(Written by kencraw)

What do you want first, the good news or the bad news?

That wasn’t really a question, but just a way to do introduce that this is the first of a pair of posts, the first about our issues going into this year, and the second being the reasons to be optimistic. Since I’d like to finish on a positive note, let’s start with the bad:

• True Freshman QB: The history of true freshmen quarterbacks is littered with highly touted, highly ranked recruits who’s last moment looking good is when trotting onto the field before the first snap. After that, it’s all downhill, the young man often permanently scarred going through such a painful season, never to recover, never to be heard from again except in cautionary tales by bloggers who’ve been around for a while. And while I’ve got some reason for optimism (for another post), there’s no denying that Jared Goff is battling odds that are stacked heavily against him.
• The injuries seems to be piling up early: Every team sustains injuries during fall practice, but it feels like the body count is a bit high at this point. The result is that you’re going to see a lot of new and young faces on Saturday. RS Freshmen Steven Moore starting at Right Tackle (Ouch!) with Bill Tyndall out, Hardy Nickerson at middle linebacker with Nick Forbes not healthy yet, and Damariay Drew at strong safety if Avery Sabastian can’t play on Saturday. And that doesn’t cover the lesser player injuries.
• Young offensive line: As mentioned above, there will be a RS Freshman offensive linemen starting on Saturday who we didn’t expect, but in addition to that, we’ve got another RS Freshman on the right side (guard Matt Cochran). While the left side looks stronger with Tagaloa and Rigsbee, they’re both only sophomores and our lone upper-classman, Adcock at center, hasn’t exactly impressed me (yet). If there’s good news, 2014, and 2015 in particular, look very strong with a lot of experience. But this year there’s going to be a lot of growing pains.
• New systems don’t take hold over night: I’ve been doing my best to understand the pros and cons of Dykes’ offensive system and I’ve still got a lot to learn. But one thing I know for sure is that this system is about as different as one can get from Tedford’s system. There’s just no way they’re going to be operating at 100% efficiency, particularly in the 1st game. To pile on top of that, while I was pretty soft on the defensive change to the 4-3 in my earlier post, it would have been nice if the defense wasn’t going through an overhaul as well, at least for 2013.
• The worst possible schedule for a young team: A young team does best when they ease into their schedule. If I could have dictated the schedule for this year, I would have played Colorado State to open the season, then our FCS team, then Maryland or Rutgers (or similar). After that I would want to see Colorado, then Arizona, then moving up to a tougher team like Oregon State and Washington, then a bit of relief with a game like WSU, then USC and Oregon, then the other one of UW and OSU, before wrapping up with Stanford. Or in way of summary, back-load, but don’t OVER back-load. Instead we get a ‘returning just about everyone from a 10-3 team’ Northwestern, #2 Ohio State and #3 Oregon in the 1st 4 games. After that, things look a lot better, but it sure would be nice to have gotten some easier games early.

That’s what on the top of my list anyway.

(Written by kencraw)

I was reminded of an odd-rule that exists in both college and pros last night watching the 49’ers pre-season game. An offensive player committed a dead-ball foul just after making a first down. The result was the ball was moved back 15 years (it was a personal foul) and it was 1st and 10.

This has never made any sense to me. Shouldn’t it be 1st and 25?

If it’s 1st and 10 and the running back gains 5 yards and when he gets up he head-butts a defensive player (a dead-ball, personal foul), the ball will be moved back 15 yards and it will be 2nd and 20 instead of 2nd and 5. Those 15 yards don’t magically disappear as far as down and distance is concerned. Why if he instead gains 12 yards, does it not affect the post-foul down and distance?

Of course there are two possible ways to do it, both of which would make sense to me. If he gained 12 yards, it could be 2nd and 13, moving the ball back for the penalty before determining whether a 1st down was reached. Or it could be 1st and 25, moving the ball back after moving the chains. (BTW, 1st and 25 makes more sense to me, particularly since dead-ball fouls can happen a long time after the previous down is complete but still before the huddle of the next.)

But doing this weird ‘after the 1st down is reached but before the new chains are set’ thing just doesn’t feel right.

Anyone else ever thought this?

(Written by kencraw)

Preseason rankings are a real challenge. If nothing else, it’s all based on opinion since no games have been played. But additionally one has to decide how to rank them. Does one rank them based on how good they think they are right now, i.e. if they were to play every possible team in the first season of the week, you’d expect all teams above them to beat them, and all teams below them to lose to them, or do you rank them where you expect them to land at the end of the season?

There seems to be a movement towards taking the 2nd strategy and I couldn’t disagree more. It creates all the wrong incentives and pre-biases the teams the wrong way. What it all comes down to is schedule. Teams with hard schedules will get ranked lower because the ranker “doesn’t see how they can get through that schedule unscathed” (or something like that). Teams with weak schedules but who by the ranker’s own admission aren’t as good, who have a shot at being undefeated will likely end the season higher ranked based on the benefit of the doubt and their record, they’ll put higher.

The result, since pre-season rankings only affect “seeding”, is that the team who most needs some early season ranking support when the ranking drops after they lose one or more of those tough games, is least likely to get it. The team that is weak and needs to do something to earn it, doesn’t have to because they start at the top.

There’s already far too many powerful incentives to schedule weak. We don’t need another.

Pre-season rankings should be based on how good the team is in the opinion of the ranker as they exit training camp without any biasing towards the ease or difficulty of the schedule. I understand why the pundits want to talk about it, and in concept I’ve got no problem with that, but when they put their rankings down on paper, they need to forget it.

(Written by kencraw)

Did a Northwestern fan/student (or perhaps Washington), hack the CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com site? Why is their background now purple?

(Written by kencraw)

The webpage describing this change has slightly more precise text than the e-mail I received:

A backpack is considered a bag worn on or over your shoulders. It can have one or two straps and have one or more zippered pockets. Both adult and kids backpacks are not allowed.

So, it looks like it’s still a question of whether it is designed to be worn over your shoulder, but they seem to be implying (the word “can” leaves them wiggle room) that if it doesn’t have either an over-the-shoulder strap AND at least one zippered pocket, it’s not a backpack. So a bag that you put over your shoulder that is open ended (without zippers) or perhaps has snaps or a drawstring opening wouldn’t count. But it also looks like a fanny pack or a small duffel that has zippers, as long as it doesn’t have an over the shoulder strap, would be OK too.

And so I ask this question: In what way does this “enhance public safety and improve stadium access” or from elsewhere on the same page “create a safer environment on game day”?

Source

(Written by kencraw)

Thanks to David, I think we have a first protest idea. Everybody brings a cheap backpack to the game to dump on the security personnel. David suggests some… ehem… “creative” things to put in the backpack. I’m not willing to go quite that far to put something in it so inflammatory. But I do think filling them with something is a good idea, at a minimum so that they take as much room as possible, but also to identify them as part of the protest.

It could be as simple as popcorn. Any ideas?

Looking quickly, this was the cheapest backpack I could find, for those who may not have an old one they’d be willing to donate to the cause:

Amazon – Everest Brown backpack: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005IFCGA4/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1IP5Q3GWK9OUR

Who’s with me?

(Written by kencraw)

Just got an e-mail from the athletic department: No backpacks allowed in Memorial Stadium this year.

THIS IS COMPLETE BS!

I’m not a criminal and I don’t expect to be treated like one. I tried to call 1-800-GOBEARS, but the line was busy… Likely because I’m not the only one who’s upset.

It’s ridiculous policy for a number of reasons:

• First and foremost, because bags up to 14x14x6 are still allowed. The prior rule was the same except backpacks of that same dimension were allowed. So what defines a backpack? Thankfully, at least they’re willing to define it: “A backpack is considered a bag worn on or over your shoulders. It can have one or two straps, have one or more zippered pockets.” Uh, what kind of security concerns does limiting bags that meet that sort of description limit?
• It’s ridiculous to release this policy two weeks before the first game, long after people have made ticket purchasing decisions and perhaps after people have purchased bags or other stuff that they might put in an existing backpack for the season, that they now are stuck with. They’d better at a minimum be willing to issue refunds for those who find this policy unacceptable.
• This hyper-security, over-bearing mindset is ridiculous. The e-mail starts out with “due to heightened security”. What sort of ridiculous BS is that. WHAT REASON do we have for heightened security!?! It’s all a bunch of scare tactics. More people have and will continue to die in their cars on the way to the game than will ever be killed by something that somebody is going to sneak in with their backpack.

Write a comment if you agree and answer the poll question.

(Written by kencraw)

Of all of the things I heard over the off-season, the one that gave me the most “instinctual” heart-burn, it has been the decision to return to the 4-3 defense from the 3-4. I think we all remember recent history, but for those who don’t, or perhaps to lay out how I think recent history went:

Starting in 2005 or so, spread offenses started to become all the rage (because they were working). The big thing they did was find a way for smaller teams to work around big defensive lines by going around them. They started developing key plays like the read-option where they could isolate one defensive end and take him out of the equation (either way he guessed, the play went the other way).

And as I said, it worked… almost too well.

But of course defensive coordinators aren’t going to stand still and just take a beating. They started developing new ideas. One of the first was the “Bend But Don’t Break” strategy, which relied on lot of zone coverage and spreading out the defense a bit. It worked to some degree, particularly when they’d force the spread offenses into a big loss every once in a while, breaking their rhythm and into more traditional passing situations on 3rd down where the big defensive linemen could go for broke after the QB. But it only worked so well and it left the defense on the field a lot giving up a lot of small gains that would take their toll in the 4th quarter.

The next stage of development started in the 2008-2009 time frame. (And to give credit to our former coaching staff of which I dare not speak, they were on the leading edge of this.) Defenses realized that by taking a defensive lineman off the field and replacing him with a linebacker they got a number of positive effects. First of all, there was more speed on the field to cover more territory. But just as important (and often overlooked) was the gap assignments of the defense were no longer as predictable to the offense. As a result, things like the read-option trap for the defense end was no longer so clear. Who’s the appropriate guy to read? The DE or the 4th/outside linebacker? It could change on each play depending on alignment.

And this new strategy worked! Looking at the teams who had defensive success against the best spread teams, most of them were 3-4 teams. And while the games of cat and mouse continue to the day, the playing field feels a lot more balanced.

So this 4-3 thing has to be a disaster in the making, right?

Frankly, it might be… but I’m also not so sure until I watch them on the field.

The reality is the line between a 3-4 and a 4-3 has blurred. If you have your outside linebacker up on the line with his hand on the ground pre-snap, how much different is that than a 4-3? If you replied with “speed”, then when your outside linebackers in the old 3-4 become DE’s in your new 4-3, how different is THAT?

The more I think about it, I guess to some degree 4-3 vs. 3-4 isn’t all that important. But I do think there are some concepts that have been integrated into the modern 3-4 offenses that are very important to success in today’s Pac-12. So if you’re going to run a 4-3, you need to make sure you incorporate these things.

So this post was a long way of saying here’s what I’m looking for out of the defense when they take the field:

• Do they occasionally drop linemen into coverage? One of the keys to the 3-4’s is that where the rush is coming from is very confusing to the QBs and the offensive linemen. You do that by bringing different linebackers at different times. And at some point, you bring so many linebackers that you need a lineman to get up out of his stance and cover the middle zone. This is even more true when 4 of your rushers (instead of 3) are “predictable rushers”.
• Are the outside linebackers lining up fairly widely? Remember in 2011 when USC beat the ever-loving-crud out of us? (Yeah, I’ve mostly blocked it out too, but dig deep, it’s in there somewhere.) One of the things I remembered was part of how they beat us was by placing the outside linebackers extremely widely. Whenever we went sideways, which we liked to do a lot with Maynard and co. that year, it was a disaster. It seems like the 4-3’s that are successful place their outside linebackers pretty wide (although I don’t think it has to be as wide as USC did that night).
• Where are the safeties playing? An alternative to the previous strategy is to bring the safeties up, on the outside. This has an upside of keeping the inside run support fairly strong with the outside linebackers able to collapse inside as needed. The downside of this strategy is that there are certain deeper passing routes that are harder to cover with the safeties out of their traditional positions. However, I think a fairly innovative defensive coordinator will be doing the same sort of “position swapping” (or maybe you could call it ‘creative zone coverages”) that we’re seeing today between the linemen and backers, but instead between the safeties and their fast linebackers. It’s something that will keep the QB REALLY off balance. (If I see this I’ll be very impressed, but will expect to see some growing pains.)
• How dominant are our ‘true’ linemen? I think the #1 key to the 4-3 is that by putting 4 big bodies up on the line you have the potential to be very disruptive right off the snap. But that’s the thing… they NEED to be disruptive. You can’t have a stalemate on the line. Back in the pre-spread days, stalemates on the line were often OK because on running plays the stalemate resulted in a minimal gain and passing plays could often be contained by good secondary coverage. These days, if you’re going to have big bodies on the line, they’d better be disruptive right off the snap (and BTW, I think we have the personnel for this).

So, is the 4-3 bad? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s what I’ll be looking for to find out.

(Written by kencraw)

Oh for the love of Pete! Yet again (probably during some wordpress upgrade) the setting requiring that comments come from logged-in users turned back on without my permission. Since I don’t HAVE ANY (except for myself) it means that no one can comment.

It’s really frustrating because I can’t see it happening, because I’m logged in as me, so the comment fields show up fine. I have to purposefully logout to see it or go to the comment settings page, which is a pain.

Luckily there are enough of you out there kind enough to send me an e-mail that I find out about it before too long. It’s turned back on now, comment away!

Update at 11:30 AM: And the “auto-moderate” is also now turned off. You’re comments will show up right away.

(Written by kencraw)

For those who haven’t heard, Jared Goff has been named the starting quarterback.

This was a moderate surprise to those who have believed the rumor mill dating back to the 2012 season that Zack Kline was the program’s savior, but for those who had been paying attention, it wasn’t that much of a surprise:

• Coach Sonny has long said that the keys to being his QB was consistency, accuracy and quick decision making. Who’s been most consistent since Spring practice? Who’s the only one who can somewhat routinely hit the trash can in their throwing drill (accuracy)? I think the thing that has been hindering Goff has been the decision making, but the word on the street is that he’s improved dramatically since Spring practice and is doing as well if not better than Kline.
• Which QB was recruited by Sonny? I think the tie goes to the guy that the head coach recruited.
• As Dykes said in his comments, Goff isn’t really a “true-freshman”, he’s an early-enrolled freshman. Being here for spring practice, and then having the time between then and now to absorb the system makes a WORLD of difference in regards to freshmen QBs.
• Kline just threw too many interceptions in practice to make his case. He may have one heck of an arm, but the new offense is predicated more on accurate short throws instead of long passes.

And here’s the kicker, the lore around Kline, is just that: lore. Lot’s of people were sick of Maynard last year. Lot’s of people wanted a change. And is the case on every team where the starting quarterback is struggling, the backup QB is the knight in shining armor ready to save the team. But the few times I saw him play in practices I was never really overly impressed. That’s not to say he didn’t have potential. That’s not to say he wouldn’t have been a better choice than Maynard. But it is to say he was no miracle savior.

But the rumor mill/peanut gallery/fanciful dreamer crowd was just too strong in creating a fairy tale that Kline was this semi-mythic recruit destined to save the program once he was given the chance.

News flash: It just wasn’t based on facts.

This if of course not to say that Goff was for sure the right choice. I don’t really know (and unless you’ve been at all the practices, you don’t know either). But what I do know is that this shouldn’t be a shocking surprise. Goff earned being named the starting QB and most showed the characteristics that make a good QB, particularly in Dykes system. I’m looking forward to seeing him perform on 8/31.

GO BEARS!

(Written by kencraw)

OK, it’s time to get this show back on the road. I wanted to start earlier in August, but it’s been a really busy month.

So what can you expect from me this year? In a lot of ways, more of the same. I’d be interested in feedback on whether the On The Road Home podcast continues to be appreciated. I’ll be going to 2 (UCLA, Stanford), possibly 3 (Colorado) of Cal’s 5 road games, if that helps bias people one way or another. I’ll of course be going to all the home games. But in addition to that, I plan the following, weekly:

-Pre-game prediction post
-Post game wrap-up
-2 to 5 commentary posts
-(Maybe) a video review of the game (mostly game footage, not my ugly face)

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to make it to practice this year and looking at the next two weeks, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it before the season starts. Nevertheless, this year there is more info out there on practice than there has been in forever, so there’s plenty out there for me to comment on.

(Written by kencraw)

(Sorry for the lack of posts. I may have a post or two now and then (probably a couple around signing day for instance and a few around spring practice) but it’s going to be pretty quiet for the next few months. I’ll be back in regular form when fall practice gets under way.)

I watched the Superbowl last night and reminded myself why I prefer college football. Who here thinks Beyonce’s halftime show is appropriate for 10 year old boys? I sure as heck don’t. Yeah, it was no nipple-gate, but still, that outfit and her gyrations were so hyper-sexualized that it frankly upset me watching my 10-year old (my oldest) practically drooling sitting 5 feet from our new LED-LCD HDTV (in a shock and awe kinda way… he hasn’t hit puberty yet).

I probably wouldn’t have thought much of the otherwise ho-hum performance if he wasn’t in the room, but watching him watch it, I thought to myself “uhhh… he shouldn’t be watching this… uhhh… do I make a big deal about it and get him out of the room (and thus giving it an allure) or do I just pretend it’s no big deal… uhhh… decision paralysis!?!” (I ended up pretending it was no big deal.)

And there were similar issues in some of the commercials too. (As an aside, what a weak year for the commercials… there were a couple good ones, but overall weak.)

It was so bad I’m considering writing a letter to the NFL. They pretend to try and be family friendly, and those pretenses used to have some moderating effect on the content, but I think they’ve abandoned any meaningful commitment to that in the last couple years.

And I thought to myself after watching the trophy ceremony and turned off the TV after 6 continuous hours (started watching at 2:30) of an amazingly over-hyped, over-produced affair, that I really, really, really prefer college football.

It’s far more family friendly and far more about the sport itself.

(Written by kencraw)

We all got the news last night that Sonny Dykes, current head coach of Louisiana Tech, former OC of Arizona (when their offense was good), has been hired as the Cal head coach.

In a lot of ways this is not at all a surprise. He’s been high on the list for a long time and unlike the others who hadn’t telegraphed interest in Cal, Dykes had both said he was interested and was currently sitting on a not-all-that-lucrative existing contract.

My guess is that Barbour got him for “cheap”, i.e. less than $2M, with a number of performance bonuses built in. I’m also guessing she’s planning on spending the extra cash on a top-notch defensive coordinator of Dykes choosing (rumor is New Mexico State head coach DeWayne Walker) and then also to generally boost the quality/pay of the assitants.

What surprises me is how much negative commentary there is out there about this hire. It seems like a good one to me. Seems to me all he needs to get to the next level is to have a good defense, something hopefully we have the money to hire someone as a DC who will do well for us.

Plus, he has Pac-12 connections (for recruiting) from his time at Arizona.

I think this is a good hire.

(Written by kencraw)

Jeff Tedford was fired today.

It was the right decision.

But that doesn’t make it any less disheartening.

Tedford was the best thing to happen to Cal football in at least 25 years, if not 50. How can one be happy when his time has passed? It’s like being joyful at a funeral because you’ll be able to go play golf tomorrow and not go to the retirement home to visit grandpa. Yeah, the retirement home can be dreary and depressing, kinda like the last 5 football games, but I can’t be happy today at Tedford’s funeral because I don’t have to sit through another difficult game with him at the helm.

This doesn’t change at all that firing him was necessary (and please don’t complete my previous metaphor about grandpa… its limited applicability ended with the sadness, NOT with Euthanasia) and frankly, I think it was that sort of determination by Barbour to do what was necessary that Tedford lacked in recent years.

The big question is, how could a coach who had done so well for so long, fall so hard? We all know that the program has been on the wrong path for at least a few years, but how many was it? Why was Longshore that last QB to have true success under Tedford? Why did a team that ALWAYS won their bowl game start losing them and then not even making it to them? Why did a team that tended to finish strong, so often finish with a whimper?

And when did it really start? Did it start when Maynard was named QB (and perhaps as a concession to Allen)? Did it start in 2010, the first losing season? Or how about 2009, where the Bears lost their final two games after upsetting both Arizona and Stanford?

I’ve thought about this a lot and for me I think it all goes back to the most iconic moment in Tedford’s career… the last second lost to Oregon State in 2007. I’ve had this thought for a long time, but I haven’t been sure or confident in it, so I’ve been hesitant to harp on such an overly analyzed moment.

But now that Tedford has been fired, I think it is time to take stock of his entire career, leaving no stone unturned, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the moment Kevin Riley was tackled and Tedford let his emotions get the better of him for just a second, was the moment everything changed.

Ryan Gorcey summed it up very well in his column today:

After heaving his headset to the turf following a rookie play by rookie quarterback Kevin Riley on Oct. 13, 2007, when the Bears were just moments from being the top team in the land, thanks to a bevy of other upsets, Tedford vowed to be more in-control on the sidelines, to be more of a CEO. What he became was even more conservative, even more guarded, even more insular.
…
Before that night, Tedford was 48-20 as Cal’s head coach, with a 27-14 record against the Pac-10. Since that night — including that gut-wrenching loss — Tedford is 33-37 overall, and 21-30 against conference opponents.

Before that night, Cal had lost just six games by 14 points or more. Since then? 17 losses by 14 points or more. Tedford has gone 2-4 against the Cardinal. He has gone to four bowl games, and lost twice, having not won a bowl game since the 2008 Emerald Bowl in San Francisco.
…
This is a man that has let his caring for his players — who has let the desire to please his charges, and to do what he thinks is best for them — get in the way of doing what needs to be done, of adjusting and changing and adapting. By his own admission, he has trusted players too much, particularly when it came to finishing their degrees — with a vast majority of players who count against the graduation success rate still having two or fewer online classes to take after promising Tedford years ago that they would get them taken care of.

Frankly, the numbers Gorcey references speak for themselves and prove that 10/13/2007 was the day when everything changed. But why? Why did that somewhat innocuous, understandable mistake (a rookie mistake by a rookie), have had such tremendous effect on the program?

And the answer is because Tedford’s heart grew 10 sizes that day and he lost the edge that made him the successful coach he was.

Many times after that year, Tedford made significant changes to the program, but they were all just a futile effort, an exercise in re-arranging the deck chairs as the ship went down, because the one thing that really needed changing, was the one thing he was unwilling to do… to return to the hard-edged Tedford that built up the program.

That hard-edged Tedford was a man that Tedford himself didn’t like. It was a hard, driven man, who was decisive and determined. Before that day, when Tedford was asked a stupid question in a post-game interview, the reporter would shrink after Tedford’s cut-throat answer and intimidating stare let the reporter know he was an idiot.

Since that day, Tedford answered questions in a far more dismissive and non-confrontational way. While there was still a gruff edge to him, it was more like a curmudgeoney old man instead of a heartless dictator. Mostly, he kept his demons bottled up inside and did his best to answer with platitudes so as not to be overly harsh or confrontational.

Looking at the transformation a different way, Tedford took stock of himself after that night and decided he didn’t like what he saw in the mirror. He vowed to change who he was and win a different way.

Sadly, he never found a way to do it.

In short, that fateful night in 2007 was the moment that Tedford contracted a disease that ended up being terminal. He let compassion get in the way of leadership. He let kindness get in the way of truth. He let generosity get in the way of righteousness.

So how can I be happy when compassion, kindness and generosity killed a beloved coach’s job; when compassion, kindness and generosity allowed him only one season in The House that Tedford Built; when compassion, kindness and generosity cause people to dance on his grave?

I just can’t be happy that these are the things that took Tedford down, no matter how true it is and how necessary it was that he be fired. I can’t imagine being anything but devastated when taking stock of what caused his fall from grace, no matter how painful a fall it was.

Tedford, if you ever read this, (and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way) you will always be considered a Cal great in my eyes and I will always look back on your time as the Cal football coach with fondness. I’m very sorry it had to end this way and will always look back on today with a certain sense of regret, no matter how successful Cal is in the future.

I will instead do my best to chose to remember moments like USC 2003, Oregon 2006 and 2007, Tennessee 2007, all the Big Games you won, particularly 2002 and 2009, the 2003 Insight Bowl, the 2006 Holiday Bowl and 2008 Emerald Bowl. These were great moments for Cal football and we have you to thank for them.

Thank you for your 11 years of faithful service to Cal football. California Memorial Stadium will ALWAYS be The House that Tedford Built and someday, when time has allowed for hardened hearts to soften, I hope to see a statue out front to commemorate that.

(Written by kencraw)

Saw Hydro’s last post on CGB, including this tidbit:

I have not ONCE ever stopped watching a game early. No matter how bad the loss. No matter how painful it was to watch. Yes, I’ve sat through the drubbings we received from Oregon in 2008 and 2009. The USC losses where we were competitive for about half a quarter. Watched all that [redacted]. Except for this game. For the first time in 11 years I turned off the TV and went about the rest of my life like a Cal Football game wasn’t on.

The same is true for me.

I was there when the clock expired against Oregon just over a week ago, when everyone else had been frozen out. I sat through the 2009 Oregon drubbing (although we won in 2008, so he’s misremembering that one). I’ve also never left or turned it off.

But on Saturday night, watching via a crummy streaming connection and getting tired, I asked myself what the point of this was during the 3rd quarter and I turned it off and watched a movie.

When both HydroTech and KenCraw do that, it’s time for a coaching change.

While on the topic of HydroTech, it appears he’s turning in his blogging keys and moving on with his life.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank him for his years of service to the Cal blogosphere and wish him the best of luck in his culinary endeavors. Your voice will be missed Hydro!

(Written by kencraw)

Still don’t have a lot to say about the Bears, although I probably will have some larger reflections about things after this afternoon’s meeting between Barbour and Tedford, particularly if it goes the way I think it goes…

But right now I want to give some hope to Oregon fans: YOU NEED NO MIRACLE!

It’s amazing how analysts don’t look forward and do some easy calculations when they talk about things. Here’s what Oregon needs:

1. USC to beat Notre Dame on its home turf
2. UCLA to beat Stanford
3. Win their remaining games against OSU and then the Pac-12 title game against UCLA at home.

I ask anyone out there to give me a different team who would play the winner of the SEC title game for the BCS championship besides Oregon in that scenario.

Kansas State lost to a FAR inferior team than Oregon did, so they’re going to swap spots relative to each other. Notre Dame will have lost more recently than Oregon, always a bad thing in the BCS, and will return to their spot below Oregon as they have all season.

Then there’s the 3 SEC teams with one loss (Alabama, Georgia and Florida), of which either Alabama or Georgia will have a loss from the SEC title game. So the question is can Florida, who lost to Georgia, make it a 2nd consecutive year of an all-SEC title game? That’s the strongest possibility that would keep Oregon out, but my gut says no. So I guess if you wanted something to REALLY ensure it’ll be Oregon, add Florida State beating Florida this week to the list.

I guess it’s theoretically possible a one-loss Florida State, after upsetting Florida next Saturday as Oregon fans now otherwise want, could get back in the mix, but since they’re currently #10, that’s a HUGE longshot with the ACC not having much respect and their loss to North Carolina State being of a far lesser quality that Oregon’s loss to Stanford.

So I submit to you, if the above happens, all of which is VERY reasonable and not a “miracle” as Ted Miller puts it, Oregon WILL play for the national title.

(Written by kencraw)

If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all…

…and there’s nothing nice to say.

Frankly, it’s been a rough couple weeks all the way around, ever since I got home from Salt Lake City. Pretty much ever since I got off the train I’ve been in over-drive for work, trying to get on top of all the things that need to get done, many of which that are now overdue. Even worse, the near-term future doesn’t look any more hopeful. There’s not an obvious light at the end of my work tunnel, that I can see anyway.

It’s one thing to push really hard when one is motivated or even when one is filled with joy, but it’s a far more difficult slog when the things that usually lift you up are instead crumbling down around you.

Thus, while I have a fairly firm no politics or religion policy on this blog, a policy that came after years of seeing the problems with doing it, (What I’ve learned is that while my faith is the most important thing in my life and I will never shy away from sharing it, there are times to let separate spheres remain separate.) today I’m briefly going to break my rule, not to evangelize (in fact quite the contrary), but to share why I don’t feel much like blogging about our beloved Bears.

One of the key principles of Christianity is hope. A mistake lots of people make about hope is to confuse it with delusional optimism. Instead, hope is not blind… it sees all that is going wrong and honestly faces reality. However, hope still overcomes. Hope refuses to despair in the face of troubling realities. When one believes in miracles, in an afterlife and in a loving God, one need not despair in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

As a bit of an aside, it’s actually one of the great thing about sports, is that it is a place where there are so many opportunities for hope. If nothing else, there’s always next season, right?

Nevertheless, because hope is not blind, unlike the Fox News set that delusionally thought that Romney would win on Tuesday, I had no such false illusions. Actually, it goes far deeper than that. I not only thought he would lose, I also had no illusion that Romney was a candidate worthy of being disappointed in his losing. Frankly, he’s the worst of the Republican party and a sign that the party is completely untethered from reality and also from the key principles that should motivate them.

Sadly, the alternatives are far worse. I’m sure there are plenty of Obama fans amongst my readers, so I’ll refrain from giving a long litany of why, despite how horrible Romney is, I could never throw my support behind Obama. Thus, I’ve got nowhere to turn. For those who’ve never been in this place, let me tell you, it’s quite depressing when everything you see on the ballot is the wrong choice. Frankly, it’s hard to see any reason to be hopeful, politically speaking.

When that’s the case, it’s nice when some other aspect of one’s life can give one reason to hope. And so I went to last Friday’s game against Washington hoping for a reason to hope. What I instead witnessed was a similarly disgusting display of incompetence from both teams.

Frankly, the parallel was too much to bear. Two teams, both too incompetent to watch and the team I root for (at this point the analogy becomes weak, as I don’t really “root” for Republicans, but for truth), is the loser, the more incompetent between two bumbling, pathetic teams. Man… this sure sounds a lot like the current political climate to me.

All of this is a long way of saying that between being extremely busy at work (and without much hope of that changing), having very little free time for my mind to find something to be positive about, and my favorite pass-time being so utterly depressing and hopeless, the Bears have very purposely been the furthest thing from my mind.

Because the truth of the matter is that football is just a game, politics is generally just a different game that has less impact than the pundits tell us (at least in a free country), and there is much to be both thankful for and hopeful about.

This life we have is a beautiful and hopeful one, and I refuse to let a game rob me of that hope and joy.

I’m sure the day where I can have hope in our beloved Bears is not too far away. Theoretically it could come as soon as Saturday night, even if the Bears lose. Anything from a strong performance by Bridgeford, or a repeat of 2010 where the Bear defense does what no other team has been able to pull off (did you know that Kelly’s Ducks have only been held below 19 twice? The 2010 game against the Bears, and Kelly’s first game in 2009 against Boise State.).

But even if it doesn’t come Saturday, hope will return to Cal football, likely sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, until either that happens or I get a strong injection of hope from some other aspect of my life that makes it easier to stare into the current Cal abyss, you probably won’t see a lot of posts out of me.

…at least until Saturday night.

(Written by kencraw)

Random thoughts before a fit-full/futile restless night of sleep:

1. Utah fans are a nice bunch and very talkative. Not at all like the arrogant reputation they have online on some sites. I only ran into two very mild trash talkers all day while wearing my Cal gear and they were quickly rebutted by others with sympathy.
2. Is there anything else I can say to put off my rant?
3. When I gave my game plan it was under the assumption that we would manage to make it a LOW risk affair. How the team managed to turn the game plan into such a mistake and bad-bounce riddled affair is beyond me.
4. Similarly, I didn’t expect the team to be SO committed to the plan that they would make no attempt to make Utah’s defense pay for their massive focus on the run game.
5. Tedford is starting to lose the team. The players held in remarkably long, but particularly on the defense you could tell there were series when their heart wasn’t in it.
6. Despite that only 28 points were given up by the defense and the numerous short fields they had to defend.
7. How many mistakes is Maynard allowed to make while still getting every snap of every game? Two of the three turnovers were his fault. He made countless other bad choices… Shouldn’t some other guys get some playing time at some point?
8. WHY THE HECK ARE THEY HIDING BIGELOW UNDER A ROCK!?! Just when you think the coaching staff is learning from their mistakes, they pull this one… Bigelow made them look like fools… AGAIN!?!

Too many caps, time to step away from the keyboard. I’ll post more from the train ride home tomorrow evening and the podcast after I get home.

(Written by kencraw)

It may be a bit small to see in the picture, but that is $137 with my Cal hat and the ticket to the Utah game. It is what I brought on the trip for incidentals. It looks like I’ll have at least $120 left when I return home. However much is left I am donating to the Fire Tedford fund. Maybe the big donors are tapped out, but we can do this $100 at a time if we need to.

(Written by kencraw)

This was one of my favorite lines from My Cousin Vinny long before Utah joined the conference…

(sorry for the poor quality video… Best I could find quickly)