California embarks on their new life on the Atlantic Coast
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Photo by Connor Buestad - Section925
By Connor Buestad | Connor@Section925.com
Way back in the Woodrow Wilson era, during the year 1916, the California Golden Bears took to the gridiron to play their first year of football in the “Pacific Coast Conference.” Back then, it fielded just four teams, including Washington, Oregon, Oregon State and Cal. Over the last century, the conference slowly added eight more teams, morphing into the PAC-8, then the PAC-10 and finally the PAC-12. After 108 seasons, and the heartbreaking passing of the legendary Bill Walton at the bitter end of it all, the “Conference of Champions” era has sadly come to a close. The Bears are headed to the Atlantic Coast for better or worse. If Walton were still alive, surely he’d find the bright light in all this. Somehow... in the strangest of places... if you look at it right.
The 2024 schedule for the Bears looks odd, exciting, and familiar all at the same time. It features road games to legendary football campuses at Auburn and Florida State, as well as perplexing conference road trips to Southern Methodist University, Wake Forest and Pittsburgh. The year starts at home with a familiar tune-up versus UC Davis and the Bears will also play host to traditional PAC-12 foes like Oregon State and Stanford. Eventually, it might all make some sense, just not yet.
In case you needed an update on the conference realignment at large, here are some bullet points of note. The BIG-10 now has 18 teams, the SEC is up to 16 and the BIG-12 now actually has 16 teams as well. In addition, the College Football Playoff no longer features a final four format. Just like the conferences themselves, the CFP has ballooned up to a 12-team bracket with the first round starting December 20th and the National Championship culminating a month later on January 20th in Atlanta.
2018 was the last time the Bears found their name printed in the Top-25, so let’s not get our hopes up about this 12-team playoff business quite yet. But a bowl game? Yes that’s something Old Blues can once again (cautiously) pin their hopes to.
Last year, Cal qualified for a bowl game behind the refreshingly exuberant QB Fernando Mendoza and the electrifying running back Jaydn Ott. Fortunately, neither of the two fan favorites were lured away by the transfer portal. 2023 hit a low point when the Bears bottomed out on a four game losing streak mid season, only to have Mendoza galvanize his troops and reel off a three game winning streak to barely qualify for a bowl game.
Now in the 17-team ACC, Cal is swimming in some deep waters that includes the likes of Florida State, Clemson, Miami, Louisville and Virginia Tech. The SEC it is not, but look around the league and you find traditional college football powers in more than a few spots.
As is typically the case, Vegas is expecting Cal to go .500 again this year, with their predicted win total slated at 6.5. They are supposed to finish 10th in the conference while their west coast brethren Stanford is forecasted to finish dead last in their inaugural year as an ACC member. The “east coast bias” effect has already hit the Cardinal even before the first media day, it appears.
Justin Wilcox is back for his eighth year at the helm in Berkeley and the traditionally defensive minded coach has made the right hires lately where Cal’s offense has been its biggest bright spot. Needless to say, teams like Auburn, Florida State and Miami will quickly show us what Cal’s defense can handle early in the year. By early October, if the Bears are still in one piece, a back-to-back trip to a bowl game will look very promising. Cal’s last four games will serve as a sprint of sorts, all winnable games at Wake Forest, home vs. Syracuse and Stanford and finishing at SMU in Texas.
As hard as it is to say, the mourning period of the PAC-12 will have to come to an end at some point, as difficult as it may be to let go of all the west coast memories. What Would Bill Walton Do? is a fair question to ask. We’ll never know for sure, but it likely includes a tie-dyed “Conference of Champions” shirt, an alarmingly large smile and a full Saturday of college football filled with long-meandering-half-baked stories from the past.
