Cal Football: Bears Set as 6.5-Point Favorite Over North Texas in Saturday Opener

Cal is favored by 6.5 points to beat North Texas on Saturday in its opener at Denton, Texas, according to SISportsBook.com.

Most sites list the Bears as a 7-point favorite, including Vegas Insider, MGM and Caesars.

Is the spread too much?

Not enough?

Just right?

The Mean Green visited Berkeley in 2019 and Cal jumped out to a 20-0 first-quarter lead before hanging on to win 23-17.

Yep, a six-point margin.

Well, we’re four years down the road from that and almost everything is different.

Cal is coming off three straight losing seasons and will debut Saturday with a new starting quarterback in Sam Jackson V and a rebuilt secondary that includes three transfers in the starting group.

North Texas has a new coach in Eric Morris — formerly the offensive coordinator at Washington State — and a new quarterback in Stone Earle, who threw a total of eight passes last season.

They’re also playing in a new conference, moving from Conference USA to the American Athletic Conference.

The Mean Green have played in bowl games the past three seasons, but that’s a little misleading. They actually are two games under .500 over that span and they lost all three bowls.

In fact, UNT has played in the postseason six of the past seven years, but is 0-6 in those bowl assignments.

The Bears are 3-2 in non-conference road games under coach Justin Wilcox, beating North Carolina, BYU and Ole Miss from 2017 through '19 before losing at TCU and Notre Dame the past two seasons.

North Texas is 2-8 all-time vs. current members of the Pac-12, with wins over Oregon State and Arizona State.

Cal was picked ninth by the media in the Pac-12, North Texas seventh in the 14-team AAC.

Kickoff Saturday is at 1 p.m. PDT and the game will be aired on ESPNU.

I’ll make my pick later this week.

Cover photo of Justin Wilcox by Darren Yamashita, USA Today

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

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