The Bears Are Roaring…Into Eugene (Cal-Oregon Blog Previews)

Posted by: Avinash on Friday, September 28th, 2007

For the first time since Tennessee, all of the big Cal football bloggers are out in force. The moods in this particular sphere range from twitching anxiety to almost delusional hubris. As I said before the game, I’m eerily calm–although I’m sure I’ll be a complete wreck by gametime.

But before I get to them, I’d like to extend a big golden bear claw to ESPN and thank them for deciding not to broadcast Cal-Oregon in primetime, keeping them in regional coverage and instead show USC-Washington. It figures that the biggest matchup of this week would be pushed out by the team from L.A. I’m sure this constant sucking up to Hollywood has nothing to do with why more and more people treat the Worldwide Leader with contempt each year.

Seriously, thanks for putting our teams on the same level of coverage as Maryland. A team that blew a 24-3 lead on their opponent’s 9 yard line last week. Or Georgia Tech, a team that should be banned from national TV altogether after being outmanuevered by the great Al Groh. Just for ESPN’s sake, I hope the Huskies stuff the Trojans and their unbearable fans and waterboard them into the Puget Sound.

On the bright side, if the Bears win Saturday, they can play a small disrespect card almost all the way into USC. Fine by me. Yes, I know we got Gameday, but it’s at 7 AM. Yeah, I’ll be glad to skip out on Corso and Herbstreit and feel all the happier.

Onto the blogs…

The Golden Blogs note that Oregon fans feel pretty confident about their chances. Disturbingly confident. And then I recall they felt the exact same way last year and realized fan confidence has little to do with how your team performs (well, a little–but only a little).

As for Bears fans, especially older fans who know the name of Tom Holmoe…well, it seems 60 years of almost omnipresent misery have turned them into *gulp* the Pac-10 equivalent of Red Sox fans. The Tennessee win did little to erase that, and I think it’ll stay that way until we win at least a Rose Bowl. And the need to whine will probably exist on some level. Eesh. Talk about the burden of great expectations.

But the younger bloggers? Bullish. Way bullish. Rose Bowl Before I Die is far from sold about Dennis Dixon’s fast start, and seems convinced that the spread offense will meet its match in the bend not break style of Gregory (in all fairness, it did work brilliantly last year).

Jonathan Okanes reports that Zack Follett and Will Ta’ufo’ou are not suiting at Autzen. Our coach, the One True Savior, has closed all meetings in order to have his players march into Golgotha to face the Armies of the Rapture ready to go for Oregon.

The writers from The Band is Out on the Field emerged from hibernation to talk with the Oregon football blog Addicted to Quack, and things remain completely civil. Also some history on Tedford v. Bellotti.

Ken Crawford leaves his perch briefly at Excuse Me For My Voice to discuss at Rivals the fact that the Bears can’t play the way they have been playing to win in Oregon. It’ll require something much more.

And finally, Rod Benson has something to say for Jenna Fischer from the Office. This has nothing to do with Saturday, but it was just too awesome to omit. If you ever want to score points with the ladies, please do emulate this man’s style. He can do no wrong my friends. No wrong at all.

(By the way, I’m having some trouble with loading images–once I figure out the problem there will be inspiring pictures of triumph and tragedy again bestowing these fine pages. Here’s a link to some fine photography of Bear stomping!)



Topics: Blogs, Cal Football, Sports

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