Rolling Into the Bye Week (Cal-Oregon Recap)
First of all, I can’t be happier that the bye week is here. As much as I enjoy watching Cal football, our team is so battered that we need all the time we can get to get things back into working order. It’ll also help smooth the transition before Homecoming (buy your tickets!) and prevent any sort of mental letdown for the Beavers, which screams trap game before the big UCLA/ASU road trip.
But something feels different, and it’s a good feeling: Cal football seems to have finally gotten used to the big stage. I don’t know if they win this type of game last year, and certainly not before the Neyland debacle. But tough road losses and blown leads the past two years have begun to harden this team for games like yesterday’s. The 2007 California Golden Bears haven’t exhibited offensive wizardry with deep balls and 70 yard scampers, nor have they displayed overpowering defense to shut down juggernauts. I’m sure that’s underwhelming to fans looking for quick scores and hits, the way we used to run business.
But our Lord and Savior, Jeff Tedford, has learned that the problem with this explosive ability is that if you let it out too quickly, you’re prone to letdown when you have to dig in and win. This happened with Arizona and USC last year, this happened with Oregon and UCLA the year before that. We made big plays but couldn’t sustain time-killing drives when we needed to and allowed big plays on the other side.
The point is we’re able to collectively close games now, offensively and defensively, without making the mental errors that would cost us in the past (no turnovers for Cal yesterday, compared to four for Oregon, all in the 4th quarter and two in the last three minutes in the red zone). Which is why I wasn’t terribly worried when we went down and stayed down for nearly all of three quarters. I knew we would come back. I just felt it.
Previous to this year, I hadn’t been completely confident during the last fifteen minutes of a ballgame, unless we had a huge lead–we’ve blown too many 4th quarter leads to hope for that. But in the big games this season, the 4th quarter has indeed been ours.
Un-beee-lievable
I’ll write up more later tonight when I’ve come down from the euphoria rush…but I’ll just say this:
It feels so good to win.
Watch Cal-Oregon Online
I cannot be certain this will work (99% sure), but in case you don’t own a TV, or don’t know people who own a TV, or feel that you should study instead of watch this game, are travelling abroad or live outside regional areas and lack the energy to find a sports bar, or are trapped with only your laptop and a time bomb inside a locked vault, there is still a way for you to watch the game, provided stable wireless (the picture quality will be serviceable and small screen–Youtube size I’d say–but hey, game’s a game right?)
It involves our old friend Sopcast (which allowed me to watch every minute of my Bills’ bone-crushing defeats), which you will have to download, and then follow the directions here to upload the feed of the game. If everything is working OK, you should be seeing LSU-Tulane in the three hours before Cal-Oregon, since that streamer will be on that game before switching over to ABC. Good luck!
Note: There is a possibility I might be live-blogging the game. So if all else fails, you can probably follow it with me.
The More Things Change… (Cal-Oregon Soliloquy)
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The Bears are 4-0, right?
From the way people have acted this week, it’s hard to tell. Because we gave up two garbage time TDs to Colorado State, had perhaps the first “unimpressive thirty point victory” in the history of college football at home against Tech, and cruise controlled for nearly 35 minutes against Arizona before finally nailing their coffin…let’s just say Bears fans are a mixed bag of confidence and trepidation going into Saturday’s game into Eugene.
But we’ve been here before. Hell, we were here less than a year ago. A confident, cocky 4-0 Oregon team coming into Memorial with supposedly all the momentum on their side. Their offense was supposed to rush the Bears off the field, knock us into the Stone Age, send Cal’s BCS hopes out to pasture for the 2006 season. The Bears then proceeded to flame roast some foie gras for the next three and a half hours and Oregon stumbled through the rest of the season, culminating in selling those garish gold helmets they used in their Las Vegas Bowl demolition to various third world countries.
A year later it seems like nothing has changed. Everyone is low on the Bears (whose Tennessee victory seems diminished in many college circles) and high on the Ducks (still basking from their waddlefest in the Big House). People are laying such heavy money on Oregon to the point that we’re over 2:1 underdogs. The differences from last year lie at the venue (Autzen), a confident QB in Dixon and a healthy Jonathan Stewart. In a nutshell, it’ll all come down to a young Cal defense making the leap and cutting down the Ducks before they can jump on us. And Longshore needs to return to 2006 form completely (showed flashes last week)–he can’t keep on lobbing cross patterns and hope for someone to catch the ball. Deep ball time.
If we lose, so be it. The last three weeks have been a bitchfest about imperfect play, and a Saturday defeat would be validation to the doubters, and they can wallow in their self-pity while I look forward to OSU. All I can say is I’m not worried like I was before Tennessee, when nothing was certain about this team. Now, I do know enough about our team to understand we do have the tools to beat the Ducks. This team has shown a knack to rise and sink to the level of its competition; it’ll be up to them to transcend it today.
Today, we will decide what our destiny will be in 2007. Our fate is in our hands. March forward to victory Bears!
Duck Hunting (A Look into Oregon)
The fans in Eugene are more pumped than usual, and why shouldn’t they be? Revenge game, Autzen homefield, a powerful offense that has slaughtered their opponents the last several weeks, including a dominating beatdown in the Big House. Hell, even their mascot looks pumped up, although I keep on thinking he’ll leer down towards the screen and start saying “Oh, yeah?” He will be back for Cal though, which means all fans will have to monitor how Oski responds. My thoughts is that both parties will be pretty hammered and collapsed in a heap by the 4th quarter, especially with Gameday in town.
But now it’s time to get the layman’s viewpoint. We’ve gone through Tennessee, CSU, Louisana Tech, and Arizona, so the natural progression brings me up to some of the best fans in the Pac-10 over at E-Duck. It’s a very confident group of guys, which makes things a little unnerving. But I’m in the same state of mind myself, so I guess one side will be downtrodden by 4 o’clock tomorrow. We talked briefly about Saturday’s game–here are some of their responses.
Seriously, what happened last week against the ‘Furd? Fluke? Or is the Cardinal legit?
I assume you’re asking whether the second quarter was a fluke, and probably not – probably a suggestion that Oregon can be had with some takeaways and any kind of let up mentality that occurs at a more timely part of the game. One really horrible quarter (second), not game.
…
Well the Cardinal are not legit. We had a mini-meltdown in quarter two where we explored the various ways of fumbling the ball as Jim Harbaugh’s club played with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind. We then curbed their enthusiasm in the second half with a brutal finality.
…
Offensively, they’re legit. Kimble is a really underrated running back. Defensively they have more holes than the plot to Waterworld.
…
What happened at Stanford, we jumped on them early, the guys all thought it was going to be a cakewalk, and started strutting and preening, and SU hit us in the mouth. We realized we needed to play, and treated them like a DII team in the second half.
You guys are even more confident than the Vols fans were coming into our game. Hell, your fans always seem confident. Where does that come from? Loyalty? Tradition? Or is it something in the air in Eugene?
The Bears Are Roaring…Into Eugene (Cal-Oregon Blog Previews)
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!)
Ask the Readers: Most Glorious Victory in Tedford Era
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After vengeance for our greatest defeats (Tennessee and Arizona), with fans turning into bundles of nerves before Oregon, it’s time to pay attention to our biggest victories. Let’s calm down now everyone? It might not have been terribly impressive, but it’s not as if we’re winning squeakers–three wins were in hand with 5 to 6 minutes left in the 4th quarter, and another one had a flukish ending that we sealed with our offense. 4-0 is 4-0.
So what is your favorite memory? Retribution for Tennessee? The epic upset of USC? One of the Stanford thrashings? Or perhaps facing a highly touted 4-0 Oregon team and trashing them almost a year ago?
Oh how things never change…reveal your picks in the comments and in the polls to the right.
Most Painful Cal Football Memories
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).
“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…”
The Bears Are Roaring (Blog Reactions to Arizona)
Jason Snell, Excuse Me For My Voice: “I also didn’t like Mike Stoops very much. He lost it a few times on the sidelines, which didn’t impress me. I really appreciated his playcalling in last year’s Cal-Arizona game, where he boldly went for it on every occasion because he knew he couldn’t win otherwise. And he won, in the game that ended up being the reason Cal didn’t go to the Rose Bowl. Ouch! But this year? Not so much. With 13 minutes to go in the game and trailing by 14, Arizona opted to kick a 32-yard field goal. I found that pretty weak, since it cut the game from two scores to… two scores. But okay, if you’re going to play the incremental-scoring, then why go for it later on 4th and 9 at the 16 when you’re down by 18 again? A field goal in that situation brings you within two scores, and yet Stoops opted to go for it. After a false start penalty, they went for it on 4th and 14.
It just doesn’t make sense, certainly not from a pure strategy perspective. Perhaps it was an emotional decision: Stoops might have figured that a touchdown to make it 45-34 would pump up his team in a way that a field goal to make it 45-30 wouldn’t. But at that point, the Wildcats needed three scores, and Stoops bypassed a short field goal. Dumb. And when they failed on 4th and 14 with four minutes left, that was the end of the game.”
Bear Up (Cal-Arizona Recap)
A few things to say about this game before I turn it over to the people who know things about football.
–One dominating quarter was all Cal really needed before they started cruise controlling for Oregon. Rather strange that the Bears took the pedal off the break that early–they played average ho-hum ball through the mid quarters before regaining control late in the game. But Arizona was in too deep a hole to dig themselves out.
–The crowd seemed to take most of the game off too–the Student Section was not particularly loud, with a lot of idle chatter and shenanigans heard in between quarters, and especially on defense, where we were noticeably silent. And I know we led by as many as 28, but wasn’t this supposed to be a revenge game? How the hell can you be so apathetic about the start of our Pac-10 campaign? Why were so many people leaving in the 4th quarter when the Wildcats cut the lead to 14? Something I was missing? Was there some huge rave party in SF you had to get ready for? Or were you just trying to avoid any possibility of getting your clothes wet from the lingering grey skies? Lame dudes, lame.
–On the bright side, the alumni got pretty loud at times, especially during that monumental 1st quarter. Looks like the Mic Men finally have a practical use.
–Longshore finally seemed to be throwing balls the way we remember in that first quarter, airing it out for a few deep strikes that had us in the Arizona red zone. Then players started dropping balls, and Nate made a few mistakes, including one godawful interception he tried threading through three defenders. But it seemed he put it together by the end. So the passing attack has only been sharp in spurts.
–By contrast, the ground game has been consistently superb. Forsett continues to eat up yardage and refuses to go down, exemplifed by that awesome TD run early in the game. He’s the football equivalent of a great closer, shutting the door on any potential comebacks, just as he did with Tennessee, and helped run out the clock on Colorado State. With a porous running defense like Oregon coming up, the Bears need a similar performance at the end to keep their undefeated season going.
–Credit must also go to an outstanding California offensive line that has only allowed 2 sacks all season and opened up a ground game averaging around 220 yards per game. It seems to be the reason Tedford has opted for more of a conservative scheme instead of continuously airing the ball out; he has plenty of faith that the offensive line will help take out all the air on opposing defenses. It’ll be interesting what tactics he takes to against the Ducks, which almost screams running attack.
–Sweet redemption for Lavelle Hawkins, who put the Bears up early and disappeared. The Hawk was out and chomping at the bit, although he only received modest enthusiasm from the crowd AND the student section. God this crowd was slumbering on Saturday. Were midterm scores just released or something?
–Arizona’s run game was just as previewed–nonexistent. Willie Tuitama had to throw 61 passes and didn’t have much of a choice, being down by three touchdowns for most of the game and getting no ground production at all. Oregon will not let the Bears so easily off the hook, not with Dixon manning the backfield and Stewart running it up.
–The defense played arguably its best game of the year, making hard-hitting tackles all day long, stopping two critical Arizona drives early and late which turned touchdowns to field goals, and forcing four turnovers. Even with Follett, Malele and Davis all sidelined, plenty of players–most noticeably Thomas DeCoud with 10 tackles, a forced fumble recovered for a TD, an INT, a fumble recovery–stepped up their game.
–The penalties worry me a bit (especially all the false start penalties, which could be a huge problem when we go on the road), but I think the Bears were caught looking ahead again. It’s kind of annoying, but this Cal team tends to slack off on games they should win (the last three weeks) and step their game up to the ones that matter (Tennessee). All I know is that 4-0 is 4-0. And we’ll know for sure what type of team we have by late Saturday afternoon.
So I’m cool with what’s going on so far. Not excited, not worried. Just very cool. Fans are acting a little crazy right now on the message boards because we aren’t playing like…uhh, USC, but I’m not concerned. The true test will come this week. And we’ll find out for sure what this team is made of.
