(Written by kencraw)

A question, that I haven’t seen answered anywhere to my satisfaction was why wasn’t Forsett carrying the ball in the 4th quarter? It doesn’t seem he was injured that anyone can tell, and there is a rumor that he was given a tongue lashing on the sideline for some missed blocking assignments in the 3rd quarter, but nothing definitive has come out. The other theory seems to be that they were resting him but that doesn’t make sense after he didn’t come back in on the final grind out the clock drive unless perhaps he had already de-taped or something. In any case, inquiring minds want to know so if anyone has any solid info, I’d love to hear it.

An observation that I had during the radio broadcast was Starkey commenting on the officiating. While there have been numerous times he’s make reference to a particular call and whether someone looked in bounds or anything, I have NEVER heard him EVER make a SINGLE comment about the fairness of the officiating. I haven’t seen the TV broadcast yet but I know when I heard him making those comments on the radio that either Starkey is losing his objectivity, which he has done a tremendous job of not doing over the years like so many announcers have (one of the reasons I like him), or the officiating must be REALLY REALLY bad. It’ll be interesting to see the TV coverage. It also seemed like the officiating took a sharp turn in the Bears favor midway through the 4th quarter just based on the number of calls. It could be the Colorado State guys were getting desperate and they were fouling more, or it could have been that Tedford’s on-the-field complaints (who also never bashes the refs but went so far as to call them ridiculous at his halftime interview) got to them and they were making amends (which I can tell you as a former ref, happens all the time).

A shout-out to Jordon Kay for coming in as the field goal kicker and doing an amazing job. One of the things Cal seems to have a knack for is getting good special teams specialists. Long snappers, punters, kickers… Cal always seems to have top-notch talent for this. I think that’s a sign of good recruiting.

Three cheers to our Pac-10 bretheren for holding up the image of the Pac-10. Oregon drove a stake through the heart of Michigan today and Washington solidly beat one of the best non-BCS teams in the country in Boise St. Add in UCLA’s handling of BYU and the Pac-10 continues to impress. Don’t think that the national pollsters aren’t taking notice because they are. The only downside is that the Oregon victory over Michigan will be looked through the very pessimistic lens of their loss to App. State. At this point Pac-10 fans need to be big fans of Tennessee and Michigan in their respective conferences because it will help make those important non-conference victories look all that more impressive.

UPDATE 9/8/07, 7:00 AM: The Chronicle has the best data-point so far on why Forsett wasn’t in the game at the end: “Instead, Cal got the ball back and relied on its brawn to clinch the win. Montgomery, who was playing in the clutch role because starter Justin Forsett got a back stinger in the third quarter, ran five times for 25 yards on the drive, eating up the final 2:47.” So it looks like it was an injury, albeit a minor one. To steal yet again from Starkey and his comment after the Jahvid Best TD: “It’s too bad they don’t have any depth at tailback.” When you’ve got backs like Montgomery and Best to backup Forsett, I think it’s pretty reasonable to keep Forsett out of the game with a back stinger.