Breaking up is hard to do

This is really hard for me to write.

I was there, in the Memorial Stadium student section on August 31, 2002, when it all began:

C 1-10 C29 Williams,T. pass complete to Gray,David for 71 yards to the BU0, 1S DOWN CAL, TOUCHDOWN, clock 14:40. Boller lateral to Williams before pass. Jensen,Mark kick attempt good.Boller lateral to Williams before pass. Jensen,Mark kick attempt good.

I was there for the highs:

U 4-6 C21 Ryan Killeen field goal attempt from 39 MISSED - wide right, spot at USC25, clock 15:00.

...

C 4-6 U21 Fredrickson, T. field goal attempt from 38 GOOD, clock 15:00.

And I was there for the lows:

C 1-10 O12 [SHOT], Riley, Kevin rush SC for 2 yards to the OSU10 (Joey LaRocque). 

C 2-8 O10 End of game, clock 00:00.

Now, looking back, I think it all turned that day, five years ago, October 13, 2007. I didn't know it then, of course. Standing there, jaw agape, with my friends for 30 minutes in deafening silence, all I knew was No. 2 Cal had blown a chance to ascend to the pinnacle of the college football universe, after No. 1 LSU had fallen during the Bears' game against Oregon State.

Crushed as I as, in my heart I knew the missed opportunity was merely the first of many that would surely come over the next several years. After all, we had Jeff Tedford at the helm.

I was wrong.

Going into that Oregon State game, Cal was 48-20 under Tedford, with one top-10 finish (2004), one co-confernece title (2006) and one screw-job away from the Rose Bowl (eff you, Mack Brown). Since then, we are 30-26 with a losing season in 2010 and a 1-4 start to this year.

The winning percentage differential of 17% doesn't seem as stark as the reality, but that figure will increase as we continue to lose games this season (and we will).

I'm not saying Tedford will be fired. Athletic Director Sandy Barbour has many factors to consider when making that determination, and not all of them are related to wins and losses.

I'm not even saying Tedford should be fired. He is the most important figure Cal football has ever had (sorry, Pappy, but leather-helmet football isn't real football), he changed the nature of the program, and he stuck with us despite NFL offers when nobody else would (*cough*Mariucci*cough*). He is the only Cal coach I have never known, and seeing someone else pace the sidelines with a clipboard and a headset on Saturdays would be as alien an experience as I can imagine in football.

What I am saying is this: It's time for me to break up with Tedford.

Flash back with me:

I was a freshman in 2002 when Tedford began his career at Cal. I always felt like we started together and somehow shared in victories and defeats.

Early in the 2003 season, Carl's Jr. financed give-away Tedford bobbleheads at one of the games. I didn't know about this in time to get one and was devastated when I saw other students in the stands with their little Tedfords. After the game, my roommate spied a bobblehead sitting on the bleachers while its owner was preoccupied. He swiped it and gave it to me later as a gift. That roommate is one of my groomsmen in my upcoming wedding, thanks in no small part to my stolen Tedford bobblehead. I still have it:

My Tedford bobblehead, a fixture on my desk since 2003

As a green sportswriter at the Daily Cal in the spring of 2004, I was the beneficiary of scheduling conflicts and ended up with the plush assignment of a one-on-one interview with Tedford in his Memorial Stadium office. He cracked jokes about the workers perched high in the trees outside his window trimming branches. I thought he was the coolest guy in the Milky Way galaxy.

I covered the team for the Daily Cal for the next two seasons, 2004 and 2005. Working with Tedford was pretty much always great. Even during the difficult and short-lived Joe Ayoob QB era, Tedford maintained his composure and professionalism. (Though I sometimes doubted the true level of professionalism behind the way he talked about prepping for rain games by practicing with "wet balls" and "shrinking our offensive package.")

I graduated in December 2005. A couple weeks later, I covered my last game for the Daily Cal -- the 2005 Vegas Bowl. Steve Levy quarterbacked and Marshawn Lynch won MVP in the Bears' victory, and as the game neared its end I knew I was about to talk to Tedford for probably the last time. After the press conference, I found a moment alone with the coach and told him I had just graduated and that it had been a pleasure to work with him. We shook hands. "Good luck with your future," he said. Just an all-around classy guy.

Now the time has come for me to return the favor: Good luck with your future, Jeff. Maybe you'll turn things around and stay at Cal for 10 more years, maybe you'll be fired in a couple months, but either way, good luck.

As for me, I've reached the end of what I can handle in this relationship, so it's time for me to move on. I can't apologize anymore for games like last week's Arizona State loss, when the team was a penalty-riddled mess. That's a coaching issue. You've lost your touch, Jeff, and I can't stand by any longer as you insist on doing things the same conservative way anymore.

You should have gone for it on that fourth down against Ohio State. You should be playing Brendan Bigelow more. You should scrap this horrible season and build for the future by starting Zach Kline at quarterback. You should take chances, do something -- anything!

Something changed in you five years ago when Riley scrambled instead of throwing the ball away:

Maybe you saw the futility in pinning your hopes and dreams on the decision-making abilities of teenagers under duress. Maybe to protect yourself from such heartbreak you opted to stop caring as much, to stop trying as hard. That would be understandable, sure, but I can't forgive you for it. You keep trying, you keep fighting, to the last play, to the last second. In Berkeley, of all places, you should at least know that.

While recapping the noteworthy games of last weekend, SI's Stewart Mandel took a moment to comment on Cal's loss to the Sun Devils:

Remember when Jeff Tedford was a quarterback guru? Remember a time when a Cal quarterback, in this case Zach Maynard, would never complete just 9-of-28 passes and get sacked six times? Remember when the Bears didn't lose four games all season, much less in the month of September?

I remember, Jeff. I will always remember. But it's time to for what we once had to be just that:

Memories.