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How okay are you with Cal struggling with an FCS team? Acceptable or unacceptable, and why? Is it more anomalous or ominous?
Nick Kranz: A common mistake (that I myself am guilty of) is lumping every FCS team together. North Dakota State and Eastern Washington are different from Weber State and Cal Poly, who are different from Grambling St. and Presbyterian. If Weber State is in fact one of the better Big Sky teams (they might be!) then this is pretty understandable for a Cal team in transition.
Having said that, this would be significantly less acceptable in year 3 or 4 of a head coach's tenure, even against a top 25 level FCS program.
HydroTech: I'm definitely not okay with Cal struggling against an FCS team. While Cal played pretty poorly in the first 50 minutes of the game, they turned things around fairly nicely in the last 10. The last 10 minutes wasn't sheer Alabama-esque domination, but it was good enough for the win.
Cal's fortunes cannot be underestimated though. Cal dodged a sack forced fumble scoop and score touchdown which would have given Weber State 7 points before halftime. Cal also got lucky on a missed pass from the Weber RB to the Weber QB late in the 4th quarter which would have been a walk-in touchdown.
Despite these lucky follies playing a big role in Cal coming out with the win, I'm not mad or upset about how this game played out. Sometimes luck just goes your way. It seems like luck has favored Cal's opponents more than Cal in the past, so I'm willing to just enjoy this good fortune that the football gods have bestowed upon Cal this last week. That being said, Cal had great luck against North Carolina too. This run of good luck has me worried it will run out soon.
Ruey Yen: Given that I try to have basically zero expectation for Cal Football in 2017 in this rebuilding year, I wasn't too surprised to see the team struggles against a FCS team. I am hopeful that the offensive and defensive line plays will improve over the course of the season, but the real change will likely come later in the Wilcox era.
Bears made Weber State QB Canwell look like the second coming of Tim Tebow (the dominant college version), but the most important thing is that the Bears found a way to win. The defense may had some trouble stopping plays but they got some key turnovers. The offense was fairly dormant outside of the beginning and the end, but they made enough big plays. At the end of the game, the manageable but still hard goal of making a bowl game in 2017 is still very much alive.
atomsareenough: It's anomalominous. The problems are real, but I think we'll continue to improve all year.
Nik Jam: It was a huge wake up call for sure. This is a team that most experts predicted would go 3-9 or 4-8. The UNC win was great, but we were reminded that this team still has a long ways to go before we can start dreaming about the Pac-12 title game. Knowing that they're a young team, it can be understandable that they overlooked Weber, and our opponents took advantage of bad secondary play all game long... and you'd hope that'd be adjusted before other teams get the same idea.
ragnarok: It's acceptable right now -- barely -- given the state of the program and the change in leadership. Good FBS teams, teams that compete for conference championships and more, don't squeak by FCS programs, and this sort of outcome won't be acceptable in a couple of years.
boomtho: I'm not really happy with Cal struggling with Weber State, despite how the commentators were talking them up at the beginning of the game (which proved pretty prescient!). I'm sure I'm painting FCS teams with a broad brush, but you would not expect them to be dominant at the point of attack, on both sides of the ball... and you would also not expect them to swarm to the ball in the run game more effectively than Cal.
For me, those factors are incredibly ominous... especially after I watched USC beat Stanford, with both teams featuring highly physical offenses and defenses, with significantly more athleticism than our team has.