Big Game Recriminations
(Written by jsnell)
Not a lot to say. Being far and away for the past few weeks, this was really my first time to see the 1-6 late-season Cal Bears close up.
Wow. They’re awful.
I don’t know who’s really to blame. Coaches? Players? It felt to me like the whole team just quit after facing adversity and losing a few games. I didn’t see a whole lot of heart out there today. I saw personal fouls and dropped passes. If this season reminds me of 1996 (5-0 start, 6-6 finish), it also reminds me in a way of the pre-Citrus Bowl Big Game implosion that ended the Bruce Snyder era.
So Tedford loses his first Big Game and, while it’s not logical, I almost wonder if it might be his last game at Cal. Logically he should come back after a year like this, and it would be ironic if he finally was wooed away after his worst year at Cal. I want him to come back — he’s just too good a coach, and if he leaves I fear we’ll be seeing a Gilbertsonian-type slide back into oblivion. Crossing fingers.
As for this team, I don’t really need to see more. Unfortunately, the vagaries of bowl scheduling mean that Cal will be playing one more game. Maybe they can view it as a stepping stone to next season. Or maybe they can keep playing the way they have the past two months and finish 6-7, cementing the status of the 2007 Cal Bears for what they truly are: losers.
Jim Harbaugh, please enjoy this axe, suitable for hanging on a wall or parading around a tony private university campus, with our compliments.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:19 am
This game seemed like every other one in the second half of the year. Passable performance in the first half, atrocious performance in the second half. Stalled drives and kicking problems. And of course, that crushing Longshore 4th quarter pick in the Red Zone to kill the game tying drive (although to be fair, that pick is as much Longshore’s fault as it was the Hawk’s; those two drops on 1st and 2nd down were just not acceptable).
However, one bright note: Cal moved the ball well late in the 4th quarter when Tedford actually decided to call something other than a screen pass.
Could Tedford please think about playing Riley next year? Or Brock Mansion? Or anyone not named Longshore? Or even anyone named Longshore who can throw the deep ball? Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top?
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:57 am
Makes you wonder if Tedford has peter principled out at Cal. After a great start everything became so preditable and tediously repetitive. Longshore was never terribly mobile, and he never really got over the ankle injury which made him more immobile as well worn down in the second half. Remember Stanfurd had the worst defensive recod in the Pac 10. Gregory? Please revamp the “bend and break” defence. Well, wait til next year.
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:35 am
Predicatable…Tedford…come on. He mixes it up. 1st down run up the middle. Second and long screen or draw. 3rd and long draw or screen (whichever he did not use on second and long) and then third down punt. I have finally come around to the fact that this team has flat out quit!!! I think a lot of has to do with the Tedford putting the best interest of Longshore mental health ahead of the the team. His loyalty is admirable if you are one of those who benefits (ex. Longshore and Gregory). Not so good if you are one of the 100+ others on the team who are forced to deal with his decisions or lack of decisions. On another note, Longshore made it perfectly clear that he wanted out of the game when he was limping around. Frustrated is an understatement.
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:38 am
As I have said before, Tedford is a very good coach but is not yet on the elite level. Perhaps the furstrations of this year will enable Tedford to move to the next level.
Tedford suffers from the Bruce Bochy sydrone. Bruce was a highly successful manager of the San Diego Padres. But management got tired of him sticking too long with good prospects that did not have the mental edge to be successful on the major league level. The Giants now own Bruce’s limitations.
Tedford must realize that Longshore does not have the mental makeup to deliver success late in games. Tedford should have realized this much earlier in the season. Let’s pray that Tedford does not start Longshore in the Nut Bowl. If so, it’s Bruce Bochy time in Berkeley.
As good as Bochy was for the Padres, Bud Black is a much better manager.
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:13 am
I am a devoted Mormon (not really).
I believe it’s a sin for so-called good Mormons to play four years of football before they begin their mission (not really).
Nate Longshore will do a lot more good spreading the Mormon word in Niger or the Philippines next year than he will do in Berkeley playing football (really).
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:26 am
Al, you’re forgetting Tedfords least predictable play, first, second, and third & goal, up the middle with Forsett.
I’m so glad he’s a senior and graduating. Not that I had anything against the guy, it’s more so that Tedford didn’t know how to use him. With his size and abilities he should have been used more like an Eric Metcalf/tailback kind of player. More sweeps, more roll outs from the slot, and more originality.
I’d like to see Tedford forced to use a fun offense for the bowl game. Like maybe if some intervening force could sit down with him and say:
Intervening Force (IF): Tedford, you had like a really bad brain fart with this offense, we need to change some things…
Tedford: I know…
IF: If I let you guys go to a bowl game, you’ll have to utilize the Run N’ Gun offense
Tedford: Okay, but only if we go to Kwik Way first…
Ahhh randomness, if only Tedford had a randomizer handy when selecting plays to call…
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm
As huge a disappointment as this year’s been, losing Tedford would be the worst outcome possible for this program. Let’s be real. Aside from this year’s slip back into mediocrity, this program hasn’t enjoyed a more sustained period of success under a single coach since Pappy’s Boys. While Tedford’s not without his faults (his continued faith in Longshore is perplexing to say the least, and the play calling has lacked imagination), there’s not a coach out there that I’d rather have. The guy’s probably not going to sleep during the entire off-season trying to figure out what went wrong and how to correct it. As despondent and embarrassed as Cal fans are about this season, Tedford’s experiencing those same emotions times 100. This is his first experience with such failure and I’m sure it will have a profound positive impact on how he approaches things from this point forward. Unless, of course, what’s little left of “Bear nation” rides him out of town like we did Snyder. We all know how well that turned out.
In other news, I managed to limp over from Kip’s to Haas Pavilion to catch the men’s basketball team win a pretty exciting game against Mizzou. The vibe of the arena was pretty unusual, but ultimately really uplifting. First of all, the place was barely half full due to the peculiar scheduling (did Barbour ask herself, “I wonder what date would be worst possible date to schedule this game?”). Plus both the Cal fans and the surprisingly several Mizzou fans that showed up had already experienced a night to forget. Cal started off lamely and it looked like this was going to be the cherry on top of my shit sundae. But the few fans, in a mixture of a lot of pent-up anxiety and maybe sense of relief that the football season was behind them, really lifted the team in the second half (or at least that’s how I saw it). It was one of those odd evenings that I used to sort of remember at Harmon, where you’d only have a half-full gym, but the combined efforts of the few fans that showed up eclipsed the experience of a full gym. Hard to explain. Anways, the Cal basketball team looks good, although you can be sure I am not getting my hopes up. And unlike Tedford, I kinda do wish Braun would walk (Braun, by the way, knows how to combat expectations: by never giving fans reason to have any).
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
This is a repeat for me.
It feels to me like we are looking at 2005 all over again. Longshore is etiher too injured to throw good passes or he has just fallen apart altogether. If this year’s team had a careful quarterback like Steve Levy playing for the second half of the season, I feel the Bears would have won at least 2 or 3 of the games which were lost. Perhaps Riley could have done that. Just look at Longshore, he doesn’t plant his front foot and he doesn’t follow through and the ball sails, often to the defenders. It reminds me of Ayoob all over again. Tedford needs to hire an offensive coordinator, one who will stand up to him. Yes 2006 didn’t work but this year his loyalty or blind spot to Longshore has hurt the Bears. And the problems on offense, read Longshore, have “forced†Tedford to make the game plans and calls way conservative. What happened to calling slants? A focused offensive coordinator who runs Tedford’s brand of offense, not the spread, is needed.
Tedford should also think long and hard about replacing Gregory. The defense just doesn’t strike the fear in opponents that it did a few years ago. The Bears have very few three and outs on defense anymore.
I think Tedford has done wonders for the program but he needs to reorganize the coaching staff for 2008.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:23 pm
It’s really very simple and I stated it here before. CAL is just not that GOOD! Period! They played way over their heads in games against Tennessee and Oregon. Remember Colorado St. where we barely escaped with a win, then we got a few key injurys and replaced them with medicore back-ups.
Tedford doesn’t play!
He thinks speed is the key. Well speed plus size are the keys and he looses out to USC,UCLA Oregon and now AZ State on those type of players. I don’t know if it’s the lousy facilities at Berkeley or his humble demeaner when he recruits. Whatever it is, until he can get that 6’4″ receiver with great speed or a line backer thats taller then 6″2″ or a defensive line and secondary that wants to put the hurt to somebody then except the fact that we are not an elite team.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I have been a Cal Football fan since the sixties. And I haven’t enjoyed such a 6 year run, basically because Cal hasn’t played so well for so long a stretch of years in my lifetime. My disappointment with this team must therefore be tempered by the fact that MY EXPECTATIONS for Cal football this year were very high, much higher than any other time in my life. I got used mediocrity at Cal all those years in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Tedford changed all that. So let’s face it. We’ve all been spoiled! The notion that Cal is a perennial Pac-10 contender is pretty heady stuff for us. And who doesn’t love it! We’ve been eating s–t from the Trojans for years and now we want ours. BEAR FANS ARE HUNGRY! So inspite of the quit in this year’s football team, I REMAIN a solid BEAR fan. I live and work in Southern California and I still wear my Cal hat and shirts out in public proudly. We have something good going on and a one year let down out of the last six is not going to change my view of Tedford and his staff.
Let them mull it over in the off season, let them figure out what needs to change. I’m pretty confident that they will storm back. I fully expect all the ESPN talking heads to be negative about the Cal Football program, and a lowered Pre- Season ranking next only works in our FAVOR! I look forward to the BEARS storming back into the spotlight. “The best is yet to come.”
One thing, however, the entire team and staff owes Justin Forsett an apology. He’s the only player on this team that played with consistent fire and desire ALL season long. Go Bears!
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Ditto. My Cal years included the ’98 through the ’01 seasons under Tom Holmoe. This season — our worst under Tedford — was still better than the BEST season we have experienced under Holmoe during those years. In each of my years as a student, I held a season pass. I religiously went to every game. Even during that agonizing, painful, heart-wrenching 1-10 season that filled the fall of my senior year with a heartbreak every Saturday.
Tedford is a special coach. I knew this from the first play from scrimmage in my first game as an alum and Tedford’s first game at Cal, when Kyle Boller threw a screen pass to Terrell Williams who then threw a long pass to freshman David Gray who took the ball in 71 yards into the end zone en route to a 35-0 first quarter and a 70-22 victory. I knew this when we beat #3-ranked USC (remember how intimidating that ranking seemed then?) in triple overtime. I knew when we were a freshman mistake away from being the #1 team in the nation for the first time since dinosaurs picked up a pigskin. And I sure as hell am not forgetting this because of one lousy season.
We’ll be back. And when we are, I’d advise the opposing team to hire a good PR person. Cause it won’t look pretty.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Don’t fret, Cal fans. You could be saddled with a coach like Mike Stoops, who acts like an idiot on the sidelines, shows no sportsmanship, and says before our big rivalry game vs. ASU that the best rivalry is the Oklahoma-Texas game. Think about that–even if it’s true in an objective sense–would you want Tedford saying that the game against Stanford isn’t the best rivalry he’s ever been associated with? Our coach doesn’t consider the game that’s been going on since the end of the 19th century (before we were even a state) to be that big of a deal…and Arizona fans are stuck with this below-mediocre coach who has yet to produce a winning season for at least one more year. Count your blessings. I’d love for Tedford to be wearing cardinal & navy.