In the spirit of giving this holiday season, good (winning) teams have been gifted a postseason — a bowl game to celebrate their successes of the hard work they have put into their programs for months. In that same holiday spirit, Santa (the College Football Playoff Selection Committee) has given a big lump of coal to the bad teams. The losers.
This season, although a bowl game was still in the realm of possibility (with a losing record) after a win in its final game against UCLA, the Cal football team finds itself in the latter category. The Bears will be staying home this year to sift through their coal — or rather the memories good, bad and ugly about the 2016 season — in hopes of improving and not being given coal again next year.