Cal general manager Ron Rivera and UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons agree that finishing a season with a mediocre record and a Big Game win against Stanford won’t cut it anymore.

We don’t know how the 5-2 Bears will finish this year. 

But we do know that, at a minimum, the marginal 21-18 Friday night victory over Bill Belichick’s tumbling, 2-4 Tar Heels at Memorial Stadium bought ninth-year Cal head coach Justin Wilcox and his team more time to reach that goal.

And, for the record, I am not the biggest hypotheticals guy. But whew, Bears cornerback Paco Austin’s goal-line punch-out with 3:48 remaining in regulation saved the day and maybe even prevented more “distasteful” letters asking for Wilcox’s firing from being sent Rivera’s way.

“I think that’s the biggest play I’ve made in my whole career,” Austin said.

Rivera and Lyons have echoed that at least eight or nine regular season wins would be an ideal finish to the first year of their new administrative partnership — a feat Wilcox has never pulled off since taking the helm in Berkeley in 2017. Before this, the closest he came was an 8-5 finish in 2019 that included a Redbox Bowl win.

Friday night inched the blue and gold closer to that apparent goal. And it marked the quickest a Wilcox-led Cal team has reached five wins in a season.

The Bears didn’t win convincingly as many thought they would against a UNC squad that recently has been dealing with issues larger than Belichick and his girlfriend’s age gap.

However, the transitive property is a better fit for the classroom rather than football discourse. 

“Like Coach Wilcox says, it’s hard to win in college football,” said wide receiver Jacob De Jesus. “You’re grateful for every single win that you get, it doesn’t matter the opponent. They’re coming out to play too … so just coming out there and winning is good. Tomorrow and this week, we’re going to look back look at the things that we need to work on.”

Similar to every other week, Cal has things to work on to finish their second season of ACC play admirably against teams that should be better than UNC from here on out.

There were more drops. Gaps in coverage. Irritating penalties. And the Bears simply left the door open for the Tar Heels way too long, needing one fumble recovery to start the game and another to end it to pull through.

But, again, a win is a win, and things could be worse.

The Bears are 5-2 with a star true freshman in Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele under center, even if he is going through growing pains. Before the season started, most people would have loved to hear that would be the case after Cal lost several stars to the transfer portal and 2025 NFL draft this past offseason.

Despite an unflattering win, the blue and gold should enjoy the night. I mean, just take Belichick’s post-game presser.

“With great effort, we can get much more accomplished than we did,” Wilcox said. “(A) lot to work on, and it’s our job as coaches to get that out of our players.”

The Bears have a long road ahead of them, beginning with a tough road trip to Virginia Tech next Friday. For now, though, Cal is alive and breathing heading into Week 9. That means something.