The Action Jackson Diaries–Primetime Games
–Before the LSU-Florida feast, I am watching Virginia Tech-Clemson. It is an abortion of football. How Clemson got ranked is beyond me.
–Versus is crapping out AGAIN. So I have no idea what’s going on with Stanford-USC (pretty much back to following gamecast), except that the Cardinal is hanging around before finally running out of gas in the 2nd/3rd quarter. 3-0 Trojans.
–Now 9-0 USC. Missed extra point or something. Whatever. I’m really sure Stanford will take advantage of that.
–This UCLA-Notre Dame could be perversely entertaining in terms of absolute crapfest. I will most likely pay attention to it if the bigger games get out of hand.
–Ohio State doesn’t waste any time laying the smack on Purdue. Quick score to make it 7-0 based on one heavy off-tackle run, another deep post.
–Florida is looking really good right now. Almost all running plays going straight up. LSU defense holds them to a field goal.
The Action Jackson Diaries–Afternoon Games
–On slate, Red River Shootout (big afternoon kahuna), Georgia-Tennessee (will tell us a lot about the SEC East), ASU-Wazzu (will tell us a lot about Dennis Erickson-coached teams).
–Well that’s great. Colt McCoy calls a timeout on the second play from scrimmage. I already am loving picking Texas to cover. Christ.
–Arian Foster looked like LaDanian Tomlinson on that drive. Pathetic Georgia defense to start the game. 7-0 Tennessee. There is just something about Neyland…
–Texas has been looking decent with the Vince Young trickery. Not sure what to make of Colt McCoy though; he’s been a little off. Though I don’t feel as confident about Texas listening to McCoy speak, and immediately watch him get sacked on the blitz. Ugh.
–Red River Shootout has been a standoff so far. Very quiet offense (pretty sure no one has crossed midfield yet…well, until that bullet by Oklahoma’s QB Bradford). And of course, the moment I say quiet offense, Oklahoma goes eighty yards in two passes. First and goal at the 1, leading to a Sooner TD, 7-0.
–Georgia has looked like dogs today. About like us thirteen months ago. 27 yards of offense so far, 7-0 at the end of 1.
The Action Jackson Diaries–Early Games
So I’m starting up this blog with Illinois up 17-0 on Wisconsin, KSU taking the lead on Kansas 14-7, and UNC pulverizing Miami 27-0 (I probably won’t touch this game). Almost immediately the Badgers move it down the field two times, in position in the red zone to score and make it 17-10. Bleh. This upset could go to the dodo.
–The defense holds. Apparently the Badgers have some trouble running the ball. And this is supposed to be the the #5 team in the country. Illinois leading 17-6 at halftime (although Wisconsin got a last second field goal), Kansas and KSU deadlocked at 14 with thirty minutes done, and Miami getting destroyed by UNC (this game I will probably not touch). Perfect time to cook breakfast, be back in a bit.
–Wisconsin drives the field in about three minutes to cut the lead to 4, seemingly curbing the upset special. Unfortunately for the Badgers, they still haven’t figured out how to stop the run, and the running back Mendenhall takes it down for his third score. 24-13. Kansas meanwhile has been halting the KSU blitzes and manage to get the big play. 21-14 Jayhawks.
–Wisconsin though has been unstoppable in this 2nd half, controlling the clock despite being grinded into the ground, and they come back to cut the lead to 5, 24-19. Meanwhile North Carolina might be on the verge of blowing a 27 point halftime lead (down to 7), which goes to show you how much the ACC blows. On the other side, Kansas has slowly wore down KSU with strong offensive line play, but only nursing a 4 point lead.
–Random sidenotes: Kansas’s head coach is massive. He has probably been deep-frying his food since he started coaching this team…Illinois also relies on a “bend not break” defense and is renovating their Memorial Stadium; oh, how we all are really the same.
Setting the Stage for One Crazy Saturday
Long before I was a California Golden Bear, I was a football fan. Although my first love was the NFL and my beleagured Bills, because I lived in Florida, college football eventually integrated into my viewing patterns. Although its power has faded to the point that SOUTH FLORIDA is now the top honcho in the peninsula, back in the day every game seemed to matter–watching the Gators battle in the Swamp, Daunte Culpepper in my backyard throwing his way into the NFL, the U score the occasional upset–things seemed to happen in the fall. If there’s anything I miss about that crazy-ass state, it’s the live-die attitude Florida fans have with their football teams.
So with the Bears off this week, you think I’m about to ignore a full slate of awesome football (including an unprecedented SEVEN matchups between top 25 teams)? Hell no. As Action Jackson would say, “It’s ACTION!”
With Cal’s success, I haven’t had time to judge the relative talent around the league (except for Kentucky-South Carolina, which I’ll examine briefly). Today’s my chance to find out. So there will be a running diary of Saturday’s events, broken up into at least three parts, dedicated to about 10-12 of the biggest football games. Expect this diary to kick off at around 10:30-11 (halftime of the early games). Here is the informal schedule, with brief background info on each one.
Early games (primary games in bold, secondary games italicized, the rest are in case of emergency)
#5 Wisconsin @ Illinois, 9 AM, ESPN (the power of Ron Zook, this is an upset watch)
Kansas @ #24 Kansas St., 9 AM, FSN (can the Wildcats harness their upset of Texas and beat their cross-state rivals?)
Miami @ UNC, 9 AM, ESPN2 (only if the other games are routs or on commercial)
Afternoon games
#10 Oklahoma at #19 Texas, 12:30, ABC (can’t really decide which of these schools I hate more)
#12 Georgia at Tennessee, 12:30, CBS (the thought of the Vols going down the drain in an unbelievably talented SEC East makes me a little uneasy. We might know if our win really meant anything–from a talent standpoint, not psychological of course–this afternoon.)
#18 Arizona State at Wazzu, 1:00, FSN (I’ll be glancing at this game because I’m not sold on the Sun Devils, and Washington State seems to always play ten times better at home.)
#15 Va. Tech at #22 Clemson, 3:00, ESPN (The only big matchup I’m not enthused about. Clemson managed 3 points against Georgia Tech of all teams. Don’t know what it is about the ACC, but I haven’t been impressed by any team in that conference.)
Evening slate
Stanford at #2 USC, 4:00, Versus (I will only look at this game if the Trojans are trailing. The moment they take the lead, I switch channels.)
#9 Florida at #1 LSU, 5:00, CBS (By default.)
#4 Ohio State at #23 Purdue, 5:00, Sopcast–only because regional action forces us to watch…
Notre Dame at #25 UCLA, 5:00, ABC (Only if something bizarre happens. Which is not entirely out of the question.)
#20 Cincinnati at #21 Rutgers, 5:00, ESPN2 (I will glance.)
#25 Nebraska at #17 Missouri, 6:15, ESPN (Most likely will pass.)
It is likely these series of posts will turn me into the Tim McCarver of live blogs (let’s hope it’s more like Cris Collinsworth). But I’ve convinced myself to believe that this will be really really fun and insightful. We shall see.
Cal Athletics Everyone!
Always nice to see that the girls get better urinals than the guys. That and other gems. [Berkeleyans for Cal Athletics]
Strictly Bear Territory
This is pretty much a ‘duh’ announcement for almost anyone who’s been reading this blog for the past few weeks, but barring a catastrophic collapse to what is looking like a historical season, the focus of this site will shift primarily to Cal football for the rest of this fall, with perhaps a few posts each month that are relevant to Cal students (the only thing that will not change is the Telebears posts, which should be returning soon with the schedule now up, although I have a little special format planned). It’s the biggest thing happening this semester, and I lack the enthusiasm and time to cover general Berkeley/Cal events and news with the same fervor. This could change later this year when I reconsider the future of Bears’ Necessity, but being that I run on limited time and am currently lacking the resources to write both football and student-focused posts, I’ll be sticking primarily to pigskin, since I enjoy writing about it infinitely more.
So expect some Pac-10 posts the next few weeks to get an idea of where the rest of our Pac-10 opponents stand. Expect general college football posts, especially this weekend with Cal off. I’ll definitely be analyzing as much as I can about the NCAA landscape and then see what I want to do after bowl season (One possibility is to split into two sites, one dedicated to football, the other dedicated to Cal things, but for now I’ll live with the slightly bizarre hybrid). For now, I’m going to stick to what I enjoy writing about–doing anything else is a disservice to my loyal readers.
Get ready Bears. Hopefully this will be as fun for you as it is for me.
Top Plays in September for the Golden Bears
With one of Cal’s greatest Septembers behind us, let’s look back at our 5-0 start and dig out the best moments of each game before we move onto the rest of the season. Vote for the top play of September in the sidebar!
Tennessee
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Zach Follett sack, Worrell Williams fumble return for TD: The play that jump-kicked momentum in Cal’s direction–the Vols had been driving down the field before that point and this play got the Bears off on the right foot.
[youtube DPXSzia2Zfg]
DeSean Jackson 77 yard TD punt return: You’ve watched this play a thousand times by now, haven’t you? No need for me to explain it again.
[youtube x4dLNwSqSRk]
Jahvid Best 34 yard scamper. ZOOM!
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Justin Forsett 49 yard screen. Credit goes to Forsett and the great offensive line blocking downfield. The run set up a crucial field goal that would bring cushion to the Bears lead at halftime.
Most Glorious Moments Under Tedford
Recapping the highest of highs for Cal football, it seems what the Bears do against USC is what raises us all the way up and what brings us all the way down. Overwhelmingly the 2003 victory was chosen as the #1 moment for Cal fans. This provides an excellent excuse to recover the game film and reveal it to you in a mixtape:
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I can only see one game this year that might top that one…I think it goes without saying which one I’m talking about.
There were other opinions about what game pleased them the most. Let’s check them out (courtesy of The Bear Insider).
“At the time of the actual win, however, I tend to be biased toward bowl games because you know going into those games that they are big, national, and prestigious. They are against well-known good teams on neutral fields with plenty of time for preparation and hype.
Thus, I kind of lean toward last year’s Holiday Bowl blowout over Texas A&M, which was instrumental in gaining some redemption for the Tennessee loss at the beginning of that season and the Texas Tech debacle two seasons before. Great dominating second half with Desmond Bishop flying all over the field making defensive hits.
I also lean toward the 51-48 shootout bowl win over Virginia Tech. That was an exciting game over a quality opponent, and that was the first bowl game win of the Tedford Era. That Virginia Tech was loaded with talent with guys like CB/KR Deangelo Hall and RB Kevin Jones on that team, but we still won behind Aaron Rodgers.”
Breaking News: Goodbye Treesitters, We Hardly Knew Ye
It looks like this gawkery will finally end before Homecoming.
An Alameda County judge ordered the tree sitters of Berkeley today to climb down from their leafy perches or face five days in jail.
Superior Court Judge Richard Keller granted a preliminary injunction requested by the UC Berkeley administration against the protesters, who are battling the university’s plans to remove a grove of trees next to Memorial Stadium to build an athletic center.
I’m not sure how the bureaucracy got moving on this…but I’m going to give much of the credit to Brent Musburger’s one-sided rant during the Tennessee game. I don’t think he wanted to see Zachary Running Douche again when he came back for USC.
[youtube lCB0j79B7jw]
Adieu my friends. You might be gone, but your months of deposited fecal matter will always remain close to our hearts in Memorial.
The Bears Are Roaring (Blog Reactions to Oregon)
All around the Internet we go…big games entail big reactions.
For those who missed it, you can download the 2nd half for your personal consumption!
There is now visual evidence that Dan Fouts went into aneurysms after the fumble (I believe he said “review” and “something” five times combined in under three seconds. Excellent.)
[youtube L3K1o3NCwlg]
Rose Bowl Before I Die has an awesome, AWESOME writeup and a recorded live-blog of the game.
Hydrotech, California Golden Blogs: Now Longshore. I think his performance should be enough to quiet his critics. Playing on the road is always tough, nevertheless the high expectations of Cal fans are justified considering his abilities, potential, and surrounding talent. So what does Longshore do in the face of the high expectations and criticism? He had about a 66% completion percentage, and didn’t throw a single interception. Not to mention he stuck in the pocket despite getting batted around and injured. And him coming back into the game despite his injury really says something about his toughness.
Jonathan Okanes: This is looking WAY ahead, but can you imagine the hoopla if USC and Cal are No. 1 and No. 2 for that game? It will certainly be the biggest game ever played at Memorial Stadium. And it’s not totally out of the question. No. 1 LSU has to play Florida next week, although the Gators aren’t looking quite as formidable as some thought before the season. They squeaked by Mississippi State – although I think Mississippi St. is much more competitive this season – and, of course, lost to Auburn at home Saturday. Still, an LSU loss could open the door for the regular season showdown for Cal and USC. But again, that’s getting way ahead of ourselves. The Bears still have tough road games at UCLA and Arizona State before then.
EDIT: Some new stuff today! Desean’s postgame interview, a nice list of accomplishments showing how far we’ve come under Tedford, is Cal-Oregon a rivalry now? (My thoughts…no), a 47 year old woman performing in the Cal band (awesome footage), and a mixtape of the game (the music is awful, turn the sound down until the postgame interview). And a road-trip recap!
Recaps, photos, videos (plus a download of part of the game), and cheerleaders after the jump.
