In advance of Saturday’s Big Game between Stanford and Cal, The Daily’s Winston Shi chatted with Connor Byrne, a columnist for The Daily Californian, to get perspective from both camps. 

Winston Shi (WS): Obviously Cal’s record has been disappointing, but has Cal improved over the course of the season?

Connor Byrne (CB): There hasn’t been any tangible improvement. The offense still hasn’t found a way to consistently score in the red zone, the offensive line has continued to struggle providing any sort of pocket and the defense hasn’t been able to stop anybody. A lot of that can be attributed to just an absurd amount of injuries. At one point in the season wide receivers Bryce Treggs and Chris Harper started working out with the defensive backs, as there were almost a few situations where there were just no other available cornerbacks to play. However, there have been a handful of players who have played the whole year without getting hurt, and they haven’t shown any real improvement. Cal’s most impressive game continues to be its opener against Northwestern, which is looking less and less impressive given that the Wildcats have imploded in recent weeks.

WS: Cal played probably the hardest schedule in the country to open the season: Northwestern, Ohio State and Oregon. I guess you could say that the nail-biter against an FCS team was a harbinger of bad things to come, but if Cal had played a less brutal schedule do you think the team would be playing better now?

CB: ‪It’s definitely possible, but given how it struggled against Portland State, I’m not sure that an easier schedule would have made much difference in terms of how the team would be playing right now. More so than anything else, injuries have been the No. 1 reason for the Bears’ struggles. At this point they currently have two of the 11 projected defensive starters back in spring playing. They could have played one of the easiest schedules in the country and continued to struggle given how many players they’ve had miss significant time on both sides of the ball.

WS: But Cal has always been able to recruit, even in the down times. It was a failure to develop offensive line talent that doomed former head coach Jeff Tedford, but even last year’s Cal team beat UCLA like a drum: What happened then that Cal isn’t replicating now? Where are the recruits on defense? Is there any depth?

CB: What’s killing them is the 2010 recruiting class that was supposed to be their greatest defensive class in years, which included 5-stars Keenan Allen and Chris Martin. There is almost zero presence of a senior class right now, as most players from that class never saw the field and either transferred or quit the team. This is one of the youngest teams in the country, largely due to the fact that there just aren’t many upperclassman that have proven they can contribute meaningful playing time. The recruiting classes over the past few years have continued to be ranked relatively well, which would lead one to believe that Cal’s current problems lie in their inability to develop talent over the past few years. But they also might have just got unlucky and just signed a bunch of misses.

WS: ‪So is there hope? ‪The story goes that Stanford only started improving after Tedford built a winner in Strawberry Canyon — it lit a fire under the Stanford fan base. This season may be difficult, but do you at least believe that Stanford’s resurgence has ignited the Cal fan base? Even if this season is lost, what hope do you see coming?

CB: ‪I think Stanford’s success probably irks much of the Cal fan base, but I wouldn’t go as far to say it has “ignited” it. The Cal fan base started to get pretty upset with the direction of the football team in late 2007, and has continued to demand a return to relevancy. As far as the future, I think most people are taking a wait-and-see approach with the Sonny Dykes regime. Most would agree that defensive coordinator Andy Buh seems like a bad hire even despite the rash of injuries, as he hasn’t been able to make any sorts of adjustments or scheme changes to at least get the most out of what limited resources he has. With Dykes, fans seem to be giving him somewhat of a pass on this year just given the injuries and the fact that Tedford appeared to leave the program in complete disarray. But if the 2014 season doesn’t show pretty dramatic improvement in all aspects of the team, fans are going to start to get pretty impatient.

WS: How’s the mood in the locker room? What happened with Fabiano Hale? Is he okay.

CB: ‪The locker room has actually been more upbeat than you would expect from a team that’s 1-10. By all accounts, guys have stayed pretty positive. That may be one of the positive effects of having a small senior presence, in that most guys realize that this isn’t their last year, and that things could be better in the future.

‪The team hasn’t released any further details on the incident involving Fabiano Hale. He was released from the hospital he went to, so he’s likely okay. But Dykes or anyone else hasn’t offered any further comment or details.

WS: ‪Can Cal win? If so, how would it happen?

CB: ‪‪If the Bears can find a way to stop the run consistently while establishing their own running game, they could have a chance. But they haven’t shown any ability on defense to stop anybody, and I don’t see that changing this weekend. They just don’t have the personnel healthy right now. Their ground game has shown a little more improvement in the past few weeks, but that has also coincided with playing against some softer defenses. I don’t see them being able to control the ball and keep their defense off the field against Stanford.

WS: ‪How do you see the game unfolding then? Do you have a score prediction?

CB: I think Stanford gets an early lead in the first quarter and then just runs the ball straight over Cal the rest of the way. 45-20 Stanford.

WS: I think Cal could definitely cover if Stanford plays conservatively. I have a feeling, though, that Stanford wants to set off some fireworks because it’s going to be in an utter dogfight for the final BCS berth. I’m doing a full prediction for our paper as well and I called 56-10 Stanford. Maybe a bit excessive, but I’m going to be consistent.

Contact Winston Shi at wshi94 ‘at’ stanford.edu.