(Written by Ken Crawford)

ABC/ESPN did the first round of game selections for the Pac-10 last Friday picking 14 of their 20 Pac-10 games they intend to televise (they could chose to pick up more later). Cal was chosen for two games:

• The season opener versus Michigan State on ABC (5:00 PM - 8/30)
• USC matchup on ABC (5:00 PM - 11/8)

For those who don’t know how the system works, the Pac-10 has contracts with a few networks to televise their games. ABC/ESPN is the primary one. FSN is the secondary one. The third was TNT (or was it TBS?) but was sold to Versus last year. The 3 networks get to pick in that order.

They get to chose their games before the season starts. They can however chose to defer their choice until during the season, getting to pick 12 days before the game (or perhaps 6 days in rare cases).

So now that ABC/ESPN has made their picks (14 now and 6 deferred to the season), FSN is next up to bat and you should see their selections in the next few weeks. They’ll likely pick a handful of games and leave the rest for mid-season selections. They’ll be more likely to defer on weeks where ABC/ESPN has already locked in their selection as they don’t have to worry about ABC getting a pick before them when the time comes for the 12-day pick.

The final thing to note about how it works is that it only applies to games where the Pac-10 is the home team. So for Cal, the Maryland game will be determined by whatever contracts the ACC has and whatever mechanism they use to pick the games. It wouldn’t surprise me if that means it’ll be on ESPN gameplan or something like that.

Some notes of interest about ABC/ESPN’s selections:

• They picked more games before the season than in the past. Usually it is less than half their alloted games. 14 of 20 is a lot higher than that.
• USC was chosen for A LOT of the games. More even than usual. 6 of their games (so fully half) were chosen with half of those getting the prime 5:00 PM slot on ABC. What that says to me is that they’re having a hard time figuring out who’s going to challenge USC for the crown and so had to take a shotgun approach instead of risking not picking up the biggest game of the Pac-10 season.
• UCLA was chosen for 4 games, the only other team besides USC to get more than 2 selections. That says a lot about how excited everyone is about UCLA with a new coach.
• Stanford and WSU got ZERO selections and Arizona got one “maybe” where ABC has said it will either select Cal vs. UW or ASU vs. Arizona. Of course this means no one expects any of these three teams to do much this season and for very few people to be interested in watching.
• Oregon also slighted with a single selection, again versus USC. That says to me that ABC/ESPN expects them to tank without Dixon and Stewart.

See this CalBears.com article for details.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

After the news broke that Longshore was out for the season, the big question was whether Ayoob would get the start as the number two quarterback on the depth chart or would Steve Levy, who had by far the better game of the two against Sac State, leap-frog Ayoob. Tedford pretty quickly ended the controversy by naming Ayoob the starter mid-week. People were not that surprised.

Nevertheless, Cal fans were very nervous for game two, particularly with having to travel to the ever challenging Husky stadium to face Washington. Would Ayoob be able to recover from his week one disaster?

It didn’t look that way after the first play as Ayoob lofts up a well under-thrown ball down the sideline to Lavelle Hawkins that bounced off the defender’s helmit for a first-play interception. To add injury to insult, the Husky’s ran just about the same play on their first snap and instead completed a 56 yard touchdown pass, putting the Bears in a 0-7 hole less than 30 seconds into the game.

Cal kept the ball away from Ayoob on their next possession, handing the ball off 3 times. Unfortunately for the Bears, the Huskies were expecting such a move. Although the Bears managed a 3rd and 1, they were unable to convert and the Bears had to punt.

Washington found a similar lack of success on their 2nd possession, giving the ball right back to the Bears. Ayoob threw two incompletes to start the drive, raising his incomplete streak on the season to 13. On 3rd and 10, just about all Cal fans expected the worst when Ayoob completed his first D-I pass to Robert Jordon on an underneath pattern that got the Bears their first 1st down of the game. Sadly the series died on a holding penalty and two consecutive coverage sacks where the Huskies were able to pin their ears back and blitz on 2nd and 3rd and long.

On the Huskies next possession, the Bears got what should have been their first break of the game when an overthrown screen pass was tipped and intercepted by the Bears. Unfortunately Tafisi marginally roughed Stanback and the interception was undone. After the Huskies got a couple more 1st downs they had to punt giving the ball to Cal on their own 20 yard-line after the punt bounced into the endzone.

Lynch proved his mettle and broke a big 25 yard run busting two tackles along the way to the 45 yard-line. Ayoob then busted off 4 consecutive passes of his own. The first was an underneath pass to Craig Stevens. The second was an easy swing-out pass to Manderino that went for 12 yards. The third was a great deep fade to Robert Jordan for 31 yards down to the Washington 9 yard-line. The fourth finished off the touchdown drive on a slant to Jordan again. All of a sudden, it seemed that Ayoob had found his rhythm and the game was tied at 7-7.

The Bears special teams showed their first sign of weakness on the kickoff, allowing the Huskies to run the ball out to their own 45 yard-line. Luckily the Bear defense remained stout and forced a 3-and-out.

Ayoob completed his first pass on the next drive, growing his completion streak to 6. Although the next pass fell incomplete, it was the right idea, trying to get the ball to a streaking DeSean Jackson deep down the seam to start the 2nd quarter. On 3rd and 13, Ayoob showed off his ability to run with the ball, getting not only the 1st down on a busted play, but ran for 26 yards. A sack and a recovered fumble later, Lynch ran a shovel pass for a 25 to get the 1st down on 3rd and 24. Ayoob again tried to get the ball to DeSean deep down the field, but he dropped the ball in the endzone. DeSean was showing that despite his talents, he was still a true Freshman. After a 10 yard rush by Justin Forsett, Ayoob was able to find Jordan down the field who was able to squeeze inside the pylon for his 2nd passing touchdown of the game, giving the Bears a 14-7 lead.

The Huskies rebounded on their next possession, completing a 45 yard pass play on a tipped jump-ball that the receiver was able to come down with. However, 3 plays later the Bears forced a 46-yard field goal attempt that split the uprights with just yards to spare, closing Cal’s lead to 14-10.

The Bears and Huskies traded 3-and-outs, giving the Bears the ball back on their own 6 yard-line. A 1st down later, Ayoob lofted a beautiful long deep ball down the sideline to Lavelle Hawkins. Although slightly over-thrown, Hawkins was able to dive for the ball, bringing it into his hands, but was unable to hold on. Despite the incompletion, it was a good read and fairly good touch. Ayoob continued to look strong by completing his next pass for a 1st down. Another 1st down later, Ayoob took his next shot down the field. While it wasn’t nearly as good a pass nor as good a read, a misplay by the safety gave Jordan the ball with a free path to the endzone, extending Cal’s lead to 21-10.

The Huskies had yet another 3-and-out, their 2nd in a row, but matters get far worse for the Huskies as the pressure up the middle on the punt forces the punter to pull the ball down and try to run, and to no avail at that. The Bears got the ball at the Washington 14. Ayoob didn’t waste any time, throwing a 14-yard post route to David Gray for another touchdown, their 4th in 5 possessions to take a commanding 28-10 lead with just under 2 minutes left in the half.

The Huskies showed some sign of life in their next possession, probably because the Bears were playing a soft defense. Nevertheless they were forced to punt before getting to midfield and the Bears were content to take a knee to end the half.

Summing up the first half, Ayoob was able to find his groove and after going 0-3 to start the game, went 13-17 with 4 touchdowns after that. At the same time, Ayoob’s tendency to go for the long play, even when the receiver is fairly well covered, which was his bread-and-butter in junior college, was evident. Luckily for the Bears, they were able to recover from these incompletions both through the power running of Lynch and through Ayoob’s generally good reads and passes, even when buying time by avoiding the rush.

As strong as the offense was, the defense was even stronger after their first-play brain-freeze. Minus one lucky play on a jump-ball, the Huskies never saw the Cal side of the field again in the first half. Particularly strong was the Cal run defense forcing the Huskies to pass the ball far more than they would have liked.

To start the second half, the Huskies were able to find some offensive rhythm. After getting two 1st downs, with a string of 5 complete passes. The 6th complete pass, a deep slant splitting the Cal defense, turned into a 39 yard catch-and-run for a touchdown, narrowing the lead to 28-17.

The Bears returned to the run game, picking up 8 yards on two run plays. Unfortunately, the quick slant to David Gray fell incomplete on what was a bad read by Ayoob, forcing the Bears to punt. Luckily for the Bears, the defense corrected their errors, particularly bringing more pressure on Stanback, and forced a punt after one 1st down on a scrambling completion by Stanback.

On the Bears next possession, Ayoob showed some of his bad form from the Sac State game, not setting his feet and making bad reads. Also with Lynch in the locker room with a broken finger/hand, Forsett was unable to carry the same load. A lucky roughing the passer penalty, bailed the Bears out of a long-distance series at which point Ayoob went back to his favorite receiver on this day, Robert Jordan, for two successive plays to get the Bears down to the Washington 17. After a quarterback draw by Ayoob caught the Huskies off balance and got the ball down to the Washington 3 yard, Marcus O’Keith was able to pound the ball in for the first rushing touchdown of the game to re-extend the lead to 18 points, now 35-17.

The Huskies were able to chip away at the Bears on their next drive, over coming a couple penalties along the way. After driving the ball into Cal territory just after the beginning of the fourth quarter, they were able to get the ball down to the Cal 38 yard-line. 2 incompletes, a holding penalty and a busted up screen play later, the Huskies were forced to punt. Adding injury to insult, the ineffective drive took 5:36 off the clock, significantly worsening the Huskies situation.

On the upside for the Huskies, they were able to down the punt at the Cal 4 yard-line. The Bears responded with a heavy dose of the running game. Forsett and Manderino combined for 21 yards to get the ball out to the 25 yard-line. A handful of plays later that were mostly washed out by a holding penalty, O’Keith sprinted up a small seam in the middle of the defense and sprinted away from the secondary for a 71 yard touchdown run, to mostly put the game away, 42-17.

If the dagger was not already in the Huskies, it was put in on the first play of the ensuring possession. Stanback tried to force a ball where he shouldn’t have. A maturing Damien Hughes sat waiting to return the ball for his second of many interceptions for touchdowns to come, extending the lead to 49-17.

Clearly in a prevent style defense, the Bears let Washington slowly march down the field to the Cal 25 yard-line, where they turned the ball over on downs as the Bear defense stiffened. The Bears then put Terrell Williams, their fourth string running-back, to run out the clock, with 3:47 remaining. Despite the conservative play calling, the Bears marched down the field and with time expiring, Forsett ran a 35 yard running play, bouncing the ball outside when the hole collapsed inside, for the final score of the game, 56-17.

Summarizing the game, the Bears were definitely running on all their cylinders. Just about every criticism one could have about the performance of the team could be rebutted by an equally strong play by the same unit in a different part of the game. Winning a game 56-17, particularly when the team spots the opponent 7 points at the beginning, is mighty impressive. At this point, the Bears looked to be in full fighting form and Ayoob looked to be another Tedford quarterback ready to jump into the lime-light.

Would the trend continue against Illinois? You’ll have to wait until Friday to find out.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

I’m a pretty Cal focused writer. I don’t read general sports blogs, even ones dedicated to college football. So when I saw a post over at California Golden Blogs about a big controversy with blogs and specifically an interview with the author of DeadSpin, I have to admit that I had never even heard of DeadSpin.

Seeing as how the conversation/controversy is really about blogging versus the print media, I think that I’m in a unique position to comment on it being a full member of the blogosphere and a half member of the print media.

Before I get to my main point, I’d like to make a couple foundational points (please see the video to understand the topic fully):

1. Every blog is different: It’s completely unfair to compare my blog to another blog in regards to the appropriateness of the content. It’s not different than it being unfair to compare the New York Times to the Sacramento Bee. A good discussion of the topic needs to transcend the specifics of one blog or another to the reason certain types of blogs are popular.
2. Viewership is what gives credibility: This is true for traditional print media just as much as it is for blogs. What is different is the bariers to entry. For print media, you have to have a certain level of readership before you can be in print. Nevertheless, the underlying principle is the same. However, print media advocates don’t seem to realize just how irrelevant a small blog is. They often seem to forget that the small blogs are far less consequential.
3. Access to team only 1/2 the equation: The only aspect which professional journalist have an advantage is in quotes and ability to cover players. The reality is that any fan can watch the games and learn the formations and all that needs to be learned to be an excellent analyst of sports. What they will not have is the personal access to the players to see that half of the game.

With those foundational points out of the way, I think that what upsets people here is two-fold. The simplest level is just journalists who are losing their jobs being upset about that. I won’t begrudge them that. It is difficult to see your living disappear. However, that’s not the important aspect that upsets people. What upsets people is the vulgar, crude and inflamitory content that is on a number of blogs. As many might guess, you can count me amongst those who find those types of blogs very objectionable.

But here’s the key point: Those blogs are only popular because people enjoy/like them. The reason that is such an important point is that if we want someone to point a finger at there is only one place that blame should go: the public.

The public is who views these blogs. It’s their decision. You want to know why the blogger in the interview sounded so cocky? Because he knows he’s successful and there’s nothing any journalist can do to change that. So the reporter who was lambasting him was really lambasting the wrong group. Who he should have been lambasting is the crowd behind the moderator. They’re the ones who determine what is newsworthy and what is disgusting.

To go further, if you look at other aspects of the news, it’s immediately clear that it’s not just the blogs who are catering to low-brow content. All one has to do is look at the headlines of major papers that talk about tabloid content like Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton. A generation ago newspapers had a society page, and it was buried. It would never have made the front page.

So it’s not like the traditional print media is holding some impressive high moral ground here. They just as much as bloggers cater to what society wants. And what society wants has generally, in this bloggers humble opinion, degraded a great deal over the last generation.

To weave that point into the final thing I want to say, I’ve always been a big proponent of just covering the team. I like to talk X’s and O’s and all that sort of stuff. I’d prefer never to mention a player’s name. “The quarterback passed the ball to the outside receiver on the weak side” would be just fine with me.

But if we look at the majority of sports press coverage today, and I mean the print media primarily, it’s far more about the individuals involved than it is about the team. This has only become more true over the last 10 years as the press’s monopoly on game information has disappeared. As that has happened, their coverage moved to what they still had (and still have for that matter) a monopoly on.

In my opinion, it is the move towards covering the players, not the team, that is just as much directly responsible for the disgustingly tabloid-like coverage of sports. As such it is my opinion that the print media is just as much to blame. Or said another way (and circling back) they’re just as willing to cater to the public’s desire for low-brow news.

Finally, I wanted to give some perspective on how my mind changed when I became a part-time member of the press. I’m hoping that my experience will be valuable to others:

1. I realized just how much the players are regular people: The moment this sunk in was when I was covering the 2006 USC game. I went up to Hughes after the game to interview him about the play where he got beat on 4th and 2 for the go-ahead touchdown for USC. I saw a man who’s heart was crushed. To some degree this is a bad example because of just how good of a cornerback he is and everyone was willing to overlook his somewhat minor mistake. Nevertheless, while there are plenty of players who make big mistakes that cost Cal the Rose Bowl now and again, let us not forget that these are human beings that need to be treated with the respect that every human being deserves. There is no need to kick them when they’re down.
2. I realized how hard it is to write a good article: Blogging is hard work. To get a good following takes a ton of work and dedication. It’s peanuts easy to being a reporter. As a reporter, you’ve got to write a game summary article that can be printed whether or not you want to. You can’t just swear off football for a week after the OSU loss. You’ve got to stick it out. You’ve also got to find something good to write about both in the good weeks and the bad weeks. It’s really far more demanding and I say this as someone who’s given a great deal of freedom as to when to write.
3. I realized how making something a job makes it entirely different: If I do something the Cal Athletic department doesn’t like, it’s a big deal. I can lose my job. While to some degree I think that means that bloggers are a bit more free to say the truth, that lack of accountability also means they’re far less likely to make sure they give everyone their due. They won’t spend the extra time to make sure that their opinion is supportable and reasonable because there is no consequence to not doing so. For the reporter, you need to be squeeky clean on everything and it’s a much bigger burden to carry than most people think.

Hopefully this post has some value other than helping me put my thoughts on paper. I can say that while Deadspin’s author made some good points about the value of blogging, I can also say that he really is, as the reporter put it, “full of shit”. Deadspin is completely unwilling to be accountable for their own content. They don’t care that it’s profane. They don’t care that the commentors are profane. Hiding behind free-speech and saying “not every post is like that” or “I didn’t post that” when you’re the publisher of the site is completely bogus. He’s personally responsible, just as is every publisher, for the content of their publication. I haven’t visited his site in the past and now I’ve got a reason to make sure I don’t in the future.

Hopefully the public will have the same sort of backbone and moral fiber to do the same to every publication, whether it be traditional print media or blogs, who are the cause of the this moral collapse. The public is not only the only entity that can reverse the trend but they can easily do so if they have the will.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

Sac State was by far the biggest patsy on the 2005 schedule for the Bears. But with questions abound regarding the QB position, no one seemed to care before the game. Longshore was given the starting nod over Ayoob, although Ayoob was promised playing time later in the game.

The first thing of note when watching the game was the commentators spending a fair amount of time on Longshore’s improved footwork. It struck me in retrospect a lot like American car companies spending all of their commercial time telling consumers about their quality.

In the first series the Bears leaned on a conservative run-run-pass game plan. This seemed wise at the time because of the strength of the Cal running game, the weakness of the opponent and the fact that Tedford was breaking in a new QB. However, this was notable to me because of some of the criticism he received in later years for overly conservative play-calling, particularly against lesser foes.

That said, the strategy worked on the first drive. It gave Longshore a number of 3rd and short situations that were easy to complete and the Bears marched down the field with ease. The drive was capped with a 31 yard touchdown pass from Longshore to DeSean, their first of many touchdown connections in their years together.

Sac State’s first possession was not nearly as effective. In fact, they looked out-matched in just about all of their possessions. They went 3 and out on each of their first three possessions and only managed one first down on their fourth possession before having to punt again.

Had the Bears been able to keep their offensive game-plan on track, the game would have quickly gotten out of reach. Unfortunately for Bear fans, the offense sputtered. Sac State put more pressure on the run game, stifling the run-run-pass plan. In addition the execution was not nearly as sharp with a combination of penalties, bobbled snaps and handoffs as well as a failed trick play all combined to stall two consecutive drives.

On Cal’s ensuing drive, Longshore made his first big mistake, one that he would repeat a number of times in future seasons. He didn’t account for the corner jumping the route on an out pattern and was picked off as the Bears were finally getting their rhythm back.

After another punt by Sac State (although they did manage a first down again) that pinned the Bears at their own 3 yard line, the Bears went back to work, focusing in on the ground game again. They were able to bring the ball out to mid-field. Unfortunately a rare dropped ball by DeSean, where minor pass interference broke DeSean’s concentration on a well thrown deep fade route by Longshore, coupled with a busted up screen play ended the otherwise promising drive.

On the other side of the ball, Sac State was finally able to generate some offense. Two big plays, first a tailback sweep that went for 21 yards followed by a wide-receiver screen that went for another 15 yards, put the Hornets in the redzone. Luckily for the Bears, Cal’s defense stiffened and Sac State’s Chris Hurd missed an open man in the endzone, resulting in a Sac State field-goal to bring the Hornets within 4, down 7-3.

Longshore responded with a long pass of his own. A deep crossing route by DeSa left him wide open and Longshore hit him in stride for a 44 yard gain. Unfortunately, and far more so that anyone realized at the time, that play would be the undoing of the 2005 season. Longshore’s ankle was broken as a Sac State defensive end dived at his feet as he threw the ball.

Of note regarding this was that the announcers were told that x-rays were negative. That was particularly surprising to hear since I know that by the time the papers came out the next morning, we all knew Longshore’s season was over.

Joe Ayoob came in with a fresh set of downs and the ball at the Sac State 33. He was perfectly position to come in and lead the Bears to glory. Instead he threw three consecutive incompletions, each looking horrific. He started by throwing into triple coverage. On second down he massively over-threw the ball. On third down he made a bad read and threw the ball into double coverage missing an open receiver.

It’s interesting to note that while Longshore was given a gentle introduction into the game with a run-run-pass game-plan, when Ayoob came into the game, he had 3 straight passing plays. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was Tedford less concerned with breaking Ayoob in? Was the play-calling trying to out-think Sac State who would be thinking with a new QB they’d return to the run? Or was it just a case of trying to make the most of the clock late in the 1st half? It’s hard to say, but the play-calling didn’t help Ayoob gain confidence in what was a very shaky beginning.

Luckily for the Bears, a young Schneider was ready to prove his mettle and hit a 49 yard field goal to put the Bears back up by 7, 10-3.

The Bears and Ayoob got one more shot before halftime after another Sac State 3 and out. Instead of making the most of it, Ayoob made the absolute least of it, throwing three incompletions that were worse than his first three, if that was even possible. The Bears went into halftime only up 10-3 in a game where they should have been blowing Sac State out. Luckily for the Bears, one half of their team was living up to their billing. The defense had shutdown the Sac State offense on all but two plays despite the frequent opportunities the Hornets were presented to try again.

After another 3 and out by Sac State to start the half, the Bears got the ball back less than two minutes into the 2nd half. Lynch quickly ripped off a 21 yard run up the middle to get the Bears into Sac State territory. Unfortunately another two poorly thrown balls by Ayoob forced yet another punt by the Bears.

Another 3 and out by Sac State had them punting again. This time Mixon made the most of the opportunity and retuned the ball to the Sac State 23. After Ayoob threw yet another stinker, the play-calling switched up, handing the ball off to Lynch again who ripped off two consecutive big gainers and another touchdown to his name, putting the Bears up with the first semi-comfortable lead, 17-3.

Taking an intermission from the game action, who would have thought/remembered that midway through the 3rd quarter that the Bears were only up 10-3 over what turned out to be a miserable Sac State team? All I had remembered when I began to watch the game was that Longshore was injured, the backups looked shaky, but the Bears managed to blow out Sac State anyway. I hadn’t remembered just how late and how special-teams/turnover heavy those blowout points were.

Back to the game, Sac State finally managed a first down on their third possession of the 2nd half, but the result of the drive was yet another punt.

Joe Ayoob was given one last chance to get his game in gear after a 4 yard rush on 1st down was negated by a false start penalty by Andrew Cameron on 2nd down. Twice more he botched the opportunity, the first time indecisively pulling the ball down and trying to run for a 1 yard gain and the second time air-mailing yet another one. Ayoob walked off the field for the last time during that game and Cal punted again.

Sac State made their first big mistake of the game, fumbling the ball on first down, giving it back to the Bears. Steve Levy, who came in for Ayoob, managed to be even more unimpressive in his first throw, badly under throwing the fade and giving Sac State an interception. Luckily for the Bears, DeSean managed to strip the intercepted ball from Sac State and the loose ball recovered by Cal. (It’s pretty impressive/unusual for the same team to lose a fumble on consecutive plays (by either team).)

Levy continued the “winning ways” of the backup Cal QB’s and threw 2 more incompletes bringing the incomplete string to 13 combined for Ayoob (10) and Levy (3). Luckily the fumbles had happened in Sac State territory so Schneider was able to make the most of the situation, kicking a 27 yard field-goal, putting the Bears up comfortably 20-3.

Another 3 and out for Sac State later (at least they’re consistent), Levy made the best of the situation and completed a 46 yard touchdown pass to Noah Smith making the 14th pass after Longshore’s injury BY FAR the best one yet. Nevertheless and despite the offensive ineptitude, the Bears were up 27-3 at this point.

At this point the Bears were playing nearly all 2nd string players on defense including Follett and a number of other names that are now the starters in 2007 and 2008. That didn’t stop Sac State, who had played a mostly mistake free game up until these recent miscues, from fumbled again giving the Bears the ball in the redzone. Not wanting to chance that Levy’s turn-around was temporarily, the Bears went back to the run game and in two plays scored a touchdown (Manderino), now up 34-3.

After this, the game was full of backups on both sides of the ball with each coaching staff trying out new combinations with different players to see who would be best. About the only notable thing that happened after this point was that DeSean was able to return his first punt return of his career (he had been back for a previous punt, but it was partially blocked so he was unable to catch it) for a touchdown, giving the Bears and the game its final score, 41-3.

To summarize the game: The bright spot for the Bears was the defense. They completely shut down Sac State. While it was difficult to tell just how good they were considering the opponent, it would have been easy for them to give up 20ish points for lack of effort. Instead they only gave up 3. In addition, the turnovers forced by the defense put the Bears in great field position that directly resulted in 10 easy points.

The special teams were also special this day, with 7 points directly to their name through DeSean’s punt return and an additional 7 on their shoulders through Mixon’s long return that setup an easy touchdown for the Bears. In addition, the kicking game was in full-force with Schneider going 2 for 2 including a 49 yarder. The punt-blocking team also got close to two punts, fully blocked one (I didn’t elaborate above on THAT odd play that resulted in a Sac State first down) and partially blocked a second one.

All in all, 24 points came from the effort of the defense and special teams making the remaining 17 points the Bears offense accounted for driving the field, far less impressive than the final score of 41 seemed to indicate.

Despite the weakness of the offense and their measly 17 points of their own doing, minus the QB situation, things looked pretty strong on the offensive side of the ball. There were a number of wide-receivers who were coming into their own. The offensive line, tight-ends and Lynch at tailback were all as advertised. However, particularly once it was known that Longshore was out for the season, the QB situation was as dire as dire could be. Ayoob and Levy were a combined 2 for 17. Considering what happened later in the season, it’s particularly interesting to note that Levy played by far the better game against Sac State yet he was passed over for the starting job by Ayoob who would start again the following week.

But you’ll have to wait until next Tuesday to read about that…

(Written by Ken Crawford)

I’m going to be doing a review of every game in 2005 (see here for why). Before we get to the specific games, a trip down memory lane:

2004 had been the Bears best season in a half century. The Bears only regular season loss was in a nailbiter to USC on the road in the ever difficult to play at LA Coliseum. USC went on to win the BCS championship game, so while the loss was disappointing, it was hardly a loss to be distraught about. More frustrating however was the shaft job the Bears got by the BCS and were denied a BCS slot because of some suspect voting by the coaches and the BCS rules that allowed the Rose Bowl no flexibility in who to select (because every slot went to teams that were guaranteed a slot). Furthering the frustration, the Bears played horribly in their “letdown” bowl game, the Holiday Bowl, and lost, souring the end of what was otherwise an incredible season.

Nevertheless, at the end of 2004, 2005 was looking to be an even better season in the making. While Cal was losing their starting tailback, his replacement, a young Marshawn Lynch, had done awesomely in a backup role and was expected to fill in more than admirably. Cal also was going to be young at wide-receiver losing both Chase Lynman and Geoff McArthur but there were a number of talented new receivers in the wings, including 5-star recruit DeSean Jackson. The rest of the offense looked stellar with probably the best offensive line in the country, stud fullback Chris Manderino, the young but proven tight-end Craig Stevens and a Heisman candidate in quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

On defense, things looked similarly as strong. While the Bears were losing all of their top-5 tacklers in Ryan Gutierrez, Wendel Hunter, Matt Giordano, Ryan Riddle, and Joe Maningo, there was plenty of proven talent coming back, including Mixon, Hughes, McCluskey, Lupoi and Lorenzo Alexander. In addition, there were numerous well regarded young players looking to fill in, including Brandon Mebane and Ryan Foltz.

With that much anticipation, when Aaron Rodgers decided to forgo his senior season and declare for the NFL draft, there was a great deal of disappointment. However, with Tedford at the helm and his proven ability to mold great college QB’s, there was hope that a good replacement would be found. That hope was re-enforced when the best junior college QB in the country, Joe Ayoob committed to Cal in the spring. Adding to the positive news, redshirt freshman Nate Longshore was challenging Ayoob for the job. With Ayoob presumed to be a good to great QB prospect, it was assumed that Longshore must be pretty good to be challenging for the starting job.

And that’s the premise for the looking back posts that are to follow, starting with the opening game at home against Sac State to be posted Friday.

(Written by Jason Snell)

So this year, we’re going podcast-wild. We’ve added a proper podcast feed and now you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes as well.

To add the podcast in iTunes, click the big shiny button:

Or if you don’t want to do the iTunes thing, just use this link to subscribe.

As Ken mentioned, we’re hoping to do a lot more podcasting this year, including Ken’s usual contributions as well as new stuff from myself, my compatriot Philip Michaels, and perhaps others. Stay tuned. Or podded. Or whatever the right word is.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

Ah, the end of Spring ball. It’s a time of peace and tranquility. It’s a time when families get to know each other again. It’s a time when, well, the BearInsider message board becomes a near panic with nothing to talk about besides artificially created flame wars about each other’s mothers.

So to keep the peace, you can expect a steady stream of posts here on EMFMV, including the following:

1. A “Looking back on ‘05″ series of posts recapping each game (starting Wednesday)
2. An analysis of each 2007 game and what it tells us about 2008
3. My early prediction for each 2008 game
4. Coverage of the SAHPC trial and any progress there (has to be something by mid-June)
5. Improvements to the auxilary pages including updated stadium pages in anticipation of my travels this fall
6. Likely a couple of podcasts with the whole EMFMV crew
7. An updated Pick’Em league page before fall practice starts

Any other requests?

(Written by Ken Crawford)

I did most of my Spring Practice commentary in the podcasts, but I thought it would be worthwhile to put down some notes in word form as well:

Players with best practices (according to me, anyway):

• Nyan Boateng
• Michael Calvin
• Covaughn DeBoskie
• Brian Anger
• Tad Smith
• Peter Geurts
• Ernest Owusu
• Syd’Quan Thompson
• Rulon Davis (as a leader)

Units that are looking to be strong going into fall practice:

• Receiver core (came a LONG way)
• Defensive line (in 3-4)
• Secondary, particularly corners
• Tight-ends

Units that look to be weak:

• Quarterbacks
• Offensive line

Here’s some detail on each unit:

• Quarterbacks: Although Tedford dismissed it, having Longshore out for the majority of Spring Practice was not a good thing. He really needed a good spring if he was going to fully recover from last seasons hangover. Fall is just too short to fully recuperate from that. Additionally, Riley didn’t look all that great out there during practice. He’s really going to have to step things up in the Fall if he wants the starting job, particularly if Longshore starts out strong. Finally, although Mansion improved a great deal, there’s no question that he’s still raw and not ready for prime-time. Although I have great hopes for him in 2009 and beyond, 2008 will be pretty shaky if the Bears are forced through injury to put him under center.
• Offensive line: This unit looked really soft in the spring, which was really surprising to me. They were supposed to be the strength/backbone of the offense with all of the talent/experience coming back. However, in scrimaging the defense was able to successfully get lots of pressure on the QB and shut down a lot of run plays. Also worrisome was the inability to setup screen passes consistently. There are a number of explinations that exist that would give hope that the unit will perform fine come game day, everything from not being accustomed to blocking the 3-4, a particularly strong effort by the defensive line and trying out new combinations on the line being the most likely. Nevertheless, the performance of the unit suggests there is work to be done here.
• Backs: There’s no doubt that there is a lot of talent at running back. Jahvid Best, Shane Vereen, Tracy Slocum and Covaughn DeBoskie all possess wonderful talents. They’re fast, they’re nimble and they avoid tackles well. At the same time, they’re all pretty inexperienced. Nevertheless I think they will perform pretty well carrying the ball. Their weakness will likely be pass protection and route running with an emphasis on the former. While each of the 4 backs impressed during practice, they all still need to grow in the fall for the RB position to be a bright spot. Luckily at fullback Will Ta’ufo’ou will man that spot to give some experience in the backfield. With Zack Smith also having experience in a backup roll and a young pair fighting out to be Ta’ufo’ou’s successor (Peter Geurts and John Tyndall) the fullback position will be well stocked in 2008 hopefully to offset the talented but unexperienced depth at running back.
• Wide Receivers: In my opinion, the question marks at wide receiver were answered in full during spring. Jeremy Ross, Nyan Boateng and Michael Calvin all dramatically increased their stock throughout the practices. These three will make a pretty solid replacement to the ‘big three’ recievers that all just got picked up by NFL teams in the last few days (Robert Jordan signed as a free-agent to SF). With a LaReylle Cunningham making the 4th quality receiver and then 3 more developing talents behind them, the receiver position looks in very good shape particularly considering that unlike the running backs, their lack of experience is less likely to hinder their ability to contribute at a high level in my humble estimation.
• Tight Ends: With Tad Smith moving from the defensive side of the ball and Cameron Morrah continuing to improve, there looks to be great depth at this position. Add in the couple of young guys showing potential, and this is likely going to be a strength in the fall.
• Defensive line: If it weren’t for the lack of a dominant nose-tackle on the line, this would be the team’s strongest unit when in a 3-4. With Rulon Davis and Cameron Jordan on the outside, along with Cody Jones, Scott Smith and Ernest Owusu pushing them for the starting position, the defensive end position looks good. However, none of Mika Kane, Derrick Hill and Tyson Alualu have developed into a dominant nose tackle, a near necessity to make the 3-4 work consistently. While all 3 have potential, none of them seemed to make the leap this spring. Nevertheless, this unit impressed me through the spring mostly because the expectation was that they’d be one of the weak spots. Instead they looked to be mediocre with some strong spots.
• Linebackers: Everyone expects this to be the strength of the defense and for the most part they continue to be. Follett continues to be one of the best pass-rushing linebackers in the Pac-10 if not the country on the outside. Adding to the experienced group of Follett, Felder, Mohamed and Williams, all of whom performed as experienced LBs, was DJ Holt and Devin Bishop. Bishop, who had a very weak junior year, seems to have put the pieces together and may be able to challenge for a starting spot in the fall. However, beyond these 6, there was a significant dropoff. This is concerning from a depth perspective and may be the second reason why a move to the 3-4 may not be as wise as one would hope, particularly considering the surprising depth that has accumulated on the defensive line with the emergence of the young talent mentioned above. That said, the starting 4 look very strong making this one of the better units on the team if they can avoid injury.
• Defensive backs: Syd’Quan Thompson is becoming a monster at cornerback. He’s probably the most talented player at his position on the team. All that is needed is a second corner with similar skills and the secondary has the potential to be one of the conference’s best. To fill those shoes, Chris Conte, Darian Hagan and Charles Amadi are fighting for the spot. Conte has the inside track on that position with a fair amount of playing time in 2007 where he both showed his youth and his potential. Conte seemed to show the opposite in the spring being the more dependable of the contenders but also not showing the signs/moments of brilliance that Hagan and Amadi showed. In any case, while all three are young, all three will be an acceptable fill-in across from Syd. For the Safeties, Marcus Ezeff and Bernard Hicks are the likely starters and are as hard hitting as they come, particularly Ezeff. DJ Campbell is the most likely candidate to spell those two but don’t be surprised if the losers of the cornerback battle get some backup playing time at safety. Overall this unit is young as well (notice a trend here) but looks to be more than capable of holding up their end of the defensive battle.

Speaking overall, I think 2009 is shaping up to be a great year… and no that wasn’t a typo. 2008 seems to be a season full of youth, talent and too many question marks to be a Rose Bowl caliber team. A trip to the dreaded Sun Bowl seems more like the target for this team with an upshot at yet another trip to San Diego (will YATTSD ever catch on?). This spring showed a team that was growing in leaps and bounds. That says great things for the team, but also has some fine print that goes along with that.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

I’m not one who cares much about this sort of thing, but just for the record:

1. DeSean Jackson: 2nd round, #18 (49th overall) to Philadelphia Eagles
2. Craig Stevens: 3rd round, #12 (85th) to Tennessee Titans
3. Thomas DeCoud: 3rd round, #35 (98th) to Atlanta Falcons
4. Lavelle Hawkins: 4th round, #27 (126th) to Tennessee Titans
5. Mike Gibson: 6th round, #18 (184th) to Philadelphia Eagles
6. Justin Forsett: 7th round, #24 (233rd) to Seattle Seahawks

DeSean slipping to mid-second round and Mike Gibson getting drafted were only two surprises in the Cal list.

Back to Cal football…

(Written by Ken Crawford)

This is the 4th and final installment in the Spring Practice Podcast series from the final practice on April 26th.

I made one error in the podcast. I referred to a Michael Geurts. His first name is actually Peter.

The podcast ends with audio from interviews with Tedford and Nyan Boateng. Here’s a summary of their quotes:

1. Tedford on what he learned from Spring Practice
2. Tedford on best performances in practice
3. Tedford on receiver improvements
4. Tedford on quarterback evaluations
5. Tedford on when to name starting QB
6. Tedford on size at receiver
7. Tedford on NFL draft (sorry for background noise that starts here)
8. Tedford on Jahvid Best’s status
9. Nyan Boateng on fan interest
10. Nyan Boateng on how spring went
11. Nyan Boateng on Tedford compliments
12. Nyan Boateng on hardest aspects of Spring Practice
13. Nyan Boateng on easiest aspects (interview got interrupted, cut in audio)
14. Nyan Boateng on being a leader
15. Nyan Boateng on who team leaders are
16. Nyan Boateng on differences between Florida and Cal
17. Nyan Boateng on return game

Have a listen:

 

 On The Road Home - Spring Practice #4 [24:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(Written by Ken Crawford)

There are a million fun “take this survey” sites that do some analysis or another in a very unscientific fashion. You can add to that list a new one, the “Blog and Website Cuss-O-Meter”:

As a point of comparision, here are the other Cal blogs I visit on occasion:

• California Golden Blogs: 6.2%
• Bear Necessity: 5.1%
• Cal Football Fan: 0.7%
• Oski Talk: 6.4%
• Rose Bowl Before I Die: 6.9%
• California Golden Bear Football: 1.0%
• BearTalk (with Jonathan Okanes): 6.3%
• College Hotline with Jon Wilner: 4.5%
• Sturdy Golden Bear: 8.2%
• Cal Bear Wire: n/a
• Bears With Fangs: n/a
• My Bear Territory: n/a

If you put in a bogus or very slow URI, it’ll give a 0% answer. So the n/a’s are ones I couldn’t get an answer back from as the sites were clearly responding slowly both to my own browser and to the Cuss-O-Meter. Noteworty however is Cal Football Fan, the one site that creates it’s own content that scored lower than me. Surprising was the high pecentage for Sturdy Golden Bear, who generally seemed to run a clean site at their now-defunct page (or at least it seems that way).

For what it is worth, as I said, the above list is all of the sites I frequent on occasion. That means it’s the sites from which I pick who goes on the blogroll. This summer I’ll be re-doing the blogroll and will be including new sites that have proven themselves to be worthy of being on my blogroll. For those who don’t know, I take which blogs I link to very seriously. There are those sites out there that’ll post a link to just about any blog they know of, and while that is a fine way to go about it, it has the downside of the list getting so long it is meaningless and hard to find the good needles in the haystack.

Here are the criteria I use:

1. Moral content: The #1 thing to prevent your blog from inclusion on the list is any content that is morally offensive. The most common example of this is frequent swearing. Does it really add anything to a post to say a player is f-ing pathetic? Find better words to describe yourself. Other examples include any suggestions of violence against anyone, this is college football not a war, or personal attacks against players or coaches beyond just their capabilities on the football field. It’s OK to say that Joe “Booya” Ayoob is the worst player to ever grace the Cal sideline and Tedford is a complete coaching moron to have let him stay behind center for as long as he did (even though I’d disagree), but to say you want to rip out his bowels and force-feed it to Tedford crosses the line. Finally, I expect the comment sections being in line with my moral standards and that the comments of the blog’s author on other blogs meet the standards as well (one blogger in particular suffers from this problem). For the comment sections, I don’t expect one to moderate to the degree that all comments meet my moral standards, but that truly, wildly objectional comments are deleted and somewhat to moderately objectionable content is somehow rebutted/chastized.
2. Frequency of posting: I’m only going to link to blogs with somewhat regular posting. Generally that means at least a couple posts a week during the season. I’m not too concerned with off-season posting but someone who is consistent all the time gets extra props.
3. Quality of posts: What this means depends on what your blog is trying to accomplish. If you’re just trying to report news, I’m not going to hold it against you that you don’t have detailed analysis. At the same time, if your goal is news and you’re always a week behind everyone else, well, that’s not very good news. On the other hand, if you’re a game-analyst type guy, I’m not going to hold slower posting against you, but I do expect that your analysis is meaningful. Generally what this means is if when I go to your blog, do I find something worth reading?
4. Longevity: I generally like to see that a blog has been around for atleast a year before it gets the nod. This is partially to give me time to judge based on the above criteria and also because lots of bloggers drop off within a month or two of blogging.

If you don’t care if you get a link on this blog, that’s fine. But if you do, those are the criteria I judge by. If your blog is not in the above list, consider this post a good place to comment and put your blog’s URL so that I can see if it is one I want to include in the fall.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

I put a poll on the sidebar asking who I should interview at this Saturday’s practice. I can’t promise that I’ll interview the winner both because sometimes certain players aren’t made available and because I like to talk to someone who had a good practice (or for the backups at least got a significant amount of playing time). Nevertheless, I will take the poll results seriously and make sure I pick one of the leading candidates.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

My second spring practice article, Brock Mansion Spotlight, was published this morning.

Just like my last one, Chris Nguon was nice enough to give me credit for the whole article, even though he contributed all of the spring practice notes, or said a different way, all of the parts not about Mansion.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

There’s been a bit of a swirling controversy regarding California Golden Blogs posting pictures from the open to the public spring practice on Cal Day, April 12th. See the message board post by GrayBear and this post at CGB for background. I’ve thought a great deal about this matter (I was reluctant to comment at first). The more I think about it, the more I believe this issue was mishandled by both BearInsider and the Athletic department.

As has come to light, these pictures were taken at the open to the public, Cal Day practice. For those who went to the Cal Day practice, since it was open to the public and the fans would have no other guidance to go on, there was no instruction regarding taking pictures or anything like that. While I think it is a fools-errand to try and stop pictures from the open practice from being taken or being posted publicly, I know that California Golden Blogs (CGB), myself and most other bloggers would respect whatever rules they wanted, had they been stated/posted. But nowhere was it stated to anyone (I can’t emphasize this enough). I mean all they had to do was post a sign, give out a handout, say something over the loudspeaker, say something in the e-mail invitation to the event that went to all season ticket holders, anything like that. But they didn’t.

It’s unfair to CGB to force them into a situation which such negative publicity (look at all the misinformed comments on the BearInsider message board that think/thought they posted pictures from a closed practice) and compromise the hard work they’ve done to promote Cal football (the post in question, even though it has nothing to do with spring ball, is useless until they can find alternate photos, which they surely would have done initially if they knew those pictures were off limits) when they were given no reasonable guidance on the subject.

Even if they had attended the Bancroft Hotel event, which I didn’t so I can’t speak to, unless it was explicitly stated at that event that these rules apply to the Cal Day practice, it was a reasonable assumption that the rules were different for this open to the public event. As someone who gets access to the closed spring practices, although I didn’t post pictures from the Cal Day event, I made that exact assumption.

Hopefully this can be avoided in the future through better communication to the fans by the athletic department.

I would also have hoped that BearInsider handled the matter with both more clarity and more charity. While GrayBear admits the pictures were “probably as a result of Cal Day” he launches into a discussion of the Bancroft Hotel event which is wholly irrelevant if the pictures were “a result of Cal Day”. He then bases the rest of his post on the foundation and premise of the Bancroft Hotel event. There are no gray areas here as his message indicates. The pictures were taken at the Cal Day event. There was no information presented about photography at that event. CGB made the reasonable assumption that open to the public meant they could post pictures of it. The fault lays with the athletic department communications.

A more appropriate post would have said something along the lines of “I’m sure they were acting in good faith thinking the Cal Day event was unrestricted, but the athletic department has communicated to me that all pictures from the Cal Day should come down even though that wasn’t well communicated at Cal Day itself. We apologize for the confusion.”

What bothers me most about this is that just about everyone involved has the same goal: the promotion of Cal football. But because of poor communication and a lack of clarity and charity, this issue has erupted into something far bigger than it would have been. It could have been easily avoided.

(note that this same post, minus a few edits, was made on the BearInsider message board)

(Written by Ken Crawford)

For those who wonder if I’m still writing for Rivals/BearTerritory.net, the answer is yes, albeit not very often. You’ll see a few more articles from me as Spring wraps up. More importantly, the current plan (and these things change so nothing is for sure) is for me to cover all of the road games for them this year. I’ll also be covering the weekly press conferences on Tuesdays for both home and away games. I’m pretty excited about getting that much coverage as it’ll mean I’ll see every game this year, both home (season tickets) and away (in the press box) as well as have good access to the players and coaches.

In any case, an article on Vereen I wrote was just published - Spring Ball: Vereen Back in Action. For full disclosure, although I was credited for the full article, I only wrote the portion about Vereen. The parts about Browner and the additional tidbits were written by Chris Nguon. Chris was apparently nice enough to give me credit for the whole thing.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

The last Spring Practice is this Saturday. I’ll be heading down watch and do a couple interviews. The point of this post is to ask for nominations for who to interview. It should be one of the players who has not yet been interviewed by Rivals/BearTerritory.net. Those players are:

• Shane Vereen
• Brock Mansion
• Jeremy Ross
• Tracy Slocum
• D.J. Campbell
• Noris Malele
• Michael Calvin
• Bernard Hicks

I was thinking of interviewing someone who had a particularly strong spring like Tad Smith, Ernest Owusu, or a few others. Who else should be nominated. On Wednesday/Thursday I’ll put up a poll with the best candidates.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

I attended Spring Practice on Wednesday April 16th. I just now got around to editing together my On The Road Home Podcast, but it was recorded on the car ride home. I’ve also got audio from post-practice interviews with Tedford and Shane Vereen is who was out of the redshirt for the first time on Wednesday.

As for errors in the podcast, I was mostly error free this time. There were a couple moments when I said 4-3 for the defensive formation when I meant 3-4 (but not the other way around). It didn’t affect the overall commentary’s accuracy however.

Here is a list of the audio quote topics:

1. Tedford on practice intensity
2. Tedford on Vereen being back
3. Tedford on Vereen’s improvements
4. Tedford on DeBoskie coming early
5. Tedford on protection breakdowns
6. Tedford on challenge of losing seniors
7. Tedford on secondary play
8. Vereen on injury
9. Vereen on hardest part of coming back
10. Vereen on things to learn
11. Vereen on strongest part of game
12. Vereen on changes from last year
13. Vereen on depth chart
14. Vereen on frustration of injury
15. Vereen on going all out

Have a listen:

 

 On The Road Home - Spring Practice #3 [20:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(Written by Ken Crawford)

Over at BearInsider.com, they’re continuning on their unparalleled excellent coverage of the court case with their latest article, The SAHPC Case: What Happens Next?. Most of it covers what happens after an assumed favorable ruling for the University. The good news to me was the following:

UC has said they have made full preparations to begin work as soon as they are permitted to do so. One of the first steps would be the removal of the tree-sitters and the oak grove at the site so that excavations could begin.

That’s of course very good news. It’s also good news that the indication is that it will be very hard for the parties to get an additional injunction on appeal, both because of the inherent difficulty of doing so and because of the dollars required to get a bond if the City of Berkeley doesn’t join in the appeal, which is up in the air.

But all of those things are very much tempered by the worst quote in the whole thing:

Olson explained that in an appeal the entire case would have to be argued again in a court system that he said is much slower than the Superior Court where the case was first heard.

Did he just say SLOWER!?! How is that even possible?

So, thinking this all through, here’s what the Bears need:

1. Court to rule in favor of University. AND…
2. City of Berkeley decides not to join appeal. OR…
3. Appelate court refuses to allow injunction on appeal.

Being the pessimist I am on this subject, let’s run those statistical numbers based on my guesses as to the likelihood that they’ll occur. I figure we’ve got a 50% chance that the court rules in the University’s favor on ALL counts (because any count against means additional delays). I figure it’s a 50% chance that Berkeley doesn’t join the appeal. Finally, I only give the appelate court credit for a 25% chance they’ll refuse an injunction because they’ll be suckered by the whole “irrepairable damage” crud for allowing the project to move forward.

So, 0.5 + 0.5*(0.5 * 0.75) = 68.75% chance this project is going to get further delayed by my humble estimates and admittedly somewhat pessimistic numbers.

Those aren’t numbers I like. I don’t pray about football (minus the safety of the team), but every day it keeps feeling to me like only hope for this project’s completion before Tedfor bails is the most fervent, humble prayers.

But maybe I’m just being too pessimistic.

(Written by Ken Crawford)

I attended the open to the public Spring Practice on April 12th at noon. Here is the “On The Road Home” podcast from that event.

Have a listen:

 

 On The Road Home - Spring Practice #2 [16:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(Written by Ken Crawford)

I attended Spring Practice on 4/9. (As a reminder to all, Spring Practice is closed to the public (except for the open practice on Saturday 4/12) and is only available to invited media/guests.) Here is my “On The Road Home” podcast for that event.

I made one notable error in the podcast: Boskovich is a offensive lineman, the starting left guard specifically, not a defensive end. That’s the penalty for doing these podcasts from memory in the car as opposed to from prepared text/notes at home.

Note that the podcast includes interview audio from Tedford and redshirt Freshman QB Brock Mansion. Here is a list of their quote topics:

1. Tedford on Improvements on Defense
2. Tedford on Longshore’s Injury
3. Tedford on injuries (Mohommad, Vareen, Follett, DJ Holt)
4. Tedford on TE Tad Smith
5. Tedford on Brock Manson
6. Mansion on taking snaps
7. Mansion on difficult aspects
8. Mansion on defensive pressure
9. Mansion on easiest aspects
10. Mansion on keeping sharp
11. Mansion on 2008 playing time
12. Mansion on sping practice changes
13. Mansion on scout team
14. Mansion on command of playbook

Have a listen:

 

 On The Road Home - Spring Practice #1 [16:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download