What I Learned From The Bear Insider

Posted by: Avinash on Friday, October 10th, 2008

There are so many things I learn from reading message boards. I get these deep, penetrating insights that I could never get from being in the locker room and can thus virtually coach the game based on what anonymous posters have discovered through the game. You just get the feeling that they should be watching the game.

Most of it is the usual blah blah “Hey everyone was great IN TEDFORD WE TRUST LOL!” or provide decent analysis of the situation with grand story arcs thrown around to encompass their viewpoints of “GO BEARS!” But some angrier and more maligned folk try their best to spread the true darker world of Cal football.  Without them, we’d be lost in the desert, waiting for Tom Holmoe and Keith Gilbertson to bring us home.

Here’s the prescient lurkerbear with some brilliant opining.

Whatever else came out of this week, one thing that’s changed for me is that I’m no longer a “fan” of Jeff Tedford. I’m now indifferent. That’s not to say I want him fired or gone; that isnt’ the case. I really do appreciate the miracle he’s worked with this program. But I don’t have any particular affection for him either. I’ve come to believe that whether or not he can get us to the “next level” is no better than a 50/50 proposition, and I don’t have much faith in his ability to exceed the level of an 8-4 type program.

Absolutely; when a coach doesn’t do better than winning two-thirds of his game, something is clearly wrong with him. In any other sport this would be a blinding success, but not in college! It’s not like coaches will ever not go 8-4 and then occasionally do things like get to a BCS bowl.

It’s kind of like a video game. If you haven’t reached that next level yet, shouldn’t you just take over and make all the personnel decisions? Let lurkerbear lead us to the promised land!

Incognito, however, is the grand vizier of sports forum theory. He finally reveals the grand conspiracy behind Jeff Tedford’s quarterback machinations. Even I have to admit even I didn’t think Tedford was capable of such ingenuity. But don’t put it past this modern-day Klemens von Metternich:

I have to believe that the way Tedford spoke to the media after the CSU game that Riley’s job would have been in jeopardy regardless. Nothing short of a perfect performance on the part of Riley would have saved his job. Tedford has been looking to bench him since MSU. The only thing that earned Riley a start the next week at WSU was Longshores two interceptions. Tedford started Riley, overloaded him with bs mechanics, and looked for him to fail so he could reinstall Longshore. The only reason he started Riley week 1 was to placate the fan base.

Of course! Clearly Tedford wasn’t concerned with the trivial matter of winning games or building a program. Nor was he trying to evaluate who would give the team the best chance to succeed on the field. What he clearly planning the entire time was setting up Riley to fail so he could  please them early on and spite the fan base in the long run.  Knowing that Riley couldn’t handle the most basic quarterback development via “bs mechanics”, he schemed in a dark corner with Frank Cignetti, chomping at the bit to put Nate back on the field. So obvious. That Tedford, such a crowd pleaser.

Sometimes you just can’t get at the deeper truth being on the field or viewing practices up close. You need to watch from a television 500 hundred miles away. But that’s what we have citizen Cal football activists like incognito for.

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Topics: Alumni, Awesome, Cal Football, Coaches, forums, humor, Players, Quarterbacks

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