I agree completely on not going too far down this rabbit hole. I responded for two reasons:ducky23 said:MrGPAC said:
ASU and Oregon state are likely victories. USC and Utah are both likely losses. Oregon would have been a lot more interesting.
As for bowl game? They likely still would have finished behind Utah and Oregon. USC would have had the better in conference record...so they would have ended up as the fourth place team going to...the Redbox bowl, which they likely would have won to go 10-3.
If they had beaten any additional team in Oregon USC or Utah they would have finished the regular season with 10 wins.
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I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole of what if's, but in your scenario where the Oregon game is "interesting"....to be clear, if cal had beaten Oregon, osu and asu, they would've won the north. And would've had a really good shot at the rose bowl (win or lose in the title game). That's why these would've should've games are kinda silly.
1) The original statement I was replying to was flat out false (that we were losing when Garbers was injured vs ASU so it was likely a loss anyways).
2) The purpose of the speculation isn't in the frame of what could have been. Its about what will be next year. Looking backwards can help predict future success or failure. The point isn't to say, "If only Garbers hadn't gotten hurt we woulda gone to the Rosebowl this year!". Its more to say, "The team was pretty good and played below their full potential in large part due to injuries. Due to those injuries they were forced to develop additional depth along the lines as well as at the QB position. Because of how close they were to being a Rose Bowl team last year (though they clearly weren't), along with a general upward trajectory for the program and a largely experienced returning roster, they could easily be a top 25 team next year.
That said there are still a lot of question marks going forward. Additionally you could make similar arguments for a large number of the teams in the Pac12 based on their injuries too. Stanford could easily have been a loss if they weren't so injured right as we started to get healthy. Injuries are a part of the game.
That was one of my biggest issues with Baldwin as OC. The backups always looked woefully unprepared, and it seemed like it took 8-10 games for a QB to get comfortable enough with the system to be able to consistently execute in it. When the inevitable injuries come around you are going to be in trouble if the backups look as bad as Modster did in the ASU game, for instance.
