The Washington Huskies welcome the California Golden Bears to Montlake to open conference play. The Huskies come into the game with a top-10 ranking and an impressive win over a Big 10 program in Michigan State. Cal on the other hand has taken care of business against lower-tier teams and was tested with Auburn who is in year one of a rebuild.

The game against the Tigers was a failure for Cal as their usual problems on offense once again doomed the program.

Defensively the Golden Bears appear to have improved from last year. They bring back most players from the 2022 team.

The hope in Berkeley is that these defenders, especially in the secondary, have improved from the year before where they ranked 9th in the conference in passing yards allowed at almost 300 per game.

It’s still unknown how much of an improvement the Golden Bears have had as Auburn’s quarterback is former Michigan State signal caller Peyton Thorne failed yet again to throw 100 yards against a Pac-12 opponent. 

The defense is still led by Jackson Sirmon. The former Husky linebacker was named to the All-Conference first team a year ago and continues to be the catalyst of the defense.

Cal’s defensive line held Auburn to just 3.5 yards per carry. While the quarterback play didn’t help, it was still a SEC line they were able to beat.

Washington’s offense took a half last year to get into a rhythm in the matchup with Cal.  However, this team is lightyears away from where they were a year ago when they faced Cal. The Huskies were not yet ranked after dropping their only two games of the year but had righted the ship against Arizona.

The confidence and execution from this team since the Oregon game has shown they will be virtually unstoppable against a team like Cal.

Offensively the pass game is not going to be able to hang with the new and improved Washington secondary. Quarterback Sam Jackson is very dangerous with his legs, but his completion percentage hovers around 50-percent which Washington’s defensive backs should be able to take advantage of.

The way Cal can be successful against the Huskies is if they can get their run game going and eat up chunks of the clock. Michigan State tried this and it was wildly unsuccessful. The combination of Jaydn Ott and Sam Jackson has a big play ability that was not available to Michigan State. 

The Huskies will be able to score on Cal. I don’t see the Golden Bears slowing them down. The Huskies will continue to assault pass rushers and exploit mismatches in the passing game leading to another massive evening for Michael Penix. 

Until a team is able to loosen up the defensive line by punishing the defensive backs on a regular biases I don’t see a reason for the concern against this offense. Washington will probably force Sam Jackson to try to beat him with his arm. So far no one has been able to consistently run on this team. I don’t see that changing Saturday.

My Predictions: Washington -20.5 Under 59.5

Score: 45-13 Washington