{"id":34533,"date":"2014-07-22T13:30:49","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T18:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=34533"},"modified":"2014-07-22T12:51:43","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T17:51:43","slug":"2014-california-golden-bears-team-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/2014-california-golden-bears-team-preview-34533\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 California Golden Bears Team Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

California Golden Bears
\nHead Coach:\u00a0 Sonny Dykes
\n2013-14 Record:\u00a0 1-11, 0-9 Pac-12 Conference
\n2013-14 Bowl Result:\u00a0 N\/A
\nOdds to Win National Championship:\u00a0 Field +2142<\/strong><\/p>\n

Returning Starters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Offense:\u00a0 9, Defense:\u00a0 6<\/p>\n

Offense<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The California Golden Bears were easily the worst team in the Pac-12 Conference last year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A number of underclassmen that contributed last year should pay dividends for the program in 2014, especially with sophomore Jared Goff back under center, who broke school single-season records for passing yards and total offense.<\/p>\n

Goff\u2019s primary targets will be junior receivers Chris Harper and Bryce Treggs, as they combined for 147 catches and 1,603 yards last year.<\/p>\n

Golden Bears running back Khalfani Muhammad has the opportunity to be one of the more dynamic players in the Pac-12 Conference, as he ran for 445 yards and set a school record for kickoff return yards.<\/p>\n

Defense<\/strong><\/p>\n

California had 11 players who were starters or projected starters to begin the season miss action on this side of the football, as new coordinator Art Kaufman takes over a youthful bunch, but experienced returners are available with six sophomores.<\/p>\n

The squad gave up a Pac-12 high 341 passing yards per game last year\u2014an area that must improve with safety Michael Lowe leading the charge after tallying a team-high 67 tackles last year.<\/p>\n

Schedule<\/strong><\/p>\n

College football handicappers need to be careful when backing this program, considering it faces the ninth-toughest scheduled in he country, with Northwestern and BYU lined up as two of its three non-conference foes.<\/p>\n

Dykes could manage to put together a three to five-win season, but things get tough after facing Colorado on Sept. 27, especially taking on UCLA, Oregon and traveling on the road to Oregon State in a three-week stretch in October.<\/p>\n

Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s nowhere to go but up for a team that was minus-15 in turnover differential and ranked last among BCS teams in both offensive and defensive yards per game.<\/p>\n

California has actually lost 16 consecutive games against FBS opponents, which could prove to be too much to overcome with a defense that allowed an incredible 530 yards and 45.9 points per game.<\/p>\n

Goff will need to be special behind an offensive line that moves up to 73 career starts and enters its second year in Dykes\u2019 system.<\/p>\n

Make sure to become a long term subscriber for the best college football picks anywhere for the upcoming 2014-15 NCAA football season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

California Golden Bears Head Coach:\u00a0 Sonny Dykes 2013-14 Record:\u00a0 1-11, 0-9 Pac-12 Conference 2013-14 Bowl Result:\u00a0 N\/A Odds to Win National Championship:\u00a0 Field +2142 Returning Starters Offense:\u00a0 9, Defense:\u00a0 6 Offense A number of underclassmen that contributed last year should pay dividends for the program in 2014, especially with sophomore Jared Goff back under center, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":29393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[2958,7747,8388,8389,5263,3620],"class_list":["post-34533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-california-golden-bears","tag-jared-goff","tag-khalfani-muhammad","tag-michael-lowe","tag-pac-12-conference","tag-sonny-dykes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34534,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34533\/revisions\/34534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}