LA Bowl Preview: California Golden Bears vs UNLV Rebels Breakdown, Odds, Predictions
College Football bowl season is upon us after an insane 2024 season. The craziness of the 12-team playoff gave us some incredible discourse and interesting games, but it also left us with some intriguing bowl matchups of teams we don't see all that often. I'll be previewing every bowl game for the rest of the […]
College Football bowl season is upon us after an insane 2024 season. The craziness of the 12-team playoff gave us some incredible discourse and interesting games, but it also left us with some intriguing bowl matchups of teams we don't see all that often.
I'll be previewing every bowl game for the rest of the postseason. One week before Christmas, we get an interesting matchup between two teams with plenty of turnover in the LA Bowl between the California Golden Bears and the UNLV Rebels.
LA Bowl Preview
Who: California Golden Bears (Away), UNLV Rebels (Home)
When: Wednesday, December 18th; 9:00 PM ET
Channel: ESPN
Spread: UNLV -1
O/U: 47.5
These are two teams in entirely different stages right now. Cal started the season hot, especially with a 21-14 win over Auburn on the road, before amazingly losing four straight games by five points or less. They clinched a bowl game appearance with a 24-21 win over Stanford before losing their last game 38-6 to CFP-Bound SMU.
The blows kept hitting for Cal in the offseason, as they lost multiple key players to the transfer portal. The biggest departure, of course, was starting quarterback Fernando Mendoza. Mendoza finished 19th in the country in passing yards and was virtually the entire offense for many of their games this year.
Despite having star running back Jadyn Ott for most of the year, Cal's rushing attack never really got going this year. The Golden Bears averaged just 116.5 rushing yards per game and Ott never had more than 100 yards in any game this season just a year after rushing for 1,300 last season.
This lack of balance and a poor overall result saw Cal fire offensive coordinator Mike Bloesch at the end of the season, likely the catalyst for the changes that hit their offense over the last two weeks.
Their defense kept them in games, but it wasn't enough. They only gave up 22.17 points per game, good for 42nd in the country, but they were routinely picked apart through the air.
On the other hand, UNLV enters this bowl game with plenty of momentum. They finished the season 10-3 with a spot in the Mountain West Championship game. That success saw head coach Barry Odom hired by the Purdue Boilermakers, but UNLV was quick to respond, hiring former Florida head coach Dan Mullen as his replacement.
The Rebels haven't been hit with too much attrition out of the transfer portal either. That's an important note, as their offense is one of the most explosive in college football. UNLV boasts a 93rd-percentile explosive play rate, led by a dynamite rushing attack. Running back Jai'Den Thomas and quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams each boast over 100 carries this season and have almost 2,000 yards on the ground between the two of them.
Those two have helped UNLV finish fifth in the country in rushing yards and 35th overall in total offense.
The most surprising part of UNLV was their defensive performance this season. The Rebels ranked top-50 across most metrics, including the 32nd-best rushing success rate allowed. Led by linebacker Jackson Woodard, UNLV allowed just 109.8 yards per game on the ground.
LA Bowl Predictions
On paper, this one could have been one of the more exciting bowl games of the whole postseason. The transfer portal deprived us of a lot of the featured talent that could be in play here.
Without Mendoza under center, Cal loses most of its potency on offense. It's still not been determined who will start for Cal, as backup Chandler Rogers is still recovering from an injury.
Even with UNLV losing their coach, they retain a lot of talent from their 10-3 season. With players like Hajj-Malik Williams and Ricky White IV suiting up for their last game for the Rebels, they are going to be motivated to end on a high note.
I think the talent gap will matter to some degree, but UNLV scored 27 on Houston, 23 on Kansas, and 41 on Syracuse when they had to play "bigger" conference opponents. I don't expect them to back down here.
Gimme the Rebs, big time.
Prediction: UNLV 31, California 17
