Cal Is Bowl-Eligible, So Which Bowl Will the Bears Play In?

With the upset of Louisville giving Cal (6-4) the sixth win needed to become bowl-eligible, it leads to the next question: Which bowl will host the Bears and who will be their postseason opponent?

The nine respected college football experts who provide bowl projections don’t seem to have an answer.

The nine sites we cited predicted eight different bowl destinations for Cal, with the Hawaii Bowl being the only one mentioned twice. The Bears’ bowl opponent is equally uncertain with the nine experts predicting seven different possible postseason opponents for Cal, with Baylor and Boise State being the only opponents predicted twice.

Cal only has two regular-season games left – a November 22 road game against Stanford and a November 29 home game against SMU – so you’d think that the bowl pairings would be more definite by now.

More peculiar is that only four of the nine sites place Cal in a Pac-12-affiliated bowl, which is where the Bears would be expected to go.

Teams that were members of the Pac-12 in 2023, which includes Cal, have tie-ins with Pac-12-affiliated bowls this season. But the Hawaii Bowl, Frisco Bowl, First Responder Bowl and Texas Bowl don’t have tie-ins with the Pac-12.

The six bowls that have tie-ins with the Pac-12 are listed at the end of this report.

Presumably Cal’s postseason destination will become clearer in a week or two.

Here the projections this week:

ESPN (Kyle Bonagura)

Hawaii Bowl – Cal vs. Boise State

Wednesday, December 24

Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex (Honolulu)

5 p.m., ESPN

ESPN (Mark Schlabach)

Sun Bowl – Cal vs. Miami

Wednesday, December 31

Sun Bowl Stadium (El Paso, Texas)