What Will Cal Officials Do If Athlon’s Prediction for Cal Football Is Correct?

Athlon Sports posted a story this week in which it predicted the overall and conference records for all 136 FBS teams, and the prediction for Cal was not favorable, leading to speculation about how Cal officials would react to a disappointing season.

Athlon predicted Cal will wind up with a 5-7 regular-season record, which would mean a sixth straight season with a losing mark. It also predicted the Golden Bears will finish with a 2-6 record in ACC play, which would be the 16th straight season that Cal would finish with a losing conference mark

Predicting how Cal’s 2025 season will play out is more difficult than in any past seasons, partly because the Golden Bears’ roster has undergone a massive makeover with a huge number of players transferring in and out during the past offseason. However, the bigger reason for uncertainty is that Cal will begin the season with a true freshman (Jaron-Keawe Sagapoutele) as its starting quarterback, and you never know how a freshman quarterback will react to playing at the Division I college level until several regular-season games have been played.

But let’s assume that the Athlon’s prediction of a 5-7 regular season and a 2-6 conference record comes to pass. Would that cause Cal administrators to make changes in the program?

Cal football general manager Ron Rivera said he would consider eight or nine wins a successful 2025 season for Cal, and earlier this summer, he said on television, “Anybody who says 6-6 is OK is wrong.”

Rivera’s opinion matters a great deal, because he is the person responsible for hiring and firing the Bears’ head football coach. Furthermore, new Cal Chancellor Rich Lyons has said a .500 record in football is not good enough, although it is unclear whether he was talking about the 2025 season specifically or Cal football over the course of several seasons.

Justin Wilcox is beginning his ninth season as Cal’s head coach. His best season was 2019, when the Bears went 8-5 overall and 4-5 in the Pac-12. Since then Cal has gone 22-32 overall and 13-26 in conference games (Pac-12 and ACC).

He turned down an offer to become Oregon’s head coach in December 2021, and signed an extension to remain as Cal’s head coach instead.

Wilcox has two more years after this season left on his current Cal contract, which runs through the 2027 season. He is scheduled to make about $4.5 million this year and that would rise to about $5.2 million in the final year of the contract. This does not include retention bonuses and other bonuses.

In short, it would be expensive for Cal to dismiss Wilcox after this season, especially in this era of revenue-sharing with athletes.

This all probably becomes moot if Cal exceeds expectations and wins eight or nine games and finishes with a winning conference mark. It means Cal needs to fare well in its first four games against nonconference opponents – Oregon State, Texas Southern, Minnesota and San Diego State. Cal is a 3-point underdog for its opener on August 30 at 7:30 p.m. at Oregon State.

Here are Athlon’s projected final overall and conference records for ACC schools:

Clemson – 11-1 overall, 8-0 ACC

Miami – 10-2 overall, 7-1 ACC

Louisville – 9-3 overall, 5-3 ACC

SMU – 8-4 overall, 5-3 ACC

Georgia Tech – 8-4 overall, 5-3 ACC

Duke – 8-4 overall, 5-3 ACC

Florida State – 7-5 overall, 5-3 ACC

Pitt – 7-5 overall, 4-4 ACC

North Carolina – 7-5 overall, 4-4 ACC

Virginia Tech – 6-6 overall, 4-4 ACC

North Carolina State – 6-6 overall, 3-5 ACC