Most Painful Cal Football Memories

Posted by: Avinash on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

A week has come and gone and the Bears have had their revenge. Now that redemption is ours, let’s start to look forward and release all the bad memories you and I dwelled on last week. Here are some of the worst ones that Cal fans have had to suffer through (courtesy of fans in the Bear Insider).

Cal looked like a shell of the team that finished #4 losing to Texas Tech“For pure pain?

The 2004 Holiday Bowl. We got jobbed, we whined righteously, and then we got blown out. It vindicated us getting screwed by the BCS, and from what I heard the broadcast of the game was VERY insulting to Cal. That was also the first time I ever saw Tedford get snippy in a post-game interview.”

“2006 Tennessee – I hadn’t slept at all that night because of travel issues, had to drive into Knoxville from Nashville and had to endure my team getting absolutely creamed while sitting in a Tennessee section. It was possibly the worst football experience of my life, and that’s saying a lot from a Bills fan. My girlfriend took it even worse since this was the first real game she traveled to. She was almost in tears…”

“Easily…Cal at U$C 2004. First and Goal with National Championship and Rose Bowl hopes on the line. Once in awhile, memories of the last series of down haunt my mind. I remember the sense of impending doom on the faces of USC fans around us, and the heightened anticipation of something groundbreaking about to happen amongst my friends.”

“2002 because Cal led 21-3, the USC wonks were in full denial, and then the Kareen Kelly “bounce pass” reception. It was that game when I first realized how good Pete Carroll and Co were at making adjustments during the game. Down 21-3 and won 30-28. Still hurts 5 years later. USC fans will laugh at this assertion, but I’ve always felt that the Cal ’02 game was when the USC-Pete Carroll juggernaut was born. I saw that Trojan team come together before my eyes late in the 2nd quarter, and basically they have not looked back since.”

“2004 Holiday Bowl – I couldn’t go to this since I was entertaining a friend that had come into town from Texas. Boy, I really thought we would pummel that team and wasn’t afraid to let my friend know it. As the night wore on, it got quieter and quieter… what made it sting worse were the Michigan-Texas Rose Bowl tickets at my house that I was going to be forced to go to a couple of days later. The Texas romp with our bad loss was just a miserable experience.”Aaron Rodgers was unstoppable against USC...until the very end.

“USC ’04:  I will never, and I mean never, get over this one.  As good of a ride as it has been the last few years, that win would’ve put us in a different stratosphere.  I left feeling like Cal was better that day.  The sense of    inevitable win on the last drive dashed by the impending doom of Cal fandom.  One of the worst feelings of my life.”

“Tennessee 2006 for me. Just because I had spent the whole year hyping it up to myself (something I think Old Blues have sorta learned to temper), I had saved a free Southwest flight for it for about a year, gotten tickets for it as soon as they were availableg…

It was bad pretty much from the start. My friends bitched out on me in the weeks before, and our crew of 5 became just me. I ended up sleeping on a library the first night (I’m hardcore like that… aka broke and didn’t wanna get a hotel).

The game… obviously. I had targeted 2006 as the best shot at a Rose Bowl (still sorta believe it was.. this year’s UT game pretty much convinces me of that. This team – Best + Hughes/Bishop/Lynch/Mebane/Pimentel… its now clear we were more talented than UT) and the UT game was supposed to be our coming out party. To flop like that with the whole country watching with so much on the line… still makes me shake my head. What that year coulda been… ”

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“The UCLA game for the fact that it felt like we had that team beat up down and sideways. We were running, passing, and stopping them on defense, we just couldn’t handle Jones-Drew off of punts. We were up by double-digits twice in that game and couldn’t hang on. Its still painful thinking about it.

I would rank this as more painful than 2004 USC because we were in that one until the end but it was a neck and neck game, while we should have put the beatdown on UCLA the next year.”

“Arizona 2006. The pain didn’t really set in until a couple of weeks later when UCLA beat USC and we realized how damaging it was.

It was just like my last visit to the dentist. Because of the local anesthetic I didn’t feel the pain from having two roots broken off in my gum and the dentist cutting me up to get at them. It was only after I got home and the local wore off that I really felt the pain.

The fact that the pain is delayed doesn’t mean that the pain is diminished. I, for one, am looking forward to REVENGE!”

(Well we got it buddy, we got it.)

“The Tedford teams are so superior to anything that has come after Pappy with the exception of the 76 Roth team and the 92 Snyder team that no pain can be felt. Tedfords teams play at a consistent and extremely high level. We can entertain thoughts of a Rose Bowl, NC, etc. almost every year now.

Pain is watching your team just self destruct over and over like the Holmoe and the Gilbertson teams. We must of set a record for getting punts blocked in a season. I saw more in 3 home games than I’ve seen my entire life. The same guy fumbling 3 successive kick offs. Watching Gilbertson talk the talk but destroy what Snyder had done. Pain is walking up to Memorial stadium on Big Game day knowing you don’t have a freaking chance. Pain is walking back to the Big Game party with your Stanford friends and having to hear about the embarrassing loss – 10 God damn losses in a row! Pain is hearing they gave your coach a contract extension when you know he’s the wrong guy.

What Tedford’s done is absolutely phenomenal. No facilities. No real football tradition. In Berkeley of all places and without cheating. If he can get that crowning achievement, that Rose Bowl win or a NC, he will be remembered for hundreds of years. One of the truly great coaches in college football history.”



Topics: Alumni, Cal Football, Sports, Students

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