With all of the defections at least three 5-7 teams made bowls: Appalachian State, Rice and Mississippi State. So Stanford finished just one win short of bowl eligibility!
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)