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What are you think of Cal's bowl chances at the moment so far?
Avinash Kunnath: They've dampened quite a bit after the Washington performance. Beating Washington would have made it really hard to not go to a bowl; this offense is too potent to lose five in a row. But losing now puts us in a situation where we're likely to be .500 going into Corvallis. I'm worried whether we'll have the depth and experience to finish the season strong; this is still a pretty young group in comparison to the rest of the conference, and if the losses start coming, who knows how they respond.
So that leaves November for me. Oregon State and BYU are the two games I can see victory; from what I've seen, the Beavers are okay but hardly spectacular and BYU is going to be the game we need to have. USC has too much skill on offense and Stanford defense is going to unleash unholy hell.
boomtho: Our remaining games, in order, are: UCLA, Oregon, Oregon State, USC, Stanford, and BYU. I think we are large underdogs against Oregon and Furd, medium underdogs against UCLA and USC, and roughly even (or even slightly favored?) with Oregon State and BYU without Hill. That being said, I think we can still get to a bowl game. I think there's a great chance we end up with either 5 or 6 wins, but pretty doubtful we end up with 7+.
Ruey Yen: Still fairly good. Both the Oregon State and BYU (sans Hill) are winnable game, and I would like to think that we can get a big, signature upset win this year against one of UCLA, USC, Oregon, or Furd (preferably against Furd, of course). So there are still many ways to get to that 6th win. Now, whether 6 wins and bowl eligibility is enough for the the Bears to actually make a bowl game given the expected abundance of bowl eligible teams is a different story. i would feel that much more comfortable if the Bears can get a 7th win before we're seriously talking about going bowling.
Nick Kranz: Optimistic fans (I try to be one) often make the mistake of saying things like "We'll beat (collection of teams we'll be favored against) and pick off an upset or two against (collection of teams we won't be favored against)." That's obviously a dangerous line of thinking because it ignores the very real possibility that Cal will lose a game they are 'expected' to win. Like, say, against Washington.