ESPN's Blue Ribbon Analysis of Cal

Traditionally one of the better and more comprehensive preseason looks at college football teams, Blue Ribbon College Yearbook has just released their analysis of this year's Cal squad. Normally, you have to be an ESPN Insider to check out these breakdowns, but this year, Cal's article is free.

You can check it out here.

I would say it's pretty accurate for the most part. Just to be Anal with a capital "A," I'll throw in a few areas that may have been overblown or not mentioned quite enough.

• No mention of walk-on kicker David Seawright who will seriously push fellow walk-on Jordan Kay for field goal duties, and is all but assured of handling kickoff duties if all reports of his kick strength are true. It's said that 80% of his kickoffs last year went for a touchback. I for one would love to see that.
• Stating that Riley played in four games last year misleads an uninformed reader to think Riley has gotten his fair share of playing time last year. His only really significant playing time came in his memorable bowl performance against Air Force and his even more memorable start versus Oregon St. His other two performances against Louisiana Tech and Oregon were fairly mop-up, handling handoffs and only attempting a handful of passes in the former.

Other than that, I thought everything else was pretty spot on. Unless someone else saw something that seemed way off, this years breakdown seems pretty good. As for their record? No one wants to openly embrace the idea of going 7-5, and 5-4 in conference play, but it appears all too possible considering the number of questions at this point in the preseason. Are 9 or 10 wins possible? I think so yes. But then again, so is 5-7.

I'll have more of a breakdown of this year's team at some point in the coming weeks.