01-17-2020, 12:36 PM
(01-16-2020, 11:57 PM)Madera86 Wrote: Has a bye week ever been helpful to us against a formidable opponent? It's human nature to recall the bad more often than the good, but I recall being shocked on more than one occasion by a poor performance following a bye week.
Going back to the beginning of the millenium and only considering full bye weeks:
2000: Lost to UA 3-27
2001: Beat ASU 51-28, lost to WSU 39-45
2002: Lost to ASU 24-65
2003: Beat BYU 18-14, lost to USC 21-44
2004: Lost to USC 28-31
2005: Lost to Oregon 20-44
2006: Lost to USC 0-42
2007: Beat SJSU 37-0, lost to Notre Dame 14-21
2008: Beat WSU 58-0
2009: Beat Oregon 51-42
2010: Beat WSU 38-28
2011: Beat UCLA 45-19
2012: No full-week bye
2013: No full-week bye
2014: Beat UW 20-13, lost to Utah 17-20
2015: No full-week bye
2016: Beat USC 27-10
2017: Lost to USC 24-42
2018: Beat UCLA 49-42
2019: Lost to Colorado 13-16
If there's one thing people have learned in Berkeley, it's that you can't put "Cal football" and "Rose Bowl" in the same sentence. The words just don't fit. You'd be better off linking "covered wagons" with "Mars travel." (Bruce Jenkins, Cal '70, SF Chronicle, Nov. 11, 2017)