Cal Golden Bears Preview 2022: Season Prediction, Breakdown, Key Games, Players
Cal Golden Bears Preview 2022: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the Cal season with what you need to know and keys to the season.
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Cal Golden Bears Preview
Head Coach: Justin Wilcox, 6th year at Cal, 26-28
2021 Preview: Overall: 5-7, Conference: 4-5
Keys To The Season | Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Cal Top 10 Players | Cal Schedule & Analysis
Cal Golden Bears Preview 2022
It really is possible to have a good, winning team in the Pac-12 North.
Oregon State was good enough to go bowling last year. So was Washington State. Cal probably would’ve been able to get to six wins if it hadn’t been hammered with COVID issues before the Arizona game, but it shouldn’t have come down to that.
The program has the potential to rise up, Justin Wilcox really is a good head coach with a strong staff, but …
Enough. It’s time for Cal to start winning more college football games.
26-28 in five seasons and 15-25 in the Pac-12, Wilcox’s teams started out with great defenses, had a little bit of success with two straight winning campaigns, and now it’s just sort of … meh.
The offense was in the middle of the production pack last season, the defense slipped, and there wasn’t any consistency whatsoever. Now the team has to replace just about all the key parts, but there’s hope for a quick turnaround.
The Bears lost five games by a touchdown or less. Most of those were against mediocre-to-bad teams, but it’s not going to take all that much to finally break through.
No, this isn’t going to be a Pac-12 Championship season, but if the defense can get back to its previous form, and the offense confined something to rely on after struggling to average 24 points per game, this can all change in a hurry.
Cal Golden Bears Preview 2022: Offense
For all of its stalls and misfires, in some ways the offense had its best season yet under Wilcox. There was enough of a running game to take over at times – more on that in a bit – and the 5.9 yards per play were the most in five years.
There’s a whole lot of reworking to do with most of the starters gone, but some nice fill-ins from the transfer portal and the depth from last season will play a big role right away.
The running game loses leading rusher Christopher Brooks to BYU, but there was a good rotation with the 220-pound Damien Moore good enough to be the main man in the rotation. Even with all of the changes and shifts on the offense, the line should be good enough to keep pounding away.
This depth of last year will fill in the gaps, there should be a little shuffling of the deck – starting guard Ben Coleman might move to tackle – and everything will be fine as long as the line can continue to keep defenses out of the backfield.
Longtime starting QB Chase Garbers is done, but the spot was filled in fast with the addition of Purdue QB Jack Plummer. He’s a solid veteran who’ll take over without a problem, but the downfield passing game has to emerge even though most of the top targets are gone. However, leading returning receiver Jeremiah Hunter averaged over 18 yards per catch.
Cal Golden Bears Preview 2022: Defense
The Bears is loaded with defensive coaching talent, and now they’ve got the work cut out for them. The D was good overall, but it had a bad knack of not coming up with the big stop in the big moment.
It was awful on third downs, the pass rush was just okay, and it lost all three games when it gave up 200 rushing yards. Like the offensive side, most of the key parts have to be replaced. Also like the offense, there shouldn’t be that much of a concern with a good group seemingly ready to step in and fill the void.
The linebacking corps should be the strength Washington transfer Jackson Sirmon coming in to go along with 240-pound thumper Femi Oladejo on the inside and third-leading tackler Muelu Iosefa. The key will be to replace the pass rushing production of Cameron Goode on the outside, but Orin Patu is a veteran who’s been in the mix.
The line has good size across the from three, with 340-pound Ricky Correia a big body on the nose and Ethan Saunders taking on a bigger role at one end. Getting Xavier Carlton from Arizona State will help the pass rush.
The secondary can hit. Leading tackler Daniel Scott is back after an 82-stop season, and Lu-Magia Hearns is a quick veteran corner. The Bears didn’t get gouged through the air after the first part of last season, but they also didn’t face a slew of high-powered passing games over the second half of the campaign. There aren’t that many on the schedule this year, either.
Keys To The Season | Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Cal Top 10 Players | Cal Schedule & Analysis
Cal Golden Bears: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats NEXT
Cal Golden Bears: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats
Cal Golden Bears: Key To The 2022 Offense
Get that power ground game moving
It all ties together in the Cal style of play. Run, try to control the tempo, expect the defense to be solid, and don’t force the passing attack to do anything crazy.
The Bears were way too hit-or-miss on the ground last year, and it mattered. They were able to beat USC when the rushing attack wasn’t working, but that was the only time they won when rushing for fewer than 165 yards.
Over the last four seasons they’re 15-1 when they hit 165. And on the flip side …
Cal Golden Bears: Key To The 2022 Defense
Hold up against the run
The Justin Wilcox era started with a win at North Carolina despite giving up 219 rushing yards to the Tar Heels. Since then, Cal is 0-16 when giving up 190 rushing yards or more.
Again, like it is with the offense, controlling the ground game, keeping scores low, and relying on the tempo is a big deal to the Bears. When the other team is hammering away, Cal just doesn’t seem to have the ability to get past it.
The Pac-12 teams should be able to run a bit this year, and dealing with Notre Dame’s offensive line will be a problem. The big Cal line has to hold up.
Cal Golden Bears: Key Player To The 2022 Season
WR Jeremiah Hunter, Jr.
The 6-2, 200-pounder needs to go from being a dangerous piece of the puzzle to more of a No. 1 target. He’s got the size and he has the deep speed, but he doesn’t have a ton of starting experience and he only played in nine games last year.
The 21 catches for 388 yards and a score were nice, and the 18.48 yards per catch were terrific, but receiver is one of the team’s thinnest areas going into the season, and he’s what’s passes for a veteran in this group.
Cal Golden Bears: Key Transfer
QB Jack Plummer, Sr.
Washington LB Jackson Sirmon will be right up there – he might lead the team in tackles – but for this season to work, Plummer has to be fantastic.
The 6-5, 215-pound Purdue transfer saw plenty of time – throwing for 3,405 yards and 26 touchdowns with ten scores – but he couldn’t quite push through and take over the starting gig. With Aidan O’Connell coming back for a final year, Plummer needed a place to step in and start. Now there’s no question who the starting quarterback is.
Cal Key Game To The 2022 Season
at Washington State, Oct. 1
It’s a 50/50 game that should be the spark to a huge first half of the season. Assuming Cal is 3-1 – losing at Notre Dame but beating UC Davis, UNLV, and Arizona at home – beating Wazzu would be massive with a week off to follow before a winnable road game at Colorado. Beat the Cougars, and 5-1 is possible with Washington and Oregon in Berkeley up next.
Cal Golden Bears: 2021 Fun Stats
– 1st Quarter Scoring: Cal 77 – Opponents 33
– Fumbles: Opponents 12 (lost 7) – Cal 7 (lost 2)
– Rushing Yards Per Attempt: Cal 4.9 – Opponents 3.9
Keys To The Season | Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Cal Top 10 Players | Cal Schedule & Analysis
Cal Golden Bears Season Prediction, What Will Happen NEXT
Cal Golden Bears Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Usually teams the lose as many key parts as Cal does would be thrown into the “rebuild” category – or at least they’d be considered in need of a major rework. But that’s not really the case here.
They overall system set up by Justin Wilcox and the staff rotates in enough good parts to have players at the ready, and despite losing a ton through the transfer portal, the guys coming into the mix will be difference makers.
Set The Cal Golden Bears Regular Season Win Total At … 6.5
It’s not really right to say Cal hasn’t been able to get much of a break over the last five years with various COVID issues and restrictions, tough schedules, and a few key bad break injuries, but the program is overdue for one of those everything-went-right runs.
It starts with an extremely favorable schedule with no Utah from the South – missing Arizona State isn’t an awful thing, either – and with USC the toughest conference road date.
Oregon, Washington, and UCLA all have to come to Berkeley. Winning at least one of those is a must, beating UC Davis, UNLV, and Arizona at home – although the Wildcats aren’t a pushover this season – has to be a given, and there are more than enough 50/50 games to easily get bowling and push for at least seven wins.
Keys To The Season | Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Cal Top 10 Players | Cal Schedule & Analysis
