(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.