Golden Bears report: Inside slant
Cal's final regular-season game seems a bit anticlimactic, but the Bears do have some extra motivation other than just picking up their eighth win of the season.
Two weeks after beating rival Stanford 37-16 in the Big Game, Cal finishes at home against winless Washington, which will be playing its final game for fired coach Tyrone Willingham.
It sounds like it should be a walkover for the Bears ... at least until the coaches put on the game film of last season's game. Washington won 37-23 in Seattle on Nov. 17.
Since then, the Huskies have lost 13 consecutive games.
"They put it to us pretty good," coach Jeff Tedford said of last year's game. "In our six years here, we'd never been physically punished like that."
That isn't expected to happen this time around, unless its Cal doing the punishing with its strong running attack and tough defense. The Bears (7-4 overall, 5-3 Pac-10) would finish alone in fourth place in the conference with a victory.
Potential bowl destinations for Cal are the Las Vegas Bowl and the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco. A factor in that is who wins the Arizona-Arizona State game.
If Arizona wins, Las Vegas and the Emerald likely would "trade" teams because of each bowl's preference. Las Vegas covets the bowl-starved Wildcats, while the Emerald would like to have the hometown Bears.
But if ASU wins, Las Vegas figures to stick with Cal over Arizona and ASU, each of which would have only six victories.
Copyright (C) 2008 The Sports Xchange. All Rights Reserved.
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