Fire Starkey

Fair re: the FCS school but to be fair, it was 4 ypp and they are a top 20 team at that level. 2nd half, once we stopped trying to be ultra vanilla, they got about 50 yards so the potential is there. Maybe. Hahaha

Fair analysis…the D should be slightly better than last year. There is better depth at DT, flipped out a like for like ILB with the other ILB having starred the last half of the year to be PAC 12 Frosh DPOY and we got a “lockdown” corner from the portal plus really solid depth adds there.

So expect Cal to stack the box as you said but there are 2 very good cover corners and a safety that will be in NFL camps next season. You have some really nice receivers but Thorne has to prove to me that he has a pulse.

Cal health looking better than I expected so I think my previous 14 point Tiger win is down to 7-10 points. If Thorne is still junk, Cal can win this

Injury update on the Cal end

Ott probable (had heard whispers he would possibly miss this one)
Grayes (one of top 2 WRs who we thought was def out) is "hopeful of playing"

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.

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.

not yet, Wilcox is extremely quiet about injuries until he has to say something. We usually get updates on Tuesdays.

The worry is a concussion and how bad it was. Watching on TV there was a brief shot of him lying very stiff and his eyes were empty. He seemed to come to quickly but I have no doubt he was concussed. Years ago we had a terrifying situation with Jahvid Best in a similar circumstance (its on Youtube) so fans are extremely concerned. Jahvid was never the same that season after that injury. His was worse than Ott's but you don't mess around with player's brains no matter how vital he is to your pitiful offense.

Smack talk isnt my style unless a fanbase is overwhelmingly arrogant like USC and, I presume, Bama.

And I wont be on the thread during game time. My wife banishes me to the farthest room in the house away from her cause I have a tendency to shout, curse and cry in frustration during games. I live in Austin so it'll be a Texas whipping Bama's arse view party before our game to wrap the night up...

Crowd size should be 50-52k, Cal has tarped off a couple sections so 52k is a "sellout". Auburn only sold 4500 tickets out of its allotment of 5k but I expect a lot of your crew bought through secondary markets. Suspect you'll have about 8k there.

Good luck tonight. This "bitch" is hoping we kick your arse. ACC! ACC! ACC! :lol:

Thanks for the welcome, I enjoy mixing with other fans teams with a few notable exceptions. As I mentioned, Cal fans are extremely excited to visit Auburn next year although I suspect we'll be getting very familiar with the Southeast over the next few years with our acceptance into the ACC. We usually travel well for "unique" games, we brought 12k to Notre Dame last year for example. I expect my crew of 12-15 will be there next year for sure so early calls for tailgate recs! Ha...

Memorial stadium, now that we've spent $500M (or whatever it was) on renovations is really spectacular. The east side is built into a hill and as mentioned elsewhere, the Hayward Fault runs right through the stadium (thus the hefty price tag on reno). Above the stadium you'll see a few hardy souls sitting on the hillside...its a tradition called "Tightwad Hill" and our cannon is up there that gets fired when we score. In the stadium, pre renovations, you could see gaps in the walls and portions of the splintered wood bench seating from various shakes over the years...Built after WWI, the exterior has been largely preserved (the other part of the hefty reno cost) and the setting is truly one of the most spectacular in all of college football.

WARNING FOR VISITORS The walk to the stadium is all uphill. Its mostly a gradual slope but near the stadium it gets steeper and there is no parking nearby. So folks with mobility issues should be prepared. I believe there are limited opportunities for golf cart rides for older or mobility impaired folks but not sure how consistent it is.

Stadium holds 65k I think? Used to be much larger capacity but they sacrificed seats (that people weren't filling anyway) for better sight lines. From what I've heard, I think there will easily be 55k in attendance but I've also heard folks say sources on Twitter say there are less than 3k tickets left as of yesterday. Figure we'll see maybe 10k Auburn fans? We'll see...I will say the Cal fan base has been galvanized by the move to the ACC. The fan base is seriously pissed off at our leadership over how badly they botched the Pac12 TV negotiations and their lack of strategic foresight over how things shook out. So complacent and happy with winning national titles in swimming and water polo. Blech. That said, our NIL collective has been gearing up for the past year and looks to be extremely competitive. We'll have a whole new men's bball roster that I expect to win 20+ this season (after a delicious 3-29 record last year oy) and we raised $1.2M since Friday with the ACC news. So I expect Cal to go all in for the next 5-6 years to see if we can stay relevant in the next re-alignment kerfuffle that I expect in 2029 or so...

Tom Brady wanted to come to Cal (he is local) but we passed on him for a golden boy from SoCal named Pat Barnes. Never heard of him? Yeah...