(Written by kencraw)

Well, I don’t know for the rest of you but the break between the Washington game and the bowl game went by like a flash. Let me tell you, I went to every game this season in person, driving to every one of them but WSU and Maryland, and the Emerald Bowl will make it 13 games in 4 months. I have an entirely new appreciation for how the wear and tear of the season affects the players. It’s a long season and when you’ve got to be a full time student at the same time, or in my case have to work full time and support the family, it definitely takes its toll over the course of the season.

In any case, here are some ‘as they come to me’ thoughts on the upcoming game:

• About 10% of the fans will be Miami fans. They sold 4000 tickets through UM. While some of those were to Bear fans I’m sure, I think it’ll be offset by Miami fans who bought tickets through other sources. As a comparison, Stanford accounted for about 15% of the Big Game crowd.
• Speed, speed and more speed. Both teams love to emphasize speed on both sides of the ball. Of course Javhid Best is all about speed. So are the Miami RBs. Perhaps Cal doesn’t have the speediest wide-receivers, but there is speed there. Miami’s are even faster. The same goes on defense.
• Generally speaking, teams that rely on speed, rely on the big play and I think that has proven out this season for the Bears. It’s also true that the key to the Bear defense is preventing the big play while also getting pressure on the QB and good run stopping. That’s what the 3-4 is all about. It’s why the Bears were able to beat Oregon. So while I don’t expect the Cal offense to run wild on the Miami defense because they’ve got a lot of defensive speed, I do expect the Cal defense to do even better at coraling Miami. Particularly considering how mistake prone they can be, I think that’s something to be optimistic about.
• Playing in SF seems to be working out just fine for the Bears. Nobody seems to be complaining. If anything the low expectations for the bowl environment has helped them appreciate it more. Add in the comfort of practicing at home and the heavy fan bias at the game and I think the Bears should come ready to play.
• If you ever want to feel better about the Cal QB situation, read up some on the Miami QB situation. It’s a big difference between what Cal is dealing with where you’ve got two capable guys who just haven’t been able to make the leap to being good/great consistently and Miami where they’ve got really young guys who are very mistake prone and have fundamental problems. It feels more like Ayoob vs. Levy than Riley vs. Longshore.
• Miami is up to 5 suspended players. While most of them don’t seem like big hits to their on the field success, it does feel to me like there are some control issues for Miami. Remember that this is a program that is trying to clean its act up after a number of years where it was ‘anything goes’. While everyone was OK with that when they were winning national championships, now there is a renewed desire to see them play more cleanly. In any case, I’m not sure it will affect the outcome, but it’s one of those indicators that suggest not all is well inside the Miami camp.
• There seemed to be a certain lack of comfort/confidence of the Miami players at the Tuesday press conference. I could even be so bold as to say they looked tired and dazed. I suspect that San Francisco rain, a biting cold rain that is as dreary as it gets, just isn’t what they expected when they came to “California” for a bowl game. The more I think about it, if one team is going to come out of the tunnel under-prepared and lacking intensity, it’ll be Miami.

Those are my thoughts. But before you go thinking I think this game will be a walk in the park, if Miami comes to play and does a good job of coraling the Bears, I think it’ll be a tough one for them to win. It’s really about the Cal defense playing to their potential and tackling well. They’ve got to give the Cal offense plenty of chances to score and not require too many scores to win.

(Written by kencraw)

Yes, it’s official. Longshore is going to start the Emerald Bowl.

Most people thought when Tedford openned back up the QB position for the Emerald bowl it was just a ploy to either keep Miami on their toes or to keep Riley motivated to push hard. Well Tedford outdid himself in the surprise category yesterday by announcing that Longshore would start.

Make sure to vote in the poll. Is this the right choice?

(Written by kencraw)

My weekly statistical preview article is up at BearTerritory.net:

http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=893517

This is a subscription article.

(Written by kencraw)

My BearTerritory.net weekly podcast is up over at BearTerritory.net:

http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=893304

As always it is the one weekly piece of free content from me over at BearTerritory.net. Lots of discussion of Miami in it.

(Written by kencraw)

I just wanted to wish everyone out there a Blessed and Merry Christmas. Christ is amongst us!

As for the Cal blogging, yeah it has been slow ever since the Washington game wrap-up. I can’t speak for Jason, but for me I just needed a break. I will be live-blogging the Emerald Bowl from the pressbox however and expect a couple posts between now and then.

Merry Christmas

(Written by kencraw)

My weekly OTRH podcast is finished. Have a listen:

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(Written by kencraw)

Well, it’s the day of the final bowl selections, which means it is time for my annual rant about how bad the Pac-10 bowl lineup is.

The Pac-10 deserves a 2nd team playing on New Years day. End. Of. Story. Here are some of the other teams that get a New Years Day game (in order of not-so-bad to serious injustice):

• Michigan State: At 9-3, one game better than the Bears, which I’m sure I don’t have to remind everyone handily beat them, but they don’t have to play in the supposedly weak Pac-10. Were the Bears playing in a “just short of New Years Day” bowl, that would be one thing, but we’re not. we’re playing in a “you can’t even sniff New Years Day yet” bowl. So while a more-or-less superior Cal is playing in the Nut Bowl, Michigan State is playing in the high paying Capital One bowl.
• Iowa: At 8-4, the next on the list, but a team two further down the Big-10 standings from Michigan State.
• Clemson: At 7-5, yes you read that right, they’re record is as bad as the WORST Pac-10 team who is in the bowl games. I also submit to you that Arizona would be a handful for Clemson to beat. Nevertheless they’re playing in the Gator bowl.
• South Carolina: Also 7-5, South Carolina’s biggest claim to fame is that they play in the tough SEC and have what used to be one of the best coaches in college football.

So, here’s the count of teams each conference has on or after New Years day:

• SEC: 5 (Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Old Miss.)
• Big-10: 4 (Penn St., Ohio St., Michigan St., Iowa)
• Big-12: 4 (Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech., Nebraska)
• ACC: 2 (Virginia Tech, Clemson)
• Big East: 1 (Cincinnati)
• Pac-10: 1 (USC)

(Note, I’m ignoring the oddly placed AutoZone Liberty, International and GMAC bowls that are oddly after New Years day)

Tell me that the Pac-10 doesn’t deserve AT LEAST 2 teams on New Years day with the option of as many as 4 with two BCS berths and one other “at-large” option in addition to a 2nd guaranteed New Years day or later bowl.

It’s time for the Pac-10 commishioner to start getting on the ball here.

(Written by kencraw)

Well, word broke Saturday evening before the Arizona vs. ASU game was even finished that the Bears were headed to the Emerald bowl as everyone expected. All that we were waiting on was the opponent from the ACC, which would likely be Miami but could also be Florida State.

Of course what the decision to give the bid to Cal before the Arizona game was complete was that it wouldn’t have mattered if ASU won. The Vegas bowl was willing to take the winner of that game, whether or not they were better than 6-6. That was a bit surprising to me, although not completely so.

The opponent of Miami is not as nice as FSU would have been, but it’s still a notable East Coast team which means there will be more people watching. Although the Vegas bowl gets a lot higher pick in the Mountain West than the Emerald gets in the ACC, the reality is that the ACC is going to get a lot more attention from the “east coat bias” reporters than the Vegas. In that sense, the Emerald is a better bowl.

Here’s the entire Pac-10 lineup (no surprises):

USC in Rose vs. Penn State
Oregon in Holiday vs. Oklahoma State
Oregon State in Sun vs. Pittsburg
Arizona in Vegas vs BYU
Cal in Emerald vs Miami
No team for Hawaii bowl
No team for Poinsettia bowl

(Written by kencraw)

My weekly statistical preview article is posted over at BearTerritory.net:

http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=885778

As always it is a subscription article.

(Written by kencraw)

My weekly press conference and practice podcast over at BearTerritory.net is up:

http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=885311

As always this is free to non-subscribers.

(Written by jsnell)

From Pat Forde on ESPN.com:

Nastiest Fans — USC’s, last Saturday for the Notre Dame game. There were churlish drivers by the dozens en route to the stadium. There was the surly elevator operator who tried to tell a woman (Irish fan) escorting her son in a wheelchair that she had to leave her two young daughters behind to wait for the next elevator. And there were the fans spewing penitentiary-worthy profanity at the Notre Dame players and coaches as they exited the field. That “SC” stands for Stay Classy, Trojans fans.

My wife would certainly agree. And I would too. We have never seen ruder, more classless fans than the ones we met at the Coliseum. I won’t generalize — not all USC fans are jerks. But there are a bunch of jerks who like to dress up in red, go to the Coliseum, and say really nasty stuff.

(Written by jsnell)

I am not a big one to quote posters on Internet forums, but this one is too ripe to ignore. From a user on SI.com:

Just a few years ago Mack Brown pulled a classless act by lobbying poll voters to vote down Cal so that Texas could go to the Rose Bowl with 2 losses (Cal was 11-1 and lost to #1 USC by 6 points in L.A.). It worked and a number of voters did not even have Cal in their top 5 after Cal was #4 in the BCS the previous week. WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND! EAT IT MACK BROWN. You reap what you sow and Mack Brown more than anybody deserves this fate. I am not a Cal fan, but I remember thinking how classless Mack Brown was back then and eventually it caught up with him. I can guarantee you that somewhere Jeff Tedford is smiling.

Yes, I’ve had some issues with Texas coach Mack Brown (pictured, right, getting the stank eye from Phil) and his minions in the past.

I actually think Texas got hosed this year. But… live by the terrible system, die by the terrible system.

(Written by jsnell)

With Oregon State having been destroyed by Oregon, Cal’s bowl picture has cleared up somewhat.

Most Likely Scenario: Cal to the Emerald Bowl. By all rights, Cal should be headed for the Las Vegas Bowl. However, rumors persist that the Emerald Bowl will beg, borrow, bribe, and steal — basically do anything in its power — to wrest Cal away from the Las Vegas Bowl. So if the two bowls cut a deal, Cal will be playing in AT&T Park on Dec. 27.

Let’s assume that Cal beats Washington to go to 6-3 in the conference. The winner of the Arizona-Arizona State match-up next week would go to 5-4 in the conference and clinch fifth place. What this would normally mean is that fourth-place Cal would be destined for Las Vegas and fifth-place Arizona or Arizona State would be destined for San Francisco. Does it make sense for the two bowls to swap teams in that scenario, so that the Arizonans can drive to Vegas and the Cal fans can cross the bridge to San Francisco? You bet it does. And if Cal loses to Washington, they’d actually be right in the natural slot for the Emerald Bowl.

Even the craziest of scenarios — UCLA beats USC, Washington beats Cal, Arizona beats ASU — lead to the Emerald Bowl. In this scenario, Oregon still drops out of the Sun Bowl due to the no-repeat clause. But now Cal and Arizona are both 5-4 in conference. In this scenario the Sun Bowl would certainly pick Arizona, which has geographic proximity and the head-to-head win over Cal, so Arizona would go to the Sun Bowl. With Oregon kicked to the Las Vegas Bowl, Cal falls once again to AT&T Park.

Or let’s say Arizona State wins against Arizona to become bowl eligible and Cal loses to Washington. In that scenario, Cal and ASU would be tied for fourth place in the Pac-10. Assuming USC beats UCLA, that puts Cal and ASU tied for the slots that go to Las Vegas and Emerald. Emerald will want the team from the Bay Area, and once again, Las Vegas will choose a team from nearby Arizona.

Crazy Scenario: The only other real scenario at this point would occur because of a UCLA upset of USC. I’ll wait here until you stop laughing. Better now? Okay, if UCLA were to beat USC, two things would happen: Oregon State would go to the Rose Bowl and USC would almost certainly drop out of BCS contention, forcing it to the Holiday Bowl. By all rights Oregon deserves the next bowl as the Pac-10’s third-place team, but the Sun Bowl has a clause that allows it to turn away repeat teams, and the Ducks played in the Sun Bowl last year. So if UCLA pulls the upset, Cal is probably headed for El Paso.

A funny thing I’ve noticed in working these scenarios out. The Arizona-Arizona State game seems to have definite outcomes. The winner will play in the Las Vegas Bowl. If Arizona State loses, it’s not bowl eligible. But if Arizona loses, it will be the conference’s sixth bowl-eligible team. As a result, its consolation prize will be a trip to the Hawaii Bowl. Not too terrible.

Sory, Poinsettia Bowl. No Pac-10 team for you.

Ye Olde Bowle Handbooke

If USC beats UCLA: Rose: USC, Holiday: Oregon, Sun: Oregon State, Las Vegas: Arizona/Arizona State winner, Emerald: Cal, Hawaii: Arizona if it loses to ASU.

If UCLA beats USC: Rose: Oregon State, Holiday: USC, Sun: Cal, Las Vegas: Oregon, Emerald: Arizona/Arizona State winner, Hawaii: Arizona if it loses to ASU.

Please, smart readers, let me know if I’ve gotten anything wrong.

(Written by kencraw)

Here’s a quick rundown on what needs to happen for the Bears to end up in each bowl:

Holiday Bowl: Oregon State beats Oregon, Cal beats Washington and USC gets an at-large BCS berth, which likely requires them to win-out (Notre Dame and UCLA), although not an absolute requirement. In this case Cal is 3rd in the conference but gets the 2nd place bowl because of two BCS bowls for the Pac-10.

Sun Bowl: Two scenarios here. #1 Oregon State beats Oregon, Cal beats Washington and USC fails to get at-large BCS berth. That means USC is in Holiday and Cal goes to Sun bowl assuming they respect head-to-head over Oregon (and they’re likely to since Oregon was in the Sun last year). #2, USC still gets at-large BCS berth but Cal loses to Washington, causing them to fall below Oregon in the standings and so losing the Holiday bowl bid. That puts them in a tie for 4th with Arizona, assuming they beat ASU or a tie with ASU assuming they beat UCLA and Arizona. Cal would be alone in 4th if Arizona loses to ASU and ASU loses to UCLA the preceeding week. In the tied with either of the Arizona schools scenario, Cal could end up in any of the Sun, Vegas or Emerald depending on how the politics play out (and make sure to note that Arizona holds the head-to-head over Cal and is closer to the Sun Bowl than any Pac-10 team, so are likely to get the nod over Cal in that scenario. Similarly, although ASU doesn’t hold the head-to-head over Cal, they just won their last two games in this scenario and are much closer to the Sun than Cal is.). In the alone in 4th scenario, Cal’s guaranteed the Sun.

Las Vegas Bowl: Theoretically this would be an easy enough bowl to be in, but the word on the street is that the Emerald bowl is willing to do whatever it takes to get the Bears from the Vegas Bowl if that’s where they naturally fall. Forgetting for a moment those politics, the Bears end up in the Vegas if Oregon State loses to Oregon, Cal beats Washington and USC beats UCLA. Then USC goes to the Rose, OSU to the Holiday and Oregon to the Sun (another political scenario here: Sun trades down to get Cal because they don’t want Oregon two years in a row). In that scenario, Cal would “belong” in the Vegas (but probably end up in the Emerald). The Bears could also end up here if they lose to Washington but the Vegas picks Cal over either of Arizona or ASU that they’re potentially tied with.

Emerald Bowl: Pretty much if Cal beats Washington, they should in theory stay above the Emerald, all above politics aside. So what it takes to fall here, by the numbers anyway, if for Oregon to beat OSU, USC to beat UCLA, Arizona to beat ASU and Cal to lose to Washington. In that scenario it’s USC in the Rose, Oregon in the Holiday, OSU in the Sun, Arizona in the Vegas with the head-to-head over Cal and Cal in the Emerald. If you’re willing to include some politics, another way this happens is that Arizona State beats both UCLA and Arizona, becoming bowl eligible and 5-4 in the conference, tied with Cal after they lost to UW. Although Cal holds the head-to-head, Vegas is pretty close to Pheonix and they’d love to take ASU, particularly when the Emerald is begging for Cal anyway.

That’s about it for half-way reasonable scenarios. One other one that seems pretty improbably is the set of scenarios if UCLA upsets USC. That’s not a big change if Oregon State beat Oregon, but if Oregon State loses to Oregon we’ve now got a 3-way tie for first. To make life even more complicated, who wins the tie-breaker would now be determined by which of Cal (Oregon’s 2nd loss), Stanford (OSU’s 2nd loss) and UCLA (USC’s 2nd loss) are higher in the standings. Whoever lost to the highest team is out. Ironically, although it is pretty darned complicated when one gets into the details, no matter what Oregon State wins that tie-breaker. In any case, while it’s a fascinating scenario for the conference, for the Bears it doesn’t change much from any of the above scenarios where Oregon beat OSU with the possible exception of UCLA replacing ASU as the 6th bowl-eligible team that is also tied with Cal should they lose to Washington.

Phew!… Got it? Good.

(Written by kencraw)

A few additional notes from the Big Game that came to mind:

Riley blocking: There were a number of big plays in the game that were a direct result of our young quarterback making a key block. The busted play in the 1st quarter that Best turned into a 50 yard “reverse” was sprung by Riley blocking the contain man allowing Best to cut up field. On the reverse by Ross, Riley made *two* key blocks and was actually further up field than Ross all the way down to inside the 5 yard-line. Then there was another busted play were Best reversed his field and Riley was out there trying to make a block. While he didn’t do as good of a job on that one, the effort was there. To me, seeing the QB blocking is a sign of a strong team effort, that everyone, even the QB is trying to get a hat on a defender during run plays.

Referees lacked mobility: Of course the play everyone remembers is the bonk on the head. But the one that stuck in my head was on Best’s nifty little run up the middle in the 2nd half. The replay camera from the endzone shows the line-judge running down field and then going for a nasty little spill on the sideline, and to make matters worse, there’s no explination besides clumsiness. What’s with these guys?

TV coverage pretty weak: While the play-by-play announcer was pretty polished, just about everything else was sub-standard. The sideline girl, Jessica Mendosa (perhaps related to the Sac news-lady Christina Mendosa?) was very inexperienced and nervous as can be. More troubling to me was the video work, particularly on the reviews and replays. They got horrible angles and never got to the bottom of a number of plays worth numerous looks. The botched extra point? No 2nd look. The review of the phantom catch by Stanford? Only two replays and from bad angles. Time and time again they failed to get good angles and to be honest, I’m not sure the reason the review was upheld was because the replay crew in the booth wasn’t getting good video either.

The Wave: I’ll second HydroTech’s comments over at CGB. Doing the wave early in the game is ALWAYS wrong. The only time to do a wave is late in the game when the blowout/romp is assured. I know Hydro doesn’t like the wave at all, but I love it… yet I still agree with him. One of my best memories of the Big Game is in 2002 when the Bears were killing Stanford and the wave started working. First of all, it looked awesome in a true bowl, much better than it looks at the Oakland Coliseum. Far more importantly, I remember when it finally got going and reached the Stanford section and everyone wondered what was going to happen. Would it just die there? (maybe) Would Stanford join in? (Highly unlikely) When the Cal fans on the other side of the Stanford section stood up to continue the wave the stadium errupted into cheers. It was great. Nevertheless, if you want to do waves at random points in the game, go to a baseball game. Wave’s are reserved for the end of meaningful blowouts (2006 Oregon game is another example) in football.

Home-field advantage: I spent the week beating the drum of the first true home-field advantage for the Bears in Big Game history, so excuse me for saying a quick “I told you so”. Frankly, Oregon had more of an opponent presence than Stanford did and that’s a huge change from years past when all of Stanford’s season ticket holders got tickets to the Big Games in Berkeley. While I don’t think the home-field advantage was a huge factor in the game, it was a factor and kept the teams spirits up. All I can say is that the Bears better be ready for a hostile environment next year in Palo Alto as I think it really caught them off guard last year after having so many years of fairly balanced crowds on the farm. There’s no excuses next year.

(Written by kencraw)

Well, another podcast that is wrapped up early in the week. Have a listen:

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(Written by jsnell)

Jahvid Best ran for more than 200 yards today as Cal beat Stanford by 21, and it wasn’t that close. Here’s my complete photo set.

(Written by kencraw)

My weekly statistical preview article is posted over at BearTerritory.net. You can find it here:

http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=879606

As always it is a subscription article.

(Written by kencraw)

I’ve gotten a few comments asking for info on what’s going on in recruiting. I figured I should clear that up…

I know nothing about recruiting.

In fact, I’m not allowed to know anything about recruiting beyond what you can get on subscriptions sites like Rivals/BearTerritory.net. See, as a season ticket holder, I’m not allowed to talk to recruits or to the coaching staff or to anyone else about recruiting. It’s off limits. As a person who’s just public enough to potentially fall under scrutiny for my activities, I make sure to be squeeky clean about not getting involved in anything recruiting oriented.

So you won’t get any particular wisdom about why we only have 4… make that 5… recruits right now. But I will give some general thoughts on recruiting:

There is only 1 day a year to worry about recruiting, and it’s in February. Signing day is when all of this speculation becomes reality. So, just because there are only 5 names next to Cal doesn’t mean that there’s not 15 guys who are planning on coming to Cal. It just means they haven’t publically stated that they’re coming. Signing day is when everyone states where they’re actually going. Until then it’s all speculation.

Also, don’t worry much about stars, particularly 1-star differences. The amount of time the recruiting sites spend looking at each guy is pretty darned small. You’re also looking at players who are vastly superior to the rest of the competition, from a high school perspective. So who is awesome, super-awesome and super-duper-awesome is a bit of a question mark and a guessing game, particularly when they’re spread all over the country and there isn’t that much cross-polination.

I guess what I’m saying is that recruiting is something to worry about in the off-season and even then only as evaluating the coaching staff. In the end, what matters is whether the Bears are fielding a team full of talented players, not whether those players were considered great when they were recruited or whether they were willing to publically state they were coming to Cal long before signing day.

If you look at the number of unheralded 2-star recruits who were added at the last minute who became college and NFL super-stars as well as the number of 4 and 5 stars who changed their verbal commitment 3 times and then never played to their potential when they got to college, it makes it pretty clear that this is any over emphasis on recruiting at this point is just a way to raise your blood pressure.

(Written by kencraw)

My weekly “practice” podcast is posted over at BearTerritory.net. I put “practice” in quotes because I can only make it down to Berkeley one day a week and with the press luncheon moved from Tuesday to Monday for Big Game week and there being no practice on Monday’s, I had to pick between the press conference and the practice. Since BearTerritory had no one else going to the press conference, I picked that.

So the good news is the podcast has quotes. The bad news is no info from practice. In any case, here’s the link:

http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=878555

As with all the podcasts, it is free to all.