Cal Football: Bears to Go Bowling in LA or Shreveport or El Paso or ...?

Cal doesn’t open its season until Nov. 7 against Washington.

Boise State gets on the field two weeks earlier, on Oct. 24 against Utah State.

That’s how their schedules begin and a pair of ESPN college football writers are projecting the Bears and Broncos will finish the season on the same field, matched against one another in the inaugural LA Bowl at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

Cal and Boise State have never met, but the Broncos have won at least eight games for 20 consecutive seasons and have averaged 11.5 victories over those two decades. They are 16-13 all-time vs. current members of the Pac-12, including 3-0 vs. Oregon.

There is no date yet established for the LA Bowl, owing to the uncertain landscape of college football in the COVID-19 era.

The game is contracted to feature teams from the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences.

Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach of ESPN were tasked with the speculative mission of projecting bowl matchups, in this case before either team has even played a game.

Bonagura and Schlabach both pick Clemson to face Georgia and Alabama to play Ohio State in the College Football Playoff semifinals, with Clemson and Alabama advancing to the national championship game on Jan. 11 at Miami.

Oregon is the only Pac-12 team ESPN anticipates making a New Year’s Six bowl, and both see the Ducks playing in the Fiesta Bowl. Bonagura is projecting Oregon vs. Penn State, while Schlabach has the Ducks facing Notre Dame.

Of course, making bowl projections this early is mostly just a fun exercise.

As Bill Bender of the Sporting News wrote, “Trying to put together realistic projections for all the bowls at this point is almost impossible.”

There are two fewer bowls on the schedule now than a week ago after the cancellation of the Hawaii Bowl and the Bahamas Bowl due to the coronavirus and travel restrictions. The Santa Clara-based RedBox Bowl previously announced it would cancel its 2020 game.

For now, at least, there are expected to be 39 bowl games.

— Meanwhile, Jerry Palm for CBS has more faith in Boise State and apparently less in the Bears, whom he omits altogether from his bowl projections. Palm has Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl.

Palm also projects Ohio State and Alabama meeting in one of the national semifinals, with fourth-seeded Oregon facing No. 1 seed Clemson in the other.

— The Sporting News projects Cal to face Pitt in the Sun Bowl at El Paso, Texas. The Panthers began the season with a 3-0 record, including a victory over Louisville, before losing 30-29 to North Carolina State last week.

Pitt has a 3-2 all-time series record vs. Cal, but the teams have not played since 1966.

— College Football News projects Cal to play Army in the Independence Bowl at Shreveport, Louisiana. The Black Knights who were 5-8 last year, already have played four games this season.

Army is 3-1 with wins over Middle Tennessee, Louisiana-Monroe and Abilene Christian and a 24-10 road loss to No. 11 Cincinnati.

Cal is 2-4 all-time vs. Army, but the Black Knights have not beaten a current member of the Pac-12 since their 26-19 win over the Bears in 1980.

(Quirky note: Army and Oregon have played twice, with both games ending in ties: 17-17 in 1969 and 22-22 a year later).

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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