November 22, 2005
2006 Cal Schedule Change
At the USC game, they were handing out small sheets of paper with next year’s schedule printed on it. The old 2006 schedule fell apart because the Pac-10 decided to take advantage of the new, official NCAA 12-game season to make a schedule featuring all nine other Pac-10 teams. Good news — there will be no more skipped match-ups as there have been in the past.
In addition to the nine conference games, Cal’s nonconference opponents were scheduled to be Minnesota, Louisiana Tech, and Tennessee. (Yes, Cal’s playing the Volunteers — at Tennessee in 2006 with a return visit to Berkeley in the offing as well.)
Turns out those paper schedules are now collector’s items. Cal’s game with Louisiana Tech (which oddly was slotted for Oct. 28, the in-conference bye week, rather than in the early part of the schedule as most nonconference games are) has been postponed to Sept. 15, 2007, according to the Contra Costa Times.
This means that Cal is now seeking a new nonconference opponent for next year, for the open Sept. 9 date. Anyone wanna play?
As of now, here’s the Cal schedule for 2006:
| 9/2 | @ Tennessee |
| 9/9 | TBA |
| 9/16 | Minnesota |
| 9/23 | Arizona State |
| 9/30 | @ Oregon State |
| 10/7 | Oregon |
| 10/14 | @ Washington State |
| 10/21 | Washington |
| 10/28 | bye |
| 11/4 | UCLA |
| 11/11 | @ Arizona |
| 11/18 | @ USC |
| 12/2* | Stanford |
* The Contra Costa Times lists this game as 11/25, Thanksgiving weekend. My understanding is that the Big Game will actually be played Dec. 2, making it the first time that Cal has ever played a regularly-scheduled game in December. (The 2001 game versus Rutgers and 2004 game versus Southern Miss were both postponements from earlier-season dates.)
November 21, 2005
Bowl Possibilities Explained, Sort Of
Since this keeps coming up, I thought I’d try to summarize what Cal’s bowl possibilities are. Basically, it all hinges on three things: this week’s ASU-Arizona game, the USC-UCLA game, and the BCS selection system. Did you feel a chill just then?
This year it’s Oregon — 10-1 Oregon, with their only loss to undefeated top-ranked USC — that’s most likely going to be screwed by the BCS. Unlike last year, there’s not going to be a team that slides into a mandatory BCS selection spot without being a league champion, which was where Cal and Texas were last year before and after Mack Brown lobbied the poll voters. Instead, the BCS bowls will basically draft teams. Oregon might end up at the Fiesta Bowl (wouldn’t Oregon-Penn State be a good match-up?), but they also might end up without a chair when the music stops.
Now, let’s assume the USC beats UCLA. In that case:
If ASU wins and Oregon is screwed by the BCS, the Ducks go to the Holiday Bowl, with UCLA going to the Sun Bowl. Next up in the Pac-10 pecking order is the Insight Bowl. But Cal and ASU now both have 4-4 conference marks, so the Phoenix-based Insight goes with the local Sun Devils. That leaves the Las Vegas Bowl for Cal, although one article claims that Cal might fall to the Emerald Bowl because the Las Vegas Bowl conflicts with Cal’s final exams. I don’t buy it.
If ASU wins and Oregon goes to a BCS Bowl, UCLA gets the Holiday Bowl, and Cal and ASU vie for slots in the Sun Bowl and Insight Bowl — it would depend on which team the Sun Bowl would prefer. The Chronicle’s Jake Curtis suggested today that most likely Cal would be the choice. Curtis told me in an e-mail that Cal’s superior overall record (7-4 versus 6-5 for ASU) would probably push the Sun Bowlers in Cal’s direction, and Phil points out that the Sun Devils played in their half-namesake bowl last year. So that wraps it up — if this scenario plays out, Cal’s going to El Paso. Just like they told us in August.
If ASU loses to Arizona, the Sun Devils are not bowl eligible — talk about a long, hard fall! If Oregon gets screwed by the BCS as well, it’s Oregon to the Holiday Bowl, UCLA to the Sun Bowl, and the Bears go to the Insight Bowl.
If ASU loses to Arizona and Oregon gets a BCS berth, Cal goes to the Sun Bowl.
The possibilities if UCLA beats USC make my head hurt. Presumably USC wouldn’t make the national title game (the game that ruined the Rose Bowl) in that case. I would imagine that Oregon — with its hurt QB and a loss to the no-longer-undefeated Trojans) would be out of the BCS picture, but UCLA might sneak in at 10-1 with a win over USC. If UCLA gets into the BCS, all the above Oregon-gets-in scenarios apply — just swap the names “UCLA” and “Oregon.” It basically has no effect on Cal. And I can’t see a scenario by which three Pac-10 teams — all with one-loss records — would make the BCS. I think that’s impossible.
By the way, it’s a sad time to be a Pac-10 fan. If ASU loses and Stanford loses to Notre Dame, the conference will only have four teams that are bowl eligible: USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Cal. Ouch.
November 20, 2005
The Big Game, Part II
So Cal wins its fourth straight Big Game, likely ends Stanford’s season without a bowl, completes the University of California football hat trick versus Stanford this year (UC Davis, UCLA, and Cal)… what could be better?
It was a beautiful day for a football game. Temperatures were probably in the low ’80s before gametime. Phil and I drove down and met Kenny in the parking lot, hung out for a couple of hours and did some proper tailgating — pretty much impossible to do at Cal, so it was fun to get the opportunity. As I expected, Phil and Kenny were able to speak the language of the A’s, which was a nice bonus (even for a Giants fan like me).
So this was the last trip to Stanford Stadium as we know it. I have to say that I won’t miss the dump, not one bit. Not the prison-like bathrooms with the troughs on the outside, so that you can face out and actually make eye contact with passersby while you’re urinating. Not the vertiginous staircases that take you all the way up to almost the very top of the stadium, followed by a plunge back down into hell if you’re sitting in a low-numbered row. Not the awful sight lines caused by the track that stands between you and the playing surface.
No, I won’t miss a bit of it. I’m really looking forward to coming back in two years and seeing the new stadium. I imagine that it will be a really different experience. Probably better. Certainly can’t be worse!
When we got inside, we met up with Marty and, from our perch in Row 72, took in the game.
The first half was, to quote Kenny, a bit like an SEC match-up. 6-3 Cal at the half, with some impressive play by Cal’s defense and general dithering by the offense with the one exception of Levy’s 56-yard bomb to DeSean Jackson.
At halftime we made our way through the insanely busy tunnels of Stanford Stadium — add that to the list of things I won’t miss — and caught up with Ken Crawford and Michael Cruz. We made our way back up to the tunnel and huddled to the side of the corridor, chatting until the second half begun. We all shared some opinions about the first half, mused about bowl possibilities, and tried to figure out what the deal is with that Seth character we’ve all spent time with this year. (No, we didn’t figure him out.)
On our way back to the seats, we were riding in the wake of a crazed fan — about 10 feet up ahead of us was an older gentleman who was shirtless, with half his body painted blue and the other half gold. By halftime the paint was seriously flaking, with the unintended effect being that he looked like someone who had escaped from a secret government torture center located in the basement of the East Palo Alto Home Depot.
The good thing was, people tended to get out of his way as he came through. Because he looked insane? Because they were afraid his paint would rub or flake off on them? Whatever the reason, the waters parted as he passed by, and we followed in his wake.
We only missed the first couple minutes of the second half. The Cal defense just destroyed poor Trent Edwards, and replacement T.C. Ostrander also got punished. This entire year, I haven’t seen remotely the defensive penetration that Cal had on Saturday. They hounded the QB all day, chasing him out of the pocket, hurrying him, and sacking him with abandon.
However, the defensive backs still seem to be content to play way off of the receivers, which leads to a lot of ridiculously easy completions for the opposition. It happened plenty in the Big Game, especially when Edwards was flushed out of the pocket, almost sacked, but then found a wide-open guy (with three defenders around him, but not on him) for a first down. That happened at least four times, and it was infuriating. Marty and I joked that Cal’s big defensive plan was to wait for the overthrow. (As it turned out, that was a pretty good plan.)
In the end, what happened was exactly what I told Phil would happen earlier this week. (He’ll back me up on this.) I really didn’t understand why everyone was reporting that Stanford had all the momentum and that the Cardinal were likely to win. Well, to be honest, I do understand why: stupidity. People looked at Cal’s 5-0 start (against easy teams) and 1-4 finish (against three top-15 teams) and assumed that Cal had gone in the tank.
But while I do agree that Joe Ayoob’s confidence did go in the tank the past five weeks, I don’t believe the team did. The mirage of Cal’s late-season collapse was created by the tough schedule — and even then, the Bears almost beat one-loss UCLA and one-loss Oregon! Cal’s running game has been tough. Their defense has been generally pretty good. In contrast, Stanford’s team looked to me like a paper tiger, a team with far more in common to the Washingtons and Arizonas of the world than the Oregons and USCs.
“I am not a predictor of football games,” I told Phil ‘round about Tuesday. “But there is no way that Cal is going to lose this game. No… way.” It’s good to be right, but I really feel that anyone who had really analyzed these two teams’ entire seasons would’ve come to the same conclusion.
A few more notes:
Steve Levy’s a great story. His Cal football experience has generally been a disappointment. He was a star QB in New Jersey, but he’s been a scrub at Cal. Still, he stuck with the team, and was finally rewarded. And not only did he truly add his name to the lore of th Big Game, he showed more promise than I gave him credit for. His arm doesn’t seem to be half bad, he’s pretty cool under pressure (the one stupid interception — on a third-and-long when Cal was clearly in four-down territory — notwithstanding), he can actually run the offense without confusion, and apparently he’s got some strong leadership qualities.
I have no idea if this means that Steve Levy has a shot at playing QB for Cal next year, but if he plays well in the bowl game, I wouldn’t bet against him.
The guys sitting behind us were complaining about Marshawn Lynch the entire game, and it really pissed me off. They kept complaining that he was hesitant, bouncing around rather than just plowing into the pile. Guys, have you seen this guy run? When you hand it off to Lynch on 1st and 10, the intent is not to have him gain three yards and stir up a cloud of dust. At any time he can break off long runs, and that’s because of his ability to move, to wait for a hole to open up, to kick it outside, or to reverse field. Yes, sometimes Lynch will lose yardage in those situations. But he’s a really, really good running back, and if you let him do his thing, you’ll end up ahead more often than not.
The moment that really killed me is when the guys were complaining about him after a play that I watched through my camera’s viewfinder. (It’s a Canon Digital Rebel with a big zoom lens, by the way.) The way the play unfolded was, Lynch got the ball, he bounced for a moment, the offensive line tore a hole in Stanford’s line, and then Lynch plowed through it for an 8-yard gain. Behind me, the geniuses were complaining about Lynch not just running straight — on a play that gained eight yards, and one that would have flopped had he not waited for the hole to open!
At that point Marty and I both turned around and said something to them, but from everything I had already picked up in their conversations, they seemed to be incredibly casual Cal fans, the type who show up to the Big Game if someone’s got tickets or if a friend’s in town, but not people who actually go to the games regularly or even pay close attention to the newspapers. Dumb.
So, a final farewell to Stanford Stadium as we know it. For this first time that I can ever remember, Cal fans clearly outnumbered Stanford fans at this game. And we were so much louder, too. I guess that loss to UC Davis really derailed the Walt Harris bandwagon, huh? Not even Stanford’s late surge seemed to gain them much support. Meanwhile, Cal fans turned out in droves for a team that had lost four out of five. Bad times at the Farm, and pretty sad to see. Even the idiotic Stanford Band is just boring these days. Time was, they were innovative in their way of uncovering new ways to embarrass their alumni. (Guess all the innovation these days is in video making instead.)
Up next: a bowl somewhere. Las Vegas? Phoenix? San Francisco? Only time — and the results of the ASU-Arizona and USC-UCLA games — will tell. Have a happy Thanksgiving week, everyone.
Levy on Levy
If you go now to ESPN.com’s Cal-Stanford recap — and you have a computer capable of playing ESPN Motion highlights — you can enjoy the sight of ESPN anchor Steve Levy narrating highlights of Cal quarterback Steve Levy.
Newsweek senior editor Steven Levy was unavailable for comment.
November 19, 2005
All Right Now (Cal 27, Stanford 3)
Had a great time. More when I’m more awake. Nice to meet Kenny, Ken Crawford, and Michael Cruz.
In the meantime, see the Flickr gallery featuring photos I took from outer space — er, row 72 — at Stanford Stadium.
November 17, 2005
Levy to Start
It’s official, Steve Levy is your Big Game starter.
I would bet you cash money that Ayoob will play, though. But it will be fun to see the QB-turned-RB-turned-QB get some snaps at Stanford Stadium.
Phil and I will be there using my four season tickets, along with special guests Kenny from Seventh Inning Stretch and Marty from Across the Seams. See you all there!
Whammy On
Frequent readers of this Web site know that I have creepy, Jedi-like powers when it comes to laying down the bad mojo on teams whose fanbase offends my sense of good sportsmanship and proper decorum in victory as well as defeat. Jason has dubbed this fanstastic-seeming but nevertheless chillingly-accurate power of mine The Whammy. Its proper uses and care and feeding are spelled out in excruciating detail here. But to sum up for those of you new to the proceedings:
• I get one Whammy per sport a year.
• I may only use the Whammy to teach obnoxious fans to mind their P’s and Q’s.
• I cannot personally profit from the Whammy, either by using it to curse the opponents of teams that I root for or to cash in on foolhardy wagers.
And now a brief recap of the Whammy’s swath of destruction, featuring the teams with the great misfortune to be Whammied, why they earned my animus, and the cruel fate that ultimately befell them:
• 2000: UCLA — Hassled by unruly UCLA undergrads on my way to Memorial Stadium, I laid the Whammy on the Bruins. They lost that very afternoon to a lackluster Cal squad coached by the equally lackluster Tom Holmoe.
• 2001: UCLA again — Another foul-mouthed Bruin fan gives me guff for no good reason; his then-undefeated team is promptly dispatched by a Stanford squad on an express train to the Seattle Bowl.
• 2002: UCLA once more — I have no idea why I did it, but I did, and the Bruins lost to Cal once more.
• 2003: USC — A Trojan fan sitting next to me was being very unpleasant. And one Whammy later, Cal upset USC, leading directly to the Trojans getting screwed out of the BCS championship that year. Flawed computer rankings to blame? Yeah, if that helps you sleep better at night, unpleasant Trojan fan. But you and I both know the critical role the Whammy played in ruining your New Year.
• 2003: Boston Red Sox — Taunted by a Sox fan seconds after Boston had dispatched the A’s in the divisional playoffs, I laid a mammoth-sized Whammy on the BoSox. Could somebody tell me if that ball Aaron Boone hit off of Tim Wakefield in the ALCS has re-entered the earth’s atmosphere yet?
• 2004: Anaheim Angels of Whammyville — An Angels fan got a little bit too mouthy for my tastes after his team edged out mine for a divisional title. So I employed The Whammy to make sure the Angels went three and out in the playoffs.
So that brings us to this point in an otherwise Whammy-free 2005. (Decided to let Boston lose on its own accord this year, despite one cowardly Sox fan’s best efforts to live down to my low opinion of that particular fanbase.) And that brings me to Erica Lucero.
Lucero is a USC undergraduate who has been tapped by ESPN — apparently as part of some sort of program to lock up grating sportswriters while they’re young — to file weekly reports on the greatness of the Trojans. Between her and Bill Simmons, with his now-constant paeans to the majesty of both the Sox and the Patriots, I can only conclude that ESPN’s game plan is now to give us a steady stream of fanboy/girl writers whose sole raison d’etre is to sing hosannahs to their front-running team. Thank goodness the Lakers are in a bit of dry spell right now, or we would be subjected to some L.A.-based Page Two scribe writing homer-ific odes to the purple-and-gold.
But I digress.
Lucero’s column this week covers last Saturday’s Cal-USC contest. It’s filled with the usual schoolgirl cooing over the Men of Troy… but it also contains its fair share of potshots at the Trojans’ vanquished foe. Not-at-all-nice turns of phrase like “senile old Cal hippies” and other such pleasantries populate the prose, concluding with this display of grace-in-victory:
The novelty of cheering for the other team in a sea of the home team’s fans had faded. We had done what we had to do — embarrassed them thoroughly and left no question about our superiority.
Now, why’d you have to do that, Erica? No one would dispute the notion that USC is a fine football team — quite easily the finest collegiate team in all the land. You should be able to savor your victories without having to resort to rubbing your foes’ faces in it. After all, in a little more than a month-and-a-half, you are going to be celebrating your third consecutive National Championship.
Correction: you were going to be celebrating that championship. But I’m afraid your little display of poor sportsmanship has stirred the vengeful spirit of The Whammy.
Poor, poor Erica.
I don’t know when it’s going to happen, Erica. Maybe against Fresno State. Maybe against UCLA. Perhaps even in the Rose Bowl itself. But it will happen, Erica. And when it does, it will be excruciating — especially to a fan who can accept no less than a championship.
Look, I’d love to let bygones be bygones — I’m a reasonable man. But The Whammy, it’s got a temper. And it’s been drinking since August. I’m sorry, Erica, but you’re the one who let the genie out of the bottle. I’m just here to tell you that your team is doomed. Best you hear it from me first.
