Post–Week 5 bowl projections: None of this appeals to me

The California Golden Bears have lost but one game, so how bad can our bowl projections reasonably be?

For me, terrible.

247 Sports projects us to play a meh opponent in the 4–1 (1–0 Mountain West) Wyoming Cowboys—an opponent against whom victory would offer little for us to gain. After a little “told ya so” about knowing we were overrated and how critical the four-game stretch of Arizona State, Oregon, Oregon State, and Washington State is, they officially proclaim that we will likely head to the Las Vegas Bowl, named after a gross, sleazy city.

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach is sending us to the Holiday Bowl to take on Jim Harbaugh’s 3–1 (1–1 Big Ten) Michigan Wolverines. A nice vacation spot and a nice opponent (in terms of national recognition), so things must be looking up, right?

Not to me.

As with last week, sources are pairing us with the 2–2 (0–0 Mountain West) Fresno State Bulldogs and Jeff Tedford. ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura (RIP, Pac-12 Blog) and CBS Sports both having us meeting Tedford in the Las Vegas Bowl.

At this point, maybe I should just accept that this is our new reality.