(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
Forget about California's first three opponents for the 2009 season. Think of them as totally meaningless games. The teams Cal faces in its first three games—Maryland, Eastern Washington, and Minnesota are are all non-conference opponents.
Think of these initial games for Cal as being mere warm-ups to prepare for PAC-10 conference play. These three games, two at home and one away, will be a chance to to get the chinks out of Cal's defensive armor and to iron out the wrinkles of the Golden Bears' offense.
For sure, these games will have an impact upon Cal's final rankings at the end of the season and may even have BCS implications, but let's just forget about them for now. Besides, Old Blues don't care about the BCS anyway. It is the Rose Bowl that they want.
The real season for Cal begins September 26th, when Cal opens their PAC-10 season away in Eugene, Oregon versus the Ducks. Only one week later, Cal faces the USC Trojans at home. Beat these two teams back-to-back in early conference play and the Golden Bears are well on their way to being a true PAC-10 contender next year. Lose both of these games in a row and Cal fans will spiral into a dark depression which will last all season.
Assuming the Golden Bears are 2-0 in PAC-10 play after the aforementioned games, the real barriers for Cal next season will likely come against Oregon State and Arizona, but both of these games will be played at home in Berkeley.
I know that at this point, Oregon and Trojan fans alike are most likely scrolling ahead to the "leave a comment" section of this article to say what a complete moron I am and to tell me that I don't know what I am talking about. If so, I thank those USC and Oregon fans for their participation and wish them well next season.
For those of you that are still with me, here is my logic:
Every Golden Bear fan, heck, every PAC-10 fan for that matter, knows that Oregon and USC are both very beatable. Cal has played both teams extremely tough in nearly every matchup over the past several years.
Cal nearly owns Oregon when they are in Berkeley (Duck fans have grown used to leaving Cal's Memorial Stadium as losers while being taunted by numerous Cal fans' wooden duck calls) and Cal broke the Oregon wining streak against them up in Autzen a couple of seasons ago so that spell is broken for now.
As for the Trojans of late, they always seem to mail one in early in PAC-10 play—most likely having read too many of their own press clippings early in the season. Given that the Trojans open PAC-10 play against cream puffs Washington and Washington State, Cal will be waiting to trip them up.
If the Bears can knock off the Ducks in Autzen Stadium—a noisy and difficult venue to play in to say the least, the Trojans will seem like easy street at home the following week.
Cal will beat Oregon in Eugene in a close game. Oregon is a team in transition with a new head coach.
Cal will then beat USC at home the following week. I don't believe it will even be that close of a game. Cal will win and win decisively. Cal always rises to the occasion early in the season at home against tough opponents with their roaring home crowd behind them. USC had better be ready when they come to Strawberry Canyon next season.
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