The first Pac-12 championship game could have been an absolute disgrace of a game, but it wasn’t. UCLA was out-matched, but fought hard and at a few moments (tied 7-7, only down 24-35 in the 3rd quarter) looked to have a shot at pulling off the upset. Oregon quickly put an end to those delusions, but it was nice to see a game that wasn’t a joke.

People will walk away from watching that game thinking it was entertaining, not disgraceful.

So, thank you UCLA for coming to play with heart in a game where you could have given up before the kickoff. It’s not easy to deal with losing your head coach and being a 32-point underdog and viewed as a joke in the title game. They played their hearts out anyway. Thanks! (Now go make us proud in the former-Nut bowl.)

Ted Miller had a great comment about Utah’s loss to Colorado in his weekly what we learned post:

Utah, welcome to the Pac-12 way: Utah figured out that consistency is frowned upon in the Pac-12. The Utes, with their home loss to Colorado, figured out that it’s darn near required within the conference’s muddled middle that teams inexplicably face-plant at least once (or twice a year). So you have Cal getting bricked at UCLA, Arizona State throwing up on itself at Washington State, UCLA getting bombed at Arizona and Washington flopping at Oregon State. The Utes are typically great at home. Colorado had lost 24 in a row away from its home stadium. But logic doesn’t always rule in the Pac-12. The rule is inexplicable results are part of the conference’s annual tapestry.

I won’t beat a dead-horse about Utah, but I did want to look at the list of face-plants:

• Cal loses to UCLA
• ASU loses to Arizona
• UCLA loses to Arizona
• UW loses to OSU
• Utah loses to Colorado

So the question is, which one of these is not like the others?

If you guessed Cal, you’re right! Cal is the only one who’s face-plant is to a team from the ‘muddled middle’. The rest are loses to the bottom group. Cal took business against all of the lower teams: WSU, OSU, Colorado. Cal didn’t play Arizona, so I guess that could still be in play seeing as how they were the team to knock off two of the ‘muddled middle’.

I think it says something about how the Bears are viewed. For that to be Cal’s flop, it means that Cal is on the top of the muddled-middle. I think UW is too, but that’s because they beat everyone else in the ‘muddled middle’, including Cal. Cal beat Utah and ASU, and lost to UW (the top) and also to UCLA (the flop). So it seems to me the right ordering of the teams is:

• Washington
• Cal
• Utah
• ASU
• UCLA

(The bottom 3 are harder to differentiate, I debated putting ASU on the bottom but UCLA’s performance versus USC last night and their need for a waiver to be bowl eligible after losing to Oregon next week, had me drop them.)

Expect that to be the order of bowls picked next Sunday as well. After Oregon goes to the Rose and Stanford to the Fiesta or Orange, UW goes to the Alamo, Cal to the Holiday, Utah to the Sun, ASU to the Vegas and UCLA to the Kraft (if they get a waiver).

This is something I’ve thought of before, but it came back to my mind after reading a quote from a replay booth ref on CGB:

How many camera angles do you get?

it’s totally based on the TV crew. For Oregon/Washington I had 17 cameras. For the Big Game there were only 7. Replay officiating is based totally on an entertainment industry. Once I requested a goal line shot but couldn’t get it because that camera was busy showing crowd shots!

In other words, the replay official is dependent on whatever shots the TV crew gives them. I know this isn’t a big surprise to anyone, but I don’t think people have thought of the implications. TV crews are NOT impartial. Sometimes that’s explicitly obvious, such as Cal games that don’t get picked up by the Pac-12 contracts and the Cal Athletic department gets Comcast to put the game on TV. But it’s true of the media staff even when the game being broadcast by a supposedly neutral party. You don’t think the average cameraman and director who work games in the Bay Area are sports fans and tend to favor the local teams? Of course they are. It’s a big part of the reason they’re in that business, is because they are sports fans and they like to be at the games.

So what’s the result?

The result is that anything that might be controversial is going to have a lot of cameras on it and the producer in the truck is going to be working hard to getting all the right shots. For something that they’d rather not have reviewed, they’re already off taking shots of the crowd.

It’s not even purposeful or intentional, it’s just human nature. When I watch a Bears game and Allen is tip-toeing down the sideline, I’m going to be less likely to inspect every step as a fan of the opponent would, without even trying. When it’s the opposing team tip-toeing, my first question is going to be to want to see every step in slow motion, freeze-framed as each foot is on the ground.

I don’t know what the solution should be. I’m generally not opposed to instant replay (within reason) and I understand the cost issues with trying to have a second video crew who’s whole purpose is for instant replay. But at the same time, it seems to me to be an overlooked component of officiating. Maybe at a minimum requiring certain shots, like a camera on the goal-line that must be pointed at the goal-line at all times (or something similar) should be required. I don’t know.

But what we have right now doesn’t seem fair to me.

Don’t tell Jason, but UCLA apparently didn’t realize how horrible the stormtrooper look was for the Bears (even though they benefited from it) because they decided to bring it for the USC game. They’ve decided to scoff at tradition, where both teams wear their home colors for that game, and go with a never before used look of all white, including the white helmet.

Not that it’ll matter either way, but UCLA is going to regret bringing out the stormtrooper look.

I’m not sure why it happened this way, but this blog has become the home of Utah bashing the last couple weeks as I’ve been ranting about how much they don’t deserve their lofty status in some people’s minds. Part of what got me riled up was not just what the pundits were saying, but the Utah fans, who were slowly becoming intolerable, acting as if their march to 8-4 overall and 5-4 in conference showed they belonged with the big-boys.

Well, they got their first real lesson about life in a big-boy conference yesterday, losing to lowly Colorado, the only team with only 1 conference win coming into the game and who hadn’t won a game on the road since October 27th, 2007 (that’s not a typo… 2007. For context, that’s two weeks after Cal was ranked #2 in the country and Kevin Riley made his most famous mistake of running for it without any timeouts). Looks like the players had been listening to their over inflated fans and forgot the #1 rule of big-boy conferences: EVERY team in the conference is good enough to beat you if you don’t come with your A-game.

So now they’ll be stuck in the middle of the muck, 7-5 overall and 4-5 in conference. And I find it necessary to remind everyone that they achieved that mediocre record by avoiding a beat-down from either Oregon and Stanford. Of the other teams in the muck in the middle (UW, Cal, UCLA and ASU) that will likely end the season either 7-5 or 6-6 and 5-4 or 4-5 in conference, they lost to all but one (UCLA). UCLA of course being that “impressive” win that showed how good Utah is.

That preamble is a long way of saying I couldn’t help but smile last night as I turned on the Cal game to find out that Utah had lost to Colorado earlier in the day. It’s always nice to see cosmic balance restored and fan bases with an over-inflated ego having to eat some crow.

Sorry, Utah fans, no Pac-12 south championship for you, despite the fact that everything you needed to have happen to the other teams is happening. All you had to do was win your game, but you got caught looking ahead and forgetting to take care of business this weekend. At some level, after I’ve finished smirking, I feel for you and empathize. As a Cal fan I’ve been there before (see UCLA circa 2011, 2007, 2005 and OSU, circa 2007, 2005). Take solace in knowing that I won’t be railing against you any more after your new-found humility.

The key observers of the Pac-12 continue to slight Cal… this is really starting to get under my skin. I’ll start with Wilner because I respect his analysis LESS (he’s got great investigative work, like with the Pac-12 contracts, but his team analysis stinks):

He’s got Utah 4th (beat them a month ago), UCLA 5th (lost to them, but they’ve been on a nose dive since losing to the Utah team we destroyed), UW 6th (lost to them a long time ago, but they just lost to the OSU team Cal destroyed), and ASU 7th (haven’t played, but recently lost to the WSU team we recently destroyed). Then Cal comes in at 8th.

I guess I could accept 6th behind UCLA and UW, seeing as how we lost to both, but then Wilner’s got a problem, because he’s got a tough sell job with UW losing to Oregon State last week and Utah being behind UCLA who they beat thoroughly. But seeing how ASU hasn’t beat anyone recently, how could Cal be behind them?

On to Ted Miller:

He agrees with Wilner and has Utah 4th, UCLA 5th, UW 6th, but at least has the decency to put Cal in front of Arizona State.

So, it comes down to this: Utah is getting WAAAY to much credit for their win over UCLA. In Wilner’s rankings, Utah lost to the #6, #7 and #8 teams (ASU, UW and Cal), but because UCLA hasn’t been in a free fall like UW and ASU, they get credit for being on top of that pile. But somehow Cal gets no credit for beating Utah and simultaneously gets not credit for beating the teams (Utah included) that have beat those teams in a free fall.

Using the method that Wilner and Miller use (how they’re playing right now) I’ve got to put Cal in the #4 spot. They’ve been winning, and played a close one against Stanford, something none of the rest of the #4 – #8 teams have done.

The one reason I think you might not want to put Cal in the #4 spot is that UW has too much built up success. I think you’ve got to treat UW in one of two ways, you either look at the OSU game as an anomaly and put then at #4, because they’ve beat the each of the rest of the teams in that #4 – #8 muddle that they’ve played or you put them all the way at the bottom of that stack based on the egg laid against OSU. Either would be fair, frankly. It just depends on how recently, “right now” is. So perhaps Cal loses the #4 spot to them.

But the real conundrum is Cal, Utah and UCLA in the middle of a 3-way “beat each other triangle”. So then you’ve got to look at who else they’ve played and beat. I did the Cal over Utah thing last week and won’t repeat myself. Frankly, it’s more difficult to separate UCLA and Cal outside of their head to head, although Cal did play Stanford much better than UCLA did and beat Oregon State and WSU much more convincingly than they did. So if one overlooks the head to head (which in this exercise we have to because we’re in the middle of the “beat each other triangle”), Cal might get the edge.

So what it comes down to is that Utah, for some reason continues to get immense credit for that beat-down of UCLA and Cal gets no credit for their butt-kicking of Utah. Thus, Cal ends up on the bottom of that pile, for reasons that are beyond my comprehension. And that’s what lands Cal at #7 or lower (in conjunction with the UW issue) in both of their rankings.

But the most incomprehensible bit of it is ASU being above Cal in Wilner’s ranking. ASU has lost 3 in a row, including to lowly Arizona last week and the same WSU team that Cal beat two weeks ago. That team is in a free-fall and doesn’t have any wins over teams Cal has lost to (well, a LONG time ago, they beat a not-yet-good USC team, but that’s eons ago from a power-ranking perspective).

I guess what frustrates me is that they don’t seem to see what good football Cal is playing right now. They won 3 of 4 against the middle of the pack before going in a playing Stanford close on the road. Why aren’t they getting credit for that? Why aren’t people looking at that as a team on the rise? It’s like Cal got stained by that 3-game losing streak (two of those games being to the best of the conference) and nobody is willing to give them credit. Those wins later, well, they weren’t against very good teams (these people apparently say), yet those team are either being ranked really high now (Utah) or have recently knocked off these teams that are still above Cal but are considered in a free-fall because of those loses.

Well, Cal took care of business against those teams, convincingly I might add, and should be given credit for it. They deserve the #4 spot in a “how are the teams playing right now” power-ranking. Cal would beat Utah again, the way they are playing right now. Cal would beat UCLA given another shot. Cal would beat UW if UW played the way they did against Oregon State. Finally, Cal will beat ASU this weekend. That means they deserve the #4 spot. The only teams in the conference that Cal doesn’t beat next week based on how they’re playing right now is Oregon, Stanford and USC.

It’s ridiculous to think, but it appears Utah will win the South if the favored teams win this weekend… well technically ASU is favored over Cal, but a lot of people are thinking Cal is in the driver’s seat in this one.

What a collapse by UCLA and ASU.

ASU loses to Arizona and UCLA. UCLA loses to Arizona and Utah. Yes, the same Arizona who’s only two wins all season are against the supposed leaders of the South. This is just ridiculous.

And us Cal fans know how bad Utah is. We kicked the crud out of them. Then they go up to WSU and get lucky when what should have been the game winning touchdown wasn’t called as such and not reviewed in the booth, letting Utah squeak into overtime and then win. Let’s see, how did the Bears do against WSU again? Oh yes, that’s right… destroyed them so bad Wulff was calling Cal the most talented team in the conference. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what he was saying about Utah.

It still completely gets under my skin that Cal lost to UCLA. At least then, after Cal beats ASU this weekend, we could say with conviction that we would be the best eligible team in the South, were we part of that division. We would have beat every eligible team in the South that we played and the miss was lowly Arizona. As it stands, with a win over ASU, the only south teams Cal would have lost to was USC and UCLA, two of the top-3, including the outright winner.

But one has to believe that the stunted Utah gets their shot at the title game with ASU and UCLA both likely losing this weekend.

OK, I reached my limit on this topic. I can’t keep it bottled up any more. It was officially on when Miller put Utah above Cal in his weekly power rankings. But it got ridiculous and I saw that most bowl projections had Utah above Cal.

Utah does NOT deserve to be above Cal in any discussion, including the bowl one. Do people not remember the game at AT&T? The one where Utah had almost ZERO offense until Cal let off the defensive gas in the 4th quarter. Don’t talk to me about turnovers. That only indicates why the final score was so out of whack. It doesn’t explain why Utah only have FIFTY SEVEN yards in the first 3 quarters. Don’t talk to me about home field advantage. The home crowd at that game was weak. If you can’t play in front of that pathetic crowd you’ve got problems.

But let’s pretend for some miraculous reason we can ignore the head-to-head game. Let’s talk about all the other things…

Overall record: the same. Conference record: the same.

Common opponents:
USC: we both lost to them, Cal big, Utah in a nailbiter
Washington: we both lost to them, Cal in a nailbiter, Utah big
Oregon State: We both won big
UCLA: Utah won big, Cal lost

Is that the totality of what Utah can hang it’s hat on? That Cal went down to the Rose Bowl and laid an egg (an egg by the way that was one shanked field-goal away from tied in the 4th quarter before things went south for the Bears) and Utah beat UCLA on their home turf IN THE SNOW in what was a classic letdown game for UCLA?

That’s enough to over-ride the head-to-head, which as noted above wasn’t even close to close?

Let’s go further, quality of other opponents:

Cal: Oregon (L), WSU (W), Colorado (W), Fresno State (W), Presbyterian (W)… that’s not very impressive, although they did beat everyone but the #4 team in the country
Utah: Arizona State (L), Pittsburg (W), Arizona(W), BYU (W), Montana State (W)… OK, a little harder on the strength of schedule in the middle games, maybe, but Oregon is clearly better than ASU (and already beat them) on the top end. And it’s not like there’s some quality win there that really sets them apart. Seeing as how WSU just beat ASU, that whole “we beat a team you lost to” mindset is there in reverse (albeit one more game removed).

OK, so then let’s look at future schedule and projected wins:
Cal: Stanford, ASU… Cal is expected to lose to Stanford and the ASU game is a bit of a toss up. But even if the Bears lost both, Utah already lost to ASU and everybody would expect them to lose to Stanford.
Utah: WSU, Colorado… Both teams that Cal has already beat, one handily.

So again, is that UCLA game the totality of what people who put Utah above Cal are hanging their hats on?

Perhaps we can look at some stats, who comes out on top:
Points per game: Cal
Yards per game: Cal
Rushing yards per game: Cal
Passing yards per game: Cal
Points allowed per game: Cal
Yards allowed per game: Cal
Passing yards allowed per game: Cal
Rushing yards allowed per game: Utah

Gotta give credit to Utah though, they got one category (which one it was kinda surprised me frankly).

So one last time, is that UCLA game the totality of what people who put Utah about Cal are pointing to? Seriously. After kicking the crud out of them on the gridiron, matching their performance in every game but one, having already beat their two remaining opponents and Cal’s one remaining common opponent already being a loss in Utah’s record, people are going to point to one game as some magical reason why Utah deserves more praise.

It’s particularly ridiculous considering who Utah DIDN’T play: Oregon and Stanford.

Assuming Cal loses to Stanford as projected, Cal will have two losses on their record that nobody in their right mind would say they are games that Utah would have won in their stead. In their place Utah can only put up a victory over BYU (a team who’s most impressive victory is a close one over Oregon State) and Pittsburgh. I guess one could theoretically argue that the Bears *might* not beat one of those who if they had to play them, but again, this is the great and overwhelming evidence, along with UCLA of course, that overrides all the above?

Who does Utah get in place of Oregon and Stanford in their conference line up? Colorado, a team Cal already beat, and Arizona, a team fighting for the first draft spot next year (oops, wrong league).

Sorry, there’s just no way around it. Cal is the superior team, and it’s not just because I’m a Cal fan. They easily won head-to-head, with an emphasis on the word EASILY. They’ve got the tougher strength of schedule. They dominate in statistical comparisons. Only in common opponents does Utah show any advantage, and it’s just in 1 game out of 4. That’s just not enough to override all the other things.

So let’s stop with the ridiculous comparisons, shall we?

One of my most popular posts over the years was my clear elaboration of the tie-breakers for who goes to the Rose Bowl in a year where there are Pac-10 co-champions (all tied for the lead would be champions, only 1 gets to go to the Rose Bowl). Here is my best shot at the same thing for the division tie-breakers:

*Note up front, it’s critical to notice the difference between the word conference, referring to all 12 teams in the conference, and division, the 6 teams in the appropriate half of the conference. For that reason, I’ve emphasized the word division as separate from conference.

1. For two teams tied for the lead, head-to-head matchup breaks the tie.
2. If for some inexplicable reason the two teams tied either don’t play each other or end the game in a tie (a really hard thing with overtime and all teams in the division scheduled to play each other), there is a set of rules I won’t go into, that includes DIVISION record, records against the other teams the DIVISION starting with 3rd place, record in common conference games, BCS ranking, total number of wins in the season and finally a coin toss.
3. For 3 or more teams (the remainder of the rules are for that): record against the tied teams breaks the tie. The most likely case is 3, where one team beat both the others. If it’s a triangle (A beat B, B beat C and C beat A), continue on. If there are 4 teams, if one beat all the rest, it’s easy, but if not, some will be 2-1 versus the other while others 1-2 and there could be a 0-3. The one with the best record wins the tie-breaker. At this point you eliminate the teams that aren’t tied for the best record amongst the 4, and re-run the tie-breakers (so head-to-head if there are two, etc.). Of course if it’s more than 4 teams, the same logic applies.
4. DIVISION record, i.e. only the games against the team in the division, whereas placing is determined by overall conference record.
5. Record against the rest of the teams in the DIVISION, one by one. So if 3 teams are tied, look at the team in 4th place and eliminate the ones that did lose to 4th place and re-run the tie-breakers. If that doesn’t break the tie (i.e. all the tied teams either beat or lost to the 4th place team) go to the 5th place team and repeat. If that doesn’t work, repeat with the 6th place team. Obviously if 4 are tied, you start with 5th place.
6. Record in common conference games. Frankly, this likely means looking at just a few in the other division, because we already looked at DIVISION record and to get here, the tied teams had the same record. Because of the missed teams in the other division, there will only be a few teams from the other division that played all the tied teams. By example for 2011 where UCLA, ASU and Utah are the candidates for the 3-way tie, the common opponents would be Cal, Oregon State and Washington State.
7. Eliminate all but the highest 2 BCS rankings of the multiple tied teams and re-run the 2-team tie-breakers.

See, it’s simple, right? 🙂

Talk about a weak division south of the 37th parallel (except in the mountains, where “South” goes apparently can get close to the 41st parallel (Utah is 40.76))…

Outside of the ineligible USC, the division leaders are UCLA and ASU. UCLA got DESTROYED by Utah yesterday. Utah of course being the same team that Cal laid the wood to recently. As for Arizona State, they lost a shootout to Washington State yesterday evening up on the frozen potato patch in Pullman, Washington (sorry, they don’t get the frozen tundra designation, they’re too close to Idaho). Washington State of course being the team Cal nearly shutout and ran all over last week.

Frankly the loss to UCLA gets more baffling by the week, particularly now that their victory over ASU doesn’t look so impressive.

Heck, at the rate that UCLA and ASU are going, we shouldn’t count out Utah for the South crown. They’re only one game back at 3-4 in conference and now have a win over UCLA in the tie-breakers. They already lost to ASU, so that’s the tougher one for Utah.

But if ASU loses to Arizona and then Cal, something not so outlandish a thought at this point, it would put Utah in the effective driver’s seat. They’ve got WSU and Colorado left on the schedule, two very winnable games (but you gotta watch out for the trip to the frozen potato patch). UCLA has Colorado, so they’ve got a shot at one more win, but their game against USC to wrap up the season is a guaranteed loser.

Adding to the south chaos was the Arizona @ Colorado game… where Colorado won handily over Arizona. I guess maybe Arizona’s post Stoops rebound wasn’t so meaningful as they’re riding a 3 game losing streak after they demolished UCLA in their first game back.

And for those keeping score, yes, the same UCLA that is leading, in floundering fashion, the south right now. That victory over UCLA remains their only victory against BCS opponents.

Did I mention that Cal’s loss to UCLA gets more baffling every second?

Frankly, it’s just pathetic. If Cal were in the South (ignoring the fact that Stanford would be too), we’d be in about the same position as Utah, in striking distance of a South title. It’s so pathetic down there that it’s still technically possible that the South champ isn’t bowl eligible. It requires that UCLA and ASU lose both their remaining games (something not all that unreasonable a thought) and Utah to lose at least one (not sure how the 3-way tie-breakers work out). If they all lost their remaining games, UCLA would be the winner at 5-7 overall and 4-5 in conference, tied with ASU, but winning the head-to-head tie-breaker.

I’m frankly curious whether UCLA would be able to play in the championship game in that scenario… since a win over presumably Oregon (snicker, yeah, THAT’s gonna happen) would give them the rightful claim to the Rose Bowl, but at 6-7 at that point, they wouldn’t be bowl eligible. So do we let them play in the championship game in that scenario?

Unbelievable. It’s so pathetic, it’s ridiculous.

(Post-script: All of a sudden win #7 for the Bears @ASU doesn’t look nearly so daunting.)

Now that all the Pac-12 teams Cal has played (Washington and Colorado) have completed their matchup against our future opponents, we’ve got some sense of what to expect from them.

Washington State truly looks to have turned the corner and although it was a last second comeback, they look like they’re in the middle of the pack. Thankfully we play them at AT8T, so I think the home field advantage will be enough for the Bears to be favored and win with a good effort, but that game does not look like the cakewalk it has been in past years.

Utah on the other hand, was no match for Washington. This both furthers my belief that Washington is one of the better teams in the conference with Price at QB and that Utah is going to have a tough time of it this year. While their 5 turnovers didn’t help, they were also one dimensional, only rushing for 17 yards against a run defense that frankly didn’t impress me all that much. With Utah coming to AT&T, this sure feels like a win with a reasonable effort by the Bears.

Although we’re now looking at 2nd order effects, USC continues to under impress me, particularly defensively. If the Bears can keep USC’s potentially potent but VERY inconsistent offense in check, I’m fairly confident we’ll have success on offense and could steal a game most people have assumed was a loss.

Update after late games:

Oregon State was much improved in their loss to ASU. They were even up 13-0 early before ASU woke up and laid the hammer down. Really, I’d like to play OSU next week before they have a chance to get better. We’ll see how good their team has gotten by November 12th. Somebody needs to tell coach Riley that he’s allowed to practice 20 times in the 4 weeks before games start. It’s the only explanation I have for why OSU always starts so slow, making us look bad in the non-conference and then getting better as the season wears on. Nevertheless, there’s nothing in OSU’s performance to date that suggests their trip to AT&T will result in a loss for the Bears, unless the Bears forget to play the game.

ASU is still the south front-runner and they might just win the south outright, instead of “virtual first” with USC not counting. However, that’s mostly because the south stinks, with the possible exception of USC. The fact that they miss both Stanford and Washington from the north means they could they could end up being 10-2 overall and 8-1 in conference. But considering their toughest games left outside of Oregon are either their trip to Utah or hosting Cal to end the season, that doesn’t speak all that highly of them. As for what I think, they’re definitely better than in past years and Erickson has them believing the hype, which is a much needed emotional boost for them. At the same time, I consider them to be vulnerable and still don’t consider the trip to Tempe to be a sure loss at this point.

UCLA was able to show a bit of fight in their game against Stanford last night, but they remind me of Cal at the end of last season, without the dominant defense. They’ve got enough talent to be much better than they are, but they lack a QB. Without a dominant run game, they’re pretty easy to slow down. To make matters worse, their defense is similar in that they’ve got enough pieces to have some fight, but not enough to keep them in games against good teams. The only challenge here is that we’ve got to play them in the Rose Bowl.

Stanford continues to look really good. They didn’t throw the ball much against UCLA. They just lined up in their 11 man running formations (two tight ends, two full backs and a tailback) and rammed in down the throat of UCLA. What is most impressive is now they can play such tight formations and the defense still can’t bottle them up. They get such a good push from their linemen and tight ends. To make matters worse, they’ve got the conference’s best QB for when they decide they’ve made the opponent look ridiculous in the running game. If there’s a weak spot, if you could call it that, at Stanford it’s the defense. They’re still on the better side of the Pac-12, but I didn’t see anything overly impressive against UCLA. If UCLA could throw the ball, they could have put up a lot more points.

Let’s say I’m about to leave my house on the way to the Cal game at AT&T. I put my backpack full of stuff by the door. My wife decides she’d prefer to use that backpack so she takes all my stuff for the boys (food, sweatshirts, etc.) out of the backpack and puts all the stuff she needs for the day, puts it in the backpack and puts it right where I left it. I pickup the backpack, put it in the car and pack up and leave none the wiser about the change in contents. I go to my friend’s house to pick him up, as he’s coming to the game and we get on the road.

About 10 minutes later I get a call on the cell. My wife explains about the backpack switch. So I turn around and the whole way back home I’m belittling my wife. What an idiot she is. Why’d see take the backpack in the first place? Or at least why didn’t she tell me? Or if not even that, why didn’t she put it someplace other than the exact same place I put it so I wouldn’t be confused? What an bad call by her.

We get home, everyone piles out of the car and my wife meets us at the door with a different backpack loaded with the stuff I originally had. She apologizes, admits the mistake was hers and sends us on our way with no effect on the final outcome, although the final score on the arrival time at the park was closer than it should have been.

Now to the point:

Don’t you think my wife has the right to reprimand me for my behavior when she finds out later about my belittling her in the car (my kids are blabber-mouths) even though the original mistake was hers and she has admitted as much?

Of course she does.

And just as much, that’s why all the scoffing about Tedford being reprimanded by Larry Scott, the Pac-12 commissioner, is short sighted. The Pac-12 has rules and one of those rules is that they don’t air the family laundry to the general public. There’s an internal process to complain about bad calls and those grievances shouldn’t be taken to the press.

If there’s an argument to be made in Tedford’s defense it’s that he really didn’t say much at all, just an off-hand remark it was a bad call. Did he really insult the referees or “create doubts about the credibility of the Conference’s officiating program”. News flash: refs make mistakes on occasion. Merely pointing it out doesn’t seem that egregious. He didn’t seem to complain.

But that’s not what people are focusing on. They’re focusing on the fact that the league admitted it was a bad call. In my opinion, that’s not relevant. Coaches are part of the Pac-12 family and they’re not to speak badly of it. It appears not even in small ways.

…and as a man who loves his family and would never say anything negative about my wife or kids, that doesn’t see so outlandish to me.

It’s been reported in some venues that the Pac-10 could see as little as 3 teams in bowl games. Here’s how:

1. USC misses because their ineligible
2. Cal misses because they lose out (UW being the “upset”).
3. UW misses because they lose to UCLA (or WSU)
4. UCLA misses because they lose to both ASU and USC
5. ASU misses because they lose to Stanford and Arizona
6. OSU misses becasue they lose to Stanford, Oregon and USC
7. WSU misses because they suck

What’s most notable about that list is that none of them are unreasonable things. There’s no major upsets in the list. So it’s a real possibility. But all it takes is a couple of the “push games” to go the other way and we get a fair number in. If Cal beats UW and UCLA beats ASU, that’s 5 teams in bowl games. If OSU can pull a minor upset of USC at home, that’s 6 teams in bowl games.

But what I find equally interesting is that we could have as many as eight teams in with some upsets:

1. Oregon is already in
2. Stanford is already in
3. Arizona is already in
4. Cal is in because they beat Stanford
5. UW is in because they win out (UCLA, WSU, Cal)
6. UCLA is in because they beat ASU and USC
7. ASU is in because they beat Arizona and Stanford (and get the FCS waiver)
8. OSU is in because they beat USC (or Stanford, or Oregon) and WSU

The longest shot of the list is of course ASU, which has little hope of beating both Arizona and Stanford, and then they’d need a waiver (if they beat UCLA too, they wouldn’t need the waiver, but we’d lose UCLA from the list of bowl eligibles). But the rest aren’t all that bad, particularly now that USC seems to be losing some steam.

Just an FYI.

I just read this article over at the Daily Furd and was struck by this quote:

In three seasons, he took one of the worst teams in the nation, churned out eight wins and booked the Cardinal a bowl game for the first time since 2001. This season, at 7-1, Stanford now ranks among the nation’s elite and is a popular pick as the best one-loss team in the country.

Simply put, in a profession devoid of job security, Harbaugh is set for life. We could churn out four consecutive five-win seasons and Jim could replace practice with Pilates, and he would still have a job.

This young man needs to take a look across the Bay before making such a stupid statement. In 3 years Cal churned out TEN wins and already had a bowl game, and a WIN under his belt. From mid-season 2007 to mid-season 2009, a stretch where Cal never missed a bowl game, is all it took for Tedford to go from “beloved coach who could ‘churn out four consecutive five-win seasons and could replace practice with Pilates, and he would still have a job.'” to “why can’t we fire this guy yet?”

Note to people like Zack Zimmerman: Football fans have surprisingly short memories. The best thing Stanford could do right now to keep Harbaugh long term is to do a face plant for the rest of the season (minus the Big Game) and then return to consistent 7-5 to 8-4 seasons. Any sustained flirting with the top-10 is bound to lead to disappointment sooner or later, particularly with the return of 5 win seasons.

Usually as the season goes on, questions get answered about each team and the pieces of the puzzle start to fall into space. This year, every week all I have is more questions:

• I still don’t get how this terrible UCLA team beat Texas. Is Texas really THAT bad?
• ASU stinks, how did they go toe to toe with Oregon for 3 1/2 quarters?
• If Cal’s defense is as good as it has shown every other week, why was this mediocre USC able to expose it so badly?
• OSU goes down to Tucson and beats Arizona but gets handled early by UW… Is Oregon State any good?
• Speaking of Washington, what’s their story? (OK, this one I think I know the answer to)

And each week it doesn’t get any better. This week, Stanford let WSU hang around, while the supposedly weaker than I thought Arizona laid the wood to Washington. UCLA continues to look like garbage (so I guess either Texas is worse than anyone could possibly imagine or that game was some sort of an anomaly). Finally, ASU put up surprisingly little fight against our beloved Bears.

Maybe next week the puzzle will look more complete.

Well, the Pac-10 decision is in and depending on how you view things it’s the best or worst case scenario. It’s the best because we get to play all the schools we care about every year. USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington… we play them every year. It’s the worst because we have to play the best teams in the conference, USC, Oregon, etc., every year.

I was hoping we’d go with the division game record for deciding who goes to the championship game, so we could play USC and UCLA, but wouldn’t have to worry about beating them to get to the conference championship game. Now the Bears are going to be the class of the conference just to get to the conference championship game and then they’re going to have to re-beat USC most years. OK, some years it’ll be Arizona or UCLA, but it’s going to be the norm that USC is in there.

So, what do you care about? Do you care about having an easy schedule like Arizona was just gifted? Or do you care about having great matchups every year? Depending on what you think, this was either really good news or the worst possible scenario.

As for the conference as a whole, I’m still shocked, absolutely shocked that the northwest schools agreed to the limited LA exposure they’re going to get from now on. They really lose a lot by allowing the California schools to keep their rivalry. Yeah, they got the revenue sharing as a bone-throw, but it seems to me that’s not enough to compensate for the loss of exposure both on TV and in LA itself. But I guess I’m not the president of any of those schools, so that’s why it’s my job to be surprised.

On to ASU… GO BEARS!

Here are my thoughts on the competition across the conference:

1. UCLA at Cal:
   • I’d write a lot more, but since I wasn’t at the game and haven’t yet been able to watch it on the Tivo, (when’s the last time THAT happened?) I’ll just give a couple quick thoughts.
   • Looks like this Cal defense is for real. 144 yards and 26 net rushing!?! Unbelievably awesome. This is going to keep the Bears in a lot of games (and will likely get us some more great defensive recruits late in this year’s recruiting game).
   • Sounds like the offense was hit and miss, particularly in the 2nd half. For some reason I find myself surprisingly optimistic that they’ll find their rhythm as the season continues.
   • I’ve got a lot of optimism about USC in LA next week right now that they’ve lost two in a row, are unranked, and probably already realize they’ve officially got nothing to fight for. Plus they look pretty mediocre.
2. USC at Stanford:
   • What did I say last week? (“Let their be no mistake, USC is downright mediocre.”) So the question is, is Stanford similarly mediocre? I mean, Stanford looked great in the 1st half versus Oregon, but they were also gifted a lot and got shutdown in the 2nd half.
   • That’s another way of saying these two team were pretty equally matched.
   • USC for two weeks in a row lost on a last minute field goal drive. That defense is not well conditioned nor all that impressive early.
3. Oregon at WSU:
   • This was somewhat of a letdown game, but it does raise an eyebrow that Oregon’s offense was it’s least potent of the year versus WSU and WSU put up 23 points (3 TD’s and a FG) even though Oregon won convincingly.
   • And that’s all I have to say about that.
4. ASU at UW:
   • Washington really needed this win and didn’t get it.
   • Two weeks in a row ASU has gone on the road and played tough.
   • Looks like my preseason prediction for UW is right (weaker than expected) but that ASU is the positive surprise of the conference. I’m more and more glad this game is in Berkeley.
   • Note that Threet only threw one INT in this game. I think his consistency of play is going to be key to what games ASU wins.
5. OSU at Arizona:
   • Looks like OSU is following their usual trend of coming out of their non-conference schedule far from unscathed but ready to kick everyone’s rear in the conference. That’s a pretty good feat to go down to Tucson and win.
   • As for Arizona, live by the sword (beat Cal in the last minute), die by the sword (lose a close one to OSU).
   • In many ways this is good news for the Bears as they need Arizona to lose a few to help their bowl situation. Of course they still need to beat the Beavers, but that’s still in their control.

Go Bears!

Here are my thoughts on the competition across the conference:

1. Stanford at Oregon:
   • Stanford had a lot of trouble running between the tackles, which was very surprising considering that their whole schtick is about the power running game.
   • Luck looked brilliant in the 1st half and downright mediocre in the 2nd half as Oregon ramped up the pressure. While he impressed me in the first half, my overall feeling is still that he’s an over appreciated QB and Cal’s strategy in the 2009 Big Game will work again in 2010: Rattle him early and often.
   • Oregon’s offense continues to look awesome. If someone beats Oregon this year it will come down to whoever can slow their offense down, which considering how they like to run the up-tempo game, will only happen with a team that both comes with a great defensive effort AND does a lot of ball control to keep the Oregon offense off the field.
   • Darren Thomas is FAR further along in his progression as a QB than either of Oregon’s previous QB’s. Both Dixon and Masoli took a whole year to “get” the offense and have both the running and throwing skills to make it work. Thomas is probably their best QB yet.
   • Oregon’s defense on the other hand, looked exposable, particularly in the 1st half. I must admit they definitely dialed it up a notch in the 2nd half and looked pretty strong, but I think that was in part because they figured out Luck’s schtick and brought the heat.
   • Boiling it down for the Bears, I have lots of hope the Bears can beat Stanford in the Big Game, but beating Oregon is going to be quite a struggle unless they have road issues this year.
2. Washington at USC:
   • Let their be no mistake, USC is downright mediocre. This wasn’t a great
     performance by UW nor was Locker some unstoppable force. I guarantee you that USC doesn’t give up that game winning FG drive at the end of the game back when Carroll is coach. Heck, if UW doesn’t get conservative once in FG range, they easily score a TD on that drive.
   • This wasn’t like last year’s game where USC was without their star QB or anything like that. USC had all the pieces and stunk anyway.
   • USC got lucky in the 2nd quarter when a good forced fumble turned into a touch-back isntead of the TD for UW it was about to be because the refs made a bad call. While you can’t blame the on-the-field refs for making a tough call about whether the ball crossed the goal-line inside the pilon and it’s understandable that the replay refs didn’t overturn it because the one good angle was obscured by Locker’s body, I can guarantee you that ball did not go inside the pilon. This was a pivotal moment in the game and USC might have lost a blowout if it wasn’t for this lucky break.
   • I’ve got a lot more hope than a week ago that the Bears can go down to the LA Coliseum and beat USC and I still think the Bears will lay waste to UW when they come to Berkeley at the end of the season.
3. WSU at UCLA:
   • I didn’t see this game, but based on the stats and drive log UCLA’s secondary got exposed and that’s why the game was closer than expected. Riley’s performance is going to be key because we’re not going to win this one on the ground. Their rush defense continues to look stingy.
   • On the flip side, UCLA is getting rolling with their Pistol offense running game. 437 yards of rushing!?! This doesn’t worry me much though. I don’t think it was the fundamentals of the Pistol that got the Bears, it was the particulars of how well Nevada ran it. UCLA doesn’t have the personnel or the experience to do what Nevada did.
   • For those who don’t know, WSU was down 14-20 at halftime and scored two TD’s to have a 28-20 mid-3rd quarter lead before UCLA rattled off 3 TD’s including a 2-point conversion on their 1st to tie the game at the end of the 3rd quarter. The final score doesn’t well indicate just how close it was.
   • Also for those who don’t know, Prince didn’t play due to injury, it was backup Richard Brehaut who was executing the offense, but he didn’t rush much. It was the two running backs who did the damage. Prince will be back for the Cal game, or at least that’s the way it looks.
   • As for WSU, while they’re not as improved as I thought, they’ve clearly got more heart than last year and I still think they’ll pull an upset or two just to make the conference more interesting. The Bears need to be ready to play a good game up on the frozen potato patch (not to be confused with the frozen tundra).
4. ASU at OSU:
   • Arizona State might be undefeated right now if their QB wasn’t so mistake prone. Threet has the look of a very good QB, but he throws interceptions like they’re going out of style. 3 against OSU and FOUR against Oregon.
   • The other reason ASU keeps losing games is their penalties, although they did better versus OSU.
   • Overall I think ASU is a dangerous team in that they’re going to put together a couple of complete games and beat some teams that will look like head scratchers when all is said and done. All you can do is hope they don’t bring that game against your team. At the same time, they’re inconsistency is their downfall.
   • OSU continues to be an enigma to me. How good is Boise? How good is TCU? Can they put a win together when the other team isn’t mistake prone? I’d sure love for the Bears to play them sooner rather than later, because as always you get the feeling they’re slowly putting it together and are going to be tough to beat in Corvallis in November (well, two days from it, anyway).

Go Bears!

It’s a new morning and for some reason things feel surprisingly sane. The Bears have struggled on the road in non-conference. The Bears have struggled against a quirky offense. Everything feels surprisingly normal. But you know what? I’m pretty happy with the current Cal Bear Football Normal. It’s a lot better than the pre-Tedford normal.

In any case, with the non-conference slate behind us it’s time to focus on conference play, and what better way to do that than watching the rest of the conference play football all day? Come back throughout the day for my thoughts on the games today:

• Boy, at first it looked like Nebraska was just going to destroy Washington, I mean, they OWNED the line of scrimmage on those first two TD drives. But with Washington having a good drive of their own and now playing Nebraska straight up since then, this 14-7 Nebraska lead is not so big. I still get the feeling Nebraska wins. They’ll wear Washington down.
• USC and Minnesota are playing a pretty straight up game. USC seems to have a slight physical edge. But USC’s defense still looks like it’s got too many holes and it could be that as even as things are now, a few defensive mistakes could cost USC the game. (Current score: 7-7)
• Oh wow. Apparently I’m watching the wrong game. ASU is up 7-3 over Wisconsin mid-2nd quarter. I thought for sure that one was going to be a blowout. Switching to ESPN2…
• Looks like the power teams are starting to (re)assert themselves with USC on top 13-7 and Nebraska adding a 3rd TD to go up 21-7.
• Halftime scores: USC is holding their 13-7 lead. Nebraska added a long TD drive and Washington got a fumble recovery for a short TD drive, 28-14 Neb. Wisconsin is starting to impose their will on ASU, and are now up 13-10 over ASU. And no on TV (at least with my sat package) SMU and WSU are tied at the half at 14. That’s a better performance than I expected.
• Boy, what a shootout in Seattle. After trading touchdowns in the 1st minute of the 2nd half (one read-option run by Neb, one long pass by UW) Neb added 2 TD’s, one long run, one INT for a touchdown. This one’s out of hand: 49-21 Nebraska. I’m switching back to the other two where USC’s added two field goals to be up 19-13 and ASU and Wisconsin are all tied at 13.
• USC is asserting itself more against Minnesota, up now 33-14 with dominating line play. ASU continues to play it close. They gave up one score and are down 13-20, but it’s been a stalemate the last few possessions. They’re really the positive surprise in the Pac-10 so far, particularly now that WSU is down 14-28 to SMU.
• The Oregon State game is underway against Louiville. I sure hope they represent the Pac-10 well. We need all the help we can get right now. Between Cal, WSU, and UW, the Pac-10 has not represented very well so far. They’re up 7-0 and will soon be my 2nd active game now that USC is putting things away.
• ASU continues to hang tough with a nice TD drive that would have tied it if the extra point hadn’t been blocked. What a tough blow. ASU’s new QB Threet is pretty darned good. Looks like ASU might be the upside surprise of the conference. Still down by 1 point, 19-20 with 4 minutes left.
• In other games, Oregon is off to a fast start, up 21-0 just 5 minutes in. OSU still has a TD lead 14-7, unfortunately I don’t have that one on TV either. And the UW game is just as out of hand as before.
• Well, that extra point sunk ASU, losing 19-20 (they never got the ball back), but look out for them. I’m thankful we get them in Berkeley. USC finished off thier 32-21 win, Minnesota getting a too-little-too-late TD. Nebraska finished off their 56-21 blowout. Huskies offense looked like it had potential, but the defense looks pretty bad. WSU couldn’t rebound either, losing 21-35. In progress we have Oregon State up 21-14 at the half. They’re getting significantly outgained on the ground, so that could be trouble later, but the Beavers do get the ball to start the 2nd half. Oregon continues to roll. Not sure why they’re stalled at 21-0, but does it really matter? Unfortunately neither of these two games are on TV. We do have a slate of 3 games on TV tonight. Houston at UCLA, Wake Forrest at Stanford and Iowa at Arizona. So while we started off the day rough at 1-3 (1-4 if you include the Friday night disaster), the record will likely improve with some better matchups and ones at home. I’d bet $20 that ASU would have won their game at home. They came up just short on the road and were mistake prone. They really shoulda won that game.
• The afternoon games both went the Pac-10’s way. Oregon demolished Portland State, of course, 69-0. I think I predicted 63-0, so nothing unexpected there. Of course this game doesn’t mean much, but they’re definitely firing on all cylinders and are without a doubt the top of the conference until proven otherwise. Oregon State opened up a 3 TD lead and then let Louisville back into it, but managed to hold on 35-28. Not as convincing a win as I’d like and it doesn’t bode well for their trip to the Potato Patch next Saturday, but a win is a win.
• We’ve learned two things tonight in the Iowa at Arizona game: 1. Iowa is over-rated. I’m sorry #9 teams don’t make the sort of mistakes they’re making tonight. 2. Arizona has a lot of intensity and their fans are matching that intensity. I’m not yet sold on the quality of either team and I’ve seen a lot of sloppy play in the 1st half. Foles has been pretty good as has the Arizona run defense, but other than that, this doesn’t feel like the matchup of 2 ranked teams.
• The big surprise to me of the night is UCLA absolutely owning Houston. 21-3 at the half. The big question mark is how good is Houston, but it may be that UCLA’s demise was too anxiously announced.
• The Stanford vs. Wake Forrest game has been pretty ho-hum, with Stanford playing physical and winning and Wake Forrest not playing horribly but not exactly keeping pace. Luck continues to be the most over-rated QB in the conference and is getting bailed out over and over by his receivers with his off-target passes. Then he’s missing plenty of others. Don’t get me wrong, he’s obviously a Pac-10 quality QB, but he’s not “the nation’s best” or whatever the latest platitude some ignorant announcer has been throwing his way.
• Boy, that Arizona/Iowa game was a crazy one. After a sloppy and slow 3rd quarter that about put me to sleep, Iowa closed the gap to 21-27 and then picked off a pass by getting Foles to channel his inner Longshore. But they missed the extra point to leave it tied and the let Arizona get down the field WAY too easy to score a touchdown. Once the crowd and defense was re-energized, they shut Iowa down for the 34-27 win. So that’s a good one for the Pac-10 but also in a way that leaves me optimistic that Arizona is a team that can be beat. They had 20 points off of turnovers and minus their run defense, looked a bit sloppy.
• UCLA finished out their dominating performance over Houston, although they played the 2nd half near even, final score: 31-13
• Stanford put the accelerator down and is in beat-down mode, the current score being 68-24.
• Overall the Pac-10 recovered well today with Washington being the lone sore point. It would have been nice to see them be more competitive. Across the rest of the conference, minus WSU, everyone represented well. The only problem is that half the country was already in bed for the strong half of the performance.

And with that, I’m calling it a night.

Expect both the On The Road Home podcast and a re-watch/full review of the game later today. In the mean time, my initial AM thoughts:

• Stinking Washington! Here I spend all summer talking about how everyone is over-rating them and they’re not going to do well, probably not even be bowl eligible, but somehow I still talked myself into picking them over BYU in the Pick’Em league (mostly because I think BYU is even MORE over-rated with their new QB and all) and UW goes there and lays an egg. UW, you have been banished from further consideration! (That’ll teach ’em 🙂 )
• Stinking Oregon State! Now we’re going to spend ALL season listening to why TCU should not only get into a BCS game (potentially taking a spot from a Pac-10 team) but also why they should go to the national title game, which they ABSOLUTELY should not. OSU, you’re going to lay an egg vs. Boise St. too, huh? Why is it that you don’t actually play up to your potential until October? Do you have fall practices in Corvallis? Luckily I was smart enough to know about the OSU non-conf bust, so they didn’t hurt me there, but COME ON! You make the Pac-10 look bad every year. It’s time to represent.
• As for Cal, it’s quite clear we need to start working on a cheer specifically for Keenan Allen. He was capital ‘A’ Awesome!
• The secondary look a lot better yesterday, particularly Chris Conte, everyone’s favorite kicking boy. Apparently he’s belonged at strong safety the whole time, because he looked much more at home there than he ever did at cornerback.
• While the overall defensive play didn’t particularly excite me (still not much pressure on the QB), I did feel like everyone knew their assignments and things ran fairly smoothly. Nice to see when a new scheme comes in.
• The other area that didn’t really excite me was O-line play.
• Does UC Davis get that many fans at a home game?
• Did J-Ross give leaping lessons during summer practices? Did anyone other than Stevens show up? I sure hope so.
• Now I know why Sofele is #2 on the depth chart and why DeBo is no where to be found.

More to come…