re: Auburn opens 10.5 favorite vs Cal

Hey y'all, will be coming to the game with a group of 12, should be a decent Cal contingent coming. We've been looking forward to this trip for years.

Happy to answer any questions about the Bears anyone might have. A few initial comments...

The game against Davis was trash with a number of contributing factors. UCD's coach was a Co-OC at Cal at the end of last year and knows Cal's personnel and playbook inside and out. He also debuted a bunch of new concepts that Cal wasn't prepped for and they had 20+ minutes of possession in the first half. Combine that with our DC's "we won't show Auburn anything on film" vanilla base D and the first half was a mess. 2nd half, order was restored on D with Davis being shut down completely, we put up 17 points pretty quick and then started screwing around with the QBs again which flatlines the offense the last quarter. Expecting a better performance on Saturday.

The bigger issue is injuries. We were missing 4 starters on offense Saturday (2 best WRs and 2 best OL) and now Ott is questionable. Add in our best pass rushing threat being a doubt after an early injury and it is no surprise the line is moving up quickly. That said, I think the D is pretty good, especially if we can generate any pass rush at all. Offensively, the OL is a mess but has potential and we have decent depth at RB and excellent depth at WR and TE. If Mendoza can avoid mass quantities of turnovers at QB, we should score a bit.

Before the season, I thought we had a shot at you this time around. With the injuries now, not so much. We have a punchers chance but think the 14 point spread feels about right unless most of our MASH unit gets miraculously healthy in 5 days.

Injuries are always tough- especially on the line. Big bodied, great athletes are in high demand. On defense, upfront you probably need 6-8 hand on the ground guys minimum to get through these games.

On offense, the line has so much coordination that injuries can shuffle things so much and it can affect every adjacent position.

The RB although very good is less worrisome although you probably need 5 guys who won’t fumble and can pick up a blitz to make it through a season.

Football is a tough game. Quality depth matters.

I keep forgetting Cal is in the ACC now. That’s gotta really suck for travel.

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Pretty sure they’ve play Tennessee in the recent past.

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Their last trip to the south was 2019 when they beat Ole Miss 28-20 in Oxford.

its not too bad for football this year. A lot of miles but the trips are spaced out so it shouldn't be too bad (Weeks 2, 4, 7, 11, 14). We're leaving a day early on a charter each time so I dont anticipate travel fatigue, just bad coaching fatigue.

The other sports will suffer though, makes zero sense for non revenue sports to be going 2000+ miles every other week.

Every school has a pocket of die hards but it is nowhere near what the schools in the south and parts of the midwest have. Part of it is logistics, part culture. The stereotype is "there's so much to do there thats why no one comes to games" but I think thats BS. Bay Area was a very strong Pro region.

UCLA's stadium is far from campus
Same with SC but they at least have a lot of t shirt fans
Furd was struggling to pull 40k even when Harbaugh and Shaw had it rolling
Cal's stadium isn't easy to get to, there's extremely limited tailgating options and the neighbors are hostile. When Tedford had it rolling with Rodgers, Lynch, Jackson, et al, there were 60k every week...so it is possible at Cal but there needs to be an attractive product that is marketed appropriately. Havent quite figured that out recently.

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Line at -14 now

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Would be nice to not have a close one with them again. They basically gave us the game last year. We tried to give it to them but they just would not take it


We have way more overall talent but its not going to be a scrimmage like last week.

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Ott probable (had heard whispers he would possibly miss this one)

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He would get so much shite on Twitter

The last time AU was favored by more than 10 points against a P5 opponent was 2020 vs. Tenner. (I am excluding Vandy in this).

Been a while.