JT to the despair of last year.

There has to be a sense of destiny now...perhaps as big a boost for Cal as AZ took to Autzen after beating the Bears on that hail mary

So he has us below NW?

Is this the first week that he leverages data solely from 2014?

Wilner has us on his ballot this week. http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2014/10/05/my-ap-top-25-football-ballot-chaos-rules-the-weekend-auburn-is-the-new-no-1/

"I moved Cal onto the ballot, which would have seemed unfathomable a month ago.

But results are results and the Bears 1) won at Northwestern, which just beat Penn State and Wisconsin (also unfathomable a month ago), 2) won at Washington State, which won at Utah, and 3) came within a Hail Mary of winning at Arizona.

If you disregard every preconceived notion about the Bears and simply focus on the results that's the point of the ballot, after all then Cal deserves a spot.

It's 4-1, with narrow loss to the only undefeated team in the Pac-12, and it has two Power 5 road wins."

Sagarin isn't saying it's based solely on 2014 data, so I think some of his preseason estimates are still in the system.

Eastern Oregon Bear;842375005 said:

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For what it's worth, Sagarin has us ranked 44th in his combined rankings this week. I think we were in the mid 50s last week, so that's significant improvement. The individual rankings are 51st in the Golden Mean, 43rd in Predictor and 32 in ELO_Score. That puts us 8th in the Pac-12. Sounds about right to me.

Pac-12 and other teams
11 Oregon
12 UCLA
15 Stanford
19 USC
26 Utah
31 Arizona
33 Arizona State
41 Northwestern
46 Washington
55 Oregon State
60 Washington State
100 Colorado
172 Sacramento State

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If these rankings are close to true then Cal has a brutal road ahead of them and can really only hope to win two more games. Does 6-6 get us into a bowl?

Got a few votes in one poll and uDuh got none. A few in another poll just under uDuh.
Doesn't mean a thing.

dimitrig;842375395 said:

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... yadda yaddo ...

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To Ignore with your inane negativity.

Dont worry. The time is coming.