Cal vs. Kansas for Longest Streak of Losing Conference Records

Although Cal’s long-shot hopes of winning a football conference championship this season have been dashed, the Golden Bears still have an outside chance of ending an ugly streak that is hanging over their heads.

With a 1-3 record in Pac-12 games, Cal would need to win four of its final five games – three of which are against teams that are currently ranked – to finish with a winning conference record.

Why would that be significant? Cal has never had a winning conference record as a member of the Pac-12.

Not since 2009, when the conference was the Pac-10, have the Bears had more wins than losses in conference play. That 2009 Cal team had 18 players on its roster who played in the NFL, including two players – Lions wide receiver Marvin Jones Jr. and Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan – who are still in the NFL. And even that team barely finished with a winning conference mark. Jeff Tedford was the head coach of that Cal squad, which finished with a 5-4 Pac-10 record by beating 18th-ranked Arizona and 14th-ranked Stanford late in the season.

But the Bears have not had a winning conference mark since, and that includes no winning league records since Utah and Colorado joined the conference in 2011 to create the Pac-12.

That’s 13 consecutive losing conference seasons for the Bears. No other Pac-12 school has an active streak of more than five straight years of losing conference records. In fact, only one of the other 132 FBS schools has a longer such streak. That one school is Kansas, which has had losing conference records in each of the past 14 seasons.

However, the Jayhawks are 2-2 in Big 12 play this year and face only one ranked team (Oklahoma) in its final five games, giving a Kansas squad that was ranked in the top 25 a week ago a realistic chance of ending its onerous run of losing Big 12 seasons.

Cal, on the other hand, is attempting to end its streak in a Pac-12 conference that is stronger than it’s been in a decade.

Cal has a bye this weekend, but would have to win at least one of its next two games, against 18th-ranked USC (Oct. 28) and No. 9 Oregon (Nov. 4), to keep alive its chance of finishing with a 5-4 conference record. Then come games against Washington State, Stanford and No. 24 UCLA, so the odds are stacked against the Golden Bears, who are staring at a 14th consecutive year with a losing conference record.

So where will it all end? Next year Cal enters the Atlantic Coast Conference, which will be a 17-team league in football. The ACC this season does not have as many strong teams as the Pac-12, but Cal’s odds of ending its run of conference-play shortcomings will depend on the schedule Cal is dealt in 2024 since the Bears will face only eight of the other 16 teams in the ACC.

The conference record is probably a better way to judge a team’s status than its overall record since it can pack its nonconference schedule with patsies or challenge itself with top-notch nonconference foes. Cal had winning overall records in 2018 (7-6) and 2019 (8-5), but it helped that the Bears played an FCS team in each of those seasons.

Perhaps Cal can take heart in the fact that Oregon State had a streak of 27 straight years of losing conference records from 1972 to 1998, and now the Beavers are competing for a Pac-12 title.

Nor has Cal felt the suffering that Vanderbilt has experienced in the Southeastern Conference. Although the Commodores (0-4 in SEC play) are on the verge of “only” their 10th straight year with a losing conference record, they had 25 straight seasons of losing conference records from 1983 to 2007. And before they went 4-2 in the SEC in 1982, the Commodores had 22 consecutive seasons of losing SEC records from 1960 to 1981. That’s 47 losing conference records in a span of 48 years.

Cal is safe from that kind of football failure . . . right?

Cover photo of Cameron Jordan, who was a member of the last Cal team to have a winning conference record, is by Stephen Lew, USA TODAY Sports

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