Down in the USC loss good for Cal post a new commentor asks about the LA Times article about Stanford’s excellence in academics for their football players that has been generating a lot of discussion lately.

I’ve got a bigger point to make but first the important qualifier about Cal: The 52% number is not reflective of what Tedford is doing today and has nothing to do with the recruits that Tedford brought in. Basically, the graduation rate measures the percentage of a 5 year window of recruits that should have graduated by now. This year’s number grades whether those who were recruited in the 1997-2001 years have a degree at this point. In other words, every recruit from that time period that dropped out of school before Tedford took over in 2002 is counted against this year’s number despite the fact that the current staff has never known them and they may not have been involved with the program for a full decade. Metrics that measure the current status show Tedford’s staff is doing an excellent job both recruiting smart, high academic achieving kids (GPA of this year’s recruits was around 3.50) and ensuring that these kids are graduating. In fact he’s doing so well that there’s reason to believe that Cal will have a better number than Stanford when the official numbers finally get around to measuring the current batch of players in a decade or so.

I have a lot more details about that if people are interested but that’s not what I wanted to comment on so I’ll leave it at that.

My point is why should we care about the graduation rate in the first place? Before everyone gasps, let me explain. I’m a huge pronent of the NCAA’s century old position that college sports are about college students who happen to play sports instead of sports players who happen to go to college. I think that’s exactly how it should be. However, despite my understanding that there has to be some quantitative metric to determine whether schools are following through on the NCAA’s mission, I’m completely unconvinced that graduation rate is the right metric.

When I went to college as a regular (albeit nerdy) student, did the University or the Engineering department care if I couldn’t cut it at school and had to drop out? Not really. In fact, many schools pride themselves in their relatively high drop out rate because it is a “badge of honor” for those who graduated that they accomplished something special. Something most other people couldn’t. Something that even a majority of those who were admitted to the University, much less the general population, couldn’t accomplish. So on principle alone, why is it a bad thing if football players are similarly as unsuccessful at graduating from the University as their general population peers?

Going back to the University lauded in the article, Stanford, their graduation rate for their football team was 93%. That’s pretty good by any measure. But it loses some of its meaning without a comparison to the general student body. I tried to find numbers for that for a similar time frame at Stanford and had very little luck finding something about the general student population amongst the sea of athletic links and the fact that Stanford as a private University is not required to report these things like Cal a public University does. I did find one number that might prove helpful: Black students at Stanford have a 90% graduation rate in a study concluded in late 2006 (what years the study measured was not mentioned in the article). Seeing as how that same article points to black students doing extremely poorly at other Universities and generally speaking the percentage of black students on a football team is dramatically higher than that of the general student population it seems a safe, albeit long reach, assumption to suggest that Stanford has a very low drop out rate across the board and it has nothing to do with the football program that their number in above 90%.

Looking at Cal’s lowly 52% for their football players (see above caveat), when one finds that general graduation rates are far lower (I found numbers all over the map depending on what they were trying to meaures from the low 40’s to around 75%), all of a sudden the 52% doesn’t seem as horrific as it would otherwise.

The point of all of this is that I think the NCAA needs to find a different way to judge athletic programs and their academics. I think the NCAA should be trying to ensure three things:

1. Entrance requirements for athletes are acceptably proportionate to the general student body
2. Student Athlete success rates during their playing years are close to that of the general student body
3. Graduation rates are similar to that of the general student body

While the NCAA makes no attempt at regulating #1 on this list, and I personally find that to be deplorable, they do at least make an attempt at #2 with their academic eligibility rules that require students be passing a reasonable load of classes each semester (or whatever) to be able to play sports. Nevertheless that’s a very low bar to clear and is not really a measure of the program but instead a restriction on individual player. #3 is the lone area where percentages are actually measured and they are done in such a way that they do not accurately reflect the current status of the program and do not take into account the rigors, or lack thereof, of each University.

I’ve been glad to hear that changes are being made to how the NCAA measures student-athlete academic performance and I want to make sure I give the NCAA full credit for it’s goals and the effort it is making to improve in these areas. That said, I think the current system and even the future system that is in the process of being implemented are using the wrong metrics to measure each University’s performance.

For those who aren’t as fortunate as my brother and uncle and won’t be at the UCLA game (and that includes me), you’ll be well taken care of on TV with an ABC broadcast, assumably in HD. The only remaining game without television coverage at this time is the Washington game which I’m sure will get picked up during the normal TV cycle two weeks in advance.

…Running Wolf does his best to amaze me.

SFGate.com has a short article about Running Wolf filing papers to recall Mayor Tom Bates. His complaint is that Bates is “too conservative” and is cracking down on the homeless, has too strong ties to developers and the University, including support for high-density housing.

Talk about cutting off the hand that feeds you, Running Wolf!

Let me get this straight? You’re trying to recall the Mayor who is the only reason that your precious tree-sit has continued on. Without his efforts to have the city bank-roll this lawsuit and get around the posting of a bond, money you and your cadre of protestors could NEVER raise, those trees would have been cut down 9 months ago. But nope, that’s not good enough, is it? It’s not good enough that he refused to settle with the University despite significant concessions. He’s still in bed with the University as far as you’re concerned, right?

Let me put this to you, Running Wolf, in words simple enough for you to understand:

YOU’RE A COMPLETE CRACKPOT IDIOT!

Unbelievable.

I said earlier that the USC loss was bad for the Pac-10. I still believe that. It’ll hurt, albeit slightly, the Pac-10’s reputation as we lose a marque program at the top of the rankings. The more marque teams we have towards the top of the rankings the better for our national reputation as a conference.

But national reputation is only a small aspect of what Cal fans should care about. Really we care about how the Bears do, not how the Pac-10 does. So, the question remains, is the USC loss good for Cal? Danzig points to an article at Addicted To Quack where the author suggests the loss is good for Oregon, is the same true for Cal?

While I wouldn’t have phrased it the same way they did, I think it’s mostly accurate, with a few glaring errors. Basically, there are two ways to get to a BCS bowl game: win the conference or get an at-large bid. Computing the at-large possibilities is nearly impossible because it’s a delicate balance between the BCS rankings and the specific bowls and what teams appeal to them, so I’ll ignore that aspect at first and come back to it.

The simple way to end up in a BCS bowl game is to win the Pac-10. Anyone with half a brain can tell you, every time your main competition for the title loses, it increases your chances of winning the crown. In that sense, there is no doubt: USC losing is good for Cal. It sets up two situations. 1. If Cal loses to USC, it only takes one other USC loss for Cal to still win the conference. 2. It ensures that with a USC victory, Cal could lose up to two other games and still beat USC for the title. There’s too many permeatations at this point to deliniate them all, but the short matter of it is that if Cal beats UCLA, ASU and USC, it seems pretty unlikely that Cal won’t win the conference. Those teams, along with Oregon, are likely to lose one more and I just don’t see Cal losing to OSU, UW AND Stanford, which is what it would take for our 4 competitors to beat us out in that scenario. So, every way around the block, a USC loss, is good for Cal.

Going back to the at-large bid, there are two scenarios that likely get Cal to a BCS game (note that undefeated means we win the conference, so isn’t included here):

1. The Pac-10 champ goes to the BCS championship game and Cal has two or less losses: People often bring up the 2004 season as why a two-loss team wouldn’t get an at-large bid. What those people forget is that we have an additional BCS bowl these days now that the BCS championship game is separate from the 4 BCS bowl games (originally it rotated between the 4). That additional bowl added two at-large spots. Additionally, 2004 was a year where there was a non-BCS team that qualified for a BCS spot. That doesn’t look to be the case this year clearing up a 3rd spot that was not available in 2004. Add in that Notre Dame is already not BCS eligible and I’m confident that a two-loss Cal will go to the Rose Bowl if the Pac-10 champ goes to the BCS championship game. Now that I’ve laid all the ground work, this is the lone scenario that the USC loss hurt. There’s probably only 3 teams with even a remote shot at the title game, Cal, USC and Oregon. Oregon is a long-shot although winning out, including beating USC, would do it with key losses from teams like Ohio State (and Cal). Since this scenario assumes it isn’t Cal in the BCS title game, a USC loss means the most likely candidate for a Pac-10 BCS title game just lost a good portion of their shot at it. Saying it again: this is the one area where USC’s lost was bad.
2. No Pac-10 team in title game, Cal only has one loss: The reason to differentiate this one from above is because in this scenario, the Pac-10 champion will go to the Rose Bowl (since they didn’t go to the title game). This hurts Cal because the other three BCS bowls have a lot less interest in Cal than the Rose Bowl does. My thought is that it’ll likely take a one-loss Cal to get a bid to a non-Rose Bowl BCS game. This scenario didn’t take a hit, because it has nothing to do with USC. It has everything to do with Cal only losing one more game and somehow not winning the conference crown despite that.

So there we have it. 2 ways to get there that break down into 3 scenarios. One scenario just got better, one scenario just got a bit worse (although it should be noted that a one-loss USC was BCS title game bound before they lost to UCLA) and a last scenario that is unaffected. Personally I think the good scenario out-weighs the bad because more than anything, I want Cal to win the Pac-10 with out that stinking “co” to be at the front of the Champions part.

Final answer: yes, it was good for Cal.

Well, despite the massive fears of all involved, Cal held on to its lead over Ohio State, although the size shrunk dramatically, in the polls and moved up to the #2 spot with USC losing. Almost as notable is that Stanford got 4 votes (which is any combination of 4 25th place votes up to 1 22nd place vote that adds up to 4). While of course they don’t deserve a ranking based on their overall performance to date including blowout loses to ASU and UCLA, it just goes to show how big of a ripple the upset of USC sent through the rankings. For the last 4 years the closest Stanford ever got to a ranking was the opponent’s ranking next to them on the scoreboard.

As much as I’m a happy guy that USC got knocked off by Stanford, it was bad for the Pac-10. While it SHOULD mean that the Pac-10 is so strong from top to bottom that even one of the worst teams can beat one of the best teams, that’s not the way it is seen across the nation. It’ll be seen as “the Pac-10 is soft”.

Going across town to the Rose Bowl, UCLA laid an egg against Notre Dame. In fairness to UCLA, although it it something that no one outside of the Pac-10 will ever know, UCLA played most of the game with a walk-on freshman QB who was playing in his first meaningful situation. His turnovers were what pretty much sunk UCLA. Nevertheless, across the nation, this will be seen as “one of the ‘better’ Pac-10 teams got beat by the horribly pathetic and winless Notre Dame!?! Those Pac-10 teams… just as soft as we thought.”

So as much as I’m a closet Notre Dame fan (an occupational hazard of being Catholic) and I think UCLA deserves to be stomped on AND I look forward to knock USC off of their pedestal… let’s make sure we temper that joy with the knowlege that his will be a bad thing for Cal and the Pac-10’s reputation across the nation. Said another way, while it’s still a 50/50 proposition, the likelihood of a GameDay visit to Berkeley on November 10th just took a hit.

On the plus side, USC looks very beatable come November 10th in Berkeley and that Rose Bowl is looking better and better.

UPDATE: With Cal and ASU being Pac-10’s only two undefeated teams, the October 27th matchup in Tempe is shaping up to be another big one. (Cal has OSU at home and UCLA in the Rose Bowl while ASU has Washington at home and then a bye, all games that the two should win.)

Thanks for the birthday present, Jim Harbaugh. And I didn’t get you anything.

Today’s my birthday. And a Saturday. As always, there are baseball playoff games on. And, oddly enough, no Cal game. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time my birthday and a Cal game have coincided.

Turns out it hasn’t happened since 1990, when I was in college and Bruce Snyder was guiding the Bears to their first bowl appearance since 1979. (Copper Bowl! Lack of an MLK holiday be damned!) On October 6, Cal took care of mighty San Jose State by a single point.

Oddly enough, this is the second October 6 in a row on which Cal has had a bye. Thanks, guys. As the attendees to my 30th birthday party discovered (I spent most of the party rending garments over a horrendous Giants playoff loss to the Mets), it’s best not to mix friendly socializing and my sports obsessions. Yes, I know I have a problem.

So, my birthday and Saturday collide again in 2012. Bye week or conference game? I can wait to find out. (Cal does play at Ohio State in 2012, but that game’s scheduled for September 15.)

First a link bonanza!

• SF Gate Article
• Channel 11 (NBC) article with video on sidebar
• Channel 7 (ABC) article, also with video on sidebar

The first thing to note is RunningWolf’s insistance on entering the fray. He went and followed the group up into the stadium and up onto the roof of the press box to yell a couple of “points” at the judge as the police told him that he was not welcome. While I don’t think the incident will make any difference in the outcome it further illustrates the lack of respect the protestors have for the law (we didn’t see any Bear fans coming to find her, as a counter point). As I said, I doubt it’ll have any impact, but if it does, it would be in the University’s favor.

Watching the videos, this seems like nothing more than a PR/attention grabbing moment. The judge didn’t look like she was on a fact finding mission or that she was trying to get a sense of the project visually, she looked like she was on a presidential tour of a national disaster. So personally, I think this is a big nothing of a moment. One that will have little impact on the case, at least in principle.

There is one caveat to that. In the big picture, I think that it was a good chance for her to “bond” with the University lawyers and administrators. She saw things on their turf, got to talk with them casually outside the court room. Those are the moments when a personal connection is made, the moments when you realize that the plantiffs are harassing some good people trying to do a good project. That the stadium facilities really are in need of an upgrade and that connecting the gym with the stadium keeps the status quo for the students who already train there, while upgrading the facilities to be safe and meet their needs as student athletes.

All of this shouldn’t matter to a good judge, they should rule based on the law, not personal connections, but I can’t help but think that if this PR show is going to have any benefit it will be in the University’s favor.

No more days in court until next Thursday where final arguments will be heard.

Chris Avery has posted another one of his excellent articles about the hearing, this one on the 5th day of the hearing on October 3rd. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get a full article from Chris on the bomb scare abreviated day 3 (still no word on who did it) on the Friday of the first week (9/21) or the full day 4 on Tuesday (10/2) although he did have partial reports in the scout.com bulliten boards. Today is of course the site visits by the judge.

As for some personal analysis:

It seems that the UC lawyers are bringing out the big guns and there’s a reason the big guns are called the big guns. John Sanger is well know in laywer circles and is one of those guys who just commands respect in the court room. You can see the different in Chris Avery’s articles by how much the reporting sounds less muddled with lots of points being stated more clearly. This is likely because he was listening to a lawyer who can present things with just that extra bit more clearly and the points drive home.

Also, the more I read, the more confidence I have that the University will prevail. It seems that the pivotal issue is whether the two structures, the stadium and the SAHPC are two separate structures. Before the most recent article it seemed to lean in the University’s favor but there was some doubt in my mind. It is clear that Mr. Sanger has done an excellent job of refuting that contention leaving little doubt in my mind that the University will win on this point.

In addition when looking at the questions the judge is asking, they’re all questions that question the city, not the University:

1. Does Alquist-Priolo even apply to state agencies (like UC)?
2. Does the cost of seismic retrofitting count toward the 50% limit on renovation costs imposed by Alquist-Priolo?

Both of those questions are ones that put the city on the defensive because at worst they keep the status quo for the University (they were planning to abide by APZ and if the retrofit doesn’t count towards APZ limits then the SAHPC would easily fit within 50% by itself).

The lone bad news is that the hearing continues to drag on, with final arguments now coming next Thursday (10/11) with what looks like a minimum of two weeks for a ruling. That puts the earliest ruling at just over two weeks before the last home game, so less than 3 weeks before construction was due to start. If the judge takes the full 90 days to rule, however unlikely that may be, there could conceivably be no ruling until after the BCS has crowned a national champion.

Along those lines, can anyone imagine the press-situation should the trees come down the week of the USC game, with a potential #1 vs. #2? It would be so WAAAAAY over the top in the amount of coverage that I can’t imagine the university would go through with it. They’d wait until the following week after everyone has gone home.

Well, the lineage goes on and on. Today the new report is that a police van was torched near the Oak Grove overnight. To be honest, I’m lacking new things to say as to how ridiculous this all is so I’m reduced to just reporting the on-going activities.

UPDATE at 10:15 AM: Corrected typo. As the article clearly indicates, it was a police Van not a police Fan. Thanks to my brother, as per usual, for taking the opportunity to correct me with his usual mocking comments.

UPDATE at 1:35 PM: Correcting typo in update correcting typo. Correct me not correct my… is everyone happy now?

I’m mentioned in the past both the shotgun nature of the protestors arguments and that they’re willing to be entirely disingenuous. Today’s article in the SF Chronicle about the hiccups in the injunction against the tree-sitters has a quote that makes it perfectly clear how much they’re willing to try any argument that might gain traction, whether or not they actually believe it:

“Maybe the university realized – don’t move these hippies, you’ll jinx the winning streak,” said the tree-sitters’ attorney, Dennis Cunningham. The Cal Bears football team is ranked No. 3 nationally and has not lost a game since the protesters climbed into the oaks on Dec. 2.

I mean how low can you go? Don’t move us… you’ll jinx the winning streak!?!

It’s one thing for a Cal fan to suggest something like that, like the one I referenced in the original injunction post comments, particularly considering those comments are often in jest, but it’s something entirely to actually promote it in an interview with a reporter.

What jerks. I didn’t think it was possible for me to lose any more respect for these guys, particularly considering I haven’t had any respect for these guys for a long time, but somehow they managed to go even lower.

Sorry for the delay. Despite recording it from outside my hotel room on Saturday night, today was the first opportunity I had to take the audio and the interviews to make a single podcast file. I also apologize for how heavy my breathing is in the podcast. I didn’t have my good microphone with me and I was outside in the drizzle and cold walking down the street at 12:30 in the middle of the night (my hotel mates wouldn’t have appreciated me recording it from the room and demanding silence from them). It made it so that I was both breathing more heavily than usual and made it so the recorder was picking up more of that breathing. Perhaps I was still also out of breath from such a big win too. 🙂

In any case, you can find it over on the podcast page and as promised it has interview clips from post game interviews, including Tedford, Longshore, Forsett, Hawkins and Williams.

Standard Podcast [ 20:40 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Time for my regular post, reviewing the TV coverage. Here are my thoughts:

• One of the things I hate about TV coverage is that you can’t see the entire play. They zoom in WAY too much. Nothing more showed this than Cal’s first play of the game. From the stadium, DeSean streaking down the field fairly open was obvious to everyone, but it was not shown on TV until 2 plays later in review. So for those of you out there (that means you Dad) who think you get a better view of the game at home on the TV in your comfy lazyboy, you have no clue. You’re missing half the game.
• Although I liked the opening play call by Tedford, despite the wrong read by Longshore, the next two play calls were pretty weak. Slow developing out patterns, including screens, aren’t going to get the job done against a fast defense like Oregon. Overall a bad set of downs, but not on the field, mostly from the coaches box.
• I had forgotten that on Oregon’s first possession and first set of downs, they converted a critical 3rd and long when Cal lost contain on Dixon and he scrambled up the middle for 9 yards. This will be come more obvious throughout my notes, but I feel that the Cal defense did pretty darned well, forcing a lot of 3rd downs, but Oregon got lucky/scrambled well on a number of broken plays to keep drives alive.
• Of course just after I say that, the Cal defense blows their coverage in a huge way giving up what should have been an easy TD… if Dixon hadn’t over-thrown it. Thinking back now, it was Dixon, not Longshore who had accuracy problems, wasn’t it?
• As much as Tedford admitted to being stubburn about trying to establish the run early, Oregon was similarly as stubborn about loading the box and refusing to allow Tedford to establish the run. The passing lanes were surprisingly open early.
• Notice that on both of Cal’s first two offensive series, “noise fouls” were crucial to stalling the drive. On the first drive, a delay of game killed what was looking like a successful 3rd down conversion. On the 2nd series, on the final set of downs the 2nd down play would have been a 1st down had a 5 yard false start not given Cal a 2nd and 15 instead of a 2nd and 10. Luckily for Cal, the rest of the game, with one notable exception, was mostly penalty free.
• I don’t know why it bugs me so much, but I feel like the no huddle “cheats” the no substitution after breaking the huddle rule. Oregon ran a player onto the field after the other 10 had already lined up and set. How is that, conceptually anyway, not a substitution that breaks the spirit of the huddle/substitution rules? This is not a knock on Oregon, they’re just doing their best to take advantage of the current rules which is what every team tries to do, but in my opinion, some rule changes are needed to either remove the huddle/substitution rules or figure out how to make the no huddle subject to the conceptual rule that the offense has to select its personnel early (before the huddle breaks) to allow the defense to make adjustment substitutions.
• After the Bears did a pretty good job on the first possession of tackling well, the 2nd series was not so encouraging. It was if the defense got tired quickly. The big run by Stewart was what setup the field goal.
• On the other hand, Dixon continued in his weak performance by not seeing a wide open receiver in the endzone on 2nd down and then by throwing behind a receiver on third down. The more I see, the more I think Dixon stunk up this game, particularly knowing what is to come. Still, they were able to get a “free” field goal off of the bad tackling, Oregon up 3-0.
• I don’t know what these anouncers are smoking. Longshore was getting plenty of time to throw and the “pressure” wasn’t “getting to him”.
• I asked Forsett in a post-game interview if Jahvid Best coming into the game lit a fire under him. Forsett mis-understood my question and thought I was asking about competition or animosity. But after seeing Best come in and get the first meaningful rushing yards of the game and then Forsett come back in and get his game running, I’m confident that the both of them push each other to new heights.
• On Cal’s first trip to the red zone, Cal had the wrong receiver for that deep slant at the goal line. If you’re going to try a slant like that you want a big physical receiver like Hawkins who can shield the defender from the ball. Jordon, although good, isn’t the best guy for that, Hawkins is. Oh well, scored tied at 3-3.
• The more times I see Ezeff’s personal foul that kept alive the drive that resulted in Oregon’s first TD, the more I think Ezeff didn’t foul. Stewart was breaking his legs out of a tackle and was just inches out of bounds as he lunged forward into Ezeff who was diving at Stewart. There was no way Ezeff could have pulled up. Now, I’m not criticizing the refs. It’s OK that they call that penalty tight. I’m just saying that nobody should be upset with Ezeff because of that. That was just playing snap to whistle. In any case, two plays later Oregon was in the end zone. 10-3.
• Cal just didn’t seem to have the fire in their belly on that last drive of the 1st half, going 3 and out. That was probably the most disappointing moment of the game for me. With Oregon getting the ball back to start the 2nd half and Stewart starting to make in-roads on Cal, it seemed to me that Cal needed to match Oregon’s TD to end the half. Perhaps that weak effort was a useful tool for motivation at halftime.
• In the 2nd half, Oregon’s first possession was key. It was a chance for them to extend to a larger than one-score lead, but they really blew it with that conservative play call on 3rd and 1 that Cal was able to stuff. I don’t know if Cal would have been able to stop Oregon further down the field on that drive with how holes were opened up for Stewart on the preceeding plays.
• At the same time, man did the Cal offense come to play in the 2nd half! Forsett’s run mid-drive after nearly getting tackled 5 yards in the background, that he somehow managed to turn into a 7 yard gain despite 3 or 4 defenders having a shot at him, was a thing of beauty. In fact, Forsett was just on fire that first possesion on every carry.
• From the pressbox I didn’t have an angle to see how close Kay’s missed field goal was. On TV, they don’t have a good angle either because they’ve got no depth perception, but it was definitely a close one wasn’t it? One point on that, how can a field goal NOT be reviewable!?! Good going Pac-10. (Not that this one needed to be, but in general, it needs to be reviewable.)
• It was so great to see DeSean finally get some man coverage situations. He hasn’t done well with the extra attention he has got, but when he’s got man coverage, he’s SOOOO good at getting his cornerback turned around. His first TD of the season, the 3rd quarter easy pass from Longshore, was a thing of beauty. I’m glad the TV coverage showed the route because from the pressbox it was obvious and clear that it was a TD as soon as DeSean made his cut, assuming Longshore saw him. Cal ties it up 10-10.
• Oregon definitely got back a sense of urgency after that TD by Cal. They went from no-huddle to psuedo hurry-up and I think the tempo change more than anything was the reason the Cal defense was unable to hold Oregon yet again and left Colvin open to streak across the field for a TD. Ducks back on top 17-10.
• Cal really owned the 3rd quarter and early 4th quarter. Minus that one long TD pass for Oregon, Cal’s defense really stuck it to Oregon, forcing 3, 3 and out possessions. At the same time, the Cal offense was able to score 21 in 4 possessions, the 4th being a 70 yard drive with a missed field goal attempt. After the two scores separated by only a 3 and out from Oregon, Cal has gone from down 7 to up by a TD, 24-17.
• Speaking of that 2nd TD, wasn’t it just too sweet that DeSean was able to tip-toe down the sideline for a TD. Oregon had been using that sideline all game and it was nice to see Oregon have to swallow some of their own medicine.
• OK, DeSean had a great game, so I have a hard time saying this, but on the first play after the kickoff turnover (which by the way was bound to happen with how poorly Oregon had been fielding the chip-shot kickoff all game), Longshore threw a fade to DeSean in the corner of the endzone (and I thought this both in the pressbox and when I saw it on TV, even after re-watching it 3 times) DeSean gave up on that pass a step before the ball got there. I think DeSean thought it was coming harder than it was and so out of reach, but he should have caught that ball… and it would have been the dagger in the hearts of everyone in Oregon, going up by 14. Instead a holding penalty and a coverage sack later, Cal has to punt despite starting the possession in field-goal range.
• The Cal defense looked really sloppy/lazy on the next possession. I don’t know what the story was but after Cal got two back to back possessions there is no reason they should have been tired. Perhaps they thought the game was in the bag and expected to be up by 14 just like I did after that fumble. Whatever it was, this was the worst swing of the 2nd half. Cal went from being up 7 and ready to strike in the redzone after being unstoppable thus far in the 2nd half, to tied in the blink of a lazy defender’s eye. 24-24
• I thought it was a huge statement about the lack of confidence Tedford and staff have in backup QB Riley in that when he came in they refused to have him throw the ball even on the 2nd play when there was no way a rush up the middle by Forsett was going to convert a 3rd and 10 against an Oregon defense that knows a backup QB is in the game. Mark my words, unless Riley gains some confidence from the coaching staff, there’s going to be another backup QB competition next off-season when Brock is eligible.
• That INT by Dixon on the ensuing possession was a HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE mistake. If you need a perfect play to say Dixon folds under pressure, that’s the one. They’ve battled back, they just forced Longshore out of the game, how can you throw a pick on first down? I call it “choking”.
• So I was just about to award Longshore the gritty performance award of the game and my vote for the game ball when I went to check what his throwing stats were after the injury. Who else knew he didn’t attempt a pass after the injury? I wonder if he pretty much couldn’t throw and having him out there was just a decoy/threat since Oregon didn’t respect Riley’s ability to throw? Maybe not as Forsett didn’t need any help on that TD drive and the next drive was run out the clock time… but nevertheless, it makes me wonder.
• Speaking of Forsett, what a great set of runs for that TD! After Cal had looked down right mediocre on their last short field possession, Forsett said, “not on this drive” to those who doubted Cal. Cal back on top 31-24.
• I had previously thought that the 2nd Dixon interception wasn’t his fault because those tipped balls at the line are a shot in the dark, but that one wasn’t a standard tip at the line. That was a DT getting deep penetration and Dixon not adjusting to throw a different pass. He threw that right into the tip and he should have seen it coming. Again, not bad luck, I call it “choking”.
• The most disappointing play of the final drive for the Cal defense was the Johnson dump off pass turned into a 30 yard gain where Cal had 5 defenders in the region to make the tackle, who should have kept him in bounds, but somehow they just didn’t contain him well and the two guys with a shot didn’t get their arms around him for the tackle. That had less to do with Johnson and more to do with a tired Cal defense.
• So Teford calls a timeout when Oregon got down to the 5 yard line? It seems to me he should have called that breather timeout after the Johnson run. It was clear they needed a breather then.
• Here’s your “official” time on the final play: 25 seconds for the refs to decide on the call of a touchback. 4:10 additional for the booth review for a total of 4:35 of indecision… good thing they got it right.
• For some speculative thinking, let’s pretend he fumbled outside the endzone, so they’d get the ball at the 1 yard line, there’s no reason to be confident Oregon would score. Oregon had no timeouts and it would have been 2nd down with 16 seconds left. There’s no way Oregon could afford an inside run play, because they’d only get one shot at it. They’d have to pass, or at a minimum do a run play that had a shot at getting out of bounds, something very difficult at the 1-yard line. If Oregon wasn’t careful from the 1, they could have watched the clock expire on a failed run play or Dixon could have pulled another Dixon choke by throwing an interception.
• Finally, what was with the wimper with which the TV coverage ended? I mean, we had just had a shocking end to the game after an epic battle for the ages and they just did the quick wrap and said “goodbye” so that we could go to some garbage show (i.e. no other game they were going to)!?! How about reviewing that last play/drive again? How about a little enthusiasm? What a stunted and disappointing ending.

Speaking globally, as much as I’m truly estatic about the win and want to make sure I give Oregon their due, Cal had a couple chances to really put this game away that they didn’t. Sure Dixon’s choking gave the game back to Cal, but being the perfectionist I am, I would have really liked to see Cal’s offense put this one away by either scoring on that kickoff fumble or by being able to run out the clock after the 2nd interception.

But let’s give the defense their due. They were exhausted after playing a LONG up-tempo game against a speedy and dangerous offense. Nevertheless they had the intensity to be hitting hard enough on the final play to force a fumble.

Way to go Bears!

Alameda County Superior Court judge Richard Keller has granted a preliminary injunction ordering the hippies to climb out of the trees or face jail time.

About 20 protesters attending the hearing and vowed afterward to continue the tree sit-in, despite the injunction.

“We’re committed to protecting our ground,” said a protester who goes by the name of Ayr. “Nothing changes for us. This ruling clarifies that the system is there to protect the powerful.”

This doesn’t mean anything for the other lawsuit, of course. But it does mean that the university can remove the hippies if they choose.

When I decided to move away from the personal Cal blog at my family URL to a dedicated Cal Bears blog, I had high hopes. Those hopes grew even higher when Jason and Phil agreed to come on board.

Those hopes have been more than realized in the first full calendar month (after going live about a week into August).

In September over 5000 unique people came to ExcuseMeForMyVoice.com in nearly 20,000 visits and over 200,000 total hits for the month. (As a comparison point, my peak month during the 2006 season back at the family URL had just over 700 visitors and 10,000 hits.) All I can say is WOW.

Thank you to everyone who has supported ExcuseMeForMyVoice.com by visiting and commenting.

As always, we love getting good/honest feedback about the site, both positive and negative. If you have some suggestions as to areas we can improve or have features you like that you’d like us to continue/emphasize, consider this post the best place to post those comments.

The announcement came out today that the Oregon State game will be at 4:00 PM (on 10/13), televised on Versus. Of course many will complain that Versus blew the last game they had, and I guess that’s fair enough. May I humbly suggest that the TV coverage will be much better this time. Give ’em a second chance.

Also, I promised a podcast and some follow up Oregon posts by Sunday night that you may have noticed never got posted. Unfortunately I was just exhausted after the trip home yesterday from Eugene and I had to get up early this morning so I opted for a good night sleep over buring the midnight oil.

I was able to review half of the game from the TV coverage last night before I crashed and I’ll review the second half tonight after a function at Church, so you can expect that post tonight. I recorded the podcast when I was in Eugene, it’s just a question now of editing in all of the player interviews I had, including Longshore’s thoughts on how his ankle is feeling. I can’t promise that tonight because I also owe an analysis article to Rivals by tonight. I’ll try to get the podcast done tonight as well, but if not, I promise it’ll get posted tomorrow (Tuesday) night. Finally, you can expect a trip-recap post about my trip up there later in the week with a number of pictures, perhaps as late as over the weekend.