I was at the Cal Bearts game yesterday and as a fan who has sat through the good years and the bad years, I think I can offer some good insight into their play and their outlook for the season. I’ll post in list format, starting with the good news:

-The defense looked surprisingly strong. There are those who will discount their performance because it was only against Sac State need only look around the conference at the scores this weekend. A lot of powder puff teams put double digit scores against good Pac-10 teams. The reality is that when you’re team puts up 40+ points, you’re likely to have a more relaxed “don’t give up the big play” mindset. The Cal defense shut the door all day long, applying good pressure and having mostly good pass coverage (minus one should have been a touchdown, boy did we get lucky, coverage failure). Even the 3 points were not given up easily and a couple of lucky plays were key to them getting in field goal territory. Heck, we only gave up 121 yards through the air and 71 yards on the ground. Even against Sac State, those are stats to be proud of. In my opinion a lot of questions were answered on defense and in a good way.
-Nate Longshore (the starting QB) played as advertised and it is clear why he got the starting job. While there were some jitters, overall he had good arm strength, good decision making skills and fairly good touch. In fact the only area he didn’t live up to the hype was in lower leg bone strength… such a shame. More on this later.
-The wide receiver core looked good. They were running sharp routes, finding the seams, and they were FAST. This is one of the fastest receiving cores I’ve ever seen at Memorial stadium. Actually, I’m almost as excited about this crew as I was about the duo we had last year. In some ways it is even better as we have a lot more depth, so the 2005 equivalent of Lyman going down the USC game won’t be nearly as devestating.
-Marshawn Lynch (the main running back) lived up to the high expectations and definitely seems able to be a every down back. In fact, he seemed to get stronger as the game went on. Along those lines, I think his intensity to start the game was a little low. Tedford had said that the coaching staff had been telling him to know when to give up so that he doesn’t cough up the ball when he has no chance of making extra yards. I think part way into the game either he and/or the coaches realized that you can’t keep that man on a leash because he seemed to step it up a notch. The only question mark I saw from that point was his ability to rush inside the tackles because he didn’t do nearly as well as I would have hoped, especially against a division I-AA team. Supposedly, run defense is one of Sac State’s strengths, so lets hope that’s true and that the offensive line was having first game jitters.
-Now things start to go downhill from here… Particularly in the first half, the offense didn’t seem to be in sync. As Tedford said, it seemed like they hadn’t practiced in two weeks. I suspect this is because it was the first game for a lot of players and there were a lot of jitters. I suspect that between the experience of playing in an actual game and Tedford taking them out to the woodshack tomorrow at practice, this’ll be cleared up by next week.
-Ayoob, the highly touted JC transfer quarterback, STUNK. I mean he couldn’t hit the side of a… there’s got to be a witty thing besides ‘barn’ to say here. In any case, the good news is that his decision making skills were good and he was more nimble in the pocket than Longshore. One has to believe that he threw the ball better than that at his JC college, so there is hope. However, some players can not make the adjustment to the next level if nothing else because they crack under the increased pressure. Let’s hope that’s not the case here. But let’s not minimize the fact that a two man quarterback controversy should be solved when one of them gets injured. When the third guy is all of sudden the new quarterback of controversy, that speaks to how poorly Ayoob played.

So overall, outside of the quarterback situation, I’m encouraged. They’ll still be some growning pains, but with Washington (even Wilmingham can’t save us), Illinois (we need overtime to beat Rutgers), New Mexico State (can we really field two football teams in this state?) and Arizona (it can only go up from last year) on our schedule for the next 4 weeks, I think we’ll be able to work out those kinks before our first big challenge at UCLA on October 8th.

So all that remains in the quarterback situation… ugh.

I have a tendancy to slam columnist when they’re idiots. But I don’t want to give the idea that I don’t like columns. Case in point, this column was great. I particularly like humorous columns!

Well it turns out the rumors were right. Nate Longshore gave Joe Ayoob the booya and took the starting job from him. He’ll be starting the game vs. Sac State and although Tedford has promised some starting time to Ayoob, it looks like the job is Longshore’s to lose.

To quote Tedford:

“Nate Longshore is going to start the game for us. He has done an excellent job for us, not only through the spring, but it’s evident that he worked really hard through the summer. He has really done a nice job of understanding what we are doing schematically with our offense, has really been consistent and accurate with throwing the ball, so I feel that he has really performed well. … We hope that both of them (Longshore and Ayoob) will play in the first game and we’ll see what happens from there – how they handle game situations and continue the competition. Right now Nate (Longshore) is the guy.”

OK, I was reading the preview for Saturday’s Bear’s game against Sac State and there were a couple things they said about Sac State that really threw me off:

1. Sac State was 3-8 last year (tied for 6th place out of 8 teams). Yet they had “nine all-conference selections”. How can such a crappy team have 9 players who were the best at their position in the conference? There’s only about 25 positions (22 on offense and defense plus a punter, kicker, and maybe a return specialist or one or two others). I have a hard time believing fully 1/3rd of them came from one of the worst teams in the conference. I mean, was this academic all-conference selections? Or did it include 3rd string all-conference? What ever it is, there’s something wrong or misleading here.

2. Also odd, they were 3-8 last year and they’re returning 17 starters (that’s probably from the 22 on offense and defense), but they’re picked to finish last in the conference this year. What’s so wrong with this team? They didn’t even finish last, last year. What’s the story?

Now that I’ve got my A’s analysis out of the way, on to more important affairs (although not as important as our prayers for New Orleans and Mississippi): The Cal Bears. The first game of the season is Saturday at 2:00 PM. For those of you not lucky enough to have bought season tickets and foolish enough to pay for Comcast cable, the game will be on the Comcast SportsNet channel in Northern California.

The game is against Sac State. We should know the eventual outcome within the first couple of series as I don’t see Sac State putting up much of a fight.

The A’s are continuing their awesome turn around and I’m confident in their future despite last nights loss in LA of Anahiem. What has impressed me is their ability to play with the good teams this year. They’ve taken 2 of 3 from the Angels both in Oakland and in LA of Anahiem and have a chance to take 2 of 3 with a win tonight there in their last road series with LA of Anahiem. Plus, they beat up the Twins in the Metrodome, and have spanked the White Socks. If they can take 2 of 3 from the Yankees over the weekend in Oakland, I’ll have a lot of confidence that come playoff time, we’ve got a good shot at finally getting past the first round.

But just to be balanced, a couple less pleasant thoughts:

-Kendall is hitting like crap right now. I know he does a good job picking pitches for his pitchers, but it’s time to give Melhouse a chance again. He was on fire the last time he was in the lineup.
-I’m going to start calling Payton the double-play-bozo. When there’s a man on first I’m almost glad when he strikes out because we get to keep the guy on first.
-Hatteburg is hitting poorly too. He’s only the DH right now. Why hasn’t he been replaced with someone who actually will hit the ball right now. This has been a bad year for him.

OK, that’s it. Those three guys (particularly Payton and Hatteburg back to back) are really hurting the A’s offense, though. The worst part is that they seem to choke the most in big games. Thankfully the rest of the lineup is doing pretty well and the pitching staff is on fire.

I was reading an article in the SF Chronicle about Marshawn Lynch. (He’s the starting running back for Cal this year for those not in the know.) That guy was amazingly exciting to watch last year. I was usually more excited to see a run play when he was on the field than when JJ Arrington was on the field.

That guy could make a tiny hole look like a wide open field with his ability to accelerate. He could make a solid tackle look like a feeble attempt with his balance. He could make a nimble linebacker look like a stumbling dufus because of his quick cuts and good footwork. He was just amazing. There were a couple plays last year where he’d run into a pack of defenders and the play looked like it was over. I’d even turn away. Then, what seemed like 10 seconds later, the crowd would yell and I’d look back to see 5 defenders holding each other on the ground and Lynch 15 yards down field after having bounced his way out of the pack. Truly amazing stuff.

And if that wasn’t enough to get you excited, he’s added 20 lbs this year to increase the amount of power he has. I can’t wait to see him in action this year. He truly does have “the gift”. I won’t be looking away anymore.

According to Matt Hayes of the Sporting News, Mr. Booya (Joe Ayoob) has lost his starting job to Nate Longshore. Ayoob is the highly touted JC transfer from SF City College. Longshore is the redshirt freshman. It seems (according to this reporter) that Tedford liked Longshore all along but was worried about his lack of mobility in the pocket. Longshore worked tirelessly in the offseason to improve in this regard and has improved to the degree to get the starting nod from Tedford.

Very interesting… if it is true.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Catholic programming.

OK, it’s starting to be college football time again, so this blog is going to mix-it-up a little bit and add some secular discussion to the mix. Some starting thoughts:

1. This is straight from an analysis of UCLA this year: “Defensively, the Bruins could not stop anybody on the ground last year, giving up 210 yards per game. With five of the front seven back, this number should go down dramatically.” Or to paraphrase: Last year these guys stunk but with the same guys on the team this year they should be much better. Only in college football can you get away with that kind of analysis.

2. Stanford can only go up… or stay right where they are. They’re picked last in the Pac-10 by just about everyone and were one of only two Pac-10 teams not to get ESPN poll votes. And that’s even with the new highly touted coach they took from Pittsburg (for us Californian’s that’s a team in the Big East conference, not a mislocation of De La Salle High School in Concord (although as my brother said, we’d all probably have more respect for the De La Salle guy)).

3. We’ve got GREAT seats for the Cal Bears game this year. Middle height? check: rows 44 and 45. Seats close to the exit: check: 38 is the exit row. Isle seats? check: seats 1-3 and 1-2 in those rows respectively. Two rows instead of one long row so that we’re all closer together, have more leg room through cooperation and my boys can kick they’re legs all they want without dirty looks from the grump in front of me (unless you want to call my brother a grump): check. 50 yard line… er… yeah… that’s where section DD is.

4. My brother still owes me $220 for his ticket (look who’s the grump now)!

5. And most importantly, it looks like it is going to be a good year in Berkeley! People are already touting the Cal vs. USC game as the Pac-10 game of the year with $10 general adminision tickets going for $70 a piece on E-Bay and reserved tickets going for $100-$300.

Well, it looked at the start of the season like this might be a bad year in Oakland. It turns out, all we needed to do was be patient and wait. Unlike the Giants who are in a death spiral of steriod withdrawls (without Barry “I didn’t inhale, or at least know what I was inhaling” Bonds), the A’s are red hot!

How hot are they? They’ve won 34 of their last 42 (that’s 34-8 for a winning percentage of .810 for the math challenged out there) since the end of May.

Or said another way, they’re so hot I was disappointed when they lost their first game in over a week on Wednesday, to only take 3 of 4 in the Metrodome. 3 month’s ago I would have been happy (and I mean HAPPY) to get a split of a 4 game series there.

Way to go A’s!