It was fine-tuning day Friday for Cal and Hawaii as the Golden Bears and Rainbow Warriors prepared for Saturday’s season-opening game of the US college football season at Sydney’s Olympic stadium. The Oregon Duck have plenty of hype and still some questions entering the season, but the California Golden Bears will begin the process of answering on Friday evening. But the book must be taking a fair amount of action on the Rainbow Warriors, who are now 19.5-point underdogs. The game in Sydney, Australia, will be televised by ESPN and has attracted heavy betting all week.
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“I told him, ‘If you had one game left, we’d give it to you 50 times, ‘” Dykes said.
California field hockey is back in Berkeley for the first time in three seasons, hosting Northeastern in the inaugural game at Underhill Field to open the 2016 season on Sunday at 2 p.m. Admission is free, and parking as available in the Underhill Parking Structure directly underneath the field. It was brought to Sydney in an attempt to increase support for so-called “gridiron” in Australia, a country which keenly follows the National Football League and has provided several players, mostly punters and kickers from Australian rules football, to NFL teams.
It is hard to believe that College Football season is already back, meaning that the NFL, already in the Preseason, will be playing games for real soon enough. It is the first game of Gridiron involving major U.S. teams on Australian soil since the NFL’s Bronco’s and Chargers played a pre-season game here in 1999.
Graduate transfer Davis Webb is the x-factor and comes to California from Texas Tech with starting experience. He’s enrolled in Cal’s public health Masters program. He was replaced this offseason by Nevada offensive coordinator Nick Rolovich, a former quarterback (2000-01) and assistant coach (2003-04, 2008-11) at Hawaii. But that only usually involves the starting 15 players. Overall, the Golden Bears are 75-42-4 in all-time season openers. Hawaii, on the other hand, has to play at MI just a week later.
Lynch played at Cal from 2004 to 2006 (one season with Aaron Rodgers) and rushed for 3,230 yards and 29 touchdowns.
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The Bears are not being picked by many to represent the Pac-12 North Division, but they have a number of notable home games against quality opponents to prove themselves worthy: vs. Texas (9/17), vs. Utah (10/1), vs. OR (10/21), vs. Stanford (11/5) and vs. Washington (11/19).
