Cal Football: 1-9 in Their Past 10 Road Games, Bears Expected to Win Big at Colorado
The oddsmakers says Cal should beat Colorado decisively on Saturday.
The Bears opened as 14.5-point favorites to win on Folsom Field at Boulder, Colorado.
The folks who set betting lines know all about a team’s history, so they’re aware that Cal is 1-9 in road games since the start of the 2020 season.
Quarterback Jack Plummer, who transferred to Cal from Purdue this past offseason, has been involved in just two road games with the Bears.
But he believes the key to having success on the road is keeping things simple.
“I think just coming in, block out the noise and playing football,” said Plummer, acknowledging “it’s a little bit harder” on the road.
“Obviously, you’ve got to deal with the crowd. Just got to play our game and execute and things should take care of themselves.”
The betting line on the Cal-Colorado game says as much about the winless Buffaloes as it does about the Bears. CU has not come close to a victory in any of its five games, losing by an average margin of 43-13.
Even so, it’s worth noting Cal has been a road favorite three times the past three seasons and won just one of those games.
Favored by 1.5 points at Stanford last season, the Bears rolled to a 41-11 victory.
The Bears were 3.5-point favorites at Oregon State two years ago but lost 31-27.
Then there was last year at Arizona, where the Bears were tabbed as 12-point favorites to beat a team that had lost 20 games in a row. When COVID-19 protocols stripped Cal of 24 players, the Wildcats posted a 10-3 victory in an eyesore of a game.
This is not that. Cal (3-2, 1-1 Pac-12) expects to be fully equipped on Saturday against the Buffaloes (0-5, 0-2), whose season has gone so badly that head coach Karl Dorrell and the team’s defensive coordinator both were fired a week ago.
The Bears were point-spread underdogs in their other seven road games since the start of the 2020 season, losing all seven:
2022:
lost 28-9 at Washington State
lost 24-17 at Notre Dame
,
2021:
lost 42-13 at at UCLA
lost 24-16 at Oregon
lost 31-24 in overtime at Washington
lost 34-32 at TCU
.
2020:
lost 34-10 at UCLA
Coach Justin Wilcox’s teams haven’t always struggled on the road. His 2018 and ’19 squads, which played in bowl games, were 3-2 and 4-2, respectively, on their opponent’s field.
The 2018 team claimed road wins against BYU, Oregon State and USC, while the ’19 squad beat Washington, Ole Miss, Stanford and UCLA away from home.
Overall, in six seasons, Wilcox is 9-18 in road games. The 2017 Bears, his first team, were 1-5 on the road. They debuted with a 35-30 victory at North Carolina, then went 0-5 in Pac-12 games beyond the city limits of Berkeley, losing to Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Stanford and UCLA, the latter two by just three points each.
Cover photo of Colorado mascot Ralphie by Ron Chenoy, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
