Continued from the October thread!

Kenny Stills is looking at Cal and UCLA locally, and plenty of your finest football institutions outside.

"I have Oklahoma (Nov. 14), Michigan (Nov. 21) and Florida (Nov. 28). I'm trying to decide between Oregon and Miami for my last visit. Oregon looks great right now and I've always liked Miami a lot. They haven't offered me yet, but sound interested and I can't see them tripping me out there unless they wanted to offer.

"Locally, I'm still looking at Cal and UCLA. If I stay close to home, I'm leaning to Cal right now but Florida and Oklahoma are both really intriguing to me. Florida loses all their playmakers after this season and Oklahoma has a great offense for a receiver."

More on potential recruits, thanks to solarise.

Owa Odighizuwa, DE
Portland, OR

Find out more about Owa’s leadership qualities:

“He doesn’t walk around with a big ego, or anything.” – Jeremy Patrick (Owa’s teammate), regarding all the attention Owa is receiving.

“He’s such a leader and so well rounded that he connects with kids that aren’t necessarily athletes.” – Dan Wood (Owa’s coach)

“If you’re not diverse with the people you know and just stick with one type of person, then you never know what opportunities and experiences you might miss out on.” – Owa himself

What he (Owa) is concerned with is the best fit personally and academically.

He wants to major in business or sports management and maybe work in the sports apparel business.

“I’m approaching it like an interview process,” he said. “You can’t rush to a decision because of a good weekend.”

Cecil Whiteside, LB
Newport Beach, CA

A tragic story about Cecil’s past:

When Whiteside was 5, his father, Martin Hammonds, was shot to death, said Graig Brown, Whiteside’s uncle and legal guardian. Hammonds, a victim of a hate crime, played football, too. He was a tough, small linebacker at Artesia High, Brown said. After he died at age 27, Brown wanted to care for Whiteside as Hammonds was his adopted brother.

"Cecil was in Compton, not doing very well as far as the environment he was in," Brown said. "It was a difficult lifestyle and he wasn’t getting presented the opportunity to succeed. We were able to provide him an opportunity to better his life and move forward and get him into an academic program that would help his future."

"We’re going to be extremely proud when he gets his high school diploma," Brown said. "That was our goal, to get him to graduate high school and have a happy childhood. So everything now is pretty much gravy."

Austin Hinder, QB
Steamboat Springs, CO

If Austin can’t be Tom Brady, he would like to be… Tiger Woods! (Video via Prepticket.com)

In related news:

Josh Shirley, LB
Fontana, CA

Offered a Cal scholarship, the Army All-American LB is visiting Arizona this weekend.

Toney Hurd Jr., CB
Missouri City, TX

Offered a Cal scholarship but committed to Notre Dame.

Micah Hatchie, OT
Waialua, HI

Offered a Cal scholarship, Micah has wrapped up his senior season. He plans to visit Washington and Oregon, and may take all five-official visits.

There's so much video that we can't possibly frontpage it all! Tiger getting booed, Golden Bears riding the first wave onto the field, all the bonfire vids, and we still haven't even gotten to Twist's magnum opus coming later this week. We'll hopefully put most of this on Golden Nuggets, but we need to place some of it here too.

Amiyamoto (who puts up a lot of Cal band vids) is responsible for this beautiful recap of Cal fans rushing the field!

Postgame interviews from Cal All-Access

Shane Vereen

Also, Jeff Tedford, Bob Gregory, Michael Mohamed, Matt Summers-Gavin, Tyson Alualu got their interviews. Check it out also on calathletics youtube channel.

And we wrap up these postgame interviews with Syd'Quan Thompson. Why?  Because it's the perfect segway to get to Syd's dreads!!!! Shake that Squid!!!

by Marcio Jose Sanchez - AP

Shane Vereen carried the Golden Bears to victory in the Big Game. Is this the greatest Big Game performance ever?

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Add Shane Vereen to the list of greatest Big Game performers, perhaps the best of the Tedford era. 42 carries, 193 yards, 3 touchdowns, gutted out first down after first down after touchdown. Like Hydro says, he runs dirty, and he got plenty mud on his boots tonight. We needed every yard tonight and Shane delivered the most thrilling Big Game win in ages.

But beyond the numbers, what really encapsulates his performance is this quote from Okanes.

After Cal linebacker Mike Mohamed clinched the victory by intercepting a pass with 1:36 remaining, the Bears needed only to take a knee three times. Vereen spent that time encouraging the Cal contingent in the back of the end zone to celebrate. When time expired, Vereen soaked up the on-charging crowd while pointing to his family in the stands.

"I needed to do anything I could do to help our team win," Vereen said, his voice choking with emotion. "I've never carried that many times, and I never thought I would carry that many times. I came into the game prepared for anything."

Wow. If you don't get a little misty-eyed reading that, Moscow might be the place for you--I hear Russians dig the heartless.

Defensive performance goes to Mike Mohamed, who showed us how fierce he can be with a a solid linebacking corps anchored with him. 10 tackles, 1 for a loss, and an interception punctuating a forgettable night for Andrew Luck. This picture makes me as happy as a 10 year old girl winning Jonas Brothers tickets (HT royrules).

What are your favorite Big Game performances through the ages, offensive, defensive, special teams? Where do Shane's and Mike's efforts rank for you overall? And who are the other players (Riley, the offensive line, ) you felt deserved some, if not equal dap?

There'll be deeper insights about the Big Game coming up during the week (maybe some griping too, because, you know, we're Cal fans and all), but for now and the rest of this weekend, MORE REVELING!

Runner-up for Big Game MVP goes to the amazing Cal fans, for helping cause the most unintentionally hilarious acceptance speech in recent memory by Tiger Woods (someone needs to put that clip on YouTube, stat). For the first time that I can remember, he looked baffled and rattled, as if the chorus of boos from Cal fans and dead silence of Furd fans was as foreign as if he were addressing a group of berating Wookies. From that point on I knew the Bears would win; if you can rattle Tiger, you know something special's happening.

This is the postgame thread (if the game is still going on, scroll down to the 4th quarter thread). Leave your thoughts/celebrations/grumblings/rantings here. Analysis coming later tonight or tomorrow morning! Is the Axe ours? Or is everyone ready to axe someone? You really can't be anywhere in between.

Report Card after the jump (or click here to view the form). Win or lose, GIVE 'EM THE AXE!

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Nothing much left before the main event:

In progress
Connecticut at Notre Dame, NBC HD: The last stand for Charlie Weis in South Bend. All hail the Brian Kelly era!

12:30 PM PST/3:30 PM EST

LSU at Ole Miss, CBS HD: Battle for the Capital One Bowl!

Penn St. at Michigan St., ABC HD: A win puts the Nittany Lions against the LSU-Ole Miss winner.

Virginia at Clemson, ESPN HD: C.J. Spiller's Heisman campaign continues to gain steam. This season rocks.

Arizona State at UCLA, FSN HD/CSN Bay Area: The Bruins' best shot at bowl-eligibility. ASU has to win out. Can the Pac-10 get seven bowl eligible teams?

1 PM PST/4 PM EST

San Diego State at Utah, Versus HD: Game of the afternoon! Hopefully this ends on time so we don't have to worry about streams.

2 PM PST/5 PM EST

UC Davis at Sacramento State, CSN California: Battle of I-80! Can at least one UC school pull off their rivalry game today?

IT'S BIG GAME MORNING GOLDEN BEARS! Mike Tepper says all that needs to be said.

Before we get to the games on tap, let's talk about how awesome our professors can be for teaching through fire alarms (the answer is no, because no one at the Furd would ever protest anything unless it was ironic. It's confusing why Twist never transferred there). All hail Professor Tse for finishing his lecture on the Evans Hall exterior!

Here are the side dishes first. Schedule for the morning's after the jump!

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More photos » by Julie Jacobson - AP

4 days ago: Ohio State's Jeremie Simmons (2) fouls California's Jerome Randle who was driving to the basket during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Friday, Nov. 20, 2009, at Madison Square Garden in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

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Can't really put a good spin on this. 0-2 isn't good, especially the way we played at the end. But the last 13 minutes were at least promising. Kind of like Cal's last trip East...35 minutes of horror with a moral victory at the end, if you believe in those things.

Quick thoughts.

• Zone defense, help defense. The Bears should practice attacking the former and utilizing the latter. They started to get a feel for it at the end (attack the middle with a slasher, kick it to the cutter, put a man at the high post).
• Randle had another fine game (played way better with only 3 turnovers), but is playing way way too much for my liking. Considering Nikola's performance (more on that later), we need Brandon Smith to develop big in the next few months or he's going to burn out in March.
  
• I'm starting to think if Theo was present, we go 1-1, with a 30-40% chance at 2-0. We definitely wouldn't have fallen behind this badly, and he could've switched off to Turner when Jorge struggled with the fouls.
• Sanders-Frison still lost on the inside.
• Amoke struggled early, but really picked it up late. Lots of nice cuts on the baseline, feeding off of Randle's passes or picking up boards. 11 points, 14 rebounds, promising sign as the season goes on.
  
• Boykin put up another alright performance. We're never going to get great games from him (he'll give something and take something), but if we're cancelling out on the inside, then we'll be okay.
• Outside of Theo, our slashers don't really have finishing moves. Jorge threw up some ugly shots, Amoke only could go baseline, and Seeley...meh. How else do Syracuse and Ohio State in zones pile up the blocks? Pass up on bad shots and pass out of the double teams.
  
• Really disappointing from Christopher. It was better than yesterday, but I expected a little better than 5-14.
• Like yesterday, pretty bad officiating. This time we had a general gripe, at the end it cost Cal a chance to punctuate the comeback. Still, being down 20 something, it's hard to complain about refs costing us this game (maybe a chance to win, but the win itself?)
  
• Jorge picking up his 4th and 5th fouls on ticky-tacks forced Golden Bears to see Michael Cera into an ignominous starring role as a white dude who can't play defense on anyone. The entire Evan Turner highlight reel is just him owning Nikola. Pretty much doooooooom.
  

Anyway, Cal will get to rest up the next few games before getting prepared for their trip to Lawrence. Hopefully we'll be at full strength for that one.

via farm4.static.flickr.com

Usually, I'd write something breaking down the Furd's offense and defense. But what's the point? Jim Harbaugh is the hottest coach in the country. He's the perfect guy you want to play for. He's the most blue collar head coach with a $70 thousand toilet. Michigan should throw piles of money at his feet, right underneath the newspaper displaying his rant about their academics. Toby Gerhart is a Heisman candidate who's getting shafted because he's white, and happens to be fairly smart too (kind of like Alex Mack and Joe Igber). Andrew Luck is also a dark horse Heisman candidate, plus the next Peyton Manning, according to the unbiased Jim Plunkett.

No reason to even bother analyzing this game. The Furd are superior in every way. They've dominated the two best teams in the conference, one coming off a letdown week, the other decimated by the Football Crystal of Power. No way a Cal squad without Jahvid Best that couldn't even kick an extra point to seal an upset last week can match with them.

Plus, Tedford doesn't win big games. He's stoic, he peruses the sidelines, he's conservative, he's past his prime, and he's shown no signs that he's going to change. Harbaugh gets in your face and kicks your ass and washes his hands. This is his moment, his Big Game and Rose Bowl bid to lose. There is absolutely no way he can lose this game.

And hey, no one thinks we're going to win. We should just bow our heads down and hand over the Axe now. Then watch in misery as the Furdies miraculously sneak into a New Year's Bowl and bring the hammer down on Ohio State. Then hear an endless year of speculation of how Cal is on the downside, Furd is on the upside, and there's nothing Tedford can do to stop it...

(If what I just said above didn't make your blood boil, you belong in category 4 and should go wine-tasting this weekend. Then smash a bottle of Pinot Grigio over your head.)

Anyway, instead of going crazy with that stuff, let's talk history and look beyond this week's game to the first time you truly made the leap as a Golden Bear. We've talked about Furd pranks and Furd hate, let's revel in the experience of Big Gaem week and the game itself. Discuss in the comments: When was your first Big Game and what was it like? Was it awesome? Did it suck? How'd you manifest your hatred for all things red?

After the jump, we recall the experiences of two Bears who were at the greatest Big Game of all.

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More photos » by Julie Jacobson - AP

The refs weren't the only thing that caused Mike Montgomery frustration in Cal's 95-73 loss.

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We can talk about officiating all we want, but this one came down to defense.The Bears did not rotate to their men, did not help well, did not play great off the ball, while Syracuse did, in almost every measure. Cal's offense looked sloptastic, mostly because of the zone, partly because everyone seemed to throw their passes off-target and get into set shots, and more because the Orangemen athletes were just better.

On almost every level, the Orangemen were the better team. Hopefully this trend for every Cal loss this season ends soon.

• It's hard to say how much of an effect Theo would've had in this game. It would've been far more competitive than it actually was.
  
• Jerome Randle and the rest of his starting lineup is starting to remind me a little too much of Jahvid Best and the offensive line. Hopefully Randle doesn't start racking up the minutes as the season goes on.
• Jamal Boykin again doing all the little underrated things. But other than Boykin and Randle, rest of team shot 30 percent. Yuck.
• Every Orangeman shot over 50 percent. Double yuck.
• Wesley Johnson looks like a pro.
• We could've used Kamp on Onuaku. Just saying.
• Patrick Christopher must've catched a late flight, because he wasn't really showing anything until the final minutes. It's becoming hard to discern if he really has any talents other than slashing and an occasional 3 point shot.
• Salvage a split tomorrow and it's still a good trip. Not many of us thought we'd go 2-0, so hopefully a good rebound tomorrow will put us back where we need to be.

This is your postgame thread. Feel free to watch the Ohio State-North Carolina game to see who we end up facing, or the Thursday Night game (Colorado 14 Oklahoma St. 10 right now), or whatever else catches your fancy this Thursday night.

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via www.premiere.com

The horror; the horror...

No defense, bad passing, bad dribbling, bad shooting, bad refs...

Who wants to talk about the Big Game?