CBS Sports Not Optimistic About Cal's 2023 Football Season

The site predicts Cal's wins and losses for the upcoming season and has the Bears losing to archrival Stanford

CBS Sports undertook the challenging task of predicting how many games each Power Five conference football team will win in 2023, and its projection was not kind to Cal.

In its report on Pac-12 teams, CBS Sports established an over/under number of wins that betting sites have set for each conference team, then offered its prediction of whether the team would exceed that number or fall short.

The over/under for Cal was five wins, which suggests a 5-7 season. But CBS Sports projects that the Bears won’t even be that successful, winning just four. Perhaps most annoying to Cal fans is that Cameron Salerno, the CBS Sports reporter who wrote the article, expects Cal to lose to Stanford. Not only is the Cardinal Cal’s archrival, but nearly every expert expects Stanford to finish last in the Pac-12.

CBS Sports assessment of Cal’s season also suggested that Justin Wilcox’s job might be in jeopardy if the Bears have a particularly poor season.

Here is the CBS Sports’ projection of Cal’s 2023 wins and losses.

Cal

Over/under 5 wins

Wins:

North Texas, Idaho, Arizona State, Washington State

Losses:

Auburn, at Washington, Oregon State, at Utah, USC, at Oregon, at Stanford, UCLA

Coach Justin Wilcox signed a large extension last offseason after he was reportedly a finalist for the Washington job. This could end up being a make-or-break year for Wilcox, though, as Cal has won only 10 total games (1-3 in 2020 during the COVID-shortened season) during the last three years. The Golden Bears haven't made a bowl game since 2019, and that streak is on the verge of prolonging unless they take a giant leap on both sides of the ball. Cal's QB this season will likely be TCU transfer San Jackson V, who spent time buried on TCU's depth chart behind Max Duggan and Chandler Morris last fall. Wilcox is a terrific defensive mind, and that side of the ball will be tested early with games against Auburn and Idaho, the latter of which is expected to open the season as a top-10 FCS team.

Pick: Under 5 (+100)

Cal's season will depend to a large degree on the success of quarterback Sam Jackson V, whose only college experience has come in mop-up duty, and on the success of new offensive coordinator Jake Spavital, who hopes to coax more out of a Cal offense that has been among the worst in the conference in Wilcox's first six seasons.

Cover photo of Justin Wilcox by Darren Yamashita, USA TODAY Sports

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