LOS ANGELES -- The enthusiasm in Berkeley is muted because the California Golden Bears have been here before, possessing the opportunity to seize the Pac-10 crown from a vulnerable USC team, loaded with returning starters and gifted skill players, including a potential Heisman Trophy candidate.
It was 2006, and Marshawn Lynch was being billed as a Heisman candidate and the Bears were ready to unseat their hated rival from the south. Instead, they were blown out by Tennessee on national TV to open the season and then lost their Rose Bowl chance with a brutal loss at Arizona in November. Cal was relegated to the Holiday Bowl, and relegated once against to second-tier status in the college football landscape.
We've already spent a good chunk of FanHouse real estate covering the Golden Bears and the likelihood of their mediocrity in 2008. But in the interest of equal time (and bet hedging), it seems only fair for us to explore the other side of the argument as well. After all, this team has spent their fair share of time in Top 25 the past few seasons, even if they have managed to lose more than a few seemingly winnable/gimme games.
Jeff Tedford's team enters this season as the prototypical wild card: (a) they've been successful the past few seasons but have seemed to struggle under the weight of high expectations, and this year will have a decidedly lower profile than they did the past couple; (b) they have some key departures, but several of the replacements for those who left could actually prove to be a substantial upgrade by the time everything shakes out; and (c) they have a schedule that sees all but one of their tough games take place at the comfy confines of Berkeley's Memorial Coliseum.
Let's take a closer look at how Cal might manage to shock the "experts" and contend in 2008.
If Mediocrity had a football team, its mascot would most likely wear a giant foam Mike Stoops head
Ahhh, mediocre college football. Three words that go together like turkey, gravy, and stuffing.
While the majority of space here at FanHouse and on every other college football publication will be focused on the Top 25, season after season a huge slice of the college football fan pie (mmmm...fan pie) find themselves supporting a team who would most aptly be described as thoroughly mediocre, at best. I'd venture to guess that for every legit contender, there are probably three teams with a couple of flaws so glaring that only those blinded by the partisanship of homerdom can pretend their team's downsides won't inevitably sabotage any hopes of playing in a bowl of even moderate respectability.
And therein lies one of the most cruel realities of the college football landscape: winning 6 or 7 games is no small feat, and yet every year coaches and players around the country will be abused for achieving that very milestone. Of course, when you play in a conference like the Pac 10 -- who rewards its third place finisher with a December 31 game in El Paso's Sun Bowl -- can you really be that surprised when fans and pundits are critical of barely topping out above .500?
Who from the Pac 10 will slide to the middle of the pack in 2008? Here's a quick rundown of the leading candidates for Pacific time zone mediocrity this season.
Were it not for all the other wackiness in College Football this season, the collapses of California and Oregon Football would be among this year's major story lines. As both teams were poised to take over the number-one ranking in the country, their quarterbacks suffered injuries which sent their seasons on a downward spiral.
Oregon infamously refused to disclose the status of Dennis Dixon's knee during the bye week between games against Arizona State and Arizona, only to have their national championship hopes dislocated against the Wildcats.
But hiding a quarterback injury wasn't exclusive to the Ducks. California quarterback Nate Longshore played the nearly the whole season with a chipped bone in his ankle--hobbling him ever since the Bears beat the Ducks. Bears coach Jeff Tedford admitted yesterday, "There's a little chip in the back part of it there. I didn't get that it was a broken ankle. But Nate had talked to me about a little chip that was in the back there."
Oh, Berkeley hippies, how I love you and your quixotic quest to save a few trees adjacent to Memorial Stadium for no particular reason whatsoever. It is you and your irrelevant mountain of red tape that has delayed the renovation project Jeff Tedford demanded if he was going to stay at Cal, and now a judge has said the hippies can stay:
A judge on Wednesday refused the University of California, Berkeley's request to immediately evict a group of protesters who took up residence in an oak grove threatened by the planned construction of a campus athletic center.
In denying UC Berkeley's request for an emergency restraining order, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Richard Keller said university officials failed to prove the tree-sitters posed an immediate health and safety menace
Several lawsuits brought forth by various interested parties, including the city of Berkeley itself(!!!) are scheduled to go to trial next month... and probably drag on well into the spring, long enough for the Michigan job to come open and for the Wolverines to pounce on Tedford before his buyout doubles when Cal puts the renovation's first shovel in the ground. Win, you ludicrous bastards, win. Uh... because of the trees and stuff. Yeah, that's the ticket. We all have deep concern for trees here in Michigan. It has nothing to do with Jeff Tedford being an ass kicking savior guy.
The California Golden Bears enter the 2007 season with two objectives: exact revenge on Tennessee and remind people that they were Pac Ten Conference co-champions in 2006. A returning combo of Nate Longshore and DeSean Jackson makes this all the more possible, and here's how we break down Cal's Golden Bears this year...
WHY THEY'LL WIN
The University of California brings what some experts are calling the best Special Teams unit in the country to the 2007 season. Wide receiver DeSean Jackson has returned nearly one in five punts back for a touchdown in his career, giving the Golden Bears an "X-Factor" advantage when evenly matched up against teams offensively and defensively. Against most of the Pac Ten, the Bears display superior talent and a coaching genius named Jeff Tedford--so special teams may not even be a factor. But if they need the edge, it is there.
WHY THEY'LL LOSE
Much has been talked about the "rivalry" between Cal's Jeff Tedford and USC's Pete Carroll, but ever since Cal out-played the Trojans five seasons ago, it seems more like the Trojans own the Bears, with four straight wins. Some of the mystique of the overtime win back in 'Ought Three is wearing off.
Cal will have to prove early on that it is a contender for anything more than the Holiday Bowl when Tennessee brings their Southern values to the Bay Area over Labor Day weekend. Last year, the Bears were embarrassed on Rocky Top dropping them from a Top-Ten team to borderline Top 20.
What's more, Cal somehow lost to Arizona last year--which doesn't take a genius to figure out that something was awry in the coaching which won't go away this season.
It seems that any week of the season, just about any Pac Ten team can beat any other, unless the former is named Stanford--and after surprise upsets in 2006 by Arizona over California and UCLA and Oregon State over Southern California the axiom proved true--setting up some good revenge matches for 2007 in addition to a quality out-of conference schedule
5. Oregon State at Southern California, November 3
In 2006, Southern California traveled to a packed house in Corvallis, gave the ball up four times and dug itself into a 23-point deficit, before scoring 21 unanswered poins only to lose on a tipped ball two-point conversion. Homecoming will have extra meaning for the Trojans this year.
Beaver running back Yvenson Bernard will be making a run at two Trojans' places in the record books, as he chases Marcus Allen and Charles White on the all-time rushing yards list.
4. Notre Dame at UCLA, October 6
Only last-second heroics by Brady Quinn and Jeff Samardzija could save the Fighting Irish from the jaws of defeat at the hands of Pat Cowan and the rag-tag bunch of Bruins.
In 2007, Jimmy Clausen will have to fill the big shoes of Quinn as he makes his first trip back to Southern California in the Blue and Gold. Expect no sympathy for his spurning USC's advances from an aggressive Bruin defense.
California transfer Nyan Boateng hadn't even left Gainesville for Berkeley before he found trouble, as the future Golden Bear wide receiver was arrested last week and "charged with burglary residence, battery and criminal mischief," according to the Contra Costa Times.
The former Florida Gator--and the only one in the Cal program who can claim a National Championship--allegedly attempted to enter a former girlfriend's residence last Thursday, was refused entry then kicked the door in.
Cal Head Coach Jeff Tedford is "aware of the situation" and has suspended Boateng from all team activities while he "gathers more information." Even if he had stayed on the good side of the law, the transfer would have had to sit out the 2007 season, so the news has little impact on the program other than the schadenfreude felt by Stanford alumni.
An analysis of the NFL performance of three particular groups of college players suggests these groups are vastly overrated in the NFL draft and unlikely to succeed in the NFL. Those groups are Michigan skill position players, Virginia Tech defenders and Jeff Tedford coached quarterbacks.
The draft is light in such players this year, but just the same the evidence bodes poorly for guys like Michigan receiver Steve Breaston, Virginia Tech safety Aaron Rouse and combustible Cal quarterback Joe Ayoob.
Why is this so?
Call it the scheme/system factor. Sometimes there's a tradeoff for college success as a player who otherwise dominates on the college level in a particular system may not develop certain skills necessary for the NFL. This most affects the Virginia Tech defenders.
Beamer's secret isn't getting top talent and building the defense around the talent, Beamer and his coordinator have a scheme and go after the talent to fit that scheme. What is interesting is the constant of what kinds of players Beamer gets, and its usually undersized or oversized players for the NFL eyes, undersized DLmen (Engleberger and Adibi seems to be the only one close to the standard NFL size for a DE, but guys like Chamblee, Tapp and Jonathan Lewis seem to be the norm), over-sized Safeties (Rouse, Jimmy Williams and Willie Pile, but the CBs tend to be normal sized-but slow) and undersized Lbs (Moore, C. brown, Ken Brown).
As for the Michigan guys, their solid offensive line play over the years has apparently cursed everyone else involved in the Wolverine offense.
if a QB knows that he has that extra couple seconds to make his progressions, he gets used to it and when he hits the NFL, the speed of the pass rush caused him the most problems. The same problem in the passing game also applies to the WRs and TEs. If a receiver (either TE or WR) doesn't have to improvise as much (for example: knows that he can run his assigned route most of the time) and doesn't have to run hot routes as much, then the receiver doesn't develop the skills that they need in the NFL.
The Michigan line has also been the (NFL) bane of many a memorable Wolverine tailback.
with such a dependable Oline, the RBs did not develop needed skill sets because they had a great oline in front of them year after year. It might be as subtle as not having to learn to wait for the blocks to develop, or learning how to make use of the crease that is there
I wonder if Mike Hart can break the trend next year?
Cal football's scheming and stoic emperor has played a hand, agreeing to a contract extension to be with the Bears until 2013. Nick Saban, Todd Graham and many before them have taught us how meaningless these deals are. But you know what? The ties that bind may be weak but the principle speaks volumes: Tedford's happy at Cal.
In three successive postseasons rumors of imminent departure for better jobs elsewhere have agitated against the Tedford regime like surly Pacific waves crashing against the craggy northern California shoreline. And yet he remains. After five full seasons he has rebuilt the adrift program.
The Bears have never quite met the hype given to them, but if that's all you can say about them you're missing the real story. Tedford's model is as much about scheme and X's and O's as simply fielding a competitive squad through significant turnover. The Bear roster is littered with junior college rentals and three-and-done blue chippers. That's not the easy way to put together a team. It means managing egos and ambitions and rapidly integrating guys into a complex system before they're gone. Lather, rinse, repeat.
In that time the Bears have gone from a one win team to a pair of ten win seasons in the last three years. All of this against the backdrop of playing in the tumultuous Pac-10 with monolithic USC in one of its great runs staring at you annually. All of this against the backdrop of having to recruit a great many rough academic cases into one of America's finest public institutions. All of this against the backdrop of an athletic department in desperate need of funds to renovate a stadium built on a fault line. If Tedford were to leave, Cal's athletic department would be in the most vulnerable of positions.
Pressure? He's got it.
Winning? It's what he does.
Is Cal what everyone thought they'd be? No. But so long as the winning continues they'll have a shot given the right personnel and good fortune. That's the Tedford story.
LOS ANGELES -- The enthusiasm in Berkeley is muted because the California Golden Bears have been here before, possessing the opportunity to seize the Pac-10 crown from a vulnerable USC team, loaded with returning starters and gifted skill players, including a potential Heisman Trophy candidate.
Were it not for all the other wackiness in College Football this season, the collapses of California and Oregon Football would be among this year's major story lines. As both teams were poised to take over the number-one ranking in the country, their quarterbacks suffered injuries which sent their seasons on a downward spiral.
The University of California brings what some experts are calling the best Special Teams unit in the country to the 2007 season. Wide receiver 
Much has been talked about the "rivalry" between Cal's Jeff Tedford and USC's 
California transfer 
So sayeth 
Cal football's scheming and stoic emperor has played a hand, 
