:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/50240755/GettyImages-542915856.0.jpg)
Cal and Hawaii starts off 2016 college football down under. Neither squad is likely to contend for any major college football titles, but it should be a fun start to the year for two teams breaking in entirely new teams.
When Cal has the ball: Jared Goff is gone, so things will be quite different for Cal. The Bears will be breaking in an entirely new unit this season with regards to the passing game. New quarterback, new wide receivers. The Bears will probably be a run-first team next year, which feeds into Hawaii's strength--their solid run defense. However, Cal's offense is still likely to find a good number of passing plays, and Hawaii does not sport particularly good run or pass defenses.
When Hawaii has the ball: Cal has a defense that will probably be middling at best, but their run defense and secondary figure to be pretty deep. The Warriors are returning most of their offense from last season, but none of their playmakers performed particularly well with low catch rates. Hawaii does have a good run attack, but they will face a pretty solid 4-3 Cal run defense.
Prediction: Cal should have the edge here despite the fact that they're in transition. Hawaii is returning the majority of their squad, so they should have some more relative experience, but the Bears just don't have a lot of talent. Expect a comfortable Cal victory after an up-and-down first half.
The only good sign for Hawaii is they play pretty well in their season openers, and have performed pretty well against Pac-12 squads with some close losses to Washington and USC and a win over Colorado last season.