Huntley said today he’s going to play on Saturday. Given the “unfinished business” tone of this year, I would be stunned if he didn’t. Ty Huntley would hobble out there with a boot and a cast on his left arm, I don’t see anyone stopping that.
Cal’s defense is really good. We’re going to need the offense to produce, but we may not need a lot.
Cal’s #1 QB Garbers got hurt pretty bad vs ASU - looked like a collar bone, possibly a shoulder - and on Oct 1 Justin Wilcox said he was out “indefinitely”, but may return this season. Well, we’re still in October, and my hunch is Wilcox doesn’t have a strong incentive to bring Garbers back vs our D on a cold night in SLC. Cal has seriously struggled offensively without Garbers, and Modster got hurt with 4 minutes left in their game vs Oregon State (as pointed out by E-Ute below - thanks).
My hunch is Huntley will start, probably won’t get engaged in the run game if contact is involved. So, how we put up some points on Cal relatively efficiently, keeping a clean pocket with minimal QB involvement in the run game is the big question.
This is Game #8. Might as well dig a little deeper into the play book to get this game on the track to becoming a Win early, and then pull Huntley relatively early. We saw both Lisk and Shelley vs ASU, and I see no reason not to do the same vs Cal, as they bring different skillsets, and can use more game experience.
Huntley’s ability to stay healthy this week directly depends on how well the defense handles their part of the matchup. If we get some points, get some separation, Shelley / Lisk make early appearances. If the game tightens up, we can always bring TH back in, but that would be unfortunate, because there’s a very big game in Seattle the following Saturday.