SB Nation - Darian Hagan

Wednesday Buff Bites - Boycotts, Anger, Criticism...That's Colorado Football Right Now

irish1611 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:40:05 -0000

CU: Scott-free: Tailback’s exit leaves football program reeling - The Longmont Times-Call

Other Buffs responded in different ways. Some were mad, others numb, others did not want to acknowledge more bad news coming from a 2-6 program that has fans threatening boycotts and protests. While Hagan conducted interviews, several Buffs walked by the scrum telling reporters to "get over it." But Hagan, the man who recruited Scott from Ventura, Calif., to Boulder when every other program in the nation craved his signature, could not mask his anger. This might take him awhile to get over. "I don’t even want to know a reason," Hagan said. "There’s not a reason. He’ll probably say, ‘I want to get home to my mom’ or ‘I wasn’t happy here.’ He’ll make up a whole bunch of different things. "But the truth of the matter is, this is something he shouldn’t have done."

Woelk: Departure of Scott more bad news for Buffaloes - Boulder Daily Camera

But what is lost is twofold: One is potential. Scott is a physically gifted young man who could very well still blossom into a top-notch Division I running back. It would have been nice to see him reach that potential in a Buff uniform. The biggest loss, however, may come in terms of recruiting. The Buffs lost a five-star recruit on Tuesday. Guaranteed, every opposing coach recruiting a prep standout who is considering Colorado will bring Scott into the conversation. They will use it as a tool to steer players away from CU and to their program.

CU athletic director Bohn always positive, even in rough times like the present - The Denver Post

Brooks: A 'Good Fit' Goes Bad For Scott - CUBuffs.com—Official Athletics Web site of the University of Colorado

Losing Scott, said Hagan, will not adversely affect the chemistry at his position: "All my guys like each other, they're all competitive. We just lost a pair of legs. But like I said, I wish Darrell nothing but the best . . . life goes on; I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be a different day."

Fed-up CU Buffs fans plan powder-blue protest at Folsom - Colorado Daily

For Buffs fans, powder blue is the color of defeat. It's the color of losing streaks, of (arguably) poor coaching, of lackluster fans. It's the color that the University of Colorado Buffaloes football team wore from 1981 to 1984, when they won a total of 10 games out of 44.

Paige: Scott free, and for CU it's costly - The Denver Post

CU owed Scott more than an excellent education. He had committed to Hawkins and given the program a significant recruiting lift when it was needed. He deserved more of an opportunity to play when he was healthy, just as Marcus Houston deserved more when he was healthy. And Houston, the last "great" running back recruited by Colorado, had to run away. Who's next? In his first practice before last season, Scott looked impressive, elusive and fast. One senior defensive lineman predicted he would win the Heisman Trophy in two years. Others predicted immediate stardom. Nobody at CU is predicting trophies or stardom for Scott anymore, and Scott is not predicting a national championship for the Buffaloes. As the knight told Indiana Jones after the bad guy grabbed the wrong goblet and his head exploded: "He chose poorly."

much more after the jump...

Dan Hawkins job is in jeopardy | The Buffzone Blog

Hawkins’ stubborn refusal to play the best players on Saturdays bothers the powers that be just as much as the average fan. The slow starts and appearance that the Buffs are unprepared to play bother the powers that be just as much as the average fan. The attrition rate in Hawkins’ program bothers the powers that be just as much as the average fan. The never-ending excuse about the youth of the team while other young teams around the country are finding success bothers the powers that be just as much as the average fan. The handling of the quarterback situation and the lack of player development atthe position over 31/2 years now bothers the powers that be just as much as the average fan. The team’s inability to win on the road under Hawkins bothers the powers that be just as much as the average fan. Seeing Dan Hawkins handle news of Darrell Scott’s decision to transfer this way on Tuesday bothered the powers that be just as much as the average fan.

Buff Darrell Scott leaving CU football team - Buffzone

Running backs coach Darian Hagan said Scott's decision caught him by surprise. But Hagan admitted he had talked with Scott on several occasions in recent months about previous rumors of a transfer. "I didn't find out the way I thought I deserved to find out," Hagan said. "It's unfortunate he decided he had to leave. He has to do what he has to do, but I just wish he did it in a different way." Scott has said that his relationship with Hagan and the fact that his uncle was a Buff were the two biggest reasons he decided to join the CU program. After making his decision to end the recruiting process, Scott said Hagan was like a father figure in his life. "I had no idea he was even thinking about it," Hagan said. "I've asked him on different occasions, 'Was he OK? Was he thinking about transferring?' Because I heard people saying stuff. I told him to be a man about it and look me in the eye. He said, 'No, coach. I never thought about it.'"

RB Scott's interest in UCLA is 'really high' - The Daily Breeze

He said his interest in UCLA is high, "really high, really," and said despite the team's recent struggles he believes the Bruins can turn it around. "They started the year off pretty well," Scott said by phone Tuesday night. "I think they're struggling, but they can turn it around. I played football with most of the guys on that team, and I think they have a lot of potential. "A lot of talent."

CU’s Hagan will stick with what he has | All Things Colorado Sports

There has been some Internet chatter among CU fans wondering if redshirt-freshman safety Ray Polk might move back to running back, now that the stable is without Darrell Scott. Don’t look for that to happen. Defensive backs coach Greg Brown said moving Polk to the starting lineup has really solidified the secondary.

Hawkins Press Luncheon Quotes - CUBuffs.com—Official Athletics Web site of the University of Colorado

Head Coach Dan Hawkins held his weekly Press Luncheon Tuesday at the Dal Ward Athletic Center, the following are quotes from the session.

Ex-Buff Klatt criticizes CU over sign - Boulder Daily Camera

Klatt said the fact the sign was painted over concerns him and other former Buffs because it is an indication in their eyes that Hawkins and athletic director Mike Bohn don`t value some of the traditions in place before their arrival.

CU Buff's Nick Kasa disappointed by his season ending - Buffzone

Freshman defensive end Nick Kasa spoke at length Tuesday about his season coming to an end because of a case of mononucleosis and an enlarged spleen. "It`s really frustrating definitely," Kasa said. "I can`t catch a break. But if I get the season back, that would be even be better because I get some playing time and I still get my four years to play."

Ringo: Big 12 mulls changing North, South scheduling - Boulder Daily Camera

The proposed change would be for teams never to go more than one year without facing each other in the regular season. Colorado would play Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma State this year and then play the other three South Division foes next season. In the third year, the Buffs would play Texas, Texas A&M and OSU again but at the opposite site from this season.

Teammates ‘bummed’ by departure - The Longmont Times-Call

CU's Hawkins: Buffs in must-win situation for rest of season - Boulder Daily Camera

Colorado coach Dan Hawkins returned to normal this week at his media luncheon today. There was no long, introspective opening statement, reading of letters of support or acknowledgement of mistakes made as was the case a week ago. Hawkins stayed with a business as usual approach in discussing last week's homecoming loss to Missouri and this Saturday's home game against a Texas A&M team he called "very electric."

Victoria Advocate | Miller leads nation in sacks, chasing A&M record

The 6-foot-3, 240-pound Miller leads the nation with 13½ sacks as the Aggies (5-3, 2-2 Big 12) head into Saturday's game at Colorado (2-6, 1-3). He needs seven more sacks to pass the Texas A&M single-season mark of 20, set by defensive end Jacob Green in 1979.

Scout.com: Onyeali’s Broad Horizons

This coming weekend Nduka Onyeali will be taking an official visit to Arizona State. "I’ve heard a lot of good things about ASU," Onyeali said. "I’ve seen a few of their games on TV and the area looks great. It’s also a pretty good program. They seem to be doing well and I know they have great coaches." The Sun Devils were Onyeali’s first scholarship offer last spring.

A&M's offense humming along - Dallas Morning News

Texas A&M's offense put up big numbers in its first three games, but the level of competition raised doubts about how good the Aggies really were. After losing three in a row, A&M (5-3, 2-2 Big 12) has now topped 500 total yards in consecutive Big 12 victories and the offense remains one of the nation's best. The Aggies rank third in total yardage (490.5 yards per game), eighth in scoring (35.8 points per game) and fourth in third-down conversion rate (52.5 percent) heading into Saturday's game at Colorado (2-6, 1-3).

College Football Halloween Morning Open Thread

Avinash — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:00:24 -0000

via 3.bp.blogspot.com

Saturday Morning Bears. In case you've been spending the entire week deliberating on your Halloween costume, here's the Cal-ASU news that you should be ready for this week.

Darian Hagan was suspended for missing a class. Josh Hill will take his place. Marc Anthony and Charles Amadi will also be ready just in case, Amadi could see snaps.
Derrick Hill and Matt Summers-Gavin are out with shoulder injuries. Kendrick Payne or Aaron Tipoti (Chronicle is saying Tipoti) takes Hill's place, Boskovich and Fisher will split snaps in replacing Summers-Gavin.
Sean Cattouse will be starting over Marcus Ezeff; Ezeff will still play.
Although this is homecoming, expected attendance at Sun Devil Stadium is around 46k, well short of the 53,000+ that showed up for the Washington night game. And you didn't think the start time would make a difference.
As for ASU injuries, receiver Kyle Williams will be returning for the Sun Devils after missing last week's game at the Furd. He also spots as their punt returner.
ASU is missing their starting center Altieri though, so that hopefully cancels out the loss of HIll. Garth Gerhart will shift from right guard and handle snap duties. Tom Njunge will also replace the starter against the Furd, Matt Hustad, at right tackle.
ASU Cornerback Omar Bolden is out, and wide receiver Kerry Taylor is questionable.

After the jump, sample the early morning slate before our game.

The ghosts are out, and they've blessed us this morning with a fantastic slate of games.

Noon PM EST/9 AM PST
Indiana at Iowa, ESPN
Purdue at Wisconsin, ESPN2
Cincinnati at Syracuse, ESPNU

12:21 PM EST/9:21 AM PST
Ole Miss at Auburn, SEC TV/CSN California

12:30 PM EST/9:30 AM EST
Nebraska at Baylor, Versus HD

1:30 PM EST/10:30 AM EST
Missouri at Colorado, FSN HD/CSN Bay Area

Oh. Um.

Well, at least Gameday's in Autzen! Enjoy that as we get set for our rumble in Tempe (pregame/1st quarter thread should be up 45 minutes before kickoff).

Poll

My current state is...

Excited

24 votes

Disinterested

4 votes

Calm

15 votes

Scared

10 votes

Drunk

8 votes

61 votes | Poll has closed

Is Cal's Defense Underachieving?

Avinash — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:30:26 -0000

More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

Cal's pass defense struggled again. Are we going to see this all year long?

Browse more photos »

DEFENSE, BEARS...DEFENSE???

Most of the postgame reaction has been focused on Cal's lamentable defensive effort, especially against the pass. It's been discussed everywhere, and I figured I'd throw myself into the fire. Literally, since I figure 80-85% of Cal fans will disagree with my next statement:

Outside of Autzen, Bob Gregory hasn't done that much wrong.

Now before all of you start hollering about Prince and Tuel lighting us up, I understand where you guys are coming from. Like many people, I assumed that the depletion of our linebacking corps would be offset by improvements in the defensive line and the secondary, with everyone having starting experience coming back.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. Units don't just revamp at certain areas and expect to get by because the front and the back are supporting them. The linebackers are the core of the defense, especially in a 3-4; take them away and the middle is open to exploitation.

Think of an army with great tanks and experienced soldiers but no aircraft, anti-aircraft or flak. You might have the power and the wherewithal to take out your opponents, but a good enough air attack can blast all that heavy weaponry and veteran savvy out of the park. So it is with the passing defense this season, where the weakness of the linebackers has been felt by the rest of the lineup.

Cal is returning seven but we're missing those four BIG TIME. Let's rank the top players on our defense last year.

1) Zack Follett
2) Syd'Quan Thompson
3) Tyson Alualu
4) Anthony Felder
5) Worrell Williams
6) Mike Mohamed
7) Darian Hagan
8) Rulon Davis (when healthy)

So those four who are gone are in the top 8, and the three linebackers in the top five. Big big losses.

Rulon Davis might never have been as healthy as we'd have liked him to be, but when he was, he was ON. Cameron Jordan is a jolly guy from what I've seen, but at the moment he really hasn't stepped up to replace Davis's raw ability. Don't be deceived by those 6.5 sacks--3.5 came against really bad teams. He's on pace for 2008 numbers, and he's playing probably 50% more than last season after splitting time with Rulon in 2008.

Derrick Hill has performed well, but centers can still battle him one on one, leaving one side to double, triple team Alualu at will. So that means that extra one or two guys blitzing or moving in on the line of scrimmage has to step up, rush in, and hit the quarterback.

Unfortunately...

Cal does not have a pass rushing linebacker. When Cal put that linebacker at the LoS on passing downs last season (usually Follett), it collapsed the pocket, overwhelmed the edge and forced the quarterback into the errant throws, incompletions or sacks. Not this season. Young, Mohamed, Kendricks, Bishop, Holt, none of these guys have been able to fill that mantle. Jarred Price might be the guy to show it, but what he has in pass rush (2 sacks) he lacks in consistency (4 season tackles)

Follett had 10.5 sacks and 4 hurries on his own last season; through seven games, the ENTIRE Bears linebackers corps has combined for 7.5 sacks and 4 hurries.

Note: Interestingly enough (as you probably saw with some of the highlights), Gregory tinkered with a four down linemen set on passing downs to gain extra pass rush, although I'm not sure how much of it had an effect on slowing down Tuel. I'd been pondering a similar idea considering the weakness of our linebackers to add an extra defensive lineman (our strength) for more pass rush, and it seemed Gregory was thinking along the same lines. We'll see how it bears out when Cal plays formidable/weaker offensive lines down the road.

Cal's linebacking corps is still learning the pass defense ropes: Probably the biggest mistake I made in my predictions was asking this question: "is Mike Mohamed capable of becoming Cal's greatest linebacker of the Tedford era?" Whoops. Desmond Bishop, you keep the title.

Don't get me wrong, Mohamed's been good, still the best all-around linebacker for the Bears (he has picks, a forced fumble, a sack, and 61 tackles). Nevertheless, he seems to be suffering from the Rajon Rondo syndrome--he looked like the best linebacker last season because guys were always throwing in his direction to avoid Felder and Williams. Unlike Follett or Desmond, he lacks that game-changing ability. Maybe that'll change, but right now he's merely good when Cal needs great.

Devin Bishop and Eddie Young are okay, but as BWNQ noted, they probably lack proper football instincts, as they've been duped on several important occasions by doing bad things on the field. No matter how good the coaching is, it's REALLY hard to undo instinct.

As for Kendricks and Holt, they have promise, but as sophomores they're still not fully polished. We can probably expect better things from them...in 2010. Right now we can only hope they're given the time to grow and mature so they can come back and smash next season.

Finally, the secondary. This is probably the most mystifying of the three units, even to a guy like me. Last season these guys were ballhawks, and now they're getting pumpfaked, beat at the point of attack. What's going on??

Syd'Quan Thompson has done his job, but the other side, plainly, has not. Darian Hagan got pump-faked out of the starting lineup in Minnesota. Josh Hill got the Oregon start and got picked on, over and over and over. And then both have been taking their turn even though they've been playing more man coverage. Although both are improving, it does leave you a little frustrated, especially with Hagan, who looked so promising last season. The safeties have been competent--Ezeff and Johnson are good at delivering hits, and Cattouse has also shown great promise, but for whatever reason they've been beat a lot.

So why has the secondary regressed? A few possibilities:

1) With the linebackers having trouble defending their zones and tackling afterwards, the secondary has to edge toward the middle of the field to be prepared to support...which in turn opens up the flats and sideline throws. And it doesn't necessarily secure the middle either.

2) The secondary might be more experienced, but given the depth of gamefilm, there is plenty for opposing teams to scout on them. Cal's secondary is not like USC's, whose weaknesses are harder to pinpoint and exploit. Even Syd'Quan might be lockdown one-on-one, but he's still undersized--tall physical receivers can do damage against him if given the proper time. You can only imagine how many more double moves and pump fakes against Hagan and throws to the flats against Hill we'll see this year.

3) PAY ATTENTION. This is the big one...

There are a lot of good quarterbacks in the Pac-10 this season.

Four freshmen have shown great promise--Foles, Luck, Barkley, and, yes, even Tuel (don't forget he also went about 67% against USC too). Add in three guys who've been here before (Masoli, Locker, Canfield) and that's SEVEN Pac-10 quarterbacks who are at the very least competent. That's the most depth the conference has shown at the quarterback stable this decade.

Compare it to the Pac-10 QBs we saw last season: Sanchez was pretty good but still developing, Willie Tuitama had his ups and downs, Masoli was in his first year escaping the shadow of Dixon, Lyle Moevao had his moments although he was carried by the Rodgers brothers, Rudy Carpenter was digesting turf thanks to his awesome offensive line, the Kevin Craft Interception Show missed no stops, Tavita Pritchard was a placeholder, the Washington/Wazzu quarterbacks we faced were bad, bad, bad.

Masoli has quietly worked his way back to a solid 60% completion percentage. Canfield and Foles are horrifyingly good at finding their receivers, hovering at 70% and putting them in the top seven in the conference. Luck isn't as accurate, but he throws touchdowns and not many picks (kind of like Riley-lite). Locker is the most dangerous player in the Pac-10 if he faces a defense that gives him cushion. And Barkley is only going to get better.

They're so good that they're not just beating Cal's zones, they're beating Cal on man. Tuel's two touchdown throws came against man coverage, where he fit that ball in just the right place for the receiver to get it and the defender had no chance to play the ball. Kevin Prince had excellent throws that burned a few guys with excellent man coverage too. Surprisingly, they played pretty well against Barkley after spotting the Trojans ten points. Of course the big fail was Masoli where the Bears played mostly zone, but even when they played man they got beat.

Now the solution would be to be aggressive in the pass rush and send more guys. But who? Cal's linebackers haven't shown they're able to speed their way. Not many of these guys have the ability to stunt or delay the way our group did last year--maybe Alualu, but again he's facing constant double teams. Plus with the quarterbacks being better this season, sending more guys leaves the Bears vulnerable to a precise pass going for six.

So pick your poison. So pick your poison. Do you key in on stopping the run and not allowing big plays and risk giving up easier underneath throws, or gamble with a pass rush or man coverage and take the risk of quarterbacks connecting on long strikes? This is the quandary Gregory is in, and we’ll find out what he comes up with these next few weeks. (HT Hydro for the rephrase)

Is Cal's defense underachieving, overachieving, or performing as expected?

Reactions to defense.

More reactions: AERose has some interesting numbers on 1st/2nd half stats, Rocky63125 wants Gregory to go, royrules had thoughts about Cal's D against UCLA.

Gary Peterson, San Jose Mercury News:

Then came the part no one expected. When Tedford had finished dousing his defenders in lighter fluid, linebacker Steve Fanua set them on fire.

"He's a young buck, a redshirt freshman," Jordan said, smiling. "He has fire in his veins. He gave us a nice little talk."

And this was received how?

"That only amps you up more," Jordan said. "Here's a guy, barely 18 years old, letting us know what this means for him. He's a young kid. He's hungry."

So was Cal's defense when it returned to the field. Jordan recorded two of his two-and-a-half sacks, and three of his six tackles in the second half. One sack defused Washington State's first drive after the intermission. Another, coming on fourth-and-10, ended a Cougars drive at the Cal 18.

Jimmy Tran, Daily Cal:

One of the points emphasized was tackling.

Arguably the most noticeable player guilty of missed tackles was cornerback Darian Hagan. Despite coming off one of his best performances ever last week against UCLA, Hagan struggled to make several key tackles in the open field and gave up a couple big passing plays against WSU.

"He needs to be more consistent, no question about it," Gregory said. "Very poor game today, and we just got to keep working with these kids to grow and mature."

Friday Buff Bites - Can the Buffs Win On the Road?

irish1611 — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:05:21 -0000

Hansen helps trigger Colorado turnaround - Big 12 - ESPN
Just keep winning, then we can start talking about the Big 12 North. Gotta win on the road before anyone equates Colorado with challenging for any conference crown:

"It was an awesome experience and a great victory for our team," Hansen said. "Hopefully, we can build momentum from it where we can hope to take the Big 12 North. Coach Hawkins said we were right there -- really close. We just needed a little spark and I guess I was the spark."

CU coaches push QB Hansen to think pass first, run second - The Longmont Times-Call
It sounds like Coach Kiesau is also rejuvenated with the quarterback change. These quotes sound good from the offensive coordinator:

"What I’m trying to get him to understand is that when he’s going against the scout team, it’s not the same speed as it is in the game," Kiesau said. "I’m trying to get the timing down to how it’ll be in the game, and you can see him — he’s throwing balls before guys get out of their breaks, and they’re almost shocked the ball’s coming. But I’d rather have that now than on Saturday and have them not be used to the speed of the game." Hansen, Kiesau said, was "on fire" Wednesday, anticipating those breaks and delivering the ball in prompt fashion.

Wildcats vs Buffaloes | Upon Further Review

GRINDING IT OUT: Kansas State has shown the ability to grind it out offensively through seven games as the Wildcats have collected 132 first downs and averaged 184.0 rushing yards a game. Of K-State’s 27 scoring drives this season, 16 have covered 50 or more yards and eight have consisted of 10 or more plays. Because of the consistent rushing attack and the ability to sustain drives, K-State has possessed the ball for an average of 34:41 per game this season, a figure that currently ranks first in the Big 12 and second in the nation.

CU's Darrell Scott has surgery, will miss 2-3 weeks - The Denver Post

Coaches said health was the main reason Scott has struggled this season, with only 23 carries through six games. "He can't get down or frustrated over his playing time because he hasn't been 100 percent since he's been here," running backs coach Darian Hagan said Tuesday. "He's running tentative because his knee isn't where it should be."

K-State-Colorado football preview - Kansas City Star

Cheers if … K-State can give itself good field position. When faced with short fields last week against Texas A&M, the Wildcats’ offense scored at will.

Jeers if … The Wildcats let Colorado run the ball effectively. "That’s the worst thing that could happen to us," K-State coach Bill Snyder said.

Brooks: O-line No Strangers To Change - CUBuffs.com

Denver Johnson also said redshirt freshman tackle Bryce Givens, who sat out last weekend, will be available this week but won't start. Sophomore Ryan Miller, said Johnson, will remain at right tackle "for the immediate future."

CU's Speedy Stewart in a hurry to become one of nation's top running backs - The Denver Post

"Rodney is pound for pound as good as anybody," Texas coach Mack Brown said on a teleconference. "He's hard to tackle. He has a low base but is also very strong. He's got all the elements that make you a good football player. He's much like the little guy (Darren Sproles) at Kansas State who played so well."

3 questions, K-State vs. CU | CJOnline.com

The wild card here is Colorado quarterback Tyler Hansen, who provides more mobility than recently benched Cody Hawkins. Hansen is a threat to escape the pocket under pressure, and he forces defenders to stay in coverage when a play breaks down.

New CU QB scares Cats | CJOnline.com

But Snyder was familiar with the Mark Mangino quote, the one in which the Kansas coach said Tyler Hansen was the deciding factor in KU's loss at Colorado last week. "I think Mark said after the ball game the difference was Tyler Hansen," Snyder said. "I looked at the stats and I thought, well, they're not dynamic in that respect. But then you watch the game and you say, 'Wow.' The guy can fly around."

Snyder comes to K-State's rescue again - Boulder Daily Camera

Big 12 basketball: best in nation - The Denver Post

Big 12 North upside down - STLtoday.com

Midseason Crystal Ball - Bold BCS Bowl Projections, Surprises, and Flops

Austin Murphy of SI.com thinks Nebraska will be a second half flop while two others think that Kansas will flop in this second half. Well, that leaves four others:

Awestruck as I am by Ndamukong Suh, the Cornhuskers are looking at at least a couple more losses if they can't get better quarterback play.

CGB Report Card: Grading Cal's Performance Against UCLA

Avinash — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:00:23 -0000

via farm3.static.flickr.com (original image link)

Thanks to Monica's Dad and Cal Bears Online for the images!

Position	QB	RB	Rec.	Run B	Pass P	Run D	Pass R	Pass D	ST	Coach	Overall
Score (out of 4)	3.431	3.711	3.47	2.745	3.059	2.902	2.25	2.490	2.245	3.441	3.412
Grade	B+	A-	B+	B-	B	B	C+	C+	C+	B+	B+

Thanks to the 34 submitters!

C98, Oaktown123, VandyImport, Dingosean, GoldenBear 77, TKE Prytanis 79, Thoroughbred, GBB4188, omnizzle, Jr. Bear, Yleexotee, GBMarin, California Pete, Yorzepol, rurata, Swamphunter, Trisweb, iVinshe, CALumbus Bear, mig, CaliforniaCMB, Kodiak, beson, sec119, Ohio Bear, Haas8388, Berkelium97, BTown85, ososdeoro, primo, coolingfan, stochastic, SoCal Oski, katster

And big ups to Twist for getting the best comments together; it made this post way easier to complete.

Let's start with the best gameday experience of our graders, which goes to...dingosean, with an epic drunken tale (and totally unedited).

Woke up. Trew on my Cal football 2006 shirt (good luck shirt) and started driking lottss of beer.

Watched the texas-oklahomer game while drinking A LOT.

By the tme the cal game started i was visibly inebriated, and i decided to stp drinking when the game started, and only start drinking if Cal started messing up. (it wrked against oregon last year, so why not bring back this strateggy).

Game started well. We were ahead by ten. Even though UCLA came back and DID scor a TD in the 1st.. we had the lead going into Q2. Where we came out and scored 3 TD's. Going into the haftime with a 3 score lead... and having sobered up a little, i decided to start drinking more beer.

2nd half went by... we kept the lead.. i was continuing go drink more.. and thena i stardted blogging. We gota the eainerception and woo hoo! we won. Now i'm very drunk agan and itsawesome! WE BEAT LA IN LA

GO BEARS!

Lesson kids: If you post a drunk report card, you're likely to win best gameday experience. CGB, where we encourage drinking at all ages.

Gameday experiences, commenting awards, and best of the report cards after the jump.

via calbearsonline.com

Runnerup gameday experience went to poor iVinshe. This has happened to me before for some game I can't remember--all I do recall is the furious anger I felt afterward.

I actually couldn't watch live today, so I insulated myself from any scores the entire day, so that I could watch the reply on espn360. I did so well.....and right before I begin watching, I see in my inbox:

    from    CalBearsShop.com <info@calbearsshop.com>
reply-to    info@calbearsshop.com
to    <redacted>
date    Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 4:12 PM
subject    Free Ground Shipping to Celebrate Cal's Win at CalBearsShop.com

Thanks guys.

Third places goes to VandyImport. Hey man, give us a sign if you're alright!

I kept shoveling chips in my mouth the entire 4th quarter to keep Cal's defense going. Unfortunately it turns out they all contained olestra. It's been good knowing you. Tell my wife I love her and bury me in Nashville.

And here are the rest!

C98: Good to see my Bears winning again. Good to break the LA loos streak.

Oaktown123: My cable stopped working in the second quarter which was frustrating, but then it started working again.

TKE Prytanis 79: Great...watching at home...talking to the kids by phone after major plays and my wife made killer red enchilladas with red Hatch chiles...and we won...gonna sleep well tonight

GBB4188: As my game of torn allegiances this game is always a little awkward as I like both teams to perform well (and Cal to win). That's what we got so I'm very happy and can be excited about both teams going forward.

Jr. Bear: Amazing. Cal section was good, team was good. I'm content.

Yorzepol: Hot day at the Rose Bowl. I lost my voice before the game and missed the band's pregame. Then we scored on out first possesion and all was right with the world.

Swamphunter: I've had an upper respiratory tract infection since Tuesday, and I probably won't be healthy until this upcoming Tuesday. However, the game and the win were probably what made me clear the hump of this illness.

CALumbus Bear: I was so F-ing, F-ING happy after that game. Or maybe it was relief. Maybe I was exalting in relief. Or reveling in pent-up frustration release. Either way I felt good, and Mrs. CALumbus Bear and I popped open a $50 bottle of wine we had aged for 4 years, and I swear it had the yummy taste of vanquished Bruin.

mig: After being mocked and ridiculed for three weeks, it was nice to chant in the Rose Bowl "this is Bear Territory!" Pasadena, and the rest of Los Angeles, by extension, also became part of Bear Territory. I flew out from Boston on Thursday and was able to meet up with friends I haven't seen for nearly a year. Needless to say, coming into the game I was worried that it might put a damper on my otherwise relaxing, peaceful and enjoyable weekend. But yesterday's game only made it better!

Kodiak: Because her team (yeah, I married a bruin) lost, my wife had to go out and bring back tribute. I enjoyed beer and a fried chicken dinner. Ha ha!

beson: Great game. We were so pumped to be at the game and finally breaking the socal losing streak. Loved the cheers at the end of the game. I'm sure some of the people will wake up with sore hands this morning due to all my emphatic high fives.

However, I wish I hadn't forgotten to record the game on my DVR. I always have a hard time giving grades when I go to the games.

Ohio Bear: First, we won the game. Then, tried to use Panera Bread gift card for post game celebratory meal. The gift card reader was broken, so the friendly cashier gave us our meal for free. Score! Finally, stanfurd blew a 9-point 4th quarter lead to lose. It was a win, win, win gameday for me.

Berkelium97: This was a great game to attend in person. By the end, it was clear that this was more than a win against a team who was winless in the conference. This was about getting Cal back on the right track after USC and Oregon and finally getting a win after several years of heartbreaking losses at the Rose Bowl. From Tedford's ice bath to the way the players excitedly came over to dance and sing with the Cal band when the clock hit 0:00, it was clear this was a special win for the fans, the players, and Tedford. Thank you to all the other Cal fans who withstood nearly four hours of the 100 degree heat and gave our team a long-lasting standing ovation when the game finished.

ososdeoro: Almost upset a seeded team in tennis doubles, then got in the car and turned the game on. Starkey called the score three times before providing enough information for me to tell who was actually winning. Saw the second half doldrums while REALLY wanting to go back to the beginning and see those 35 points, but had to wait until the game was in the bag.

coolingfan: Best: Watching the Bruins exodus with 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Worst: The heat in Pasadena. I got my right chick and the right side of my neck burned even with sunblocks on, and I bet this is the case for many people who sit in Cal section...
Most memorable: The whole experience of being with loyal Cal fans, all of whom stayed after the game to celebrate the win! Go Bears!

stochastic: Cal cheers with the thousands of Cal fans in the north end zone of the Rose Bowl.
Gimme a C! (Author's note: C!)
Gimme an A! (Author's note: A!)
Gimme an L! (Author's note: L!)
What's that spell? (Author's note: CAL!)
Who are we? (Author's note: CAL!)
Who kicked the shit out of the bruins? (Author's note: CAL!)
GOOOOOOOO BEARS!

IMG_4059 (via Monica's Dad)

SoCal Oski: It was, perhaps, the single most perfect October day I've ever had in my entire life in LA - and I was born and raised there. Ideal weather (at least in Santa Monica); a riotous good time before, during, and after the game; and the joy of thumping Ucla and seeing the Rose Bowl empty as their sniveling fans left early to sulk and pout. The cherry on top is how there is starting to be dissent in the ranks among Ucla fans over whether CRN is actually the messiah, or just another false prophet.

katster: CURSE YOU MACK BROWN.

(Yeah, I was one of those people affected by the Texas-Oklahoma game gone long.)

Other that that, hung out over on Ken and Jason's site while cleaning my room and watching the game. A winning game really helped in that task, let me tell you...

Onto the commenting awards!

The Steven Chu Award (Golden Rationality)

Commenter/alias	Total Standard Deviation
GoldenBear 77	0.9182
ososdeoro	0.9908
katster	1.3360
Ohio Bear	1.3767
dingosean	1.408

Golden Bear 77 takes the cake this week. Here is his full report card, concise and full of modest rationality.

QB (B+): Riley still makes me nervous, but I love that he was leading Best's long touchdown run. Nice escapes on some of the pass rushes.

RB (A-): Vereen was amazing, and Best was more valuable than the statistics show. He forced UCLA to use a different defense when he was in -- that is the definition of a presence.

WR (B): Still, a few drops. The Jones touchdown was one for the ages.

Run blocking (B-): I don't care what defense they use, the blocking for Best has to improve.

Pass protection (B): Some breakdowns, but Riley helped them out.

Run defense (B-): What happened on the long run? But, CAL did force them into a passing game.

Pass rush (B-): Need more pressure.

Pass defense (B): Not so good early, but improved as the game progressed. What happened to SydGod? (Author's note: He should be fine.)

Special Teams (C): Too may yards on kick returns. Punting was the best of the season. We have our Groza kicker back!

Coaching (A-): We won in LA!

Overall (B+)

via farm3.static.flickr.com (Image link)

The Old Blue Award (Most Pessimistic Voters)

Commenter/alias	Average score (out of 4)
GBMarin	2.417
iVinshe	2.455
Haas8388 (T-3)	2.545
SoCalOski (T-3)	2.545
omnizzle	2.606

GBMarin had plenty of criticisms for a 22 point victory, but as you can see from above there was plenty of things to nitpick at. Here are the most biting things.

Receivers (Incomplete): Did a receiver except Jones even catch one?

Run blocking (D): Price came through like the Colorado River

Pass rush (D-): Only rushed 3 most of the time for heck sakes.

Coaching (B-): No Killer instinct in Berkeley. Hey maybe that is why. (Author's note: didn't understand this comment, can you clarify?)

I'm guessing 72-6 is going to linger throughout this season for some fans. It is hard to shake even now two weeks removed...

via farm3.static.flickr.com (original link)

Golden Sunglasses Award (GO! BEARS! GO! BEARS!)

Commenter/alias	Average score (out of 4)
Trisweb (T-1)	3.576
CaliforniaCMB (T-1)	3.576
mig	3.485
Oaktown123	3.394
coolingfan	3.364

Trisweb, by contrast, was downright beaming. His gameday experience is just too funny to not share (he was at a joint Boston viewing for Bruins and Bears alike).

Getting my car spit on in Boston, I can only assume because of the script-Cal decal. Those silly baby bears and their harmless pranks...

Coaching (A): Sappy - but I was impressed by Tedford's interaction with the players. He seemed somehow less cold, even drenched in ice cold gatorade.

Overall (A-): I was impressed and happy with the outcome obviously; I think our team played well, but I think maybe there was a small lack of challenge.

Special teams (A+): 69 yard punt? Pick six? Hell yeah. (Author's note: Defense is special teams now?)

Running backs (A): I think our backs have a lot of potential when the O-line blocks for them, and I was very impressed with Vereen's out-yarding Best this game, as well as Best's big plays. That's great versatility and will keep them guessing - who's the lead and who's the backup?

via farm3.static.flickr.com (original image link)

CaliforniaCMB had similar optimism.

Overall: Offense played well, threw the ball and ran the ball well (Vereen) and the defense did great (they turned into Field Goal U at the end) and the pick 6 sealed the deal.

Gameday experiences: Great! 9 AM drinking, BBQ, leading some nice Go! Bears! chants, and getting the middle finger from a fUCLA fan, can't beat that! oh and it was HOT!

Now onto the best of the report card. If there's anything you think I missed from your cards that was noteworthy, let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Quarterback

via calbearsonline.com

Oaktown123: Riley outperformed Colt McCoy. During the second half he had rough spots.

dingosean: Riley played well, and definitely made some good throws. Moved well in the pocket, and he didnt allow anything bad to happen the other way (I.E. no ints). He was 14-23, and 3 touchdowns for 300+ yards. Cant ask for better than that. Sure, he could have thrown a few ints on some bad throws, hence the A-. But he didnt do anything of the sort so its all good.

Jr. Bear: BEST 4 HEISMAN? MAYBE.

RILEY 13 HEISMAN!!

I creamed my pants seeing that 60% completion in the box score.
The best throw of the game? The quick out to Boateng before the half. That is the moment I regained trust in Riley.

California Pete: Big improvement. Made a number of big throws, and while he struggled to keep the sticks moving with his arm, he did pick up some nice first downs with his legs. Avoided the interception (again!), and navigated the pocket well. Above all else, he looked poised and confident.

Kodiak: Whatever the heck Ludwig and Tedford did to Riley during the bye week, whether it was drugs, Robot-Chicken-style brainwashing, or just an old-fashioned cattleprod up the *ss, keep doing it.

He was poised, pretty accurate, made good decisions...there was even a sequence in the 2nd half where he completed two straight slant passes.

I still have my reservations about how he'll handle adversity, but this was definitely a step in the right direction.

SoCal Oski: I get it now - Riley intentionally played like crap in the last two games so he'd look even better in this one!

Riley definitely looked better and more comfortable in the pocket. The 1st TD to Jones and the throw to Best were both perfect. I guess that's what happens when the OL gives him some protection. But that could speak more to a very over-hyped Ucla defense than a very improved Cal OL. Still, some passes sailed a bit.

Running back

via calbearsonline.com

VandyImport: Mixed bag. A for Vereen, who was everything you could ask, and a B for Best, who was ill-served by some of the play calling - but you can't have that many TFLs on run plays and expect to do anything.

California Pete: Vereen was an "A", and I also some some good things from the fullbacks, including Will Kapp on special teams. Best had two highlight-reel touchdowns, but he otherwise was shut down. It's tough to run when the D-line keeps getting that much penetration, but I'd still like to see Best turn more of those losses into at least modest gains.

Swamphunter: Let me quote myself from the in-game discussions:
Jahvid is God
Vereen is Jesus.

Both had over 100 yards, with Vereen having 153 and Best with 103. Best had one of the prettiest 93 yard runs you'll ever see in a Cal football game.

sec119: Running - Thunder and lightning = NATURAL DISASTER.

primo: JAvid did his Thang one time, but kept getting 1st Down off tackle minus-yard plays called, like 9 in a row!!! C'mon, Ludwig! Pass to him on a screen, or short passes to anyone!! And, don't open the play series with the same non-productive play 9x!!!

stochastic: Best had a signature SportsCenter run, but it was Vereen's consistent jabs that really impressed. I'm not convinced that Jahvid can carry the team like some people think he can, but the future is brighter than I thought.

Receivers

(via Monica's Dad)

VandyImport: Marvin Jones really earned his scholarship today, which is critical - somebody is going to have to step up as a go-to target for Riley if teams are going to dare Cal to throw.

yorzepol: Although they dropped a couple of passes that they should have caught, these guys really stepped up their game! They bailed out Riley several times and made some pretty difficult plays. Much improved with room for still more improvement.

stochastic: It's tough to say what happened here. Yes, there was an extraordinary catch in the end zone, but I didn't really see amazing routes or YAC.

Berkelium97: I don't remember too many drops, for the first time in a few weeks. Also, everyone from WRs to FBs to TEs to RBs were catching passes today. Jones emerged after disappearing since the Maryland game. He complements Riley very well because he will catch any ball that is thrown near him. He has a great ability to catch and hold on to passes that are slightly off the mark. I was very happy to see Boateng back and making a couple plays. Best and Vereen were also solid as receivers.

katster: Much, much, much better. I think we've found our WR for the future, and it was nice seeing Boetang in there again. (Hmm, how much of 72-6 was not having Boetang?)

Run blocking

via farm3.static.flickr.com (Image link)

GBB4188: There were a few problems, but I think those were mostly Brian Price being Brian Price.

Jr. Bear: Price who? Nice blocking overall, but offense still stalled in the 3rd quarter like usual. We need to get more sustained drives instead of just big plays, which will be essential later on against ASU and Washington. One of the reasons in my opinion why there were only 3 offensive points in the second half.

Swamphunter: Reason it's a B+ and not an A: Jahvid got stopped on several first down rushes. The line needs to be tighter on the obvious rushing downs. Reason it's a B+ and not a B-: 288 total yards rushing.

CALumbus Bear: Shame on the O-line for getting handily handled. "Dear fucla defensive line, I apologize if I am disturbing your pass rush, please let me get out of the way so you can get to the important business of tackling Best 7 yards behind the line of scrimmage."

Haas8388: The aggregate yardage was quite impressive, but there are far too many negative yardage plays in the running game. I rewatched much of the Bears' offensive possessions and, to my eye, UCLA did not stack the box all that often. There were occasions where they put 8 in the box and/ or run blitzed right into the play, as if they knew what was coming, but there other plays where they lined up only 6 or 7 in the box and still stuffed the play behind the LOS. That has to be on the run blocking or scheme or both.

Pass protection

via calbearsonline.com

CALumbus Bear: The way Riley was dancing around you'd think he was trying out to be Natalie Coughlin's partner. Luckily he's a damn fine dancer.

BTown85: Got it done, but there was WAY too much pressure on KR. UCLA's line consistently kept our d-line at bay, but it seemed like our O-line got pushed back every play.

stochastic: From what I could gather (the view from end zone seats at the Rose Bowl is awful), UCLA was able to get some decent pressure on Riley. However, since Riley isn't getting sacked five times a game like Aaron Rodgers, I'll take it.

katster: Better. Riley had time to make some long throws, whcih means he wasn't SCRAMBLING FOR HIS LIFE.

Yleexotee: Seemed like Riley had to run a lot in Pass plays. However, its possible this is actually A+ blocking since they didn't actually get to him.

Run defense

via calbearsonline.com

GBB4188: Run D- Gave up 2 TDs and a 5.3 ypc. That's not good at all against a UCLA OL that has been having trouble setting the tone.

Haas8388: Considering how inexperienced and supposedly weak their running game was coming into the game, I can not feel too good about the Bears' run-D giving up 100 yards to their tailback in the first half. The linebackers get blocked far too often. The sad fact is, the Bears really don't have any inside linebackers and it shows.

Berkelium97: The 74 yard run was due to some great blocking which created congestion among the D-line and LBs, but I was surprised to see the defense give up a play like that. Besides that one run, they mostly held the UCLA run game in check (about 3 ypc) and made stops in the end zone.

Kodiak: The big run by Franklin is the obvious downgrade here. Our linebackers' inexperience still shows from time to time. But, at least they have potential. Considering our starting safeties are seniors, it's really disappointing how often they're out of position or take bad angles.

Ohio Bear: To use one of my most dreaded lines, "if you take away Franklin's 74 yard TD run, Ucla didn't do much at all on the ground." Well, ok, but it happened. And it sucked. But other than that and a big gain on a QB draw by Prince, we were okay. We weren't facing a marquee back, but still nice to TCB against the run like we (mostly) did.

Pass rush

via calbearsonline.com

dingosean: Hurried Prince time and time and time again. He kept having to get out of the pocket and make throws on his own. He did, but they at least didnt make it easy for him. They got some good sacks, and stifled drives. They DID allow for some big plays and some Uckluh offense, but they didnt make it easy. They did allow some runs up the middle, and Prince was able to scramble out for yards from time to time though, so I'm only able to give them a solid game...

ososdeoro: Meh. A couple nice sacks. I give a plus for lifting up Prince and then throwing him onto the ground.

CALumbus Bear: Need moar sax lol
But we did get a couple big ones so here's a plus on that C, and we'll go ahead and draw a smiley face because they need encouragement

sec119: It's hard to sustain a pass rush with three linemen, which Cal seemed to do a lot. And then if the blanket coverage left no one open, Kevin Prince ran downfield a fair number of times too. Props for the forced fumble.

BTown85: Needed MUCH more pressure on the QB. We had a few hurries, but the rush did NOT figure into the game enough. Should have really made the QB sweat, which we'll need to do to beat better teams in conference.

Pass defense

via calbearsonline.com

TKE Prytanis 79: Seriously, we cannot give a weak/ bottom third in the pac 10 QB that much time...watching Luck light it up right now, and if that is the shape of things to come, we gotta make some serious changes...come on

Jr. Bear: Good all game. However, much of it has to do with some of Prince's poor throws. In the drive leading to Kendricks' INT, he had three legitimate chances to make it a one score game.

California Pete: Best game played by the corners perhaps all year. Very sure tackling in the open field. Hagan should start the rest of his career. Nice pick-six, even if it came on a badly thrown ball.

Swamphunter: Okay, giving up 446 yards of passing is abysmal. We only had 47 more yards than that. However, Kendricks was the ultimate hero of the game as he was able to get a pick six and seal the deal, so I'll give this a +.

Haas8388: Except for Hagan who I thought played very well, the pass D was horrid. Everyone was open and only the QB's limitations and several drops kept the Bruins from putting up real serious numbers. What exactly is the strategy here? Hmmmm, let's play way off the receivers, give the QB all day to throw, and hope for the best. Oh, and, can someone explain how we can run two straight plays with only 10 defenders on the field. Did our defensive coaches not notice how wide open the TE was on the first play? If not for Kendrick's leaping interception the outcome of the game could have been very different. Seriously, TWO STRAIGHT plays with 10 on the field. I don't think I've ever seen that before, not even in highschool.

Special Teams

via calbearsonline.com

dingosean: We had a solid game in the kicking department at least. Anger was kicking well. We made our field goal, and all of our XP attempts, and yeah... we still werent kicking the ball into high heaven on kickoffs, but at least they got the ball within the 10 and mostly inside the 5 all game on kickoffs. They didnt have the best coverage on punts and kickoffs, and allowed some big plays and never really stopped them all game on anything. This is annoying and I hope they pick it up. But the lack of good play by the coverage teams, does at least get helped by the solid kicking day.

Solid game. Nothing amazing, but solid.

Jr. Bear: Is this madness? No this is AAALLLAAAAMMMAAAARRRRRRRR, which is heartbreaking.

rurata: What is wrong with special teams? They were playing okay for a couple weeks, but went right back to sucking this week. Although I guess if I had to choose between sucky ST and winning, or decent ST and absolutely no offense, I'd choose the former. At least Anger had a few great punts.

ososdeoro: C is a huge improvement over what I've been giving. Have to give kudos to Starkey for wondering whether Tavecchio's line drive kickoff that skidded through the right side of the end zone was by accident or by design, though. Nice to see Anger back instead of that imposter. Vereen knows the rule where if the momentum of the ball carries it into the end zone after hitting your hands, you can go back and kneel in the end zone. Yay!

mig: They get the higher grade since we won. Anger, after his first shanked punt, was really on top of his game, forcing the receiver back on every kick. The return coverage, however, was dismal. Every time they returned one of our kicks I was in fear of a repeat of what happened two weeks ago. Without fail at least two men would behave like Fenimore Cooper Indians and dive 5 feet behind the guy with the ball, completely missing him.

Coaching

(via Monica's Dad)

VandyImport: Looks like they made the adjustments to contain the Bruins in the second half - but given that the offense scored NOTHING in the second half, you have to wonder whether they failed to adjust to the defense or just took their foot off the throttle. Either way, they coached them up to a win they should have gotten, so well done.

California Pete: Very impressed how genuinely confident and poised the Bears played today. And when these Bears are executing, I really like how Ludwig is mixing things up. The problem remains that this offense continues to rely too heavily on the big play. As we saw in the two losses, those big plays don't always come, and this team needs to figure out how to grind out yards--and points--in smaller chunks.

Swamphunter: Ludwig seemed to have fixed some of the more key things that were broken on Offense. Gregory... I don't know. I think he has some stuff to work on, specifically linebackers that can pass rush.

ALAMAAAAAAR was better, but still really needs to work on kickoff coverage.

Tedford was able to keep it all glued together and have the Bears bounce back, on the road in the Rose Bowl none-the-less.

Haas8388: I think Tedford deserves praise for having the team ready to go after the last two disasterous games. I also think Ludwig called a very nice first half. The defensive coaches, however, really drag down the overall grade. The two straight plays with 10 on the field at a crucial point in the game is as inept a demonstration of coaching as I have ever seen. The soft pass defense and lack of pressure on the QB drives me nuts. I may well be overly generous with the B-, but Tedford does deserve some credit for getting his first win in LA and putting up 45 on a good UCLA defense.

ososdeoro: Tedford gets an A for getting the teams' heads together, and for appearing to really be in the game. No real clock mismanagement, no game delay penalties out of time outs, good offensive game plan, including the advent of the pitchout --- while most of them went for losses (I think those ones could have been snappier), Best's 93 yarder was one. Gregory's mushy defense still perturbs. UCLA got 26 points? Ick.

Overall

(via Monica's Dad)

Jr. Bear: YEAH BABY. Love that Kendricks INT to end the game. So symbolic with his prediction of victory, so sweet to taste Bruin tears to repay that Alterraun Verner pick in 2007.
We have the "BEST" running back, Thor for a tight end, and GOD for a cornerback. If you do not love this team, there's no hope for you.

Yleexotee: Very mixed feelings. The defense let us down after a good week at USC, but the offense is back in business after falling off a cliff. WTF 45 pts a game, except for the biggest games Ore and USC.Argggh

CALumbus Bear: We FINALLY break the curse of Dorrell's mustache in El Lay, and for that the team gets a B+ and JT gets a gatorade bath.

Kodiak: It was a win on the road where our questionable offense carried the day against a defense known for its ball-hawking, lock-down secondary and legitimate NFL player in Brian Price. Nice to see Tedford finally break-through down in the Rose Bowl. We can complain about our defense and special teams...but we have to remember that Neuweasel and Chow are pretty good offensive coaches and have recruited some decent talent. Our defense was unquestionably overrated at the beginning of the year, so we need to accept that we have limitations at some positions (safety) and growing pains at others (linebacker). In the overall scheme of things, absolutely a huge must-win game that saved our season...until next week.

Ohio Bear: A 19 point win on the road in a place where we hadn't won since 1999. Oh happy glorious day. We shouldn't have given up 26 points, but I'm pleasantly stunned that we scored 45.

Berkelium97: Even if we had won 2-0 on a safety because UCLA ran the ball 95 yards into the wrong endzone, I would give this win an A+. Finally breaking the LA curse was a tremendous weight lifted off this team's shoulders. Also, scoring five offensive touchdowns against a highly praised UCLA defense was a great way to get our offense back in gear after the last two disasters.

Inside the Pac-10: A Day Without Defense + Who's Going Bowling?

Avinash — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:00:17 -0000

More photos » by Reed Saxon - AP

Shane Vereen's TD scamper was the first of many examples of Pac-10 offenses humiliating Pac-10 defenses this weekend.

Browse more photos »

Ponder this question in the comments along with your thoughts on the teams and the conference: How many Pac-10 teams will become bowl eligibile, with already nine teams sharing three wins and seven teams with four? Which ones?

Maybe it was because the Oregon schools were off, but it sure seemed a lot like every Pac-10 team was brainwashed into believing they were playing in the Holiday Bowl. Seven Pac-10 teams gave up a combined 3000 yards of total offense to each other and Emu Jimmy Clausen on a ridiculous 6.3 yards per play clip (only 10 teams in the country have given up that much this season). They also gave up 11 offensive touchdowns of 40 yards or more, including TWO OF THE WORST DEFENSIVE PLAYS I'VE EVER SEEN on the game-deciding drives.

And this was with USC playing and Washington State NOT playing! What happened? We look Inside the Pac-10.

California 45, UCLA 26

Cal got the defensive drubbing started on the first drive. I felt the Bears would win if they got to 30 points, and I was ultimately right, but boy did they make things difficult for themselves.

More on this, the rest of Cal-UCLA, plus recaps of the other three games (with video of aforementioned worst defensive plays ever) after the jump.

Let's look at the bright side--outside of one play (like with USC), the run defense remains excellent. The defensive line played great and the linebackers stepped it up in run control after that Franklin TD run, giving up 2.8 rushing yards/carry. If we can keep this up against better backs like Jacquizz, Nance, the Wildcat platoon, and Gerhart, this bodes well when we face better Pac-10 QBs.

The pass defense was, as expected, a struggle. However, despite the whining and bitching about BBDB and all the talk of how Gregory is a Duck saboteur with chainsaws for hands, the Cal pass defense did a lot more in this game than people will give them credit for. There were a lot of periods during the game where they played straight man up (like "men do", as some of the biggest Gregory-detractors have latched onto as their big phrase). It just happened Syd wasn't there for much of the game, it was poor Josh Hill or Bryant Nnabuife (good tacklers, especially HIll, but he still has a bit to learn about covering man). Still, when you go up against Norm Chow, you can expect him to take advantage of the available mismatches, which in this case were those linebackers. He went right at them on several throws, and it was clear they're going to have their growing pains as the year goes along.

Let's also give credit to Prince; he made some GREAT throws even against man coverage! And yes, you'll say those throws wouldn't have been completed against heavy pressure and a youthful Bruin front. But like I said before, Prince still only completed half of his passes against us, Not an overwhelming performance, but efficient enough.

via calbearsonline.com

Although the weakness of the pass rush saddens me, we should probably accept that Cal blitzing too much could burn them. We don't have a pass-rushing linebacker, and sending two or three guys in leaves too much of a responsibility for the other linebackers to handle at this point. Send in a corner or safety blitz leaves us vulnerable deep. The Bears don't have fast coverage men who can get to the quarterback, just solid ones, and we should be happy with that for now. And we still got three sacks.

Finally, despite the lack of defense impressiveness at the end, there were individual playmakers leaving big marks on this one. Darian Hagan re-emerged and stepped up big with several critical deflections, especially in the absence of Syd'Quan. Trevor Guyton forced a huge turnover that gave the Bears a cushion they would hold for most of the day. And the mere threat of Tyson Alualu was not something UCLA wanted to deal with. His one tackle on the day wasn't surprising because he was double-teamed and held up much of the game, as the Bruins tried to do anything outside of the Vulcan nerve pinch to hold him at bay.

Scoring-wise, the pass D still held the Bruins to 19 points and 1 touchdown out of five trips to Bear territory. And although I know people want us to pitch shut-outs like the Florida's and USCs of the world, I'll trade touchdowns for our team with field goals for their teamall day long. Although I agree that 10 man defense was horrifying.

Ultimately, Cal's pass defense didn't play its greatest, but that's been the norm all season, so I wasn't terribly bummed about it. What WAS surprising was the total folding of UCLA's defense, giving up a handful of devastating plays. Credit a great gameplan by Andy Ludwig (who out-Chowed Chow), which ruled the start of the game and left the Bruins reeling with 35 first half points.

via calbearsonline.com

Alterraun Verner, perhaps the best pro prospect corner in the conference, got burned twice on those Jones touchdown catches, even though Verner did everything right in terms of coverage. Good defense, better offense. Kudos to Ludwig for taking advantage of Marvin's skill, as he seems to be assuming the mantle of #1 receiver.

I do agree with some that say that the Bears did struggle to get any consistency going CBKWit did talk about Brian Price being a major disruptor, and I do agree he should get his dap--he disrupted a good deal of the run plays even when facing constant double teams and totally blew up our inside run. Jahvid Best should be happy this is likely his last encounter with the big 92, because outside of that one run he got nothing on the inside or the outside.

However, some of that goes hand-in-hand with line play. I feel Cal's offensive line is going to be up and down the rest of the season--there was bad run blocking everywhere, something Hydro will get to later in his postgame thoughts. Thankfully, the list of good defenses we face the rest of the season is short--Arizona State, Oregon State and Arizona are the best rush Ds left, but the latter two struggle against the pass, so I'd say the Sun Devils are the stiffest test left for this offense on paper.

UCLA did their job on 80% of their plays. Cal's offense won big-time on the other 20%. The Bruins still have a talented defense that could definitely upset a few Pac-10 squads down the stretch, but they let too much go in this one.

Postgame reactions
Great article from Bruins Nation about the logistics of Neuheisel going for it on 4th and short on three times: "However I do think that we should have gone for at least the first and the last situation, short-yardage deals where the odds of converting are slightly higher (see the gap between 4th-and-1 and 4th-and-everything else on that middle graph). For what it's worth here is their graph of what to do/not do on 4th down, based on these findings. Here is a graph that has all three of the above ones merged, you can clearly see that there were higher expected points at the 6, 28, and 46 yard lines for going for it (colored lines) than kicking (black line). Interesting to note that 4th-and-2 is almost always a better decision than kicking from anywhere on the field, and 4th-and-1 is always a better decision, according to this data."

One commenter seems unhappy with his defense: "The absence of a "team" feeling seems especially apparent on defense. On defense I think we do have some very good players. We have some stars actually. But for all the talent I think we have, I wouldn't put $10 on our ability to stop a decent-to-good team on a consistent basis. It's as if the players can't get past the hype that surrounds them. And unfortunately, this has been going on for years. Walker's defenses were always "the strongest unit" on the team, yet we couldn't expect them to win games for us. And great defenses can win games for teams, even with bad offenses. Sometimes it seems our guys think the UCLA logo on the helmet means they are the real deal. Turns out, its just a logo, and means squat on the field."

Bears With Fangs: "Let’s not fully kid ourselves. Saturday’s win over UCLA has confirmed that this team still has a number of issues preventing it from being an elite team. And it’s clear we still have overestimated talent to a certain extent and have underestimated a number of key deficiencies. And it most certainly doesn’t cover up the fact that this team really for the lack of a better word, faceplanted in their two losses against USC and Oregon. But today’s win sure does feel good."

Bear Insider: There was a lot of apprehension among Cal fans coming into the game about how the team had been affected by the two consecutive decisive losses; this victory did a lot to answer those doubts."We're a lot tighter as a family now after what we went through," said Best. We're doing a lot of team bonding and doing everything together and that's been elevated a lot the next couple weeks.
"Coach Tedford pushed for us, when the defense was on the field for the offense to be engaged, rooting them on and not just sitting on the bench," said Best. "It definitely felt like the whole team was behind us this game."

"It was a team effort," said Tedford. "We made a lot of plays on both sides of the ball and played really well together. That was the main focus coming into this game for the last two weeks -that we need to stick together. "As naysayers and critics step up, the players in the locker room believe in each other. They're playing hard for each other and hung in there and kept battling. When they came back we answered and never panicked."

#6 USC 34, #25 Notre Dame 27

via assets.nydailynews.com (Image from Getty)

Didn't see much of this game, as I doubt many Cal fans did, so I can't comment on this much. All I know is USC had a 34-14 lead with about 13 minutes to go into the 4th, and when I switched over, the Trojans were punting up 7. Say what? (It should be noted the Trojans received the good fortune of a missed Irish extra point. Who's to know how much tighter their team would've played on the final drive if Notre Dame had been going for the win rather than the tie?)

People might not realize it, but Pete Carroll, for all the supposed defensive intensity that some Golden Bears yearn for, plays the exact same schemes as Gregory does--BBDB, just with better athletes. And his version gave up 367 yards (not bad, but far from dominant), two touchdowns in the 4th quarter (although one was after a costly Barkley pick) and nearly gave up the game-tying one. There were two or three questionable calls (a Taylor Mays late hit and an extra second put back on the clock for an extra play at the goal-line are the ones that stand out), but USC showed why they are a vulnerable team this year at the end. Oregon better not start looking ahead to Halloween and take care of business next week, because their shot to win the Pac-10 will come down to their tilt in Autzen otherwise.

Anyway, Clausen made a few errant throws and misreads at the end zone, and it was enough for USC. Crisis averted for the Pac-10 and the BCS (11 win Irish team, bleh), and Catholics are sad. Just the way Martin Luther wanted it.

Postgame reactions
Conquest Chronicles: "There is no question that the USC offense has really come together. Barkley once again went into a very hostile stadium and came away with the win. I can probably count 3-5 plays that Barkley made that I could see where he was still a freshman but he managed the game nicely...I cannot get mad at Matt Barkley over that INT. Not after a 370+ yard passing performance with 2 TD's. The O line did a great job for most of the game in giving him pass protection but my concern is the running game...SC had a very difficult time establishing the run. The red zone offense was also a concern. Even though we did get some TD's in the red zone it just did not look crisp. You can tell we miss Stafon..."

Jeff Miller, OC Register: "What was Pete Carroll thinking at that precise moment? After pulling his players off the field in mid-celebration? Having recalled one giant exhale? Knowing victory now would require goal-line stand, the sequel? "Trying to enjoy the heck out of it," Carroll explained, sounding serious and certainly sober. "It was a great moment. Whether we had to go back again or not, that just doubled the fun of trying to get it done...Unfortunately, we made it real dramatic and fun...Stuff happens. Stuff happened.""

USC-Notre Dame highlights, courtesy of Trojan Wire.

I would link to some excellent Notre Dame blogs (Rakes of Mallow and Blue Gray Sky come to mind), but no post-game reactions exist yet...I guess they're either in mourning or do take Catholic Sunday very seriously.

Arizona 43, Furd 38

Welcome to your Defensive Craptacular.

Yeah, that's exactly what it looks like...and it's exactly what these defenses sucked for most of the game.

71% of passes completed, including 78% by Nick Foles. 8 offensive yards per play. Nearly 10 yards per passing play for the teams combined. When the Wildcats keyed to shut down Toby Gerhart (who still rushed for 123 and 2 TDs), Andrew Luck made them pay by nearly throwing 12 yards per attempt. Almost half of the 3rd and 4th downs were converted, and six of those conversions went for touchdowns. 1,137 total yards of offense.

Give credit to Andrew Luck (who led a valiant but failed comeback attempt in the final seconds, and his receivers like Chris Owusu dropped some critical passes that could've sealed the game) and Nick Foles, who do look like the future of Pac-10 quarterbacks right behind Barkley. I don't envy playing them this season and I wholly dread them in the years to come.

Arizona's pass defense, to be frank, sucked. Nine receivers caught a pass for at least ten yards, seven caught one for at least twenty yards, five caught one for at least thirty yards and three caught one for at least forty yards. These receivers included the quarterback, who caught one on a wide receiver pass. Maybe we should run the Wildcat pass, Best to Riley against these guys.

Furd's pass defense wasn't much better, totally helpless against the Airraid attack and Foles dictating it, giving up an unprecedented 78% completion rate.

But nothing the pass coverage gave up on both sides was as galling than the game-deciding scores at 5:15.

1st play: 3rd and 1, Furd up by 12 defending on their own 43, stupidly stack seven on the line against five (can I just rehinge how stupid you have to be to stack seven this far from the end zone--if they decide to run and Nwoko gets to the second level, he is gone), simple draw play to evade the pass rush from the edges for a 43 yard touchdown. Simple play against a dumb defensive scheme.

2nd play: 3rd and 17, Furd up by 5, defending on Arizona's 43, AND THEY STACK SEVEN ON THE LINE AGAIN!!! I was literally dumbfounded watching this on the screen when they did the second stupid thing and all rushed toward Foles again. And then Arizona nearly outstupids them by RUNNING THE BALL instead of taking advantage of single coverage everywhere. But after Grigsby breaks a weak leg tackle from the Furd edge rusher, since everyone rushed, there's no one standing between him and the first down. And because their defenders are slow at the edge, the Cardinal give up ANOTHER DRAW PLAY for a 57 yard game-deciding touchdown. The Furd gave up 100 rushing yards on those two plays after giving up 38 the rest of the game.

Oh well, guess they aren't the Cardinal for nothing.

Postgame reactions

Ted Miller, ESPN: "We're kind of changing the offense to [Foles]," Stoops said. "He's very comfortable with it. He can distribute the football and make the reads and calls. We look a lot more like Texas Tech than we ever have." Foles has progressed from backup best known for his long, 70s rock star hair to perhaps being the frontrunner for first-team All-Conference quarterback. Yes, his coaches are a little surprised by what they suddenly find themselves with at the position. "Nick is not the best practice player," Dykes said. "He's learning to be one, but he's not as good as he should be. We did notice that when he got into games -- even the spring game -- that he's kind of a gamer. He can improvise well and he has a really good feel for making decisions and staying calm."

Ken Roe, Oregonian: "The play call looked disastrous when the Wildcats came to the line, because Stanford was massing for an all-out blitz. Every gap would be filled. Tailback Nic Grigsby, the designated ballcarrier, was going to be swarmed by white jerseys before he ever got out of the backfield. Arizona center Colin Baxter turned to quarterback Nick Foles and begged him to check out of the play. But Foles, as he told the Arizona Daily Star, figured maybe Grigsby could make something happen. Guess what? Grigsby took the handoff, swerved around a blitzing defender and popped through the line of scrimmage and, because of the blitz, found no second level of defense. He went 57 yards for the go-ahead touchdown . "Really honestly," Dykes told the Daily Star, "it was a bad call that just worked.""

Bobby Stover, Daily Wildcat: "Head coach Mike Stoops — normally stoic and business-like following games, win or lose — strolled into the room with a grin on his face as he took his seat in front of the microphone with the Arizona backdrop behind him. As he began detailing the game from his view, he seemed relieved and elated. The reporters’ questions were more casual and Stoops’ responses more light-hearted than usual. After the head coach finished, defensive and offensive coordinators Mark Stoops and Sonny Dykes, respectively, entered and spoke with similar tones. Mark Stoops got the reporters laughing at one point after telling them he gave all the offensive players and coaches a kiss for bailing out his defense that allowed 584 yards of offense from the Cardinal."

Here is the Furd reaction:

Arizona State 24, Washington 17

Don't let that score fool you. This game had 842 yards of offense. Jake Locker struggled with his accuracy and threw a bad red zone pick, but also threw 8 for 10 for 121 yards and a TD on the two second half scoring drives and by sustaining his drives after the first quarter, made sure that Arizona State didn't have great field position for much of the game (well, until the end, but more on that later).

It was a big help to the weak UDub defense, which simply doesn't have the depth yet to stop Pac-10 teams who can both run and pass. That USC game is looking more and more like two coordinators knowing their old coach's tendencies and Aaron Corp being bad bad bad. They gave up 464 yards in all, 169 on the ground to guys like freshman Cameron Marshall and elder statesman Dmitri Nance. Danny Sullivan is not a great quarterback (ASU is 98th in passer rating and 93rd in completion percentage in D-I), but he completed to seven receivers, all with at least one catch of nine yards or more.

All of this production though, was undone because both teams played mind-numbingly stupid football. There were 21 penalties for 223 yards. 223 yards!!! And most of them weren't even of the negative type--there were at least a half-dozen personal fouls, most on that crazy Sun Devil defense. And Washington's coaching staff got penalized again, leading me to wonder if Pete Carroll let Nick Holt go gracefully because he knew that his ex-DC had recently been released from a mental ward.

There was a hilarious drive in the 2nd quarter by the Huskies which went 82 yards, with six penalties in 13 plays, five of those penalties coming in a six play span, giving the Huskies 45 net yards, yet it still ended with a Locker interception. After the turnover, the Sun Devils went 89 yards, only to fumble it twice, recovering it the first time, and losing the second one into the end zone Cameron Colvin style for a touchback.

Vontaze Burfict might be a beast of a defender, but he also might be legitimately insane--he was involved in about half of those penalties, throwing forearms, trash-talked everyone on Washington, and seemed to be trying out for a part in a 50 Cent music video during the middle of the game. The biggest thing I fear about Tempe is the stupidity quotient, where the relative IQ and inebriation of the Sun Devil fanbase and football team infects the Golden Bears as the game goes along, because as some of our commenters noted, Washington sure seemed like they got dragged down to their devilish level. Thank God we're not playing this on Halloween night.

In one of many curious coaching decisions not involving Mike Stoops, with 1:17 left in a tied game, Steve Sarkisian tries to run out the clock (he gets it down to :13), but also does the second dumbest thing by passing on 3rd and 1. If he runs the ball and gets the first down, you go to overtime, and do you trust Sullivan or Locker more to score a touchdown? Rookie coaching mindfuck. Wonder if Tedford had any in 2002.

All of that led to this. Ladies, gentlemen, I present to you, the worst football defense of 2009.

I have no words left.

Postgame reactions

House of Sparky: "Vontaze Burfict is extremely talented, but he needs to check himself before he wrecks himself: He runs around like he is about to kill whoever gets in his way, and I love having him on our side. But at times last night, he was literally out of control. We cannot have him committing so many penalties. It makes us look bad and ruined several good defense stops. In time, he will be considered one of the best. For now, he needs to realize what is important- making plays before the whistle blows."

UW Dawg Pound: "I listened to the past game show and Bob Rondeau asked all the right questions and Coach Sark gave all the right answers. The thing I really like about Sarkisian is he didn't make excuses and took immediate responsibility for the clock management on that last series.

"Hindsight is 20/20, but if I had to do it again, I would've run the ball," Sarkisian said of the third-and-one play. "That's on me. It eats at me because I felt like I could've managed the ballgame better," Sarkisian said. "I try to pride myself in doing that stuff, but I didn't do it tonight."

On the miraculous Arizona State TD play Sark had these comments:

"We jumped a route, a crossing route, and left the middle of the field wide open."

When you look at that final play on film you see a series of broken assignments and a defense that was confused about what it was supposed to do on what should have been the last play before overtime."

Only Bears fans care about these

Penn State 20, Minnesota 0

Reading the gamethread from The Daily Gopher, people were not happy at all with the gameplan and coaching.

Virginia 20, Maryland 9

Testudo Times: "I like Chris Turner a lot, and I can respect what he's done as QB for the better part of three years, but he's been having a rough go of it lately. Yesterday was no exception. First off, his arm was noodle-y and weak, most evidenced by the Torrey Smithunderthrow. Second, he was rarely on target, even with open receivers. And this wasn't just the rain: Jameel Sewell looked better than he did for most of the game. Worst of all, he rarely even looked Torrey Smith's way. Like I said in the recap, Smith was isolated, one on one coverage, with no safety over the top several times, and he was never even glanced at. Turner's gotta get some of that blame."

Poll

How many Pac-10 teams will make it to bowls this season?

Less than 5

6 votes

5

44 votes

6

84 votes

7

41 votes

More than 7

3 votes

178 votes | Poll has closed

Early Morning Gameday Buff Bites - Colorado Buffaloes vs. Kansas Jayhawks

irish1611 — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:00:29 -0000

"3 Questions: Kansas at Colorado" by Going Into Overtime | KUsports.com

Colorado's problem could be its offensive line. Junior left tackle Nate Solder is the Buffaloes' lone upperclassman up front. Perhaps because of the line's inexperience, Colorado has surrendered a quarterback sack on approximately six percent of its drop-back pass plays. Compare that to KU's mark of approximately three percent. One has to imagine the same ineffectiveness might be rubbing off on the Colorado run game. If the Jayhawks contain Stewart on first and second downs and put Colorado in unfavorable down-and-distance situations, the Buffaloes' young quarterback could have a tough time generating first downs.

KU receiving duo faces tougher foe in Colorado - Kansas City Star

Well, it appears that Kansas wide receivers Dezmon Briscoe and Kerry Meier don’t deserve all the credit for their big day Saturday against Iowa State. Note to Big 12 defensive coordinators: Don’t do what the Cyclones did. "Iowa State came in and played their base defense and didn’t double-team either one of us," Briscoe said.

No. 17 Kansas at Colorado | Kansas Jayhawks | Wichita Eagle
Gotta hope for this right:

3. The Buffaloes have lost three straight to KU. They have never lost four straight.

Brooks: Burney Eyes Texas Loss, Future - CUBuffs.com
The Andre Simmons watch continues:

THE ANDRE WATCH: It's Week 6 . . . anybody seen Andre Simmons? Not to worry. Simmons believes he's about ready to be seen - perhaps soon. "As the games go by, I gain more confidence with the playbook and the quarterback," he said. "Day by day, I'm getting more momentum and getting more involved . . . hopefully, I can be more productive. Sooner or later everything will fall in place."

Buffs letting Stewart run free - The Longmont Times-Call

Darian Hagan said Rodney Stewart received more carries than Darrell Scott last week against Texas because Rodney was "so damn hot." Now I agree that Rodney Stewart is probably our best back right now but if "so damn hot" equates to 40 yards on 21 carries, then well, we can expect to be the 112th ranked rushing team this year.

The plan last Saturday at Texas, said Colorado running back coach Darian Hagan, was to get more carries for Darrell Scott. It didn’t happen. Why? "Speedy (Rodney Stewart) starts out the game and he gets so damn hot," Hagan said. "And then Texas clogs up the box and Speedy can find those holes. He’s so small that guys are missing him and they overrun him and he can find the back door."

CU’s Smith welcomes spotlight at corner - The Longmont Times-Call
CB Jimmy Smith will have his hands full on Saturday trying to contain Jayhawk receivers Dezmon Briscoe and Kerry Meier.

Phil Steele - 2009 Big 12 Mid Season All Conference Teams
Phil Steele named his mid season All Conference team for the Big 12. WR Scotty McKnight, TE Riar Geer and CB Cha'pelle Brown were named to the second team. Nate Solder and Jeff Smart were put on the third team.

Big 12 predictions, Week 7 - Big 12 - ESPN

Kansas 31, Colorado 28: The Jayhawks showed a leaky defense last week against Iowa State and could get a sterner test from the Buffaloes than you might expect. The Jayhawks have the conference’s foremost pitch-and-catch trio in Todd Reesing, Dezmon Briscoe and Kerry Meier. And their offense could be even more potent and balanced if and when Jake Sharp returns to the lineup. New Colorado starting quarterback Tyler Hansen will try to pump some life into a struggling lineup that was limited to 127 yards last week by Texas. The Buffaloes should find things a little smoother against the Jayhawks, who have allowed an average of 32 points in their last two games.

Kansas' Reesing has always been a little big man against CU - The Denver Post

CU Buffs sophomore becoming veteran on CU`s D-line - Colorado Daily
Kyle Ringo has a story on DL Curtis Cunningham, who has been a solid performer for the Buffs this year.

CU Men's Basketball Media Day Quotes - CUBuffs.com
Quotes from Colorado head coach Jeff Bzdelik and players from media days. Great details from coach Bzdelik on the newcomers in his quotes. I am very excited for Alec Burks and Marcus Relphorde.

Bzdelik says all CU hoop newcomers to contribute | All Things Colorado Sports

Alec Burks, 6-6 freshman guard, Grandview (Mo.) HS – "Alec grew a couple of inches since we signed him. He’s very long, very athletic. He’s talented. Extremely talented. He can go make a play in a variety of ways. As soon as he understands the physicalness and intensity level at which this game is played at this level, I’ll go out on the limb to say this … he has a chance to be really special."

Brooks: Buffs Hope Relphorde Can Provide 'Wow' Factor - CUBuffs.com

In fact, when Bzdelik thumbed down his list of Buffaloes newcomers, he led off with the 6-foot-7 Relphorde and called him "the one I expect the most out of." Meantime, Relphorde was seated in the back of the room, soaking in the high expectations. And he was fine with it. "It's not really putting me on the spot," he said, grinning. "A lot of the things he said up there, he's told me (privately). I know he has high expectations for me, and I welcome that. I mean, I feel like setting the bar high is good, because I have high expectations for myself as well."

CU Buffs freshman Hornbuckle prefers Bzdelik`s offense - Boulder Daily Camera

"Keegan is a smart kid. He definitely did his homework before he committed to Colorado," Terry Kelly, Hornbuckle`s high school coach, told the Los Angeles Times last fall. "In reality, the system is perfect for him. He had plenty of options, but I think he made the right choice. ... "We are talking about a kid who will have the opportunity to play right away, in a very tough conference, no less. He`s not going to shy away from competition at the next level. He can step in and make an impact, there`s no question about it."

Thursday Buff Bites - Multiple Cases of Believe It When I See It

irish1611 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:06:39 -0000

CU running back Scott recovering for Texas - Boulder Daily Camera
How many times have we heard this before or something similar to it:

Darrell Scott produced his best week of practice since joining the Colorado football program, running backs coach Darian Hagan said Wednesday.

Whether it actually leads to a committed game plan featuring Darrell Scott is another thing. Darrell Scott says he is just patiently waiting:

"It`s negative if you don`t produce," Scott said of being labeled the best recruit in the nation at his position. "People are going to be like, 'Hey, wasn`t he the No. 1 running back but he`s not doing anything?` So that`s one part of it, but at the same time, you want to show that you were and you have the talent to back up everything that was said about you. So I`m just waiting, patiently waiting. That`s all I`m doing right now."

It looks like Kyle Ringo has heard the same internet RUMOR about Darrell Scott looking elsewhere:

Colorado coaches have received plenty of criticism for not getting Scott more involved in the game even when he has been healthy. Scott`s toughness has been questioned and fans seem to be on 24-hour watch for the possibility he might just decide CU isn`t the place for him after all and transfer. Fellow running back and former California high school star Brian Lockridge is one of Scott`s closest friends on the team. He said he hasn`t seen any hint of negativity come from Scott.

Buff fans used to get excited over this talk of Scott doing something well in practice or hints of him being featured more in the next game...not anymore. We have gotten our hopes up too many times to fall for that anymore. Believe it when we see it, right?

CU’s Wright ahead of other new WRs | All Things Colorado Sports
Here is another, "I will believe it when I see it":

CU offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau said sophomore receiver Anthony Wright is further along than junior-college transfer Andre Simmons and freshman Will Jefferson. Wright, who converted from cornerback in August, said he is fully recovered from an ankle injury that slowed him for more than two weeks. "He’s been getting better every week," Kiesau said, "and we just have to find more opportunities to get him on the field. I think we’re going to do that."

CU football: Cody Hawkins gets some help heading into game at Texas - The Denver Post
How about three "I will believe it when I see its." One day all these words will actually turn into something we see on the field. When that day happens, it is going to be glorious...how does that saying go "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..." You have fooled us more than twice

Speaking Tuesday during his weekly media luncheon, Colorado coach Dan Hawkins said the offensive staff "has a bead on some things" that should help junior quarterback Cody Hawkins minimize his mistakes as the team prepares for Saturday's game at No. 2 Texas.

Beads! I have a bead for you...don't throw the ball 46.5 times per game. Easier said then done as a 32 point underdog I guess. I am scared for Saturday, very scared. I will be shocked if the Buffs don't throw the ball 50+ times and that usually means a very, very long day.

CU’s QB, team seek cohesion - Hawkins may not improve until the ‘big picture’ does -The Longmont Times-Call
Same old story, different day..."we are just too young and inexperienced to be successful, especially at quarterback." I want the quarterback to be able to compensate for the youth and inexperience one day, not be dependent on what is around him all the time. Our quarterback needs to be able to make others better sometimes too.

more links after the jump...

Brooks: QB Efficiency Still Lacking - CUBuffs.com

Numbers never tell the whole story, but the partial tale they relate here isn't pretty: Cody Hawkins ranks last among Big 12 Conference QBs in three categories (pass efficiency, pass completion percentage, yards per completion) and first in the most dubious department - interceptions. His seven touchdown passes are matched by seven interceptions - three fewer than he threw in 12 games last season. Kiesau said Markques Simas, who caught his first career pass (it was for a 30-yard score) at West Virginia, and Anthony Wright, who is recovering from an ankle sprain, "are coming along." But junior college transfer Andre Simmons, a late-August arrival who has only one reception, appears to be coming along more slowly than anticipated. "We would like to have some more out of him, get him some more opportunities," Kiesau said. "It's hard because you don't want to put him out there too much and have him make a bunch of mistakes and get down on himself.

Longhorns notebook - The Statesman
Here is some positive news on the Buffs' offense:

UT, Buffs make others see a lot of red If season statistics are any indication, Saturday's Texas-Colorado matchup should be a game of touchdowns. The Longhorns and Buffaloes are tied for the top red zone offenses in the country. Both teams have scored every time they've gotten inside the opponent's 20-yard line this year. Colorado is 12 of 12 so far, with 10 touchdowns. The Longhorns are an impressive 23 of 23 in the red zone. Texas has scored 16 touchdowns — 12 by running plays — and kicked seven field goals. There are six other teams in the country that also are perfect.

Big 12 internal affairs: Grayshirting paying off with Florence, Leong - Big 12 - ESPN

The best example of Colorado’s offensive and defensive struggles can be seen in this statistic. The Buffaloes have produced two gains of 40 yards or more on offense. And they’ve allowed 11 gains of 40 yards or more on defense.

CU coach Hawkins evaluates play of Buff QB Hawkins - Boulder Daily Camera
I couldn't even get through all the quotes from Dan Hawkins talking about the quarterback play this season.

The Big 12 race: Our picks, thoughts - The Statesman
Five writers from the statesman got together and tried to assess the Big 12 after the first five weeks. The Buffs got a mention for the most disappointing team and the two mentions as a team that will flop in the future...sorry fellas, we have already flopped:

And the biggest disappointment? Bohls: Colorado. Awful scheduling — two games, one of them on the road, five days apart — inconsistent quarterbacking and a dismally slow defense has killed the Buffaloes' chances of a winning season.

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas

Texas has outscored Colorado 181-41 in the last four meetings. The Buffaloes' last win in the series was the 2001 Big 12 championship game that kept Texas from playing for the national title. ... Shipley is averaging nine catches per game and is on pace to join Kwame Cavil #100 in 1999 as the only Longhorns to catch 100 passes in a season ... Texas leads the nation in scoring at 49.5 points per game.

Buffs go big red with linebacker Beatty - The Denver Post

The Longmont Times-Call - CU’s Stevens maximizes opportunity

Buffs center Mike Iltis is questionable for the Texas game so Keenan Stevens might have to fill in again. Iltis is suffering from the same concussion that kept him out of the West Virginia game.

Scouting Texas' next opponent: Colorado

Note to sports editors: do the staff a favor and make Dan Hawkins a permanent guest on the college pick-it line next season. He looks like an easy mark. Hawkins, the Colorado coach, adopted a "10 wins, no excuses" attitude for the 2009

Q & A with The California Golden Blogs

Paragon SC — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:00:24 -0000

Aside from our genuine hate for the hippies at Kal we have a great respect for our friends, or nuts if you prefer, at The California Golden Blogs. So in the genuine interest working together (really, we are just trying to keep close tabs on them so they don't over run us) we did 5 questions on this weekends big game in Berzerkly.

Here are their answers to our questions...

1 - We are now four games into the season. Cal has had some great games and one stinker. Tell us your surprises and concerns in regards to the overall performance of the team, beyond the last game played.

CGB - Beyond the last game played? Because that one looms pretty large. Its hard to tell what, if anything, is good after that last game. Here's a surprise. Oregon just bent us over. Here's a concern. Oregon just took us to the woodshed. We were humiliated in pretty much every way you can be humiliated. Its hard to really have anything positive to say after a game like that. A concept few USC fans can understand, because of the undeniable success of the team over the last decade.

Read the rest after the jump!

2. Our defensive linemen are very good. I'd monitor Tyson Alualu very closely, he could very well be one of the top DEs in the country. He won that Minnesota game on defense for us by forcing Adam Weber into some very quality throws.

CGB - What should worry any Cal fan is the linebackers. Although Mychal Kendricks and D.J. Holt are very talented, they are young, and it showed on Saturday, falling asleep on their zone coverages and making very lazy tackles that Oregon's offense broke through with. I'd be very interested to see if Carroll tries to exploit those holes through the middle.

The secondary is still a mystery. They have not performed as well as they did last year, but I'm not sure how much of that has to do with scheme or execution. It remains to be seen whether Syd'Quan Thompson and Darian Hagan can resume their roles as lockdown corners, because they've been playing a lot more off the ball than they did last year.

3 - It is easy to see that Jahvid Best is a great running back. What are the little things he does that make some so special and what are things that can potentially hamper him?

CGB - He seems to be really good with his patience. Often times, running backs just run straight forward. If there is a hole, yay! If there isn't, not so much. Jahvid is good at waiting for his blocking to develop and go from there. His first highlight run of the year, he had to slow down to let a WR block up-field for him for like 20 yards. Like the world's fastest tango, the WR kept the defensive player at bay while Jahvid sauntered down the field behind them. It showed a level of maturity that was good.

Something that holds him back is his blocking. I am not smart enough to see such things, but am informed that RB blocking is an important part of any NFL hopeful. Apparently Jahvid's blocking is not at the level many would hope for. If he can work on that, he could really succeed at the next level.

4 - Everyone thought that this was Cal's year to finally unseat USC to win the Pac-10, and that could certainly still happen. While no one seriously thinks that Jeff Tedford's job is in jeopardy, is any part of the sane fan base getting restless? Are they starting to question Tedford's ability to seal the deal? Are these people actually 'Furd fans posting under false pretences?

CGB - I, yellow fever, like to think that we Marshawnthusiasts, Jahvidticians, and members of the Follettariat on CGB are largely sane, but speaking personally I think I am getting a little bit restless. This is a bit of a new thing for me as I'm also an Eagles fan who's been largely satisfied with almost winning the Super Bowl rather than actually doing it, but there's something about the tremendous hype and the "THIS YEAR WILL BE DIFFERENT" rhetoric that was coming from all corners of the media leading up to this year.

I don't want to overstate my level of disappointment either, by the way. I even wrote an article for the Examiner here about how Tedford has done a solid job at Cal asking Cal fans to calm the hell down, to realize how far the program has come since the Holmoecaust, and that the only reason these lofty expectations exist for Cal at all are because Tedford is here. So I'm not calling for his firing. I do think last week was a bit of an aberration. But I am getting restless knowing that this will, in all likelihood, be another year without going to the Rose Bowl and another year of not meeting living up to the hype.

5 - Who ya' got and why...What does Cal need to do to win? What can they absorb from USC to win? What would sink you guys?

CGB - Well, we got Cal, of course. What kind of Cal fans would we be otherwise? The only year I didn't think we had a chance was 2005. Ayoobian.

As for what does Cal need to do to win? Well, after last week's debacle, I would say, stop the run, stop the pass, pass, and then run. Not necessarily in that order. I mean our entire world was just turned upside down.

We definitely have to get the running game going. It floundered last week under a relentless Oregon D. The USC D is pretty good, so that could prove problematic.

We also have to get more pressure on the QB. We were doing great with that the first 3 weeks, but Masoli was ready Russian novels in between passes last week. Ai!

The key is always winning the trenches. Get the holes open for Jahvid. And get Cameron Jordan and Tyson Alualu into the USC Bak-Bakfield.

6 - Finally, everyone knows that you guys are a bunch of deranged commie pinkos hell bent on taking over and dominating the Internet if not the world with your indoctrination and re-education camps. What is your plan to crush the rebellion and absorb that satellite state in Westwood? Have you learned any lessons from the forest guerrillas of ATQ?

CGB - Easy way to get control of that satellite state in Westwood: Bring them the stuffed hide of Karl Dorrell. That opens many doors. Also, invite Neuheezy into your underground Asian gambling den. He loves those things and has many connections within Westwood. I think if we can do that, it'll go a long way towards extending ATQ's dominion even further South. I will do your unholy bidding, JTLight!

We will link up DC Trojans answers to their questions later today!

Cal @ Oregon Post-Game Thoughts

HydroTech — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:00:36 -0000

More photos » by Don Ryan - AP

2 months ago: California running back Jahvid Best (4) is tackled by Oregon defenders Josh Kaddu (56) and Lavasier Tuinei during the second half of their NCAA college football game in Eugene, Ore., Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009. The Oregon defense held Best to only 55 yards rushing to beat No. 6 California 42-3. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

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(1) Jeff Tedford does not need to be fired. I haven't seen a lot of this, or actually, anyone suggesting this on the blog. However, I am sure there are other online forums where this idea is being thrown around. It's ridiculous. Shit happens. Great coaches lose games on occasion. On rare occasions, great coaches lose games by a lot. It just happens. Until Cal starts having consecutive losing seasons or .500 seasons, there should be no talk of firing Tedford.

(2) The defensive gameplan of making Masoli throw is fine so long as he's not throwing bubble screens.

We’re not respecting their outside receivers. They’re probably going to use trips and bubble screen us to get our defenders outside of the box.

by HydroTech on Sep 26, 2009 1:06 PM PDT (30 minutes into the game)

Making Masoli throw seemed like a fine idea prior to the game as since Masoli looked horrible all season. But, quite predictably, when Cal started putting 7-8 defenders in the box to guard against Masoli's runs, Oregon used trips WRs and bubble screened out to them. I warned this would happen a mere 30 minutes into the game once I saw what Gregory was doing. Now, as bad as Masoli can be when passing the ball, even our very own girly TwistNHook can throw bubble screens. In other words, making Masoli pass is a fine idea so long as he's passing down field, and not to the flats. Once it became apparent that Masoli and Chip Kelly would consistently use and take the easy yardage from trips bubble screens, I would have liked to see Gregory respect the outside WRs more and trust in our linebackers and defensive line to handle the runs themselves without the immediate aid of the 8th or even 7th defender. But Gregory kept defending against Oregon's run game, and Oregon kept burning us outside.

Also, listen to Ken Crawford's On the Road Home Podcast. Cal Defensive Coordinator Bob Gregory mentions that Oregon ran some new plays against Cal that the defense hadn't really seen much of nor prepared for (what these new wrinkles are, I'm not sure because I haven't had the time to scout Oregon).

(3) The way to beat the Cal Defense is to PUMP FAKE THE #^%*@ out of them. This became apparent after the Minnesota game. One of the problems with zone defenses, and especially aggressive secondary defenders in zone defenses, is that they're very susceptible to pump fakes. The reason this is so, is because the defenders are looking at the QB, whereas when they are playing man coverage the secondary defenders are looking at the WRs and do not see pump fakes (unless the secondary defenders peek). Minnesota took advantage of Hagan and Syd's aggressiveness, with pump fakes that led to touchdowns. Oregon pump faked the @#$% out of our defenders too. So how do you solve this problem? Either play man coverage, or get a faster pass rush so the QB doesn't have time to pump fake. Or the defenders can be less aggressive and not bite on pump fakes but that's hard to do and perhaps very ill-advisable.

(4) Offensive playcalling was bad. Here's where I play couch offensive coordinator. Take the following with 1 cup of salt because I suppose it's no coincidence that Andy Ludwig is an actual offensive coordinator and a chump like me is in culinary school (seriously! culinary school of all things!), but I would have approached things differently than Ludwig did.

First of all, Oregon was stacking the box and begging us to pass. They would have an 8th defender in the box quite often. Safeties were creeping forward to focus on Jahvid Best. So naturally, the way to defeat this with some playaction. Although I haven't charted the game (been a bit too depressed to do that), I can't remember off the top of my head very much playaction at all early on. Now, the playaction can come out of any formation that Cal runs out of. Against Oregon, Cal used it's 12 personnel and 21 personnel quite a bit. Cal has playaction plays out of the ace (very prominent in the pre-Dunbar offense), the twin TE ace (see 2007 offense), and the I-formation (always been a staple although we've seen less and less of it in the past few years). But we just didn't see any playaction early on, perhaps not until the third quarter. So until the third quarter, we were just ramming the ball into 8 defenders who were expecting the run and weren't getting the defense to be more honest by taking playaction shots down the field.

I would have liked to see Cal use 22 personnel more (2 backs, 2 TEs, 1 WR) out of the big-I. This would have put a lead blocker on the field, and provided the offense with balance (no real strength to the formation as since there is a TE to each side). Out of this formation, Cal can use outside zone stretch to run Best to the outside, as well as let him choose his hole. This formation is a great playaction formation too because it's a run formation and there are plenty of blockers who can stay in to block on the playaction (usually one of the TEs, the RB, perhaps the FB). But we saw little 22 personnel against Oregon which was a bit of a surprise to me.

Oregon was doing a great job getting to Riley, or the Cal OL was doing a crappy job protecting Riley. Dropping Riley straight back on pass plays was not working. The pocket was collapsing around him in less than a few seconds. What do you do to get better protection on the QB? Move the pocket!!! Where were the half-rolls? Where were the playaction QB bootlegs out of the fake outside zone stretches???

In 2007, when Cal was at Oregon, 41.9% of the passing plays that Jeff Tedford called were max protect plays/half-rolls (18 out of 43 total pass plays). Cal went on to win that game, perhaps one of Cal's greatest road victories, without the QB being sacked or pressured a lot. Ludwig should have taken this approach earlier once it became obvious that the Cal OL decided to play like crap.

And where was the offensive diversity that we had seen against Minnesota? There was very little variety to begin the game. No flysweeps (although perhaps that's because Sofele sort of got injured) or fake-flysweeps to help open up a backside cut lane (the offensive player doing the flysweep freezes the backside defenders who must guard against the potential flysweep, and thus if the ball is handed off it creates a backside cutback lane for the RB).

Again, I'm no offensive coordinator. When I was at Cal working my job, I only stood around, drank Gatorade, watched the team practice plays five days a week for 2 hours, learned plays, learned terminology and hand signals - so in other words I really didn't learn very much at all, but holy hell, I really disliked the playcalling very early on. By about the second quarter I was wondering what the heck was going on.

In summary, and in my amateur opinion, the playcalling:

(a) Needed more running play variety;

(b) Needed more outside zone stretch to give Best a shot at the outside, plus it utilizes his great vision and allows him to hit cutback lanes that appear in zone blocking. Plus, these plays carry the threat of a QB bootleg whereas Cal's man-blocking schemes do not. The added threat of a QB bootleg can help control the backside defender and pursuit, and open up things for the running game.

(c) Needed more playaction. Needed playaction with the 12 personnel and 21 personnel by booting (bootleg) the QB and dumping the ball to TEs and FBs in the flat. Playaction bootleg out of 22 personnel Big-I Formation is a good possibility too.

(d) Needed more half-rolls to move the pocket (move the launch point).

(e) Needed more trips bubble screens (with the zone read fake) to get Oregon defenders outside of the box. Oregon wasn't respecting the pass. If you don't use playaction, then use trips WRs and bubble screen to the receivers. Such short passes might have gotten Riley into more of a rhythm too. Also the trips bubble screen is a great way to set up the trips fake bubble screen bomb - which was essentially the play that Oregon used against us for a touchdown.

(f) Needed perhaps a throwback screen. Oregon defenders were aggressive. Ludwig tried to counter with Cal's typical slip screens/jailbreak screens with little success. An alternative is the throwback screen. Throwback screens will roll the QB out, and draw defenders to the other side of the field away from the screen receiver. I like the throwback screen because it's slower developing and actually looks more like a pass because of the rollout.

(5) Execution was bad. While I didn't like the playcalling during the game because I felt like the changes that needed to be done didn't happen early enough, had Cal just executed properly then the playcalling wouldn't have mattered as much.

Tucker dropped a ball that might have been an early touchdown. Side note: I think that one play could have changed the game and set a different tone had Tucker caught the ball and gotten a touchdown. I think Tucker again got that stupid taunting penalty in the endzone. The pass blocking sucked pretty much everywhere along the line. Riley's passing was hit and miss. The pass to Tucker that was dropped was a beaut. But he also threw a would-be INT, a critical 3rd down pass out of bounds, and missed another would-be touchdown to Ross. There was a muffed draw handoff too. Not the greatest day.

(6) Ball security doesn't just apply to the offense but the defense too. Josh Hill recovered a fumble. Great. Now protect the goddam football. One of my pet peeves is how reckless, flashy, and pretentious defenders can be once they got the football on a turnover. They refuse to protect the football with points of pressure when tackled. They carry the ball in the crook of their arm swinging out away from their body just asking to be batted out. They carry the ball in their hand, like it's a little rock and waive it around for everyone to see. It makes me fuming mad. I know what the defenders are thinking. They're thinking touchdown. They know that there are 5 fat and slow offensive linemen on the field who have about a 1% chance of stopping him collectively. There is also another slow QB on the field (in most cases, but not Oregon's case) who can't tackle a statue. Thus the defender is thinking there are only 5 other offensive players on the field who can stop him from getting a touchdown. So he gets all reckless and ambitious while sacrificing ball safety. It makes me so mad.

(7) Magic numbers and season outlook revisited. Kevin Riley's stats have dropped to a 56.9% completion percentage. In my Season Outlook and Some Magic Numbers post, I made a prediction on Cal's season based on the QB's completion percentage. If Riley stays at this percentage then my prediction model suggests a seven win season. The way the Pac-10 is looking this year, with Stanfurd, UW, and UCLA being pretty competitive, a seven win season is very possible. We should be bracing ourselves for that possibility. It's very possible this team has been overhyped by much of the mass media. Most of us knew this team had a lot of questions. We sort of forgot about all the question marks on this team due to our pwnage of Maryland, and EWU. But EWU isn't even FBS. Maryland needed overtime to barely beat James Madison (FCS school); Maryland also lost to Middle Tennessee State and Rutgers. In other words, Cal really hadn't seen a quality opponent until Minnesota. Things got a little nerve-wracking against a mediocre Minnesota squad. Now Cal is hitting the meat of its schedule against tough Pac-10 teams (Oregon, USC, UCLA...).

I think, and I hate to say this, but Cal might have been exposed as a pretender. I hope I'm wrong. I really do. The next three weeks with games against USC, the bye week, and UCLA should really reveal whether this Cal team is a 10+ win team, or a 7-8 win team.

(8) There's a bit too much psycho-analysis going on in the Cal fandom. It appears as if everyone is a psychology major and has a Ph.D or whatever. "Tedford needs to go to a sports psychologist." "Tedford doesn't get emotional enough." "Tedford doesn't fire up the players." There's a lot of that going around and I don't like it. NOBODY has a better pulse on the team than Jeff Tedford. All this second-guessing of Tedford's decisions are pretty f-in ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as all the people who think they know should start at QB in 2007 and 2008 although they don't see practices, they don't know the plays, they don't understand a bit of what's going on on the football field, and they had no knowledge of the underlying facts that weren't made available to the public.

Now, I know a lot of fans are looking for ways to criticize and critique the game because it's cathartic, and the easiest way to do that is by critiquing the psyche of the team since that requires no actual knowledge of whats really going on in their head (just a mere accusation of what's going on their head). But really? As fans, we have no f-in clue what the hell goes on in the program or in most of the players' heads. We like to think we do, but 99.999% of us don't.

Have any of you been in the locker room during pre-game and halftime? Do you even know what goes on? Unless you have, I don't think you're anywhere near qualified with the insight to say what the coaches are doing psychologically is right or wrong.

So I know a lot of us are pissed and looking for answers. But please, let's stay within reason and within our knowledge. As since most of us don't have the knowledge of what's going on, most of us need to STFU.

(9) Oh, and Jeff Tedford doesn't need to be fired. Let's finish out the season and see how things go. In 2006, Cal lost to Tennessee in pretty bad fashion (although not as bad as against Oregon). People were calling for Tedford's head after that game. Little did people know that the 2006 Cal Football team would rebound from the tough loss, compete for the Rose Bowl, earn a share of the Pac-10 title, and destroy Texas A&M in the Holiday Bowl 45-10. Nobody was calling for Tedford's head after the end of the season. The 2006 season has been the second most successful season behind the 2004 season. The 2009 season could still be a very successful season - perhaps even as successful as 2004 if the team turns things around and wins every game out - which they certainly have the potential to do. So all this "fire Jeff Tedford" talk is quite premature and ... well, actually quite ridiculous. It's actually very disappointing and embarrassing how graduates of such a fine university who are all fairly smart can act like such radical idiotic non-level-headed fringe knee-jerk bone-headed SEC-like fans. Some of us are a disgrace to all Cal fans.

Some words from a level-headed Mike Silver:

It’s very tempting to take this opportunity to rip my beloved California Golden Bears, who got their pants pulled down (figuratively! … at least, as far as I know) Saturday by the Oregon Ducks at Autzen Stadium. The Bears got eviscerated 42-3, a shocking outcome given their No. 6 national ranking and increasing hype as a national-title contender. Instead, however, I’m going to rail against some of my own: Cal loyalists who, in reaction to the debacle, are acting like affronted aristocrats and assuming that the sky is falling. Hey, it may be falling – in terms of the Bears realizing their lofty 2009 goals – or it may not be. But the program is most certainly not going back to the sustained run of ineptitude that plagued it for the better part of five decades, most unbearably in 2001, when Cal went 1-10 and arguably had the worst program in the country.Then Jeff Tedford arrived and the Bears became instantly competitive and put together a run of excellence that, in normal times, would have produced multiple Pac-10 titles. However, the run coincided with USC’s return to dominance, and Cal instead developed a national reputation as a tantalizing tease that inevitably disappointed in truly big games. Fine. Saturday’s result seemed to confirm this label, and I think it factored into Cal’s severe drop (No. 24 AP/No. 19 USA Today) in the polls. But this whole "We’re a joke" thing I’m hearing from some Cal fans? And that "We need to fire Tedford" email I received? To borrow from the great philosopher John McEnroe … You cannot be serious.

Seriously. It's not Jeff Tedford who needs to be fired. Some of us Cal fans need to be fired.