<p>The game will surely be a defensive battle, and that's where the Bears thrive"</p>
<p>sigh...our standings will probably adjust from 9 to....sigh...</p>
<p>Ugh, what a frustrating game.</p>
<p>Longshore You ****ing Suck</p>
<p>Strykur, I would hope that you'll reserve judgment against fellow Cal Bears.</p>
<p>As for Byerly's "timely" (sarcasm) post, I have one question to ask: when was the last time that Harvard was competitive against a legitimate football team?</p>
<p>When rugby replaced football for the Big Game of course.</p>
<p>Really bad form, strykur...</p>
<p>Rhis being said, worst loss since the Holmoe years, but we'll definitely bounce back very soon. Booya will start.</p>
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As for Byerly's "timely" (sarcasm) post, I have one question to ask: when was the last time that Harvard was competitive against a legitimate football team?
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<p>Back in the day (literally, I'm talking 1920) they won the Rose Bowl. Nowadays the most you will see out of them will be a skirmish with Yale in The Game.</p>
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Really bad form, strykur...
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<p>You're right, excuse me...</p>
<p>WHAT THE **** was up with our offensive line?!</p>
<p>By the way, don't be a puss and give me **** for criticizing Longshore, you should see how much **** Ayoob gets on the Facebook pages:</p>
<p>Stryker, really no excuses to bring up previous CC threads. It is truly shameful to post a comment about a particular player; He is one of us and we are all Bears.</p>
<p>Go Cal!</p>
<p>Strykur, I was in the Student Section when Ayoob was showered with "boos" game after game late in the fall. Let me tell you, it was the most embarrassing thing I ever witnessed. Just because one sits in the Student Section does not necessarily make him/her a true fan of Cal.</p>
<p>These are student-athletes, they come to college and come to learn. Cal is interesting in that the high school stars we recruit often cite academics as the selling point for their coming to Berkeley as opposed to schools like UCLA or USC. They don't get paid millions of dollars for their efforts; it's not like the NFL, where one get can criticized for not, literally, "doing their job." In fact, college football players are really only bound to one thing and that is something we all share: you must obtain a 2.0 GPA. These are 19-year olds competing on the field in the name of the university; as students, we need to support our team- they have enough nay-sayers as is, let's not make it worse. Also consider, if we don't support our own players, who will? Cursing and criticizing these students do not make them better; they probably put enough pressure on themselves to perform well and they're probably hurting from the loss as they make the trip back to Berkeley- they don't need their own fans to put them down. If you are, by nature, opinionated and always looking to point a finger at someone, it is more appropriate to interrogate the coaches (who get paid based on performance) or referees (who get paid, but also affect plays on field). </p>
<p>This is an interesting time in Cal Football in that is very difficult to criticize our coaches. Jeff Tedford has been a saint, taking a 1-10 team in 2002 to a bowl game the year he took over. The "winning tradition" and high expectations you are witnessing has almost been exclusively created at the hands of Tedford. Therefore, when in doubt, just blame it on the refs.</p>
<p>Hey dude, everyone's a little upset about the game. No need to flip out on others on CC. </p>
<p>Even if Ayoob did get a couple touchdowns for the team, I'm not so sure I'd prefer to see him start over Longshore versus Minnesota. Even with the dropped passes aside, Ayoob is a pretty inaccurate passer (from what I saw at least; I used to watch more UCLA football than Cal until I enrolled!) He threw some passes clear over the receivers' heads.</p>
<p>Also, I like how Joe Ayoob is in one of the anti-Ayoob facebook groups.</p>
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Even with the dropped passes aside, Ayoob is a pretty inaccurate passer (from what I saw at least; I used to watch more UCLA football than Cal until I enrolled!) He threw some passes clear over the receivers' heads.
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<p>True of course, but he was passing way more than Longshore was I think. I'd rather have a quarterback with a wild cannon than one that is nonactive by comparison, but now that I think about it, our defense tonight seemed more glaring than anything else (those who saw the game will know what I mean). 28/31-18 would have been much closer than 35-18.</p>
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Just because one sits in the Student Section does not necessarily make him/her a true fan of Cal.
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<p>That is at the behest of relativity. Unfortunately.</p>
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Hey dude, everyone's a little upset about the game.
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<p>EXACTLY. If you're not unusually agressive, angry, and prone to cursing and reckless criticism after tonight's disaster, than you aren't, ahem, A TRUE FAN!</p>
<p>unnecessarily hot, your observation on Ayoob is correct and the issue of accuracy has been a knock on him since coming to Cal. In terms of completion percentages, Ayoob's was under 50% for all of last season which, needless to say, is not up to traditional major D-1 team standards. It might be of interest to you, but Tedford had consulted with Ayoob on the possibility of transferring schools after last season. It goes without saying, but this can only be seen as a response to the terrible treatment Ayoob faced by "fans" (including students) throughout last season. However, Ayoob essentially told Tedford that he was committed to this program, and that he'd come back, work harder and compete for the quarterback position this year. His efforts seemed to have paid off, as he pushed Longshore to the very end before the latter was announced as the starting QB this past Tuesday. Ayoob's showing on the field today showed greater poise and more authority on throws (a major improvement over last year), although he is still struggling with accuracy. Truth be told, I'm just glad to see Ayoob get the opportunity to play. He's truly what a Cal Bear is all about!</p>
<p>In terms of which quarterback gets the starting nod next week, I think my best answer is "who Tedford thinks should start." An increasing number of Cal alumni, though it is but few hours removed from the game, are leaning towards Ayoob starting. Of course, we don't have the benefit of knowing how well Ayoob progressed through spring camp last year and summer scrimmages as the coaches, but judging from his play today, a good case can be made for Ayoob. In case you didn't know, we hired Mike Dunbar as offensive coordinator this past offseason. His coming here was to do one thing: install elements of the spread offense. From the look of things, our team is struggling with the finer elements of the TedSpread offense, and it looks like it's going to take more time before it starts paying off for us. In the interim, we need to play the quarterback who is most knowledgable of the spread and that player is none other than Ayoob, who operated out of this offense style at CCSF (community college) and is more mobile than Longshore. Mobility is actually all-important, as the spread requires the quarterback to move around and outside of the pocket: this offense simply does not suit Longshore. I love Longshore, he's the better passer and potentially is the better player, but his mobility is a liability. He's a drop-back passer and under our old offense, he'd do quite well. However, since we only have one week to prepare for Minnesota, it's probably better for us to start Ayoob and allow Longshore to get better acquainted with the system (especially since Longshore was out for a few days of practice due to back problems).</p>
<p>Also should be considered for conversation is Steve Levy; Cal faithful who remember last year know he's our QB hero who led us to victories in the Big Game and Las Vegas Bowls. Tedford dismissed him from the first game after a summer bar incident Levy was involved with, but he'll be eligible for this game. In terms of leadership, he's our best quarterback. In terms of efficiency, he's our best quarterback. The interesting point on Levy is that he was a converted fullback at Cal (he was a QB in high school in NJ), an adjustment he made after falling off the depth charts in the Aaron Rodgers era. I'm sure you see where this is headed: that fullback experience makes Levy a very strong runner if need be, exactly what is needed in the spread (as discussed before). There is a likelihood that Levy might start next week, a question that has not been answered yet by Tedford for obvious reasons. At the least, Levy will be given heavy consideration.</p>
<p>Although lofty expectations have been accordingly re-centered, I still have high expectations for this season. As this was an out-of-conference loss, we can still make a run through the Pac-10 and automatically qualify for the Rose Bowl. The Tennessee game was a unique case: first game of the season, our playing in the largest crowd in Cal history, and breaking in a quarterback who had limited experience. TN could very well be an aberration; we should have a better picture after next week. I'm sure we'll see Tedford making a lot of adjustments, especially at the QB position. If Cal does well in the upcoming weeks, we might be in good shape; otherwise it's going to be another "transition" year. Our future looks bright, however, in terms of the quarterback position. Including next year's recruits, come next fall, we will have four Elite 11 quarterbacks on the squad (Nate Longshore, Kyle Reed, Kevin Riley, and Brock Mansion) and the QB position will feature play more reflective of Tedford's coaching abilities.</p>
<p>Hope you appreciate a friendly update on Cal football,
See in you in the stands next week,
GO BEARS!
TTG</p>
<p>Stykur, it seems you missed the point of my post entirely. There's nothing wrong with being critical, it's a matter of where to place blame (if blame is to be dished).</p>
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There's nothing wrong with being critical, it's a matter of where to place blame (if blame is to be dished).
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<p>I ignored that point entirely on my posts. :eek:</p>
<p>the tennessee offense was amazing. ainge had a great day and just overran the cal defense. tennessee and some of the other SEC teams are on a whole different level in terms of competition, so in this case it may not necessarily mean that cal is bad, but rather that tennessee is pretty darn good. of course other factors ttgiang mentioned, like the crowd, come into play</p>
<p>maybe cal fell due to the pressure caused by the preseason rankings? i believe tennessee was in the same situation last year, ranked top 10. they went on to have a 5-6 record in season play</p>
<p>with that said, i believe cal will do some great things this year in the pac 10</p>
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tennessee and some of the other SEC teams are on a whole different level in terms of competition, so in this case it may not necessarily mean that cal is bad, but rather that tennessee is pretty darn good.
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<p>As a whole, the SEC is WAY BETTER than the PAC-10 in football.</p>
<p>misterr, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Tennessee offense was "amazing." Missed tackles leading to long touchdown runs is hardly a credit to their offense, but a knock against our defense. You are right in pointing out to Tennessee's situation last year, where they were rated as high as #3 in preseason polls. The basis for this ranking correlates with the perceived talent level of Tennessee's traditionally strong (to the highest degree) recruiting classes; our hitting the wall today against Tennessee is the culmination of a year's progress made by TN's incoming class from last year. I wouldn't consider pressure stemming from preseason rankings as contributing causes to our floundering. Our ranking this year was due, in large part, to development: we had the same stock of players from last year, it was a matter of pundits trying to gauge how much that experience will pay off on the field. </p>
<p>As we saw today in USC, Texas, and with Tennessee, talent usually wins out. "Talent" encompasses several things and the discrepancy is reflected in the type of students we are able to recruit. Cal would be considered an "up-and-coming" program, and our recruiting has gone very well. However, we are not an upper-tier program that is able to pick and choose our recruits. Most of our players are in-state (in fact, I believe last year's squad had a total of one player from OOS), and most of the top CA talent goes to USC, and second-tier talent is split between your UCLA and Cal. Because both of our respective pools of talent are much thinner, we must pick and choose players who fit into the program. For the past few years, Cal has effectively operated on the policy of finding players at all positions with speed, speed, and speed. Our wide receivers and linebackers are among the quickest corps in the nation; however, they are lacking in one important category to compete with the best programs: size. I remember USC coming to Memorial Stadium last year and watching them practice before the game. The players were simply huge, dwarfing our players (I recall experiencing this nausea with Arizona as well, but their offense let them down and resulted in our shutting them out 28-0). If you watched today's Tennessee game, our defenders were falling over the place trying to bring down the running backs. Traditionally, top SEC teams (TN, LSU, Florida, and Florida State), Miami, Texas, ND, and USC have had the cream of the cop of talent, palyers who exhibit Speed, as well as Athleticism and SIZE; historic football powerhouses, alone, have this luxury. Among other things, size tends to wear down defenses, all things being equal. This is why you saw that 21-point explosion by Tennessee in five minutes at the beginning of the third quarter (just before they took out their starting unit).</p>
<p>I will not go in-depth why the game fell apart for us (you can be sure I have a lot to say). One factor is our opponent, the fact that Tennessee is ranked. On top of that, Neyland Stadium is considered one of the most difficult environments to play in all of college football. Playing in opposing stadiums is hard, playing at Tennessee is even harder. Even if it weren't TN, and some other ranked opponents, normally teams don't schedule difficult games as openers. Cupcakes are usually the order, and we saw today that even the strongest of teams will have difficulties adjusting to game speed when playing against competitive opponents (i.e. Notre Dame and USC)- it's not a clear cut Cal "not-good" or TN "too-good" issue. As such, it's difficult to find accurate indicators of our weaknesses and strengths. I would imagine, though, if this game were featured sometime in October, the game results would be drastically different.</p>
<p>Good win against Utah. Ben Olson looks strong, but the running backs didn't appear to do so well on paper. I didn't watch the game, so I wouldn't know, but having a weak running game would certainly hurt UCLA in the long run, especially with a team like Arizona, whose corners will shut down your receivers (no matter how good they are). Hopefully your coming up to Strawberry Canyon this fall and watch the Bears and Bruins battle it out.</p>
<p>TTG</p>
<p>People are still talking about Cal winning Pac-10? Damn. I suppose Berkeley has a good supply of the drugs.</p>