Idiots Write About Sports

Jason’s already covered the high points — such as they are — in Cal’s loss to UCLA. But watching Maurice Drew run back one kick after another got me thinking about something I read in the paper the other day.

Coach Jeff Tedford says Cal needs to improve its coverage on punts and kickoffs.

“You can’t afford huge swings in field position,” he said, “and special teams is where the biggest swings occur.”

Yeah, you might want to work on that.

I don't care how many total yards you gain -- if you let a guy score 5 TDs all on his own, you're gonna lose. And deserve to.

wow how sad this is guys. i actually felt we would win this game more than i did the first five. i was so sure i even bet money on it and lost it all. i am so disapointed at ayoob [edited]. early in the game i saw a few times after he would miss a pass he would smirk and almost seem to laugh. were the hell is the seriousness that aaron rodgers portrayed, i am just so heartbroken i can't write...

here is a letter that i sent to one of my cyber bear buddies, thought whoever still comes in here might wanna c it.

dear gobears,

my friend, you have hit the nail on the head. ayoob was terrible in that game, he simply is not capable of being a qb for a team this good. i don't want to put the whole game on him because collectivly we made a lot of mistakes BUT, make no mistake about it, had AARON RODGERS started that game we are 6-0 right now, we would have blown them out. those four fg's turn into 3 td's just like that and the game is not even close man! ayoob would be a good d-II qb but not a dependable d-I qb for a team trying to win a national championship. [edited]

anyway after the loss though i was just as stunned as i think everyone else was. i was really heartbroken, not so much because of the money but because of the imcompetence that i saw out there. everyone in that game from ayoob to the guys getting penalties called on them to coach tedford was imcompetent. that's all good an dandy if you do not expect to compete with the big boys but everything out of berkeley says otherwise. also why the hell did tedford even allow lonnie to kick to drew? that was just stupid! when you have a guy that good you need to be shanking the kicks everytime, take the out of bounds penalty on kick offs if you have to but don't kick it right to him. coach tedford mentioned all week how he was concerned with special teams and from the looks of things saturday really did very little to remedy the sittuation. this is the first time that i really think maybe tedford fell victim to the hype and just didn't execute as a coach. i am certainly not advicating his ouster but if he wants to continue to have the privledge of coaching our beloved bears he needs to suck it up and fucking perform. sadly though all of this goes back to ayoob, he is the one who really failed us. i bet those big smirks you could see early in the game are gone and he feels like shit now. i love the bears and i am in this for the long haul, one loss won't scare me off. i was there in 2001 guys, we will be ok, if tedford gets it together and figures out what to do with ayoob. i certainly don't envy him for the job ahead but pulling kyle reed out of his redshirt season seems vital to us salvaging the qb game, hell the way i look at it now you really can't get much worse than ayoob. cause with ayoob while he does make some good plays db's are always going to know that even if they get beat in coverage they have a 75% to 90% chance that the ball won't be delivered properly anyway!

guys i gotta run but i am pissed and will write more later!

here is a letter that i am distributing to most cal beat guys, we have got to do something about this qb position or we are done!

dear bruce,

well i guess we finally got to see what the bears were made of saturday and the discussion that we had earlier in the season looms over the entire cal football program in my opinion. what we have here is a premier team in a premier conference lacking a premier qb. joe ayoob is terrible... [edited- see below]. my god, my GOD, can it get any worse?

i have started my campaign now to have ayoob removed from the qb position by no latter than next season. i would love to take him out now but it doesn't seem really realistic. we may have to chalk this entire season up as a failure because of him. yeah, you could wine all day that special teams lost that game for the bears but that is not true, ayoob lost this game. special teams have been bad in berkeley for years but we have come to expect a great qb not a terrible one. we expect to see a qb that throws bb's all over the field not melons! anyway in closing i am just so saddened by this turn of events, it is now clear that we may not win more than 2 or 3 games with this guy at qb, and we certainly won't get anywhere near a national championship with him. i honestly believe that the team as a whole is good enough that if we did, (which we don't) have aaron rodger we might be in a title hunt right now [edited].

Seth,

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that unpunctuated and vulgar letters that threaten violence to Cal players are not going to win you any fans among the community of journalists who covers Cal football.

Also, I'm fine with you criticizing people's performances, but there is a line that you don't cross, and you crossed it. Comments like "he is a jack ass punk bitch! if i see him... i will have a few choice words for him and i may possibly assault him" are not welcome here.

jason, your right. perhaps i went a little over board there, i am glad there are people like you out there to tell me that i am getting a little out of hand. i just get so wrapped up in it. it's kinda sad, maybe it is time i go and find a real hobby because all this season looks to be is more heartbreak and everyone seems ready to just accept that so i guess i better.

lowly bear fan seth. signing off, permanently, so long all...

p.s. if you read my email the way i intended you to, you would see that i would only respond with violence after ayoob tried to hurt me. having said that i was in no way advocating violence against him, plenty more linebackers out there will get to do that during this disaster of a season… peace man…

I understand getting wrapped up in it, but even if we accept the proposition (which I don't) that Ayoob is utterly beyond hope, it doesn't say anything about him as a person. Even his inappropriate grins after a few plays on Saturday don't make it okay to run down his humanity in public. I mean, if he kicked your dog or something, then go nuts. But I'd prefer the rabid fan commentary to stick to his abilities or lack of same, and not the guy himself.

Don't go near any sharp objects this week, Seth -- it's not worth it. As any longtime Cal fan will tell you, looking at a potential eight-win season is nothing to sneeze at. Nobody EVER realistically thought this team would compete for the national championship this year -- this is a rebuilding year, remember, after losing half the starters from last year's team. Come off the ledge, friend. Things aren't that bad.

Now, if Cal loses the Big Game, then I'm climbing out there on the ledge with you. But until then...

ah jason, your words seem so soothing. sadly i have to go to work now and face countless comments from everyone about how stupid i was to pick cal over ucla. it is going to be a tough week...

Not to mention that the fact is, no matter how badly you think Ayoob played, Cal scored 40 points. Thatsalotta points.

Cal lost because UCLA scored 47, including five touchdowns by one guy, none of which can be blamed on Ayoob ;-)

(Hey, even though I'm a UCLA alum -- twice -- I feel for Cal here. This seemed like an all-too-familiar UCLA come-from-ahead loss.)

dan, interesting point, no doubt. however i still must respectfully disagree with you. yes sp tms were terrible; yes we made a lot of elementary mistakes. i believe everyone realizes that. however, ultimately the qb is like the george bush of the field and honestly i can equate similarities in joe ayoobs play to president bush's presidency, a complete disaster for the most part. much like bush, ayoob will occasionally do something that makes all of us say, "wow" that was refreshing, only then to go and do something stupid like laugh at the most inopportune time, i.e. as your team goes down the drain. i used to get real fired up about what a mess o'l george is making but quickly realized that much like my current situation with ayoob i have no way of at all affecting either situation. so, having said that dan, yes ucla scored 5 touchdowns with a bay area ex-pat that should damn well have been on this bear team in the first place. but again, the way i look at this guys is cal is now in the "elite club" of college teams. teams in this "elite club" are always going to have a maurice drew to do their dirty work, that is just something that we have to be able to collectively as a team prepare for better. yet if we lack a competent field general, as ayoob is anything but, we are all just doing this for nothing, as this team will have no real chance to compete. this is not the baltimore raven team that won the sb with trent dilfer, these are the california golden bears in the ever difficult pac 10 and things look rather bad for all of cal football in the days to come so long as joe ayoob is still calling the shots in berkeley. i have said it before, and i will say it again (IN VAIN) the time has come to pull kyle reed from his redshirt season! please don't let my cries go unheard, somebody with more pull than me has got to convey this message to coach tedford before the whole program goes down the proverbial crapper... again, jason i am sorry to take such a negative view of ayoob but i criticized only his lack of playing abilities in this post, and everything i have mentioned in accurate!

c-ya-guys...

jason, i thought you might like to see this letter that i sent to the cal football officials. it is my humble attempt at an apology after wrongfully blasting them so badly...

hello again my beloved golden bears of california! sadly about five days ago i went off the deep end and launched into an insane diatribe attacking joe ayoob and the program itself. boy, in hindsight that was one of the worst mistakes i ever made. not only was i ostracized both in cyberspace and physical social settings with actual friends, but emotionally i had never felt lower. the problem is when coach tedford came to town and changed our ways from losing to winning we all, (some more than others, i.e. me) started to get a little ungrateful. i was greedy for our national championship, i wanted it now, not later! when we lost to ucla it was like, "oh my god, this is the end of the world!" i guess this loss was in many ways a good thing. i am sure that the team and coaching staff are much more aware of many things that perhaps they were not so much aware of before. as for myself, after the loss i stupidly decided i would have nothing to do with cal football (as if i was some small child pouting) but i soon realized that that was just not possible as i love the bears almost more than life itself. i have managed to up my academic load to coincide with the season so as to work as a deterrent to just following everything i can get my hands on about cal football. i think the remainder of the season will be great for you guys. your a young team and now is the time to work out the kinks so that perhaps next season we can realistically compete for the national championship. if you guys come out of the gate and beat ten in the season opener next year anything will be possible. hey you guys could conceivably still win the pac 10 title this year provided usc beats ucla and you guys then en turn beat usc! anyway, those are my two cents. i hope whoever read my email of hate last week sees this one and knows just how sorry i am for my stark immaturity.

thank you, god bless, and, lets go win some football games!

bear fan 4 life!

seth

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