1. No. 5 Washington is playing against Cal on Saturday night in Berkeley.
2. Cal’s former head coach is Jeff Tedford. Current coach Sonny Dykes replaced him in 2013, after Cal fired Tedford.
3. Last offseason, Washington hired Tedford as a consultant. He describes his role thusly: “I’m just here as a resource. I can’t coach players or anything like that. But if I can offer some resources to the coaches with game-planning or watching tape or whatever, I’m here to do anything to help them.”
4. Tedford started at Cal in 2002. His first offensive play was a touchdown on a double-pass, back when Kyle Boller was the Bears’ quarterback.
5. In the first quarter on Saturday, Washington scored a touchdown on a nearly identical play, only set to the opposite side of the field.
You’re free to think this is a coincidence, if you want.
College football teams call double-passes with some regularly. Colorado hit USC with one a couple of weeks ago, and it worked brilliantly. Michigan ran one against Maryland on Saturday, and it worked great, too. It’s not a unique thing.
Maybe Chris Petersen’s Huskies were just running a cool gadget play for the sake of it. They executed it well, receiver Dante Pettis finding Darrell Daniels for a 39-yard score.
Or maybe this was a nod to Tedford, and a semi-troll move at the same time. Even if it wasn’t, the parallel is difficult to ignore.
h/t Avinash Kunnath, who brought this to my attention. It’s true.
Tedford is a Washington consultant.
— Avinash Kunnath (@avinashkunnath) November 6, 2016
Washington runs the first play Tedford ever ran at Cal to score. The double TD pass.
Tedford’s name has come up for the open Fresno State job, so he might not be a consultant for long. This will be a good memory of his time in that job.