BERKELEY — Ahhh, the crisp smell of leaves amid the pageantry and tradition of college football.
And when you think of college football in the fall, you certainly think of Friday night games, Atlantic Coast Conference football at a venue overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and Bill Belichick.
Wait, what?
Yes, it is indeed a strange moment for America’s most absurd sport, which is truly outdoing itself these days. Not an ounce of this makes sense. Not a bit of it is normal.
But for the Cal Bears, it’s a strange moment they need to seize.
Because for a program that has long needed a big-stage, course-setting breakthrough win, one has presented itself on a peculiar day in a bizarre league against a weird opponent.
The eyes of the college football world, and perhaps even the sporting world, will be on Berkeley Friday, albeit for perverse reasons:
Belichick, arguably the greatest NFL coach of all time, is trying his hand at the college game this season for North Carolina.
It’s not going well.
What started with palace intrigue in Chapel Hill (the athletic director being overridden by boosters to hire Belchick) then led to bedroom intrigue (what’s going on there?!). Now there’s coaches’ room intrigue (who would have thought Michael Lombardi couldn’t effectively run a college football program?). It’s all resulted in three straight blowout losses, a woeful 2-3 record, and a dreaded vote of confidence less than two months into Belichick’s first season.
And after a week off to rest, recuperate, and reshuffle a few things, the Bears have been granted the incredible opportunity to “Kill Bill”, if you will.
Not literally, of course.
But on the scoreboard and perhaps in the eyes of football fans and perhaps even the still-fawning North Carolina administration? Absolutely.
A nation will tune into the only game in town on Friday night to see if Belichick is getting his teeth kicked in again, an in the process, they might look upon Cal head coach Justin Wilcox’s defense (restocked with more NFL talent), or his could-be-superstar true freshman quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele and think “hey, there’s something good happening at Cal.”
Because I might see it, and you might think it, but outside of the East Bay, I’m not sure many folks remember Cal exists.
Now they have a captive audience, even if they’re all just gawking at the car crash on the other sideline.
“It’s a great opportunity. Friday night game, national television, great opponent. The energy is going to be fantastic. I’m really excited for our team, not just for those reasons, but because we get another chance to go out there and play our best game. And what does that look like?
You know, if we go play our best game and we play like we’re capable of… I think real good things will happen.
There’s only so many chances you get.”
It was a chance the Bears — led by now-Indiana quarterback and Heisman frontrunner Fernando Mendoza — failed to take last season when ESPN’s College Gameday came to town for the game against Miami; a game the Bears were controlling, up 20, until it all unraveled in the fourth quarter.
Ask any Bears fan, and they’ll tell you it felt like a lot of the air came out of the program’s balloon when Cam Ward hit Xavier Restrepo for 77 yards with 1:42 to play in the game.
It’s time to reinflate it.
The program will tell you that one game doesn’t define a trajectory. Respectfully, when you’re Cal, it absolutely does. Attention is the currency of the sport now, and the Bears flushed a duffel bag full of it down the toilet against Miami.
That attention might not be back at the same levels this time around, but Friday is another chance, nevertheless. Cal needs to make the most of it, not just for this season, but for the seasons to come. Momentum is granted only through external validation and modern college football is anything but provincial.
If the Bears are going to be a consistent top-25 team again — a contender for the ACC crown in years to come, perhaps — this is a stepping stone game.
The whole setup is ridiculous. The circumstances are absurd. It’s everything wrong, and therefore everything right, with college football in 2025.
Folks will be watching Friday to see a legend fail. They’ll be watching for the schadenfreude. They’ll tune in for the memes.
But they’ll be watching.
America, meet the Cal Bears once again.
Cal, what do you have to say for yourself?