Thoughts on the Tennessee game
(Written by kencraw)
General thoughts after watching the game on TV this morning:
- For those of us who were at the game, the TV commentary pointed out something about the Ainge fumble in the 1st quarter. It didn’t matter if his arm was coming forward. The ball didn’t travel forward so it was a lateral even if his arm was coming forward. Nice to know there is no controversy here… wait… this just in from the Tennessee fans, looks like the controversy is that Follett hit Ainge too hard so it wasn’t fair (they’re calling it “spearing”).
- I didn’t realize while at the game that it wasn’t Schneider kicking the ball. Anybody know what happened? Nice to see that his backup filled in admirably.
- On the other side, the Tennessee kick-off guy leaves something to be desired. Cal had great field position because of him.
- The Cal pass defense in the first quarter looked worse on TV than it did in person, at least to me. Not sure which impression was more accurate.
- Gotta love the line during DeSean’s punt return for a TD by the commentator: “DeSean Jackson: The Wizard of Returns!”
- You’ve got to give Tennessee credit in the first 3rd of the game for rebounding from every Cal touchdown including DeSean’s kick return. The fact that they got back to 21-21 says a lot about their determination.
- Jahvid Best had a great debut, didn’t he? That scamper down into the redzone was so sweet. There’s no question who is REALLY #2 on the depth chart, sorry Montgomery and Vereen.
- Longshore started his funk earlier than I had remembered. He had 3 poorly thrown balls starting with 1st and goal at the end of the 2nd quarter. Resulted in our only FG because we couldn’t punch it in.
- I guess I got my answer to the Schneider question at the halftime TV interview with Tedford: Pulled his hamstring in Pre-pre-game. It’s funny how Tedford said it. It was almost as if he was making a joke.
- Looking at things from halftime, but yet knowing Cal will score on their opening possession of the 2nd half, that fumble for a touchdown on the opening drive of the game was huge. Because of the ease with which the offenses scored in this game, it was if the Cal Bears got the opening possession/score of BOTH halves. Add in that they were able to get the last possession of the 1st half and it was a HUGE advantage.
- The goal line stand on the 1st Tennessee possession of the 2nd half was huge. Tennessee was able to move down the field so quickly, just like in the first half, but to hold them without any points… just huge. It seemed to be the series on which the defense built from for the rest of the game.
- Longshore’s funk took off that one series after halftime (since I’ve established it started in the 2nd quarter), but it was in full force on their 2nd possession of the 2nd half.
- The defense stepped up in the 4th quarter almost explicitly starting with the end of the 3rd quarter whistle. It was almost as if they each said “now I know I have enough juice/energy to play all out for the rest of the game”. I mean, the Tennessee offense looked to be rolling to another TD at the end of the 3rd, but they couldn’t get their next 1st down of the 4th quarter, held the driving Tennessee offense to 3 and then forced Tennessee to punt on their next possession.
- It was nice to see the TV commentary show some footage on how DeSean was drawing double coverage and all kinds of extra emphasis. Despite not having great receiving numbers he did a great job if for no other reason that freeing up other receivers.
- Rulon Davis was the most positive surprise on defense. He seemed like the veteran, not the young inexperienced guy, especially late in the game.
- Forsett took finishing the game off on his back starting with that TD run to go up by 14… dragging and bouncing off tacklers.
- In the 1st quarter we saw Cal making a statement playing physical football. To some degree things settled down in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. But in the 4th quarter, both lines and the running backs were making a statement again.
- I heard some criticism of the “Pac-10 football” chant while the Volunteer player was down with a neck injury. After watching the TV coverage, I can understand why there was the misimpression that the chant was in response to him getting knocked down. The chant was surprisingly audible on the TV sounding like it was the whole stadium in unison. The reality was that it was only the east side of the stadium, mostly the student section, the side that didn’t have a good view of the injury both as it happened and as he was being attended to, that was chanting and that they seemed to think we were just in a TV timeout. Also, on the TV coverage, one couldn’t hear very well either of the first 2 standing ovations there were for the young man. They were as resounding and heart felt as the 3rd one that was shown as he was carted off the field. Contrary to how it seemed on TV, I was very proud of my Cal counterparts for how, despite all the animosity in the lead up to the game, we acted in that situation.
- Going over the goal-line Cal fumble, I still content like I did in my podcast that there is no way that ball made it into the endzone for the touchback. Although I’m not as convinced as I was at the game, it still seems pretty clear that Tennessee should have got the ball at the 1 yard-line. Thankfully the Cal defense decided to “over rule” the call on the field by stopping Tennessee in the backfield.
- Wrapping up the TV coverage, I think Cal got the props it deserved from the announcers. In fact, they got into those overly-high platitudes that they tend to get at the end of the game.
OK, that wraps up my thoughts on the game. Still a great win for the program and one that should counter-act some of the stereotypes of the Pac-10 and specifically Cal. Of course there will always be those homers who refuse to recognize reality (the popular Tennessee answer today seems to be that their team sucks and they’re going to get crushed in their conference schedule which is of course a back-handed put down to Cal), but can rest in the confidence of knowing that we’ll have specific stats and games to point to when the SEC homers talk about how weak the Pac-10 is.
GO BEARS!!!
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:31 pm
I agree, things that I thought were terrible in person looked much better when seeing them on TV. The pass rush really wasn’t that great, but it looked like everybody was pretty much where he should have been. Ainge had all the time to make his passes. We have to find a way to pressure the QB.
One question…what was the official penalty against Cal on the third quarter opening kick off? The ref’s microphone in the stadium didn’t work and I assumed I’d get an answer watching the televised version, but, same problem.
I heard something about two players with the same number? Doesn’t whoever shouldn’t have been out there know that he doesn’t usually play on the return team and, therefore, shouldn’t have been out there? Or was it something else?
I also agree that Brent Musberger is an obvious Pac-10 homer. And Kirk Herbstreit has always been a Bear fan, so I was happy to see him up in the box behind my seat.
I’d very much like to know if anyone is going to address the public safety issue with trying to exit the stadium with only a couple of gates open. What if there had been an earthquake? There was no getting out of that stadium any too quickly. I think it took us upwards of 25 minutes to get out of the main stadium onto that outer concourse and through the gate. That isn’t legal is it?
We all pay lots of money for season or game tickets to support our wonderful Bear football program–and with that, all of Cal athletics. Why is it that the tree sitters are allowed to stay perched behind fences that are causing gate closures? It seems to me that the University administration is choosing to avoid more public controversy (by demanding the forceful removal of the sitters) at the expense of our safety and convenience.
On the televised game, there was a sideline interview at 11:25 of the second quarter with “Mr. Vice Chancellor” Nathan Brostrom about the whole issue. He said to kick them out of the trees would “be such an incredible drain on University resources and time.” He also said the police would have to be on call day and night to keep up with it and that they would prevail in the upcoming trial in two weeks anyway.
While what he said made some sense, it still isn’t the right solution on game day. Especially when they were expecting such a HUGE crowd this last weekend. I say, stretch the resources. I know what I paid for my season tickets and parking and everything else; if just half of that crowd there on Saturday paid that (and I know they did and more), they have the resources to make sure that we can move freely and safely in and out of the stadium.
(Not to mention there were quite a few of us that felt like the guy washing his car in The Far Side cartoon and all the birds are looking down on us with a big ol’ target on our heads!! I’d hate to think of what they’ve got stored away in buckets up there. I know Herbstreit was pretty mortified when they showed footage of one of the guys up in the tree and he had his new package of toilet paper!)
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:51 pm
@TrumanHugh: The penalty was because on the kickoff, Cal had two players wearing the same number on the field at one time. Ah, the double-number games finally bite us! Also, when there’s an earthquake you’re not supposed to exit the stadium via the west side (where the hippies are) — if you’re in the west side you go down onto the field, and then presumably when it’s safe you go up and out the other side, where you can exit without actually going through the superstructure of the stadium.
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:05 am
More specfically, Thomas DeCoud and Jahvid Best.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:13 am
Ah, so it was Best and DeCoud who were both on the field for the kickoff and both wearing the number 4. Looks like one of the two is about to either change their number or no longer be on the return team.
As Jason said, I’ve been curious if that was ever going to bite us and it looks like it has. Here’s my question: how many times have we violated the rule and nobody noticed? I mean, it’s not like the refs have time to check every number on every play and unless something comes up that brings it into question (scenario-> coach: “#4 did a block in the back!?!” ref: “how could he, he was way back there.” coach: “not THAT #4, this guy over here!” ref: “Oh, I didn’t see the other… HEY, wait one $@(#@ minute!?!” (ref throws flag in the air).) nobody, including the refs, is going to notice. And, now that we busted the rule, will there possibly be more scrutiny of our numbering? Will this be the domino that leads to a lot more penalties?
That’s my fear anyway.
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Thought I’d share a bit from Adam Duritz’s Blog entry:
“Oh yeah, and Cal kicked the shit out of Tennessee last night (said with all due respect to the Vols and their fans, since they were all really nice and cool when we were in Knoxville last year and they were busy kicking the shit out of us) and that means, even if I couldn’t be there, that all is still right with the world (for a little added bonus, fucla put their boot so far up stanfurd’s ass yesterday that the rest of them probably went with it, likely resulting in the first of many personal colonoscopies for the oh-so-deserving cardinal and an up-close-and-personal view of where we’re going to put our boot when we play them for the bruins).”
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
[…] Ken Crawford: “I heard some criticism of the “Pac-10 football†chant while the Volunteer player was down with a neck injury. After watching the TV coverage, I can understand why there was the misimpression that the chant was in response to him getting knocked down. The chant was surprisingly audible on the TV sounding like it was the whole stadium in unison. The reality was that it was only the east side of the stadium, mostly the student section, the side that didn’t have a good view of the injury both as it happened and as he was being attended to, that was chanting and that they seemed to think we were just in a TV timeout. Also, on the TV coverage, one couldn’t hear very well either of the first 2 standing ovations there were for the young man. They were as resounding and heart felt as the 3rd one that was shown as he was carted off the field. Contrary to how it seemed on TV, I was very proud of my Cal counterparts for how, despite all the animosity in the lead up to the game, we acted in that situation.” […]
September 4th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Jason…I wasn’t talking about an earthquake situation…what if there had been a bomb scare in the stadium, would you be rushing for the field? I wouldn’t. I’d be getting as far away from that stadium as possible. And so would 73,000 other panicked people…all rushing for the exit gates, that were only minimally available.
My issue was more about the University choosing to put the convenience of the tree sitters ahead of ours…the people who pay lots of money every season to make this all possible.
September 7th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Game BitTorrent
I’m getting alot of requests from friends to post my game recording from my tivo. I posted the torrent file on my site… but i don’t know how to post it to a torrent search engine (anyone know how?). Anyway, here is the torrent if you want it…
http://www.danchung.net/cal