September 2, 2007
Cal 45, Tennessee 31
August 12, 2007
Excuse Me For My Voice
Ken Crawford, author of the excellent Bear Territory blog, has offered to join forces with myself and Phil, and we’re going to give it the old college try.
So for the foreseeable future, for your Cal Football needs, please keep up with us at Excuse Me For My Voice.
January 24, 2007
Goodbye, Mike Dunbar
Offensive Coordinator Mike Dunbar is leaving Cal to take an O.C. job at Minnesota.
As many readers know, the Dunbar family is close to my uncle and his family. We were lucky enough to be the Dunbars’ guests at the Big Game, and got to meet Mike and Linda in person. Really nice people.
It was clear at the outset that Tedford’s move to bring in Dunbar was an odd one — a spread-formation coach coming in to run the offense under Tedford, who clearly has some differing philosophies? We’ll never know the real reasons, though I suspect Tedford wanted someone who he could trust as playcaller and was intrigued by the idea of using the spread more. In the end, my guess would be (and no, I have no inside information) that Tedford wanted to use the spread less, Dunbar wanted to use it more, and in the end it wasn’t a marriage that was going to work.
Some of the more, um, colorful Cal bloggers out there have said “good riddance” to Dunbar. I suppose if you believe that Tedford is God, you’ve got to place all your blame on Dunbar.
As for me, I think it’s fair to call the Dunbar hire a reach by Tedford. Tedford wanted to try going in a different direction, but in the end it was clear that it wasn’t working. I don’t blame Tedford or Dunbar for wanting to resolve the situation. But let’s be clear — it was Jeff Tedford’s decision to bring Mike Dunbar to Cal. I’m not quite sure why we need to spread blame around about a year when Cal won a share of the Pac-10 championship for the first time since 1975. But if there’s blame to be placed, let’s not place it on Mike Dunbar for being exactly the person he was before Jeff Tedford hired him. Tedford took a shot, tried something different, and it didn’t work.
Now the Dunbars get to move on to Minnesota, where I have every expectation that they’ll do well. And Tedford will learn from this experience and go another route, presumably with an Offensive Coordinator who will be his playcaller but fit more clearly within Tedford’s established style.
So it goes in the football business.
January 16, 2007
Online Petitions are Dumb
I think online petitions are dumb. Nobody listens to them, nobody cares. It’s all a case of people patting themselves on the back for something, making them feel like they took a stand when all they really did was fill out a web form that will be ignored.
That said, I still signed it, and so should you. Feel free to call it dumb while you’re signing it — I know I did.
By the way, smelly hippies still suck.
January 1, 2007
On the Rose Bowl
That 23-9 loss to USC isn’t looking so bad now, eh?
Cal looked much better than Michigan looked today, I’ll tell you that.
December 31, 2006
How’s That For a Holiday? (Cal 45, Texas A&M 10)
If the 2004 Holiday Bowl was from hell, this one was from heaven.
Cal looked like they did during the early part of their long winning streak this season, allowing a terrible first defensive series and then dominating the rest of the game. After about half a quarter of watching Texas A&M’s confusing option scheme, the defense figured it out and that was basically it.
Longshore and his talented collection of receivers (so this is what it’s like to have healthy receivers in a Holiday Bowl!) picked apart the porous A&M secondary, and the A&M line was manhandled, opening holes aplenty for Lynch and Forsett.
Getting to San Diego was as much of a nightmare as usual. Terrible traffic on Interstate 5 prevented a quick side trip to visit the old Alma Mater (yes, I went to UCSD). We got into the insanely mismanaged Qualcomm Stadium parking lot maybe an hour before kickoff.
Now a word about the halftime show. What does it take to competently produce a sporting event? I’d really like to know, because whatever it takes, it was not in evidence in San Diego on Thursday. The halftime show was like a parody of halftime shows from elsewhere: let’s throw every single thing we can think of into the stadium and see what sticks! Fireworks? Check. High school bands? Check. Smoke machine on the field? Check. Loud crappy music blaring from giant AM-radio-quality stadium speakers? Check. And hey, I know: let’s do ‘em all at once!
Yes, that’s right. While the skies are full of fireworks and the stadium sound system howls with crappy music, the Holiday Bowl geniuses decided to also have marching bands playing on the field, next to a giant smoke machine. Those poor kids. Nobody could hear them over the terrible music playing over the speakers. And nobody was watching them anyway, on account of the fireworks. As for the on-field smoke machine, well, that was apparently just there to make the playing field foggy for the first part of the third quarter. Job well done!
It makes me feel a bit better about the terrible PA system and stupid video board management at Memorial Stadium.
Finally a word about the Texas A&M marching band and the intricate chants of the Aggie faithful. I came in with an open mind, but I have to call it the way I see it: The band was colorless and unimaginative, and then when they’re done they run away like someone has warned them of incoming artillery from enemy forces. The fight song is the theme from “Yogi Bear.” The chants are weird. I can’t say I was impressed.
The Phantasmagorical Brain of Dave Del Grande
Dave Del Grande writes:
There’s no doubt in my mind the Bears would have won more than 10 games this season had [Steve Levy] led the way.
I’ll insert a pause here so you can get that laughter under control.
Had the Bruins’ defense laid down against USC as it did in the Emerald Bowl, Cal would be in Pasadena today preparing for a Rose Bowl showdown with the Big Ten runner-up, Michigan.
Um… no. When UCLA beat USC, Cal had already been removed from the BCS and accepted a Holiday Bowl Berth.
I’d suggest that Dave Del Grande is the worst sports columnist in the Bay Area, but that position’s filled.
