The California football team opens its 2024 road slate on Saturday with a 12:30 p.m. PT kickoff against Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The Bears and Tigers will meet for the second time in history.

ABOUT THE SERIES
– Cal and Auburn have played just once previously when the Tigers came away with a 14-10 victory in the second game of the season last year in Berkeley.
– Cal's defense created four turnovers in the 2023 contest including a forced fumble by DB Patrick
McMorris that was recovered by DL Ricky Correia to give the Bears the ball at their own 41-yard line with
4 minutes to go trailing 14-10. The Bears would get to the Auburn 15 but Sam Jackson V threw a fourth-down interception and Auburn picked up a third-down conversion it needed to run out the clock.
– Cal allowed only 230 yards of total offense in the loss.
– RB Jaydn Ott scored the Golden Bears' lone touchdown against the Tigers and finished with 20 rushes
for 78 yards but was injured late in the third quarter and did not return.

CAL…
– Is in its first season as a member of the ACC in 2024.
– Had won three straight against SEC (Tennessee 2007; Ole Miss 2017, 2019) prior to 2023 Auburn loss.
– Has a bona fide national honors candidate in preseason All-American RB Jaydn Ott.
– Has 54 players in their first season with Golden Bears.
– Has 28 transfers and a transfer portal class ranked No. 13 by On3 Sports.
– Is the only team with three interceptions in a game this season and leads the nation in picks.
– Led the nation with 16 fumbles recovered and shared the national lead with 28 takeaways in 2023.
– Is playing the first of five 2024 games in the Central or Eastern time zones.

SEC SUCCESS
– Prior to last season's 14-10 home loss to Auburn, Cal had won three straight games against SEC
opponents, most recently a home-and-home sweep of Ole Miss with a 27-16 win in Berkeley in 2017
followed two years later in 2019 by a 28-20 victory in Oxford. The Golden Bears were also a 45-31 winner
at home over Tennessee a decade prior to open the 2007 season.

ROAD OPENERS
– Cal is 4-3 in road openers under Travers Family Head Football Coach Justin Wilcox. The Bears won their road openers in Wilcox's first three seasons (2017-19) at North Carolina, BYU and Washington before falling the next three years (2020-22) at UCLA, TCU and Notre Dame. The Bears got back on track by winning at North Texas to open the 2023 campaign.