There are 17 Power 5 vs. FCS matchups in Week 1. Which FCS team do you think has the best chance of pulling off the upset? —Isaac H.

I’ll go with Dan Hawkins’ UC-Davis Aggies against Cal. They beat a decent Tulsa team last season and reached the FCS Playoffs. Cal lost a bunch of four-plus year starters from last season, including QB Chase Garbers, and could be vulnerable to a Week 1 clunker.


Putting up the bat signal for the angry delusional homer brigade.

Annddd here it is!

We've got one more piece coming out on UC Davis sometime today, but lets get the mailbag rolling so we can move onto the Rebels. Drop any and all questions underneath!

against Notre Dame. That could very well change the trajectory of our season and future recruiting...Way too early I know...Forgive my optimism.

Another story coming from Jesse too.

This has come up a ton in some of the conversations about the start of the season. I personally am on the 8-4 optimism bandwagon, and if that's to be achieved, here's what I want to see:

- I think we want Jadyn Ott to get a TON of play, both to get him comfortable in the offense, but also to show some offensive energy in the highlights. A game against an FCS team like UCD can only be so helpful in terms of expectations and outside thoughts about the team, but showing some juice from someone like Ott could help.
- Plummer should throw at least a few deep shots, if only to work on timing.
- Millner gets 1-2 drives in the fourth quarter.
- I'd love to see a takeaway or two on defense.
- BRETT JOHNSON and Ethan need to get into the backfield.
- We should hold UCD to 1-2 scores while our 1s are in.
- No serious injuries please.

I have serious questions about our OL, and I don't think we'll be able to answer them against UCD. But boy I'll be worried if they don't look good.

It's only one game but I'm liking what I see so far!!!! Roll On!!!!!!!

You could complain about our dominating win. Or you could watch Stanfurd struggle against Colgate.

I'm in section 118 ... where you at?

Does anyone know how to stream the game?

We're going to run a season-long Guess The Score contest for prizes. Here's how it works (no matter how many times I've explained the scoring system to my USC audience there are some who still don't understand it, but I promise it's very easy.)

Weekly contest

This is simple. Whoever is closest to the final score gets two free months tacked on their subscription. If anybody hits the score exactly, we throw in a $50 Amazon gift card. (Limited to the first two people who submit a correct guess in the weekly thread). So how is "closest to the final score" calculated? Very simple -- total of how many points off you are from both teams' score. For example, if you guess 31-14 Cal over UC Davis and the actual score is 24-10, then you were 7 off on Cal and 4 off on Davis, which equals 11. Your score is 11 for that week. Like golf, lowest number wins. Whoever is closest, wins the week.

Season contest

Same scoring system but averaged out over the course of the season. I will start the season standings after Week 3 or 4 when there is enough data to form meaningful rankings. But let's say your weekly scores were 20-24-21-23, then obviously your score for the standings is 22 (the average of those four). Except there's a wrinkle, everyone gets to write off two weeks of the season. So that will either be two weeks you forgot to submit a guess or your two worst scores. If you play every week, your two worst scores drop from your average. If you miss more than two weeks, you're no longer eligible for the season prize, but you can still compete for the weekly contest.

I'll warn you now, especially after a handful of weeks it becomes a BEAR to calculate the standings, and I cannot promise when they'll post each week. It just comes down to when I have time, and obviously the priority is on stories/reporting. So just brace yourself now, the standings could come on Sunday night, or Friday night or anywhere in between.

Prizes for season contest:

First place -- $100 Amazon gift card, 6 free months subscription

Second place -- $50 Amazon gift card, 4 free months subscription

Third-fifth places -- 4 free months subscription

Questions, thoughts?

Feel free to use this thread for the Week 1 predictions. You can change your guess at any point during the week. I will lock the thread before kickoff, though.

Right here:

last minute change of plans.

2 bench back seats, level c, section f

email me: lanway@gmail.com

go bears!!

It’s about bloody time. No more evaluations, assessments, opinions, hopes, or dreads based on thin evidence. This has felt like the longest offseason ever. It’s finally time for some real hitting and some real football. Finally!

Go Bears!

A weekly feature we'll run every Friday

“With all due respect to the Aggies teams of the past, I think this is the best Aggie team in the history of Aggie football,” Hawkins said in a media session on campus as his club prepares for its opener at Cal on Saturday. “We have more quality players up and down our roster than we’ve had here in the Division I era.

8th in the pac-12. This includes transfers.

Fan bases of College Programs

Just below Arizona!?!? We suck with young people so the sucking of our FB team over the last decade has not endeared them to the Cal Student base! Hopefully our location and academic prestige carry to us to the Big10 promise land. Yes, we will take a starting 50% payout increasing over 5 years! Where do we sign!

Jesse will be out there tomorrow as Cal gets going.

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A Cal player made the list: https://portal.rivals.com/news/ranking-the-pac-12-s-top-transfer-portal-additions-for-2022

In case anyone missed any or wants to refer back to any of Jesse's camp previews ...

QBs
RBs
WRs/TEs
OL
DL/OLBs
ILBs
DBs