Couldn’t Bear To Watch - Vols Crush Bears, 35-18.
Cal Football’s #9 ranking, championship buzz, and dreams for the Pac-10 Title took a serious beating at the hands of the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday as the Golden Bears were crushed, 35-18.
(photo from AP Photo)
Watching this game makes me wonder what the heck this team did during the offseason. Cal’s touted veteran wide receiver corps dropped at least six catches and missed at least six more catchable balls. The QB situation is atrocious, with Longshore looking completely uncomfortable in the new spread offense and Joe Ayoob, once again, throwing with the passing accuracy of Joe Ayoob. The offensive line was trampled, limiting Marshawn Lynch to 74 yards and Justin Forsett to one yard. The defensive secondary gave up big play after big play. With this kind of play, Cal will be lucky to even make a bowl game.
This game also marks the end of Jeff Tedford’s honeymoon in Berkeley. Tedford’s dirty little secret since his arrival at Cal is that he has not been able to win big road games. Since 2002, Cal has gone a mediocre 14-10 on the road (9-7 in the Pac-10). In addition to losing games to Kansas State and Tennessee, Tedford has never won at UCLA, at USC, or at Oregon. Without these kinds of wins, Cal is doomed to mediocrity. If Tedford can’t get the W outside of Memorial Stadium, the Golden Bears need to find someone who can.
And, for the final kick in the pants, ESPN lets us have it:
Cal is like that girl you convinced yourself was so perfect, but then something happened, and suddenly it all became clear. You broke up. It stung, but you realized all her faults, all the ones that you can’t believe you didn’t notice before. Fact is, Cal hasn’t beaten anyone in the last three years. The Bears’ big statement game was its close loss to USC in 2004. They griped about being left out of the BCS mix that season and then were lit up by Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl. Last season, they weren’t much better than a middle-of-the-road Mountain West squad.
Ben, I think you need to calm down. Here’s my comments and replies.
1) Losing to Tennessee doesn’t affect our chances of winning the Pac10 title, other than obviously showing that we weren’t as good as we thought.
2) Considering how long it’s been since we were in the Rose Bowl, and how infrequently we had been in bowls (remember the Holmoe era?), I’d give it a rest with talk about canning Tedford. It takes time to build a national championship caliber team. How many seasons did it take for Bill Snyder to even have his first winning record at KSU ?
3) That said, is anyone else surprised that our third best CB is a true freshman? The injury to Mixon is a huge loss, no way to get around that fact, but why don’t we have any other cornerbacks with a little more experience that could move into his spot?
4) On a related note, why wasn’t there any deep safety help for Thompson? Surely the coaches knew that he’s not a great tackler. No doubt he played poorly and hurt us, but I’ve got to question the defensive gameplan here. It seems pretty obvious that when you’ve got a true frosh starting at corner you need to give him some help. Were they just expecting to plug him in for the senior returning starter and not change the defensive scheme?
5) Who do you think starts at QB next week?
Comment by Berkeley Mountain Lion Patrol — September 4, 2006 @ 2:04 pm
1) What more do you need than that? I remain optomistic, but I think it’s definitely an uphill battle.
2) I’m not saying it’s time to can Tedford - what I am saying is that the “Tedford is God” days are over for the time being. If you can’t win on the road, especially in the Pac-10, you’re not a premiere coach. There, I’ve said it.
3) My impression is that Thompson was playing aggressive defense… with a cast on his right hand due to a broken finger. Not even sure why he was playing.
4) I definitely echo your sentiments. Where was the safety support?
5) My source on the team says Ayoob is going to be the starter next week. I think Ayoob would be a great starter in the spread… but not at quarterback. He just doesn’t have the throwing accuracy.
Comment by Ben N. — September 4, 2006 @ 2:10 pm
When does Steve levy come off suspension? With that kind of “pint glass” accuracy, I think he beats the Longshore/Ayoob duo hands down!
Comment by Ian — September 4, 2006 @ 2:51 pm
Tedford has already announced that Levy is not starting on Saturday and it will either be Nate or Joe and they have to evaluate. Levy will be no. 3. He will not start. Get over it. Check the Contra Costa Times if you don’t believe me.
Baby steps here - Step 1 before the sky is falling is Beat Minnesota.
Having been at the game myself and seeing the humiliation first hand (yes, it really was that loud there) - at least we can say when people start complaining about how we get no respect on a national level, we have a clean answer instead of a theory about bias. Ha!
Even if we do win the pac 10 title (*knock on wood*), believe you me, the analysts will bill that off as us just beating up on the sub-par pac-10. Looking at our future schedules, we really have no chance to redeem ourselves on a national level visiting another team until 2008 or 9. However, I would take a R*** Bowl over street cred any day.
And remember - it’s just football. And this is from someone who dropped hundreds to fly over there and watch. We were 1-10 four years ago. We lay goose eggs with football and basketball all the time, no matter the coach. Just because we’ve improved our program so much over the past couple of years is no reason to get cocky. As all of the Vol fans were trying to console us in a bar after the game in Knoxville, we said “look, we were 1-10 four years ago, don’t worry about it, we’re cool” We weren’t about to start throwing pint glasses . . .
Comment by N — September 4, 2006 @ 4:39 pm
People need to get over the Levy obsession. Levy was good enough to beat Stanford and BYU last season with the running game provided by Lynch and Forsett. Levy is good, but he is not good enough to beat Tenneesee like some people dreamt when they were wishing he hadn’t been suspended. People thought Longshore would be amazing based on the eleven passes he through before breaking his leg last season. He was doing well…against Sac State. I think/hope Tedford will start Ayoob next Saturday against Minnesota. Longshore still lacks the ability to move around as much as he needs to. In addition to his previous leg injury, he has nagging back pain. Ayoob moves around much better on the field and he looks more comfortable than Nate. He just needs to learn to throw the ball away under pressure.
Comment by Anonymous — September 4, 2006 @ 8:23 pm
I wonder how Kyle Reed is looking. Was supposed to be a strong recruit. Any thoughts?
Comment by Ian — September 4, 2006 @ 10:15 pm
After Ayoob’s performance last year I almost rather lose with someone else than win with him. He better be fricken amazing this year.
Comment by captain duh — September 5, 2006 @ 10:12 am
Great discussion guys and I agree with many points (including that Levy is not a savior). But the back to Ayoob idea is a bad one. We have to remember that Longshore is basically a new starter. He needs experience. Yeah Ayoob seemed more confident in the pocket… that’s because he’s started there in 9 games.
Ayoob is still Ayoob and he showed it by over throwing open guys and sending a number of ill-advised passes that were just begging to be picked off. He’s no better than he was last year and more experience isn’t going to make him better.
Longshore on the other hand is young and doesn’t have the experience. He is likely going to improve with additional experience, particularly considering his problems had more to do with in-decision and confusion than with bad accuracy.
I say stick with Longshore.
Comment by Ken Crawford — September 5, 2006 @ 12:00 pm
Well Stanfurd and BYU weren’t exactly spectacular teams
Comment by RepBast1984 — September 5, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
I think, more than anything, Cal showed it couldn’t compensate for losing those three pro-level O-linemen. That explains the constant pressure on the QB and Lynch and Forsett getting nothing (in Forsett’s case, quite literally. How many times was he caught for a loss?).
Marshawn didn’t look spectacular, but he had a bad first half and the game was too far out of reach in the early second half to run much. Still 76 yards on 12 carries is 6.3 per, right? If he had 100 yards on 16 carries would Cal have won? No. That’s the worst thing — Cal had so many problems. They didn’t do anything well.
Also, why does Cal have its one remaining decent cornerback returnign kicks alongside Lynch? And its starting TE on the kickoff team? Isn’t this spreading a thin team thinner?
I’m not sure who to start either, but at least Levy didn’t try to do more than he was capable of doing. With him quarterbacking, Tedford used the run as his fastball and pass as the curve. With Lynch and Foresett, you can do that. I don’ t think he’d have beaten Tenessee (not unless he can play corner as well), but I know he’d have beaten, say, Oregon State last year, a game Joe Ayoob single-handedly threw away by being Joe Ayoob. Ayoob will continue to throw those games away.
I, too, await Kyle Reed. But hopefully Minny isn’t very good and Cal can try a few things out. But, believe you me, if it’s a close game in the late third quarter, we will blow this; the longer you leave an underdog a glimmer of hope, the harder he’ll fight to grab it.
In a final note, I agree with the previous posters. Cal won’t have a chance to redeem itself on a national level until a bowl game (perhaps a win vs. USC, but feeding into the next point…) and any wins in the Pac-10 will be written off as minor league stuff.
LL
Comment by L. Taraval — September 5, 2006 @ 4:26 pm
a 6.3 ypc is a good number no matter how you slice it. Granted, I still believe Tedford should have run powerful football straight up the gut, which is what Lynch is great at. What did Lynch do to piss him off?
And it will be an uphill battle to climb back to national respectability no matter how you slice it. Losing 35-28 is ok, but without sending in the reserves it could very well have been 42 or 45-10. That’s a beat down on national TV and beating USC may only swing a few heads.
Comment by lex — September 5, 2006 @ 4:46 pm
Word is that Kyle Reed is better than Longshore and Ayoob, but he still needs to learn the playbook. I really wish he would master the playbook, because I am excited to see him play.
Comment by Anonymous — September 5, 2006 @ 5:01 pm