Rehashing Colorado and pre-hashing Nevada, it’s the latest EMFMV podcast with Jason and Ken! We do what we always do: break down the last Cal game unscientifically, discuss other games around the Pac-10 — wow, is UCLA bad or what? — and then preview Cal’s potential “trap game” against Nevada. Plus there’s a secret word and yet more about buses. Join us or die! Okay, that was a little dramatic. Please listen, won’t you?

You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Standard Podcast [ 38:56 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A little late, but my thoughts based on re-watching the game on TV:

• Sofele fumbling the kickoff… that’s not something that’s going to keep him on the return team. If there’s one thing Tedford hates more than anything else, it’s not holding onto the football.
• On the Bears first drive I count 5 plays, 3 rushing and 2 passing, where the offensive line didn’t do their jobs. They were often bailed out by great running and a clutch scramble by Riley, but in the end, they were the cause of the drive stalling.
• Ross’s first punt return was a beauty. He doesn’t have the “magic” that DeSean had, but he does seems to be even better than DeSean at getting some yards instead of going for the home run (which sometimes ends up gaining nothing).
• Riley’s first TD pass (to Vereen) was really a clutch throw. It was 3rd and 5 at the 13, not an easy spot to convert.
• I guess we know why Marc Anthony is a DB and not a WR. How could he drop that interception? I thought for sure he had it, but it went right through his hands.
• Riley’s two incompletions back to back from the CU 39 on 3rd/4th and 2, really hurt. Tedford wants the flexibility to use either the pass or run on short down situations to keep the defense honest, but when Riley can’t make the “automatic” throws like that, it forces Tedford to stick to the over-predictable run game in those situations.
• Of course there’s no better way to get the momentum from a failed 4th down conversion than two sacks and a resulting fumble recovery. Price used great technique to get leverage on the tackle and around the corner en route to the sack.
• I’ve got the distinct feeling that Cal uses the QB keeper more early in the season than late in the season. I felt like a fair amount in Sept. of both 2008 and 2009 Riley got a number of QB run plays but as the season progressed we saw less and less. Here again we’ve got a designed QB run in September. Will we see it more this season?
• The pass to Jones for the TD was a beautifully designed play. It gave a lot for Colorado to cover all on one side of the field and also gave Riley an easy throw.
• Man were the Cal rushing schemes working well early in the game. Kendricks and Price should have been required to take out a long-term lease in the backfield. When they didn’t sack the QB, they were forcing interceptions. Unbelievably promising play.
• The Bears 3rd touchdown drive was definitely their best drive of the game. They marched the majority of the field and everything was working. Riley was back on his throwing game. The offensive line was opening good holes for Vereen. That’s the offense that Tedford wants.
• You know what’s interesting is that both in the UCD game and now the 1st half of this game is that we’re seeing surprisingly few 3 WR sets. This is much more the traditional Tedford offense. Lot’s of offset-I. Lot’s of 2 TE. Ever since 2006 when Tedford brought in Dunbar, the Bears have emphasized a lot of 3 WR sets and it seems like it’s on its way out.
• As much as it didn’t result in points after the penalties and the missed field goal, Colorado’s drive in the 2nd quarter was good enough that had they played like that for the rest of the game, they could have make a game of it. But I think the fact that they failed to score really hurt them, momentum wise.
• Kendricks is the defender that I didn’t appreciate how much he was a part of the defensive effort. He did great. Good to see him making the jump to the next level.
• If the inability to get points killed the CU heart, the end of half INT for a touchdown put their hearts on a pike.
• Looking at the couple good drives that Colorado had, the Cal defense was playing a lot more passive than in the 1st half. Even still, they were barely getting their first downs.
• The second half of CU’s long drive was almost entirely on the back of QB runs. How could the defense be so caught off guard that it would be a designed QB run on 4th and goal from the 3? I saw that coming from a mile away.
• Anger’s back-to-back punts on the procedure penalty were things of beauty. It’s nice to see him get this sort of consistency, even when he has a reason to be frustrated by a penalty negating his great punt. He just did it again.
• It didn’t occur to me until now that the Bears didn’t score in the 3rd quarter. Those two time-eating drives by CU kept the Bears offense off the field and the offense was in a bit of a funk.
• While the defender fell down on Jones’ long reception, the reason he fell down was because of Jones’ speed. He just accelerated away from the DB and the DB tripped in his desperation to keep up once the ball was in the air.
• Another somewhat overlooked stat so far… Riley’s interception count: ZERO
• Steve Williams had a pretty good game at corner. He’s getting a fair amount of playing time for a young guy. I see a lot of promise at corner.
• On the reverse to Jones, if Fisher had just a little bit faster 40 time, that would have been a touchdown, but you just can’t expect the linemen to be able to sprint out in front of a speed WR like Jones.
• Really nice play action pass to Sofele for a touchdown. Very well executed.
• No matter how many times I see the catch and fumble that went straight into Hagan’s hands… it sure doesn’t look like a fumble. I looks like the WR threw it to Hagan like it was a lateral or something. Of course it wasn’t, it was punched out, but it sure looks like it.

Overall, it was a dominating performance, and if anything, it was even more so from a re-review as the areas that concerned me didn’t look as bad on film.

OK, I admit it, I haven’t given 30 seconds thought to Nevada until today.

So I go look up their results to date and I find out two interesting things:

1. Nevada is leading the nation in total offense (yards gained) at 592/game. But that’s not what this post is about despite it being interesting since the Bears are leading the nation with the least yards allowed at 160/game.
2. We already have a psuedo-common opponent in Colorado State (the point of this post).

As we all know, the transitive property (Team A beat Team C, yet Team B lost to Team C, means Team A is better than Team B) doesn’t work consistently. It’s triple-trouble when you’re using margin of victory, when both teams either beat or lost to a common opponent. Therefore it’s got to be an order of magnitude more trouble to compare a team that only one of you played but the other one played as a common opponent.

But I’m going to do it anyway… 🙂

So, using the dubious transitive property, if Nevada beat Colorado State 51-6 and Colorado beat CSU 24-3, that means Nevada is better than CU. But we beat CU 52-7, so what’s the math for how much we would have beat CSU by? Is it more than 51-6? Could one just take margin of victory, so we’d beat CSU by 66 points?

In any case, I think the most aggressive thing to say about this odd connection point is that Nevada is likely a better team than Colorado, something many people were already saying, and we’ve got to face them on the road, a more difficult task.

So it does look like our “A” game this year is Nevada, not Colorado.

Yet another edition published on Sunday. Don’t go having a heart attack. This is the NEEEWWW Ken Crawford, no longer a Rivals reporter and not spending all Sunday writing articles and has time to both relax after Mass and publish a podcast and a post or two.

Sorry again for the poor audio quality. Last week I thought it was the train, but when it was bad this week I realized I had my audio recorder on the high sensitivity setting, which has me over-driving the DAC. So we shouldn’t have this problem starting next week.

Colorado On The Road Home Podcast [ 14:27 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’m surprised how quick this happened, but the dominating performance of the Bears got the Bears into the Coaches poll at #24. We’re also a virtual #29 in the AP. That means that if the Bears can go to Nevada and win, there’s a good chance the trip to Arizona will be between two ranked teams.

The old Bear in me has only one thing to say about that: expectations are back and we’re doomed! DOOOOOOMed!

OTRH podcast coming soon…

In my preseason prediction I indicated that the Buffaloes were in a free-fall and I expected the Bears to win easily 35-13. But now they’ve played a game and handily beat Colorado State 24-3. You’d think that would make me a bit more hesitant, but it doesn’t.

When you look inside the numbers of their win over Colorado State, they didn’t dominate. 3 turnovers by CSU aided the CU win. CU only had just over 300 yards and they gave up 200 yards passing to an anemic CSU offense. It bears repeating, Colorado State was only 3-9 in 2009, losing to teams like Idaho, Wyoming and New Mexico (yes, the same New Mexico that just got blown out 72-0 by the Oregon Ducks).

I just don’t see Colorado as having performed all that well last week.

So what are the strengths of Colorado? Well, they’ve finally put aside the coach’s son as the starting QB for starters. That definitely had some positive affect for them last week. Their corners are supposedly quite good. They also picked up a USC defector as a wide receiver who seems to have a lot of promise. But otherwise, there’s a lot of mediocre on that team.

Mediocre line play on both sides of the ball. Mediocre running game. Mediocre linebackers.

Add to this that there are few areas where I’m more optimistic about the Bears than before the season. Keenan Allen and good TE play is going to result in a better passing game. Better secondary play is going to keep Colorado’s offense in check. And there was no area I saw where the Bears had clearly taken a step back, although the defensive line might be the one area that could challenge that assertion.

But overall the point is that the Bears look better than I hoped, albeit by a little bit and Colorado looks just as weak as I suspected and in some ways even weaker just based on how impressed they are with themselves for beating Colorado State.

So I’m upping my prediction and inking it in the Pick’Em league. Bears win even bigger: 42-13

(We continue the looking back series for the 2009 season. We’re going to continue the trend of doing these in “matching order” instead of chronological order. Today we match last year’s “A” non-conference team, Minnesota with this year’s “A” non-conference team, Colorado. Go here for past looking back posts.)

Pre-Game notes and thoughts:
The Minnesota game had been circled on a lot of people’s calendars long before the season started. It was either this game or the Maryland game that would be the toughest game of the season, but this game had the edge because it was on the road. To make the road situation worse, Minnesota was opening a brand new stadium on campus that many expected to give the Gophers a much better home field advantage than in the past. With the Bears going 1-4 on the road in 2008, only beating lowly WSU, there was a question whether the Bears had what it took to win on the road. Minnesota was a routine bowl team out of the Big-10 that the Bears had beat in 2006 at home, but the Gophers looked better in 2009 than 2006, plus the road game factor made this a “show me” game for the Bears.

Scoring and momentum changing plays:

• Cal started the game with the halfback pass from Vereen. Isn’t that “trick play” so cliche for the Bears at this point as to be overly obvious?
• Jahvid Best got through a big hole as the fly-sweep fake freezes the linebackers and then breaks it to the outside before leaping into the endzone, in what was probably his signature TD of 2009, putting the Bears up front: 7-0.
• Minnesota ran a reverse off the kick-off return taking the ball just past midfield, setting them up with great field position.
• Minnesota runs a hook and lateral to try to make a 3rd and 15, but Cal is not fooled and the Gophers don’t convert.
• Riley threw a beautiful rainbow to Verran Tucker for 58 yards, only just being tripped up at the 2-yard line.
• Jahvid Best runs for a surprisingly easy 2-yard TD run between the tackles and the Bears are up by two TD’s, mid 1st quarter: 14-0
• Riley got sacked and fumbled the ball on their 3rd possession. Luckily for the Bears, it was recovered, not giving Minnesota a free trip to the redzone. It does however result in a 2nd and long that the Bears can’t recover from and they have to punt for the first time.
• Anger has a surprisingly short punt giving the Gophers the ball around midfield.
• Alualu beats two defenders en route to the QB for a sack at the Cal 32.
• Minnesota’s Decker catches the ball for a Minnesota TD. Cattouse hit him hard and from my view, Decker didn’t hold onto the ball as he went out of bounds, but nevertheless it was a great effort to even keep the ball on his chest and it was scored as a TD. The lead is cut to a TD: 14-7.
• Boateng makes a nice catch and run on a crossing route on a key 3rd and 7 when Minnesota had momentum, keeping the drive alive.
• D’Amato shanks a 47 yard-field goal attempt after a determined drive with a number of key 3rd down conversions.
• Best explodes through the sizable hole through the line and then quickly past the secondary for another Cal touchdown. Back to a 2 TD lead: 21-7
• Sofele gets a bogus interference to catch the ball, offsetting the fumble recovery by the Bears and giving Minnesota the ball at the Cal 30 with less than two minutes left in the half.
• Hagan completely whiffs on the coverage on Decker giving Minnesota an easy fade for a touchdown. Score down to one TD going into the locker room: 21-14
• After forcing a 3-and-out on Minnesota’s possession to start the 2nd half, the shanked punt hits a Cal defender and Minnesota recovers the fumble around midfield. Yet another special teams issue (I’ll refrain from the word “blunder” as it was a touch bounce) gives Minnesota more chances and better field position than they otherwise deserve.
• A fumble by Minnesota at the Cal 20 saves Cal from letting the special teams turnover result in points.
• Anger has a monster punt from the Cal 25, that is fair caught at the Minnesota 18.
• After a drive where Decker was at the receiving end of almost all the passes, they pull a trick-play out of their hat and Decker throws the ball to a wide open receiver for a 7-yard touchdown. The game is tied: 21-21
• Riley escapes throwing an interception when his overthrown ball over the middle is dropped by the Minnesota safety with it in his bread-basket.
• Cal gets another rough penalty call, a pass interference call on Cattouse when he made a brilliant defensive move on 3rd down, extending the Minnesota drive.
• Preventing Cal’s 4th consecutive 3-and-out, Riley squeezes it into Ross who sidesteps a tackler to get their first 1st down of the half with less than 9 minutes left in the game.
• Riley throws a nice fade to Ross who gets the ball down to the 1 yard line.
• After getting stuffed on 1st down between the tackles, Best goes to the outside and scores his 4th touchdown of the game. Bears back in front: 28-21
• When Cal brings a blitz, the throw is offline giving Mohamed an easy interception on the Gopher side of the field just after the Cal touchdown.
• Cal runs the QB sneak on 4th and 1 from the Minnesota 33 yard-line and converts.
• Anthony Miller makes a great stretching one-handed catch, bailing out Riley’s over-throw, getting the ball down to the 8 yard-line.
• Best gets his 5th touchdown, again going to the corner. Bears back in front by 2 TD’s, now with less than 3 minutes left in the game: 35-21
• Josh Hill gets an interception on 4th and 10 on a desperation throw for the Gophers with the clock running down.
• Minnesota forces the 3-and-out, using all of their timeouts, to give them one last desperation shot, needing a touchdown, an onside kick recovery and a second TD, all in 45 seconds.
• Mohamed gets his second interception of the game to put an end to the comeback attempt.

Observations:

• The Bears came out fast and hard in this very important road game, to prove that they could win on the road. What was noticeable is that the offense pulled out all the stops early, giving Minnesota a lot of different looks, a high diversity of plays and punishing Minnesota for cheating to what had been successful on previous plays, i.e. the long Tucker pass after the strong running game, the running up the middle after the fly-sweep, etc..
• Both teams had very good intensity in the 1st quarter. Cal came out of the tunnel and scored 2 quick TD’s but Minnesota didn’t give in and fought hard both to close the gap on the scoreboard and get momentum back.
• Two plays back-to-back showed the problems that the Cal receivers had in 2009. On the first play, Riley threw a ball out in front of Best who corralled the ball and got a first down. On the very next play the WR had a similarly out in front ball, but he didn’t even catch it, bobbling it before it went to the ground.
• Vereen powered through a gang-tackle on 3rd and 3 to get a 1st down when it looked like Minnesota had him stopped. This is the sort of advantage having Vereen as the every down back in 2010. He’s much more likely to get the tough yards and less likely to lose a few when the play breaks down.
• The touchdown at the end of the 1st half was a huge momentum killer for the Bears. After they had held off the strong push by Minnesota in the early 2nd quarter, extending back to a 2-TD lead, they gave Minnesota both momentum and hope in the locker room. The Bears statistically dominated the 1st half, but the poor results by the special teams and efficient play by the Minnesota offense when they had a short field, had the game much closer on the scoreboard than on the stat sheet.
• Cal had some definite tackling problems in the 3rd quarter. Just before the Minnesota fumble there were two missed tackles for loss. After Anger’s monster punt, Cal had 3 shots at a sack inside the 2 yard-line (perhaps even a marginal safety) before sacking him around the 8 yard-line. Lot’s of diving at players and not wrapping them up.
• There’s no doubt that the Gophers’ new stadium was helping their home field advantage. The crowd was in the game even when Minnesota was down and the players were feeding off of it.
• The Cal defense continued to look out of sync for the rest of the 3rd quarter, particularly on the Minnesota touchdown drive. They looked desperate and out of position as Minnesota went to Decker over and over.
• Great quote from the commentator: “Cal is rushing 3 and dropping 8, so get out your GPS and find #7 (Decker). You’re covering dirt and you should be covering him.” Decker was all Minnesota had in the 3rd quarter yet he was still open play after play. For whatever reason Hagan was on Decker far more than Syd, which just baffles me (and just about everyone else).
• Cal had 3 consecutive 3-and-outs to start the 2nd half (extending into the 4th quarter). Unlike the 1st half where the Bears came out sharp, both sides of the ball came out week in the 2nd half. It was nearly a miracle that Minnesota only scored one TD in the 3rd quarter.
• Cal’s last TD drive was key not just because it made it a two score game, but also because Cal kept the game clock running, taking over 6 minutes off the clock on a 9 play, 42 yard drive. That put Minnesota in desperation mode and made life much easier for the Bear defense. For all we criticize Tedford for sometimes going too quickly to trying to shorten the game, it was drives like this where it bears a lot of fruit.

Implications for 2010:
It’s hard to draw direct comparisons between last year’s Minnesota game and this year’s Colorado game. They’re very different teams. If there’s a similarity, it’s that, at least on the non-conference slate, they’re the most power-oriented teams Cal will face. Cal seems to match up well against those teams these days, as the Big Game game showed. But Colorado isn’t exactly a HUGE power team, they’re just closer to that end of the spectrum than, say, Nevada. Speaking of Nevada, what this game does show is that the Bears seem to be over, or at least minimized, their road game struggles as both the Minnesota game and both the ASU and Big Game showed. If there are games that bring it into question it was the Washington game and to a lesser extent Oregon (which the Bears probably lose either way).

Conclusion:
Far more important than the implications for 2010, what this game showed was a preview of the secondary problems that Cal was going to have. Minnesota only had one good WR and he burned Cal over and over and over. It’s one thing when a multi-weapon passing game is too much for a team, it’s entirely something else when you know who they’re going to go to and you still let him burn you again and again. This game would have been a HUGE blowout if it weren’t for Decker. Luckily for the Bears, minus the 3rd quarter struggles, the offensive was firing on all cylinders and the run defense was pretty stout.

Rehashing UC Davis and pre-hashing Colorado, it’s the latest EMFMV podcast with Jason and Ken! Thrill as we talk about the beatdown of the poor, overmatched Aggies. Get excited as we discuss other Pac-10 week one action. Become mildly bored as we discuss the stadium and public-transit issues. Wake up slightly when we preview what little we know about Colorado, this week’s opponent. But please listen, won’t you?

You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Now It Gets Tougher? (EMFMV 2010 #2) [ 36:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Soup Nazi has taken up a new profession apparently, now in the personal foul definition business. While all of us were aghast that Allen was called for a personal foul, it has since come out that one of the official interpretations of the endzone celebration rule in college is that touching anyone in the stands is a personal foul.

Since that’s the case, I officially apologize to the refs for being harsh to them about it. It’s not their job to question or overlook rules or interpretations. It’s their job to enforce them accurately and consistently. It appears they did precisely that in this case.

It’s the Soup Nazi that ticks me off.

Why would this be an official interpretation of the rule? I could see “leaving the playing field” or “entering the stands” being the rule, but giving some fans a high five… what in God’s name should be wrong with that? Is the goal here to make college football as sterile as possible? Who loses in this case? What’s the risk that something negative will happen as a result? No matter which way I look at it, I can’t see the value of this official interpretation of the rule.

Disappointing, very disappointing.

I’m sure all of you are sick of hearing about this topic, but I can’t help myself. I mean, put yourself in my shoes:

You’re walking out of Memorial stadium after a pleasant afternoon with a leisurely Cal win over an FCS opponent. You’re thinking to yourself, what a great day! I made the change over to getting a ridiculously expensive parking pass for a parking spot half a mile a way, but the leisurely walk down the hill will be nicer than fighting to get on the even more ridiculously expensive for a family of 5 shuttle run by Silverado. Look at all those people over there fighting to get on the Silv…

WHAT! Those are AC Transit buses!?!

See what I mean?

I know logistics can be a pain to get organized, but it really chaps my hide that they keep changing things on me long after the dates that I have to make my decisions on what to do. I guarantee you, even though I can’t confirm this factually, that the new game day information page wasn’t available in April when I had to make the decision to buy a parking pass.

If I had known in April that AC Transit and their cheaper prices (particularly for kids) were coming back, I would have most definitely NOT bought a parking pass, freeing an additional parking space for someone who wants it and saving me money (on the order of $90 for the season – parking pass: $140, AC Transit ~ $10 a game x 5 games I’m attending). But now it’s too late, I’ve already paid for the parking pass and will be stuck with it for the whole season.

Is it the worst thing ever? No, it’s not. $90 is a small figure compared to the 6 season tickets. Gas prices for the trip from Roseville, will affect my total cost almost as much as this change. In the end I think it’ll still be a good experience to try out the parking pass for a season to see what it’s like. So, this is not something to get any more worked up about than a single blog post rant.

But I would make this request to the Athletic Department: You need to get more of these sorts of things figured out and COMMUNICATED in March, particularly when they’re expected to change. People do make decisions based on little things like this and we don’t like the rug being pulled out from underneath us.

OK, that’s last you’ll hear about this from me… until I DON’T get a parking pass some year and they re-institute Silverado.

I know that very few people care about this because the odds of it being an issue is small, but there has been an appeal going on for the SAHPC for the last two years. I’ve been posting on it occasionally as news has come up.

Over the summer they had oral arguments and on Friday the ruling came down. After scanning the ruling, I can summarize it for everyone:

Tree-sitters: You stink! Stop wasting everyone’s time, reiterating the same tired arguments as in the original case and pay up the legal fees you owe to the University!

OK, that’s not an exact quote, but close enough.

So, with the City of Berkeley not participating in the orginal appeal, the homeowners (Panaramic Hill Association) settling this summer and the tree-sitters losing their appeal, this case is as done as an overcooked pig on a spit. Sure the tree-sitters could appeal to the state supreme court if they wanted, but I’m 98% sure the supreme’s wouldn’t take the case and I think they’ve run out of steam now that the financial backing for their smelly appeals (the city and homeowners) have run for the hills.

The other good news is that as of yet, there’s been no new lawsuits over the stadium renovation, i.e. phase 2. While the SAHPC, i.e. phase 1, suits were in many ways tangled with the renovation, there was definitely the risk that separate suits with a new trial could be started for phase 2. So far, knock on wood, it doesn’t appear that this is going to be an issue. It looks like they used up all their energy and financial backing on the first round. Now that the trees are down and construction is in progress, nobody can summon the will/money to do it again.

Woohoo! Another victory for the Bears!

Sadly, I’ve got two games that I can’t go to this year. Luckily for those of you who aren’t season ticket holders, they’re the two best games on the schedule (minus the Big Game): UCLA and Oregon.

While I don’t have donor seats, I think I’ve got some great seats. First of all, I’m on the isle, in two rows of 3. This helps with knee issues as the person behind you is a friend, not some random dude. Second of all, there’s no seats in front of me. We’re the first two rows above the concourse tunnel, which also gives you more room to stretch out. Add in being close to the tunnel for easy in/out access, that they’re at the right height to have good visibility across the whole field and I think they’re as of seats as you’ll find in the non-donor section. (FYI, this is section DD).

I’m asking face value for the tickets: $53 each. I’d prefer to sell the block of 6 to one person but I will consider breaking it into two groups of 3 if no one is interested in the full set for either game.

E-Mail me at tickets AT excusemeformyvoice DOT com if you’re interested.

Thoughts based on re watching the game on TV:

• Wow, 10k+ from UC Davis at the game. I thought it was a pretty big number. Do they get that many at a normal home game?
• The more I learn about defensive schemes the less I think the numbers (i.e. 3-4, 3-3-5, etc.) matter. Last year Gregory usually put 5 on the line, albeit two of them were “linebackers”. This year Pendergast is putting 4 on the line. So what defines the “linebacker” or the “linemen”. Their size? Whether they’re in a 3-point stance? What defines a “secondary” person? Of course there are answers to these questions, but my point is not that these questions can’t be answered, but just that it’s never as simple as “we run a 3-4.”
• So many of Cal’s players looked more muscular this fall. Ross. Vereen. Sofele. Hagan. That’s probably a good sign.
• That early fumble by Riley (and as it seems, there was some shared blame there), really isn’t something to be too worried about. It was just once, not exactly what Florida had. It’s getting the kinks like this worked out that is the reason coaches like to schedule someone like UC Davis first, not Tennessee or Michigan State.
• I love that the UC Davis victory over Stanford is still newsworthy. I wonder if the size of the crowd for UC Davis in part was because people wanted to be there in case they got another upset.
• When UC Davis punted from the Cal side of the field, I knew that there was going to be no upset. FCS coaches who play for the upset don’t punt from the opponent 40. That trend played out all day. We didn’t see lots of trickery or the coaches having them play 120% early to try and make something happen. Instead they played for a “quality loss”.
• Keenan Allen, what a great first catch. I like that it was a play designed purposefully just to get the ball in his hands and let him show his stuff.
• That first touchdown to Vereen, great execution by the Bears, but also it was one of the few cases were UC Davis lost the coverage on someone. I overall was pretty impressed with UC Davis on both sides of the ball (for an FCS team) as far as their discipline and precision.
• It was interesting to see both teams going for the “wide gap” punt formation. It feels flawed to me but more and more teams are going to it. I didn’t keep track, but it didn’t feel like Cal did it every time, but UC Davis did.
• Riley’s pass to Jones for the Bear’s 2nd TD, was a great read by Riley. There were two linebackers for UC Davis who if they were turned around would have been trouble to intercept the ball, but Riley recognized that they were retreating and had their backs to the ball. That’s the difference between a zone defense which tends to have players looking back at the ball and man defenses which often get defenders turned around. Riley recognized the difference and made the right read.
• Part of the reason Ross had such good returns is that their punter was out kicking their coverage. That’s not to take anything away from Ross, but it does make his job a little easier to find those gaps. That 1/2 second to look at the defenders coming at him after catching the ball is huge.
• These announcers crack me up. “True freshman, true touchdown”!?! And then our very own Polowski referring to Jackson and the 2007 Tennessee game in comparison to Allen’s TD? That was a punt return. What Keenan Allen’s pass-attempt turned rushing touchdown was far more like was Marshawn’s 2006 near-touchdown against UW. Same progression, same play, same side of the field, same running route. The only difference was that the Beast ended up 1-yard short. Allen had more speed and got all the way to the endzone. A great play.
• Not to be outdone, Jones had his amazing catch on the next Cal drive. Looking at the slow-motion, Jones got a bit more separation from the DB just before the catch, but still, it took great concentration on Jones’ part to catch that and make sure he got his hands up and cradle the ball, despite being fouled repeatedly while the ball was in the air. Great hands.
• I still don’t get why Tedford went for it on 4th and 12 from the Aggie 31. That was a perfect opportunity to test the long range field goal ability of the Bears. 4th and 4 or less, I can see, it’s also a good opportunity to test the 4th down offense, but for such a low percentage distance and such a good distance to test (48 yard field goal), ti seems like an odd choice to me.
• That rollout pattern to Eric Stevens sure reminded me of days of old with his older brother. Sure he was a tight end, but the fundamentals of the play are the same. I don’t remember his bro ever leaping over anyone though (more like bowling over). That’s the luxury of having J-Ross on the team.
• After all my picking on Browner in the podcast, I should concede that he did get the team’s first sack of the game. He did a good job forcing himself around the corner and getting the angle on the tackle so that he couldn’t get leverage without holding.
• It’s interesting that on Keenan Allen’s big runs that he has a tendency to cut across the diagonal lanes. A lot of players don’t see those, but Allen seems to love them, at least from this first look.
• I think that Riley telegraphs his passes to the TE more than his other routes. I don’t know how to explain it but I can sense that it’s the throw about to happen right after Riley comes out of his drop. Maybe it’s like he stands up straight because he knows he’s got to have a high release point to get it over the line and down to his TE.
• Vereen sure got two easy TD’s at the end of the 1st half. The second one was a more impressive run where he showed off his ability to keep on his feet after getting tripped up, but neither of them were exactly difficult scenarios.
• Tedford hates, hates, hates being interviewed. He knows it is part of his job so he doesn’t avoid doing it, but you can tell it’s his least favorite thing about being a head coach. I will go to my grave remembering the smile he had every Tuesday after practice when he walked by the cadre of reporters knowing he didn’t have to answer our questions that evening. It might be because I remember that face that every time I see him interviewed as halftime starts I mentally insert him saying “why do I have to answer this shmuck” during his fairly long pause between the question being asked and his answer.
• Most impressive halftime stat: 0/7 on allowed 3rd down conversions. Although the 3 rushing yards allowed is pretty good too. I think that only one 1st down was allowed at all in the 1st half and that was the first play of the game. There’s no doubt that the defense was executing well. The offense, well, they did fine. A few rhythm problems and minor mistakes, but as I said with the fumble, that’s what this game is for, to work out those kinks. Since I didn’t see much repetition of any particular problem, the handful of mistakes, most of which were the cause of the few stalled drives, don’t bother me.
• Allen’s next big run, his 2nd TD, also making use of the diagonal lane across the field.
• That foul on Allen for excessive celebration was weak. I didn’t see it live due to my own celebration, but all he did was go up to the crowd and slap some hands. Then he go mobbed and went back to the bench. How’s that a personal foul?
• And all it took in addition to the penalty on the kickoff was one first down for the Aggies to get in field goal range and end the shutout attempt.
• There was a visible drop-off after Riley came out midway through the 3rd quarter. With both Vereen and Riley out, as well as some O-Line substitutions, the 2nd string didn’t do as well as the first.
• Yarnway did pretty well on his first series in, doing a good job of hitting the holes right as they opened up.
• It was interesting to see Cal run the fullback crash run on 2nd and 1 in the redzone. That used to be a hallmark of the Tedford offense on short yardage plays, but it has fallen from favor. I wonder if we’ll see more of it this year.
• As I mentioned in the podcast, Sweeney’s scrambling is entertaining, and the scramble for the touchdown was a particularly entertaining set of moves dodging a number of UC Davis defenders, but it’s not the sort of thing that really suggests he’s a good QB unless he can match it with a good passing game. Yesterday he didn’t show a lot of passing prowess. I guess he was 6 for 8, which is good, but for only 29 yards.
• The stat line only shows 2 fumbles for the Bears, but there were a number of other mishandlings that bordered on a fumble. That’s one area that makes me a little nervous. I hope the Bears are holding onto the ball a little better in the coming weeks.
• This is a good example of why I re-watch the games. It was not clear to me that the reason Mansion came in was that Sweeney got his bell rung when I was at the stadium. Of course by that point in the game, it was a pretty lazy affair, so I think if I had been paying more attention I would have noticed, but I didn’t. That’s yet another reason why his excessive running is not a good thing.

Overall, you can’t argue when your defense only give up 81 yards and four 1st downs. That’s a pretty good defensive performance against anyone. The offense has some big play potential again in Keenan Allen and overall looked to have pretty good rhythm, particularly the 1st string.

Go Bears!

Sorry in advance for the audio quality of this one. The noise level on Amtrak, even with my semi-expensive noise-canceling headset was hard to filter out, even with significant software efforts. What results is something with too much microphone noise mixed with too much digital distortion, but it was the “sweet point” of as little of each as possible.

Luckily I think the content is good enough to suffer through the audio issues. Enjoy:

2010 UC Davis OTRH Podcast [ 21:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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…

What a day. Beautiful and sunny, and a Football Championship Subdivision opponent playing pretty much as you might expect against a I-A opponent. Cal just had too much talent for the Aggies of Davis. And in Keenan Allen, Cal has found a rising star.

Shane Vereen bowls toward the End Zone:

Riley tossing it to Vereen:

Here’s a video I shot showing most of Allen’s TD run on the failed option pass.

You can see a few more photos in my Flickr set.

After watching portions of last nights USC@Hawaii game my general thought is that USC is no longer the defensive juggernaut that they used to be. That was the key to their whole success is the defense. It kept them in games and allowed the offense time and opportunities to get back on track when they stalled.

USC looks even more vulnerable than last year based on what I saw last night.

Let’s be honest, what does anyone really know about UC Davis? I mean, I live in the Sacramento area and nobody around here cares about their sports programs. If anything, Sac State is the more talked about program, even though at this point UC Davis is the superior program (Sac State is a lot more entrenched as a sports program in the region).

If you go to the Sac Bee sports page and drill down to the college section, there’s not a single article about UC Davis despite their being an article about both Cal and Stanford. You’ve got to go to the archive before you find anything.

Reading through the few articles I could find from fall camp, here’s what we know:

• They’re breaking in a Redshirt Freshman as their starting QB name Randy Wright
• He’s replacing a two-year starter that was supposed to be their senior star who left UC Davis to be a minister this summer.
• Wright is “a threat with his legs.”
• They use a running back by committee approach with 6 RB’s listed as likely playing on Saturday.
• They lost their star receiver to graduation who walked on to the 49ers before being cut last week.
• They were 6-5 last year and won the “Great West” conference. The two preceding years they were 5-7 and 5-6.
• They got a couple votes in the main FCS poll coming in at an unofficial 37.
• Their practices and scrimmages are open to the public. (Apparently they don’t subscribe to the Jeff Tedford school of media relations.)
• Their coach is part time, teaching tennis and racquetball classes for the University.
• They held a scrimmage at 7 PM on August 27th and admission was free.

That’s really just about everything said in the 2 articles and handful of blurbs. No recap of the scrimmage, no position by position notes, I’m sure I could have dug up a depth chart somewhere and it’s 80% likely the link won’t be dead. But that’s about it.

That said, does it really matter? I didn’t know anything about Portland State or Eastern Washington either, two teams that I suspect far more info is available for, and it didn’t stop me from pontificating.

This game is really all about the Bears and seeing how crisp and sharp they look on both sides of the ball. So what are we looking for? Here’s my list of what I’ll be looking for:

• How do the WRs look, particularly Keenan Allen. Are they running sharp routes? Are they finding the holes in the zone? Do they look in sync with Riley? Are they taking plays off?
• How is Edwards doing at tackle? Has his consistency improved? One could generalize this to the whole line. The key is *consistency* not whether they blow people off the line most downs. They should do that just based on their size advantage. The question is whether play after play, they’re executing.
• How much playing time is MSG getting? How healthy does he look?
• How is Eric Stevens progressing?
• How does this new aggressive defensive scheme look? Does it look overly risky? Do the players seem to be playing with their hair on fire or do they look hesitant? How much zone in the secondary? How much 4-3 versus how much 3-4?
• How is Marc Anthony developing at cornerback?
• How deep are Tavecchio’s kickoffs getting?

Of course I’ll be observing things overall to see how the team is developing, but those are the key areas I’ll be looking for.

(Today we start the looking back series for the 2009 season. We’re going to continue the trend of doing these in “matching order” instead of chronological order. Today we match last year’s “C” non-conference team, Eastern Washington with this year’s “C” non-conference team, UC Davis. Go here for past looking back posts.)

Pre-Game notes and thoughts:
What a difference a year makes. It’s nearly impossible to get one’s mind around the thought that the Bears started the season last year ranked 12th and were ranked 10th at the start of this game. Of course there was no reason to fear Eastern Washington despite what Tedford rightly does to pump up his team. Cal had shown no problem with similar teams like Portland State in previous years. The Bears had been firing on all cylinders the previous week against a Maryland team that at the time, people thought were pretty good (it turned out they stunk). Everyone saw this game as a tune-up for the Minnesota game the following week.

Scoring and momentum changing plays:

• The EWU returner slipped while coming out of his shoe and went down to 1 knee at the 6 yard line, putting EWU in a hole off the opening kickoff.
• Alualu got a quick sack at the goal-line on 1st down and EWU barely avoided a safety.
• On 2nd down the Bears were robbed of a safety on a run play. There’s NO WAY the RB got out.
• EWU only managed a 32 yard punt, setting up the Bears at the EWU 36 for their first drive of the game.
• Brian Holley broke a tackle and kept his knees off the ground and extending for a 21 yard kickoff down to the 3 yard-line.
• A QB sneak gets the TD. Bears up early: 7-0
• In a rare mistake by Syd’Quan, EWU’s Bryce get’s quite a bit of separation on the outside for a 30 yard gain down to the Cal 25.
• EWU executes a perfect play-action TE rollout in the redzone for a touchdown. Game is tied 10 minutes into the game: 7-7
• Best busts a 30-yard run through a sizable hole to start Cal’s 2nd drive.
• The Bears have to punt and Anger’s very high punt lands at the 3 but the Bears can’t keep it in.
• The Bears run a creative counter-toss play to Best, who just barely goes out of bounds 30 yards up-field, preventing the 70+ yard TD run.
• Vereen runs two nice between the tackles plays in the redzone and scores the touchdown. Bears back in front: 14-7
• Mohamed gets a sack off the outside, forcing a fumble, and Kendricks scoops and runs, only getting stopped inside the EWU 5 yard line.
• Option pitch to Best on 3rd down and goal is fumbled, but Cal recovers and kicks the short field goal. Bears up by 10: 17-7.
• EWU went for it on 4th and short and the Bears break up the pass, giving Cal good field position.
• Bears run the “Best as WR matched up against a LB” play that worked so well last season for another TD. Bears extend their lead: 24-7
• EWU gets their first sack of the game late in the 2nd quarter.
• Vereen returned a 50 yard kickoff return to start the 2nd half.
• Sofele ran a fly sweep for 15 yards, completely juking a defender out of his shoes.
• Best runs an easy 1-yard touchdown to extend the Cal lead: 31-7
• The Cal defense stuffed runs on 2nd, 3rd and 4th and short to get a turnover on downs on the first EWU drive of the 2nd half.
• D’Amato misses a medium distance field-goal after the Cal drive sputters.
• Vereen gets his 2nd touchdown at the goal-line. Bears up big: 38-7
• Anthony Miller runs a great seam route that Riley hit him with great timing getting the Bears down into the redzone.
• Vereen runs another redzone run between the tackles for his 3rd touchdown, putting the seal on an already out of touch game: 45-7
• Sofele runs a surprisingly easy TD as the backup tailback and the Bears pile on: 52-7
• Chris Little gets a sack (Bear’s 4th of the game) on 3rd down forcing a longer field-goal attempt for EWU, which falls short when the EWU kicker duffs it.
• DeBoskie-Johnson busts a 35 yard run as EWU’s D-line looks exhausted.
• DeBoskie-Johnson finishes off the drive that was mostly his with a 2 yard TD run. Closing in on 60: 59-7

Observations:

• The Bear defense seems to have the EWU offense pretty bottled up early in the game, but only on 2 out of every 3 plays. EWU has no consistency, but got just enough plays strung together on their 2nd drive to get that TD. All the big gains were through the air as the focus was stopping the run.
• On the other side of the ball, the Bears offense early was all about the run game. They were just over-powering the EWU line and so the Bears weren’t trying much through the air. However, when they did, there wasn’t much success.
• In the first half it was quite apparent the the Cal secondary and the zones they were running were not all that effective. The fact that they were so suspect against an FCS team bodes poorly. Of course we learned the rest of that as the season wore on, but this should have been a big warning sign.
• The Bears started substituting in 2nd and 3rd string guys late in the 3rd quarter and the value of the game slowed significantly at that point.
• The wide receivers for Cal were pretty inconsistent. Occasional drops, occasional half efforts assuming they won’t get the ball, etc.. Considering that the Bears stuck to the run game for the most part, the WR’s needed to make the most of their opportunities and they didn’t.
• Despite Tedford doing all the right things to pull off the accelerator in the 4th quarter, the backups and the generic, run out the clock play calling was working surprisingly effectively against a tired EWU. That says a lot about the future of the Bears when the backups are not enough of a step down to not have effect of taking the foot off the accelerator.

Implications for 2010:
This was a bit of a lazy game for the 1st string. The 2nd and 3rd string is who really ran up the score. Part of that is an opponent like EWU (or UC Davis) is going to tend to over-exert themselves early in a vain attempt to pull the upset. Fans shouldn’t be too worried if the Bears are only leading by a little when the 2nd quarter starts. It could still easily be a blowout by the time the final gun goes off. What also should give some optimism is how well the 2nd and 3rd string did. Since the best of these guys are taking over for the graduating seniors, it gives reason for hope that the Bears have a bright future.

Conclusion:
It’s always hard to take too much away from a game against an FCS team, so I won’t belabor the point too much. Overall, the Bears have shown the determination and talent to put the FCS teams away without breaking too much of a sweat.

The long talked about game-by game predictions are here:

UC Davis @ Cal => 13-38: Many will be picking a bigger score here, and if were purely based on talent and coaching, I would as well, but Davis will come out strong under the delusion that they can repeat their upset over Stanford, keeping the score in check early and Tedford will pull off the accelerator in the 4th quarter right when we could have exploded into a very high score.

Colorado @ Cal => 13 – 35: I know Colorado scares some people, but they don’t scare me. This is a team that is in a free-fall. They were 3-9 last year, losing to teams like Toledo and Colorado State. The feeling on campus is that coach Hawkins would have been fired last year if his buyout wasn’t so big. I expect the Bears to win this one easily.

Cal @ Nevada => 42-24: This is another one that has some people nervous and why shouldn’t they be. We’ve struggled on the road in non-conference play, anyone remember 2008 Maryland? I think that just like last year against Minnesota, these Bears are weary of treating road games lightly and will come with all their force to an over-appreciated (and that’s good, in this case) Nevada team that won’t be able to handle the size and speed of Cal. I do expect Nevada’s quirky offense to give the Bears a little bit of trouble, and that’s why they get 24 points, but the game should never be in doubt.

Cal @ Arizona => 20-24: For whatever reason Cal can’t seem to get the job done in Arizona. I expect it to feel very similar to the 2008 contest in that one feels like the Bears could win this game if they could get firing on all cylinders, but for whatever reason they don’t. I also expect a heroic effort by the Bear defense that keeps our hopes alive for way too long. This game will feel bigger than it is because both teams will be ranked and undefeated coming in and Arizona will be able to milk the win for quite a while.

UCLA @ Cal => 17-45: UCLA is to Cal in Berkeley as Cal is to Arizona in Tucson. They just can’t get it done. Plus, this is a UCLA team that couldn’t beat the Bears in their home stadium, the Rose Bowl. This “pistol” offense at UCLA will have long since been exposed after losses to K-State, Stanford and Texas have them at 2-3, maybe even 1-4 if Houston can have some of their 2009 magic back.

Cal @ USC => 24-31: At first I had this as a defensive struggle because there’s something about Tedford and Carroll that generally result in a defensive struggle. But as much as everyone likes to think USC is some uninterrupted set of greatness and it doesn’t matter that Carroll left like a flash as soon as sanctions looked eminent, it DOES matter. Nevertheless, I think the Bears will come up short in this one even though for the first time since 2004, they’ll actually get some offense going.

ASU @ Cal => 12-35: Dennis Erickson is not long for the Pac-10 and the way I’m reading their schedule, they’ll be on a 4 game losing streak and on the back-end of a 3-game road stretch when they come to Cal. That’s going to be a recipe for a team that has given up and gives up the ghost pretty early in this one, scoring only 4 field goals.

Cal @ OSU => 17-20: The Bears have struggled against Oregon State and generally it’s been the OSU defense stifling the Bear offense. I expect that to remain true in 2010 and the Bears are going to come home from Corvallis a frustrating 5-3. There’s a chance that the Bears come away with this win. The defense is going to have to come away with another strong performance and Tedford is going to have to FINALLY beat coach Riley’s press coverage that has given the Bears so much trouble. It also could be that OSU is pretty beat down as well, as it’s conceivable they’re 2-4 after tough road games to Arizona and UW, back up their tough non-conference schedule. At the same time, this is a team that could be undefeated and very highly ranked when the Bears come a knocking. I’d prefer to take a wait-and-see approach to this game, but a game-by-game prediction post doesn’t have much room for that.

Cal @ WSU => 38-17: WSU will look better this year and be 3-6 (wins over Montana St., SMU and ASU), riding high off keeping their bowl hopes alive versus ASU the previous week in Tempe. They’ll end up falling three games short though and Cal will put an end to those dreams. Hope for a 4 PM kickoff on TV. The 7 PM TV slot could be a more dicey game and we’d prefer for the game to be on TV wouldn’t we?

Oregon @ Cal => 20-31: It’s payback time and the Bears will know it. They’ll be playing loose and hard having ensured bowl eligibility the week before and wanting to show every citizen of Oregon how much of a fluke last year’s game was. Oregon will still be struggling to get back to their former selves with Masoli off the team. Plus, expect them to be a little over-confident with their easy early schedule. They’ll be 8-1, the lone loss being to USC who won’t be in Rose Bowl contention and think too little of the Golden Bears. Then we’ll find ourselves in the odd situation of rooting for them to beat Arizona the following week to keep our Rose Bowl hopes alive and then praying for OSU to take them down.

Stanford @ Cal => 17-38: I’ve got only two things to say: Tedford: 7-1 vs. the Trees. Harbaugh: 1-2 and 0-1 on the road. IT. AIN’T. GONNA. HAPPEN. TREES! As the guy from Berkeley Toyota used to say: Nobody Beats Berkeley! They never have and they never will!

Washington @ Cal => 24-35: This has trap game written all over it. The good news is that if things go the way we hope, the Bears, even after these results, will still have a very real shot at the Rose Bowl. We’ll need the above sequence with Oregon and Arizona, but that should be about it. The bad news is that I have UW at 4-6 coming into this game. With WSU after the Bears, they’ll know bowl eligibility is in striking distance if they can win this one. Add in that the stadium should be half empty and it’s a perfect trap game. You can put that out of your mind now because this game is revenge part II. The Bears won’t forget the debacle in Seattle and will keep their high level bowl hopes alive.

So there you have it, 9-3 with 6-3 in conference play. If the conference beats itself up, with USC out of the mix, the Bears could be Rose Bowl bound. But OSU and Arizona will be the trouble-makers who need to lose those key games as will Oregon, albeit two less since a tie with the Ducks is OK and they’ve got the loss from us on the schedule, where a tie with OSU or Arizona won’t do us any good, so they’ll need to lose two others.

Let’s see how it plays out.