(Written by kencraw)

(We FINALLY finish up our hugely unpopular, mostly intolerable look at The Half Season Of Which We Shall Not Speak (THSOFWWSNS) with the Armed Forces Bowl. Go here for past posts.)

The pre-game Storyline:
Would the Bears get back on track for their final game, an undeserved bowl game? Or would this be the first losing season of the Tedford era? Would Kevin Riley get a chance to play with Longshore under-delivering even as his injury subsided? Does anyone care about this game besides Air Force? Bear fans across the nation had more questions than answers. That was enough to get them tuning in, kinda like watching a train wreck, to the bowl game. There were reasons for optimism, including the promise that Riley would get playing time and heavy disciplinary actions by Tedford against Jackson, Jordan and DeCoud, signs that Tedford was getting his team back under control.

The pre-game Reality:
The reality was that this team was still a talented team, one that was fully capable of winning the game. However, the Air Force’s tricky triple-option attack was nothing to scoff at. The Bears had won the last meeting in 2004, but it was after losing in 2002, which gave them the necessary experience to beat it. The 2007 team did not have the benefit of having been on the field for either of those games and was as unprepared as the 2002 team was for the attack which requires disciplined assignment defense.

The key plays:

• Jackson, Jordan and DeCoud were being held out of the 1st quarter for disciplinary reasons.
• Moye and VanHosen were in for Williams and Felder for disciplinary reasons as well (both had not performed well of late), a repeat of the Big Game.
• After Forsett ran for 12 yards to get the Bear’s first 1st down, he was unable to convert on 3rd and inches, losing 2, and forcing the Bears to punt from midfield.
• Air Force quarterback Shaun Carney rushes for 17 yards on an option keeper on their 1st drive.
• RB/WR Chad Hall and his backup Jim Ollis run for 20 and 34 yards respectively, both off of option plays, to get the ball down to the Cal 1 yard-line.
• Carney is able to punch it in on an option keeper. Bears continue their trend of giving up points early: 0-7
• Longshore passes to Forsett who had split out wide for 18 yards to get the Bears across midfield.
• Montgomery runs for 16 yards down to the Air Force 29.
• Consecutive negative runs by Forsett put the Bears out of field goal range. DeSa drops the good pass from Longshore on 4th down.
• Air Force goes for it on 4th and 1 on their next possession and converts the option play to Ollis.
• Carney runs for 40 yards on three option keepers to get the ball down into the redzone.
• Cal bites hard on the play action and Carney completes the easy TD pass. Bears down big early: 0-14
• Cal can’t handle the pooch kick from Air Force on the kickoff and Air Force recovers at the Cal 40.
• Without a chance to re-group and made adjustments on the sideline the Cal defense is burned again on a number of option plays, including the TD run by Ollis. Bears down HUGE early: 0-21
• Riley comes in for Longshore in a planned change at the beginning of the 2nd quarter. Jackson and Jordan are also back in. (DeCoud came back in the middle of the previous drive when the 2nd quarter started.
• Riley avoids a quick pass-rush by Air Force and bombs it deep to Jackson in the endzone. Bears show their first sign of life: 7-21
• The Cal defense comes out in the 3-4 to counteract the option plays. The adjustment works and Air Force punts after a 3 and out.
• Riley shows his mobility running for a 1st down on a busted play.
• Riley finds Jordan wide open down the field. The throw was late and under thrown, giving away the TD, but the completion gets the ball down to the Air Force 12.
• 2 plays later Riley throws a nice fade to Hawkins for a touchdown. Bears back in it: 14-21
• Air Force gets one 1st down but otherwise the Cal adjustments continue to work and Air Force is forced to punt with 27 seconds left in the half.
• Hail Mary nearly is completed to Hawkins, but he was distracted by an earlier blatant pass interference by Air Force and the ball bounces off his chest.
• On Air Forces first drive of the 2nd half, Ollis runs for another 20 on an option play on 3rd and 2 where the Bears were trying to force the punt and over-pursued.
• Some halftime Air Force adjustments clearly are helping as Hall is able to rush for 23 yards down to the Cal 5. The Cal defense holds from there and Air Force kicks the field goal. Cal back in a two score hole: 14-24.
• Justin Forsett loosens up the Air Force pass defense where Riley completes another touchdown pass to Jordan from 18 yards out. Bears closest yet: 21-24
• Air Force converts another 4th down, this time from 2 yards out, extending yet another drive.
• Carney completes a rare pass to Hall for 17 yards down to the Cal 27 yard-line.
• Carney goes to the air again, completing the pass to Dekker who gets it down to the Cal 5 yard-line
• Carney has a massive knee injury on 3rd and goal, putting him out of the game. Air Force kicks the field goal. Bears still within one score: 21-27
• Riley and Jordan continue their breakout game together with another 50 yard pass. But yet again Jordan is dragged down just before reaching the endzone where Forsett punches it in. Bears have their first lead of the game: 28-27
• Air Force 3 and out again.
• Riley to Jordan is again the connection of note on their next drive, getting two passes for a combined 45 yards.
• Forsett breaks free for a 21 yard touchdown run. Bears extend their lead, but it’s still one score: 35-27
• Air Force goes for it again on 4th down, again converting with a 7 yard rush. Ball is all the way down at the Cal 30 after a Mike Mohammad personal foul.
• Air Force kicks a long field goal. Bears lead down to 5: 35-30
• Forsett runs for 25 yards across midfield.
• Montgomery continues another solid day with a 20 yard run to just outside the redzone.
• After Forsett takes it down to the 1, Riley runs the option himself for a TD. Bears 2 scores up: 42-30
• Air Force goes for it on 4th down again, this time from 9 yards out with 4 minutes remaining and can’t convert.
• Forsett fumbles on the first play of the ensuing drive, putting Air Force back in business.
• Another passing play by Air Force catches Cal off guard and gets the ball into the redzone. Hall rushes it in from there. After failed 2-point conversion, Cal still up by 6: 42-36
• Cal recovers the onside kick.
• Forsett runs for 14 on 3rd down to seal the win and allow Cal to run out the clock.

The forgotten

• Longshore did not have that bad of a day. His two possessions were not spectacular, but he was also missing Jordan and Jackson. It doesn’t help when his receivers dropped a couple passes either.
• Carney’s knee injury was before Cal took the lead. While I still think it is safe to say that Cal would have won the game in either case, after all Cal had scored 21 to Air Force’s 6 in the last half of play with Carney in, there’s no doubt it would have more difficult and not as assured as most Cal fans remembered.
• Forsett and Mongomery really gave the Bears their consistency over the final games of the season. While Riley and the WRs played outstanding, whenever Air Force would over focus on the passing game, the two RBs would make Air Force pay.
• Many have forgotten that the 21 points Air Force hung on Cal early were the direct result of the defense not having time to make adjustments between the 2nd and 3rd touchdown because of the turnover on the kickoff.

The post-game storyline:
A new savior of the team was born! Riley, our new knight in shining armor would for sure lead us to greatness in future seasons! How horrible was it of Tedford to keep him on the bench and let Longshore stay in when he clearly stunk. He’s probably good enough to keep DeSean Jackson from declaring for the draft early!

The post-game reality:
There’s no doubt that Longshore had his problems and that his injury heavily contributed to those problems. However, the amount of blame heaped on him was unjust. It was almost as if he was responsible for those 21 points being scored on the Bears early in the game (when in fact it was obviously an overwhelmed defense) or that he was responsible for the lack of effort in previous games. Obviously Riley played a great game and deserved a lot of credit. But giving him ALL the credit is to over look the rest of the team’s improvement during the game and to drastically over-simplify things. Also, to assume that his performance against a non-BCS team was indicative of how he’d perform the following year in the Pac-10 was also a mistake.

The 2007 learnings:

• Riley was most definitely ready to challenge for the starting job.
• The disciplinary actions before this game were insights in to how many chemistry problems there were on the team.
• The 3-4 defensive switch had gone surprisingly well for a mid-game adjustment. It put a lot of questions in the coaches mind that perhaps it was the defense of the future.

The conclusion
Let there be no doubt about my determination. It took just about all of my will-power to re-watch these games. As St. Paul said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim 4:7) And what did I gain for my determination? Unlike my semi-futile pursuit of Holiness, not much…

This is still a chapter of Cal football that is better left forgotten. (To which you all say, “yeah, that’s why we kept complaining that you were doing it!?!”) While I believe I have a better grasp on what happened that season having spent the time to re-watch it, I still feel like there’s too much emotion wrapped up in it to view objectively. Normally when I watch the games for my looking back series I’m able to do it objectively and without emotion. Not the 2nd half of 2007. I felt myself getting emotionally wrapped back up in it.

It’s like whenever the Nazis come up in a conversation. Whether or not it’s a reasonable analogy or comparison, the Nazis are just to emotionally charged period of history for there to be of value in making a comparison. So too the 2007 season (see, I’ll now get in trouble for comparing the 2007 season to the Nazi regime).

So, by way of closing this lookback, I now introduce Crawin’s law, corollary to Godwin’s law that states:

As a Cal Bears football discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Longshore or the 2007 season approaches 1. Once such a comparison is made, the discussion is finished and whoever mentioned 2007 has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.

Do I hear any objections?