The Bears Are Roaring (Blog Reactions to Colorado State)

Posted by: Avinash on Sunday, September 9th, 2007

Desean Jackson and center Alex Mack celebrate after the Golden Bears score against Colorado StateThe California Golden Blogs

Hydrotech: “Oh yes, the air up there. Longshore wasn’t off. Yes, his balls were 1 to 3 feet too far out in front of our WRs on deep balls, but that’s because of the air up there. Cut Longshore some slack. It’s hard to adjust to thinner air. Think about it, Longshore has been practicing in thicker air pretty much ALL HIS LIFE. He has years of muscle memory built into those arms based on thicker air. And then, in a matter of a day he’s supposed to magically adjust to the thinner air, put 1% less power into his deep ball throws, and be expected to put the ball on the money? No. Let’s not complain that Longshore was off. Let’s not say that Longshore doesn’t have any touch either. Cause I know 90% of people reading this have been saying that Longshore has the best touch and deep balls than most quarterbacks in the nation.”

TwistNHook: “I am not concerned about the D, because Gregory seems willing to give up short plays as long as the long bomb isn’t there. And save for those 2 quick TDs at the end, that’s how it was. That’s also how it was against Tenn. So, it’ll give up yards upon yards, but hopefully keep the scoring to a minimum. Also, they seem to have the ability to a)make big plays at the right time (i.e. interception at goal-line) and b)stiffen up in the 2nd half. I mean they gave up 14 points in like 56 minutes. Sure, those last 2 TDs hurt, but that seemed like a fluke to me against backups.

I call it a “Bend and Occasionally Break” Defense. Hopefully, with our potentially historic offense, it should be enough.”

Excuse Me For My Voice (which also did a live blog): “First of all, it’s clear that the defense didn’t come ready to play. They’re going to have to step it up a notch if they’re going to be competitive. On the other hand, when push came to shove, in the 2nd half, the defense stiffened… until the game was in the bag and they blew the lead on a couple of ridiculous long pass plays. They say that the only thing the prevent defense prevents is winning but I think in this case it would be safer to say tha the prevent prevents you from giving up 14 points in 53 seconds.This is clearly a defensive unit that needs motivation to play well. They’re going to need to find a way to find that motivation irrelevant of their opponent or they’re going to get beat by someone like Arizona when we least expect it. On the upside, they look like they have the potential to keep just about any team in check and shut down the weaker teams when they put their mind to it.”

Rose Bowl Before I Die: “Everyone knows how full of cliché’s the game of football can be, and now that we’ve survived one cliché, it’s time to use this game as another…the motivation cliché. The biggest lessons that the Bears take away from this game are that you can never take anything for granted, you can’t play half speed, and you can never let your opponent up off the ground; things that the Bears have all known since their pop warner days. Still, you can be sure that the coaching staff will use this game as a reminder of all those things, and as a motivation tool to keep their guys fired up and focused on each game. We’ll see how well these Bears learned their lesson next week against a La Tech team that gave Hawaii all it could handle tonight.”

Jonathan Okanes: “Speaking of consistency, the maddening part of Saturday’s game is that the offense and defense couldn’t play well together at the same time. The offense moved the ball in the first half, but the defense provided little resistance to the Rams’ offense. CSU appeared to win the physical battle when it was on offense.

But just as the defense came out swinging after halftime, the offense suddenly slowed down. Nate Longshore overthrew some receivers, and some of that may have been due to the high mountain air. There also were some untimely penalties. Cal also ran the ball a lot on first and second down and wound up with a few third-and-longs.

Gregory was clearly disappointed with the breakdowns late in the game. I get the feeling the next time the Bears have a substantial lead in that situation, he may not be so quick to go with the second stringers.”

Agree or disagree with any of these assessments? Leave thoughts in the comments.



Topics: Blogs, Cal Football, Sports, UC Berkeley

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