A Cal Win Over UCLA Puts Bears in Independence Bowl – Probably

A trip to Shreveport, La., would await Cal. But it’s possible a win over the Bruins would not get the Bears into a bowl, and there’s a minute chance Cal could be bowl-bound if it loses to UCLA

Let’s start with the most likely scenarios regarding Cal's bowl possibilities:

---A Cal win over UCLA in Pasadena on Saturday night would probably give the Bears a berth in the Independence Bowl on December 16 in Shreveport, La., against a Big 12 team.

---A Cal loss to UCLA would probably leave the Bears without a bowl berth for the fourth straight year.

That may be all you need to know, but college football being the way it is, with its unpredictability and selection nuances, requires other possibilities to be considered.

---Possibility No. 1

As of now, it appears the Pac-12 will get two teams into New Year’s Six bowls – Washington or Oregon in the College Football Playoff and Washington or Oregon in one of the other four New Year’s Six Bowls (Cotton, Fiesta, Peach and Orange). That leaves six other bowls with tie-ins to Pac-12: Alamo, Las Vegas, Holiday, Sun, LA and Independence. Five Pac-12 teams besides Washington and Oregon are bowl-eligible, which means the Independence Bowl, which has the final selection, would be left without a Pac-12 team unless Washington State (5-6) or Cal (5-6) wins its final regular-season game this weekend.

If WSU beat Washington or Cal beats UCLA to get to six wins, that team would go to the Independence Bowl under this scenario in which two Pac-12 teams get New Year’s Six bowl berths. If both Cal and WSU get a sixth win, the Independence Bowl gets its choice, and it presumably would take Cal since the Bears beat WSU head-to-head and would have a better conference record than the Cougars.

So a Cal win over UCLA, which is a 9.5-point favorite, would send Cal to Shreveport, located in the northwest corner of Louisiana. The opponent would be a Big 12 team, which at the moment looks like it could be Texas Tech or Iowa State or TCU, the latter coached by former Cal head coach Sonny Dykes. It’s also possible that the Big 12 will not have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill its Independence Bowl slot, leaving that bowl to search elsewhere for a bowl-eligible team that is not pegged to go to another bowl.

---Possibility No. 2

This could all change if only one Pac-12 team gets into New Year’s Six bowls, and it would not take too many upsets this weekend to make that happen. So if only one conference team – Washington or Oregon – gets to a New Year’s Six game, the other bowl-eligible Pac-12 teams would move down a peg in the six-bowl pecking order. Those remaining six bowl-eligible teams would fill the Pac-12’s allotment of bowls before a six-win Cal and/or Washington State team would be considered.

In that case, Cal would have to hope that another bowl needs to fill a vacancy so the Bears could slide into that slot.

As of Thursday morning, 68 teams were bowl-eligible to fill the 82 slots in the 41 FBS bowl games. That leaves 14 slots available, but 24 teams, including Cal and Washington State, still have an opportunity to get to six wins and become bowl-eligible. If more than 14 of those 24 teams get to six wins, some bowl-eligible teams will be left home without a postseason game to play in.

So Cal would have to hope that teams like Mississippi State loses to Mississippi on Thursday, or that BYU, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Utah State and a bunch of other 5-6 teams lose this weekend to open up a slot for the Bears somewhere. So it’s possible that Cal could beat UCLA this weekend and still be left without a bowl berth.

---Possibility No. 3

Which brings us to the possibility of Cal losing to favored UCLA, leaving Cal with a 5-7 record. In all likelihood that will end Cal’s season, but if there are not enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all 82 slots, some other teams would have to be given waivers to play in the postseason.

The first two vacancies would go to James Madison and Jacksonville State, which are ineligible for bowls because they are still transitioning to FBS status. However, if there are not enough bowl-eligible teams, then James Madison and Jacksonville State would get the first two available slots.

If bowl vacancies still remain, 5-7 teams would be invited to fill those spots based on which teams have the best Academic Progress Rate (APR). That has not been a factor for Pac-12 teams since the conference passed a rule in 2018 saying that 5-7 teams from its conference could not play in a bowl. However, Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury-News reported recently that the Pac-12 is seriously considering waiving that ban this season in the final year of the conference’s existence.

If that ban is waived, Cal would be back in the picture as a 5-7 team. But its APR does not put the Bears in a good position. Cal’s APR ranks tied for 36th among FBS teams, according to College Football News, and that is worse than a number of teams that could finish 5-7.

A lot of things would have to fall in place in Cal's favor for the Bears to earn a bowl berth with a 5-7 record. And would Cal even accept a bowl bid as a 5-7 team?

---The Likely Scenario Recap

So let’s go back to the most likely scenario for Cal to get a bowl berth:

---Cal beats UCLA.

---Oregon, a 13.5-point favorite, beats Oregon State.

---Washington, a 16.5-point favorite, beats Washington State.

---Oregon beats Washington in the December 1 Pac-12 Championship game in Las Vegas.

---Oregon goes to the College Football Playoff, Washington goes to the Fiesta Bowl, and Cal goes to the Independence Bowl.

Seems simple. Beating UCLA on Saturday night in Pasadena is the hard part.

Justin Wilcox was asked Tuesday whether he had any sense of which bowl Cal would go to if it beats UCLA. He gave a simple answer in the video below:

Cover photo of 2022 Independence Bowl by Petre Thomas, USA TODAY Sports

Follow Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

Find Cal Sports Report on Facebook by going to https://www.facebook.com/si.calsportsreport