I think Cal being an ACC newcomer and not much of a “brand” on the national scale as the Golden Bears flying under the radar in their new conference this year.  

I watched a ton of ACC Week 1 and we saw glaring issues for teams like Florida State and Clemson while sides many are optimistic on like Virginia Tech, NC State and SMU turned in less than stellar results.  

It's made me even more eager to “buy” this Cal team, I think the Bears have improved on both sides of the ball and the main reason they aren't getting discussed more is a brutal schedule to start the season.  That might make things difficult for the Berkeley Boys from a win/loss perspective but I think Cal is going to be LIVE underdog, especially coming off a Week 1 win where they fell short of covering the -20.5 by a couple points against UC Davis.  

Cal ended up 6-6 and made it to a bowl game last season, a huge step forward from a 4-8 campaign in 2022.  I think Cal continues to improve and until the market acknowledges that being the case we should have a few opportunities to back Cal in favorable spots and we will start here.

As far as Auburn is concerned I think they will probably get better in the second year under Hugh Freeze but at times this was a BAD Tigers football team last season.  Auburn had one of the worst offensive lines in the FBS in 2023 and will need a big improvement if this offense is to take a notable step forward this season.  Auburn has quality skill players that give the Tigers upside but I'll need to see more than running it up on Alabama A&M before I believe the Tigers should be laying two scores to a quality (yes Cal is quality IMO) team.  

This is a rematch of a game last year in Berkeley where Auburn squeaked by with a 14-10 win.  Cal was unlucky to not win that game and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we saw a similar game here.

Play on California +13.5 (-115) for 4% (or 4 units)