Terrible to lose to ASU at home

At the beginning of the year I predicted a pedestrian 7-5 record. That means that at this point in the year, I had pegged our record to be at 3-2. Instead it's a pathetic 1-4. And looking ahead at my picks, it'll be hard for Cal to flip two additional games on top of what I over-optimistically at the time had them winning.

For example, I had Cal winning the following games from here: UCLA, @Wazzu, Stanford, and Washington.

I had them losing to: @Utah, Oregon, @Oregon State.

I like to think of myself as a pretty fair-minded Cal fan. I picked us to lose in the Daily Cal to USC back in 2006 and almost got jumped by Cal fans in the bathroom of an In 'n Out on the way down I-5 for "being a sellout". But it's clear now that while predicting how this year would go in August, I was seeing things through blue-and-gold goggles, or rather, the perspective of a Cal fan/student who attended the school during a truly different era of Cal football. For example, playing ASU at home would have never been a worry 5-6 years ago. Beating Nevada at home would be a gimmie too. The thing that has stood out to me in the Nevada and ASU losses has been the lack of anything too concrete to point to. It's more a general feel of malaise and an overall lack of talent at pretty much every position on the field except for WR1 (Allen) and LB (McCain).

Zach Maynard makes Kevin Riley look like Drew Brees.

Tedford can't recruit good players because this program is stale. It's too bad the university owes Tedford so much money making it very unlikely barring a 1-11 finish that any changes will be made. But I hope Sandy Barbour is starting to think of viable alternatives. She can be applauded for the job she did replacing Braun with Monty. For the football team, Steve Mariucci comes to mind. Pete Carroll would be everyone's dream, seeing as though he's a Bay Area native, but it looks like his Seahawk team is pretty good so any hope of him getting canned is probably wishful thinking.

Looking at our body of work through five games, I'll say Cal wins 1 or 2 of the 4 games above I had them winning, and losing all three of the ones I had them losing. That puts us at 3-9 or 2-10 -- truly embarrassing.

We suck, and it's not getting better anytime soon

I was spelunking through the depths of my English major vocabulary trying to unearth the best word to encapsulate my feelings about Cal football at this, the one-third mark of the 2012 season.

Apoplectic? This is undeniably the worst start we've had in the 11 years of the Tedford Era -- we're 1-3 with the win coming against a FCS (I miss calling it I-AA) team. I feel like I should feel enraged. My boy Brendan Bigelow got only four carries against USC, despite the fact that he averaged almost eight yards on each of them. I feel like I should be pissed about this. But I don't.

Apathetic, then? Maybe I've reached a point with this season where I'm just done giving a shit. But that doesn't ring true for me either. I have the same nervous excitement for the Arizona State game tomorrow that I feel leading up to every Cal game. I still care.

And then it hit me: Disenfranchised. I feel cut off from my team for the first time in years. My quarterback might well be a total pansy, as my esteemed colleague Chris pointed out a few days ago. My coach is selling his house in Danville. Our designated star player has a whopping one receiving touchdown. My team has become the Bizarro Bears.

Defining Moment?

There has been a tremendous amount of noise around the interwebs regarding Coach Tedford's job status. X's and O's aside, this video below is the stuff that ultimately might do it.

It is one thing to get beat by a better team. It is another to just pack it in and call it a day. I don't know what Zach Maynard was thinking here and I don't care to know. I just thought for sure that he would be yanked after pulling some nonsense like this.

Worst of all, however, is that Tedford allowed Maynard to trot back out there to finish the game.

These two guys are the leaders of the program?

No wonder Cal is on the downswing.

Down only 11 points midway through the 4th quarter against a team like USC ... every down counts. And for the nuts out there who say what else could Maynard do there? Take a look at where CJ Anderson is for a second at the tail end of the play. Could that have been a pick? Sure. But an interception is 100 times better than just quitting on a play.

It's one thing for someone sitting at a computer like me to criticize (as if anyone actually cares what I think) but when your own teammates are wondering, that's when you know you have a problem.

Notice young Rigsbee's reaction (which pretty much says it all).

Staggering By the Numbers

Seems like most of us were down in L.A. so I'm sure we'll have plenty to write about Cal's 27-9 loss to USC but these little tidbits pretty much sums it up for now:

Coach Tedford overall record vs. USC:

1-10

Number of consecutive losses to USC:

9

Number of touchdowns scored in L.A. Coliseum after 2004 epic that was so long ago it shouldn't even be mentioned anymore:

2 (in four games/16 quarters)

* And those two scores came in true garbage time in 2010

Scoring average between USC & Cal in L.A. since 2006:

USC 29, Cal 9
USC 115 points total, Cal 35 points total


Holy. Cow.

When it comes to USC, the past is all Cal has (and it's time to get over it)

What do these three games have in common?

• Game 1: The luster of this game wore off as September and October turned into November. At one point, it seemed destined for this game to be THE game of the year. Both teams at one point were ranked in the top 5. One started as the preseason No. 1 in the country. The other rose all the way to No. 2. But losses to inferior teams at home (one to Stanford; the other to Oregon State) sent the teams tumbling. But both were ranked when the two met on a Saturday night in November. It was a cold and rainy Saturday night, with a constant and steady stream of light rain and with the darkest clouds making the scene even more dramatic. The home team hadn’t beat the away team in four years. It wore special throwback uniforms that year to honor a former great. It was looking to redeem a season against a huge rival. It got close. With three minutes left, the home team was down by a touchdown, and had the ball in enemy territory. But the quarterback—who struggled all season—could not hit his receiver and threw an interception to end the upset bid. The crowd of 72,000 was stunned, but not surprised. Remember, it was only a month ago that they were the No. 2 team in the country and saw their national title hopes crushed on a decision by a quarterback.

• Game 2: Revenge was on the mind of the home team here. Revenge and protecting what it believed to be theirs. It was a year ago that the visiting team ended the home team’s run for an outright national championship. And now they meet this year, this time in front of their 90,000 fans in a historic venue. The game was between two top 10 teams, as the visiting team slowly rose in the rankings, due to the play by its understated running back and its Quarterback who would become an NFL superstar. The game itself was amazing, especially for that said Quarterback. He completed his first 23 passes, tying a NCAA record and breaking a school record. But he couldn’t complete the passes that counted. The visiting team had 1^st-and-goal on its opponent’s 9-yard line. There were less than two minutes left and it was down six points. First down: the Quarterback is flushed out of the pocket and throws an incompletion. Second down: the Quarterback is sacked. Third down: another incomplete pass. Fourth down: an open a receiver in the end zone, a slip, and another incomplete pass. The visiting team outgained the home team 424-205 in total yards. It wasn’t enough. The home team avenged its loss from the year before and went on to win the outright national championship.

• Game 3: Both teams are facing resurgences. The visiting team is ranked No. 3 in the country for the first time since 1988. The home team finally has a heart beat after winning just one game two seasons before. The game is an epic one, so epic that the words written here would fail to do it justice. You might as well watch the whole thing (via Youtube), or at least watch the highlights. Just know that there were three overtimes. There was a turnover, three missed field goals, two touchdowns, and a nervous home kicker to win the game in overtime. The home team won, 34-31. The visiting team would have to settle for a share of the national championship this year. The win would be a program-maker for the home team.

So, what do these games have in common?

Brendan Bigelow is iPhone 5

Did I get my iPhone 5 today? Yes. Do I love it? Yes. Am I going to stretch the boundaries of acceptable sportswriting similes to incorporate my iPhone 5 into a post about Cal football? Yes, yes I am. Let's get to it!

Brendan Bigelow is iPhone 5. There, I said it. That felt fantastic.

iPhone 5 is small, one of the thinnest, lightest phones on the market; so is Brendan Bigelow. He is listed at 5' 10", 190 lbs, and if there's anything I learned in my days as a for-realzies sportswriter, it's that sports information directors inflate specs like Galaxy S3 owners.

iPhone 5 is powerful, with the new A6 processor; so is Brendan Bigelow. He was a top-rated running back recruit despite missing his entire senior year with a blown-out knee.

Lastly -- and most importantly -- iPhone 5 is fast, and holy shit so is Brendan Bigelow. Anyone watching last Saturday's nationally televised game against Ohio State got crazy proof of that.

(Quick tangent: Anyone who took my not-so-amazing gambling advice last week definitely knows about Bigelow's speed. His two TD runs helped Cal cover the 16.5 point spread I insisted was uncover-able. For those who may have wagered every penny of their net worth on that game after my impassioned plea to do so, um ... my bad?)

More thoughts on USC week

One of my biggest pleasures watching football since I've been watching football was the confidence I had in Jeff Tedford and his staff. There was a period of time (maybe somewhere between 2003-2007) when I just knew going into a game that Cal had the advantage in the coaching department (both in terms of preparation and in-game management).

For obvious reasons, that confidence has dissipated over the years so all could imagine the joy of watching the Bears perform like they did last week against Ohio State. Was it partly luck? Maybe. Sometimes things just "click" on the field for no apparent reason only to go back towards the norm the following week.

Let's all hope that's not the case this time around.

Coaches often talk about football as a chess match and Cal vs. USC (from 2002-2008) really defined that mantra. The amount of preparation, attention to detail and overall effectiveness and crispness of the play on the field when the two programs butted heads was obvious as each game came to a close. Players played hard, knew their assignments, knew their opponents and generally exuded a confidence that all winning programs have deep in their gut. You could just tell the stress that Tedford put on Carroll and vice versa.

What changed in 2009, 2010, and 2011? We can and have speculated ad nauseum, but only Tedford can truly answer that question.

Over the last year three seasons, instead of playing like an equal to USC, the Bears crumbled at the first sign of adversity, never showing a hint of desperation or will to fight back. That's why last week's contest against tOSU was so encouraging. Not saying Cal is going to win, because it's going to be damn tough to do so for more reasons than one, but I'll feel better about how the rest of the season is going to play out for the Bears if they hang on strong against a USC team itching to erase the nasty taste of the Stanford loss off their collective psyches.

Having said all that (and even though I don't think the Bears are going to pull this one out), I honestly feel that Cal walks into the Coliseum on Saturday with a coaching advantage for the first time in a while. Tedford needs to show more consistency before anyone is ready to say the old Tedford is back but for one week the Tedford against tOSU did indeed look like the Tedford of old. On that same front, I've never been a huge fan of Lane Kiffin (I'm a Raiders fan) and after watching him in the college ranks for three years now I'm still not entirely sold.

Thank goodness Cal doesn't have this guy leading its program

Since his failed days in Oakland, Kiffin has showed time and time again that he is incredibly stubborn when coaching a game. Against Stanford last week, I felt that a truly great coach would've come up with a strategy to protect his AA quarterback as the second half rolled along. Instead, Kiffin stuck to his guns and it hurt USC tremendously. 

Is it a big advantage? We'll see. In years past, the x's and o's between these two teams were a mirror image of each other: two pro-style offenses looking to establish the run in an attempt to be balanced. This time though, with Cal going all-in with its spread principles, we'll see what happens after one team throws the first punch.

OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS

-- I can't emphasize enough how great the game-plan was against tOSU. That was vintage 2003 Jeff Tedford.

-- Forget the call to kick the FG late in the fourth quarter last week. Tedford has always and will always make that call. Why people were shocked by that was beyond comprehension for me.

-- Coming into the season teams were going to key on Keenan and that obviously hasn't changed. So imagine my pleasant surprise when the Bears started to move Keenan around a little bit on Saturday (especially in the slot). Beautiful execution by the coaching staff.

-- Zack Maynard played the best game of his career last week against tOSU. In all honestly, he probably won't put together another game like that the rest of his life.

--Also on Maynard, it'll be nice if a Cal center could give him a string of waist high snaps for once.

-- Major (and I do mean major) props to Wes Chandler. He has gotten his unit to play tremendously. The wide receivers as a whole have been the biggest surprise so far this early season. Treggs, Harper, and Powe have all been contributors way sooner than expected. I've been most impressed with the blocking of these three and the rest of the receivers to be honest. Just take a look at the blocking on Bigelow's big run below. Treggs literally held his block for four seconds. Outstanding.



-- On Bigelow ... let's not get too carried away with the Jahvid comparisons. Is Brendon explosive? Absolutely. A ton of potential? Sure. Jahvid? I don't think so. Let's wait till the end of the season before making any assumptions.

-- Chris McCain is an absolute stud. When it's all said and done and their pro careers are over, don't be surprised if McCain ends up being the best of the North Carolina crew.

--  Leadership: something Cal has been lacking lately. Could that tOSU game be a turning point? We'll see.