That’s right, tomorrow is the day where we officially find out whether the recruits who have been commiting to Cal and other schools actually follow through on that commitment.  Generally there aren’t too many surprises, but just about every year there are a handful around each conference.  I have it on good authority that Cal is going to get a last minute recruit who is dumping another Pac-10 school.  I can’t say who yet…

Speaking of which, if you want all of the inside information and fastest breaking news on recruiting, today is the best day to signup at http://cal.rivals.com to get the best bang for your buck.  Tomorrow is the day that everything they’ve worked hard on all year comes to fruition.  As a reporter for the site who covers the team (not the recruits) I’ve been absolutely amazed at how much information gets passed around behind the scenes.

The subscription is well worth the price this time of year.

UPDATE 2/6 @ 9 AM: I posted this blog entry at the end of the day yesterday so that it would be up all day today in reference to tomorrow.  But yesterday, tomorrow was inaccurate.  So, just to clarify, signing day is Wednesday, which is tomorrow today but not yesterday.

Cal has announced that the offensive line coach Jim Michalczik will be the new offensive coordinator.  Instead of hiring an outside guy, Tedford decided to promote from within.

From my perspective, this was a wise choice.  Tedford’s staff had stayed intact for his first 4 years and was a significant part of the program’s success.  Unfortunately for Cal, success brings the headhunters.  A number of assistant coaches have left over the last couple years.  By promoting internal candidates not only do you help prevent that particular coach from bolting but you create an environment where others might stay when headhunters come their way in the hope that they too might get a promotion some day.

Additionally, by promoting from within Tedford ensures that the new OC has “bought into” the offensive scheme that is used at Cal.  There was always an uneasy feeling about the Tedford-Dunbar experiment because no one was quite sure what the experiment would yield.  In retrospect, it turns out that some of the haphazard play calling we saw in 2006 was a result of the collision between the two offensive systems.

Considering how strong our offensive line has been the last few years, it is clear that coach Michalczik is a good coach and I’m hopeful that the step up to OC and do a great job.

Some of you may remember that I wrote a blog post before the 2006 football season about how to avoid getting the score of the game when you plan to watch it later on the TiVo.

Well, Scott Adams (author of the Dilbert comic strip) has written about his experiences on the subject as well.  Although it’s about tennis, it’s still funny stuff.

I hadn’t blogged on the subject because I wanted to let the facts sort themselves out before I commented.

Marshawn Lynch, the star RB at Cal who is turning pro this spring was accused of sexual assault by an ex-girlfriend.  My first reaction, after having seen the Duke case and others, was to assume that the girl was a money grabbing liar.  Others on other Cal blogs expressed similar sentiments.

But what is missed from that initial reaction was a disappointment in myself.  What if this girl really had been violated?  What if Marshawn, despite being Mr. Shy to the press, was a sexual deviant who deserved to be in prision?  How bad would my reaction have been then?

Well the news has broke today that the charges have been dropped due to lack of evidence and contradictions in the woman’s story.  Every indication was that my initial reaction was correct.

Can anyone else besides me see how horrible it is for our society that this keeps happening?  Was I the only one who’s parents told him the story “The Kid Who Cried Wolf”?  This is yet another instance that will lead people to be distrustful of women who make sexual assault cases against prominent men.  In the end it is the women who most need our support who will be negatively affected by this story.  I don’t know how we make it stop, but for the sake of sexually abused women everywhere, this has got to stop.

Well, it looks like yet again the irrational idiot minority have won over rational adults.  A judge has issued a temporary injunction against the Cal Performance Center.  The best-case scenario at this point is a quick appeal to overturn the ruling.  The likely scenario is that it delays the project a year.  The worst-case scenario is that this will be the demise of the project, Tedford will leave, the Cal football program will go into the tank, and I’ll be able to improve my season ticket location in the stadium (I took a hit when I added some seats).

This ruling upsets me for so many reasons but the biggest is just how disingenuous the lawsuits are.  From the article:

“[the plantiffs] made a sufficient case that the project violates the Alquist-Priolo Act, a state law prohibiting new buildings on earthquake faults.”

Yet, it is clear from talking to any of the plaintiffs that they could care less about the earthquake fault.  The tree-huggers only care about the trees.  The other two organizations only cares about the trees and their views and Tom Bates, the mayor of Berkeley is quoted in the article as saying:

“We’re open to discussion. I personally would be willing to negotiate, although it’s not totally my call,” he said. “Some things are non-negotiable. The garage, for example, is off the charts. That’s a non-starter.”

In other words, this is about traffic and trees and political clout.  Any idiot, including the idiots filing the lawsuits, realize that this project will dramatically improve seismic safety not hamper it.  But no, instead of having the integrity to file the suit on what they really believe, they file the suit based on whatever they can come up with that looks like it might have a prayer of winning.

The other thing that really bothers me is just how horrible our judges are.  They are overly cautious and defer WAY to much to activists.  It seems there is a new example every day of a lawsuit that just about any rational person knows what the ruling should be that some idiot judge says something like “Nah, we’ll make the University delay.  We want to be extra cautious.”

I know fairly few Cal Bear fans are practicing Catholics but today should be a day of prayer and fasting for all Cal Bear fans:

“Why is my pain continuous, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? …

Thus the LORD answered me: If you repent, so that I restore you, in my presence you shall stand; If you bring forth the precious without the vile, you shall be my mouthpiece. … Though they fight against you, they shall not prevail, for I am with you, to deliver and rescue you, says the LORD.  I will free you from the hand of the wicked, and rescue you from the grasp of the violent.” (Daniel 15:18-21)

OK, so maybe that’s a bit over the top, this is just football, but nevertheless for all those who ask today “WHY!?! DEAR GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN CAL BEAR FANS!?!” remember that God listens to all prayers, and rejoices in those who repent of their sins.

Mike Dunbar is leaving Cal:

• Contra Costa Times article
• ESPN article
• Minnesota paper’s take

This isn’t much of a surprise to me.  As much as Tedford is too classy of a guy to state publically that he was unhappy with Dunbar, I think it is safe to say that the two were unable to compromise successfully.  Tedford likes too much of his Pro-Set offense and Dunbar was too attached to the pure spread.

While I’m sure Tedford was honest when he said that he’s going to continue to use some of the elements of the spread, I suspect things will look more like the 2004 offense in 2007.  He’ll always have the spread plays in his “bag of tricks” however.

Overall I think this was a good decision for everyone involved. Many of the plays called this year were somewhat puzzling.  In some ways, that makes more sense now.  If Dunbar wasn’t confortable with the offensive style he was executing, he wouldn’t be completely comfortable calling plays.  He doesn’t think Pro-Set, doesn’t know how to maximize it, but yet can’t pull out all of his spread options because that’s not the offense being run.  I’m sure he’ll be more successful at a team that will let him run a true spread.

As for Cal, things will be better too.  The offense will be of one mind, the Tedford one.

Well the Pac-10 released the “preliminary” football schedule for all of its teams.  From my understanding, the only thing preliminary is the non-conference schedule.  Once the conference schedule is released, it’s pretty much written in stone.  You can find the Pac-10 release at: http://www.fansonly.com/photos/schools/pac10/sports/m-footbl/auto_pdf/07FootballSched.pdf.  You can find the Cal press release at: http://calbears.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/011907aab.html.

As for the actual schedule here it is:

Sept. 1 Tennessee
Sept. 8 at Colorado State
Sept. 15 Louisiana Tech
Sept. 22 Arizona
Sept. 29 at Oregon
Oct. 6 BYE
Oct. 13 Oregon State
Oct. 20 at UCLA
Oct. 27 at Arizona State
Nov. 3 Washington State
Nov. 10 USC
Nov. 17 at Washington
Nov. 24 BYE
Dec. 1 at Stanford

This is a semi-significant change from what was previously published.  Basically, the Big Game was moved from its traditional date (for 2007 that would be Nov. 17th) to what is apparantly going to be the new traditional date.  All of the conference rivalry games are now after Thanksgiving as opposed to the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  With that change, the gave versus Washington was moved from October 6th to the newly vacated Nov. 17th date.

Other than the fact that it puts the squash on my previously planned road trip where I’d catch the Oregon and Washington on the road back to back, I’m also not looking forward to Cal having to go to Seattle in mid-November, particularly with what I’m sure will be a work-in-progess Washington team that may have gotten its act together between the two dates.

On the other hand, its been proven time and time again that from a ranking perspective, it is better to play games in those last couple weeks to impress the pollsters.  At the same time, adding a couple bye’s to what was previously a bye-less schedule has its advantages.

Here are the games that I think will be the critical ones next year:

• 9/29 at Oregon: Cal always struggles there and Oregon will not yet have had their confidence broken.
• 10/20 at UCLA: The home team has won the last 7 (or something like that) in this matchup.
• 11/10 USC: Do I really need to say anything?

The honorable mentions are 9/22 Arizona (they’re getting better) and 10/27 at ASU (lots of wasted talent in last few year, will the new coach be able to turn it around?).

For those in the know, the UC Berkeley stadium plans continue to be under attack from now FOUR groups.

1. City of Berkeley (traffic and safety concerns, supposedly)
2. Student environmental group (destruction of trees planted when first stadium was build)
3. Tree squatters (similar to #2)
4. Tightwad hill (claim new stadium plans will block their view of field)

I was against a petition a couple months ago but now that the opposition to the Performance Center has solidified and is clearly in it for the long haul, it is time that us average joes make our voices heard.

Don’t let the wack-jobs win this one.

Sign the petition.

While I frequently find rankings that I think are a bit off, most of the time most rankings are accurate enough to be in the “marginally debatable” category.  However, every once and a great while I find a ranking that is just unacceptably bad and needs to be brought to light.

The ranking to draw my ire this time is the Sagarin computer ranking.  It’s not Cal’s ranking that bothers me, on the contrary, the #12 w/o margin of victory and #6 with for #8 overall is quite generous in my opinion.  No, it’s the other end of the Pac-10, Stanford:

How in God’s name can they be ranked 104th in the country!?!  It’s even worse for the ranking w/o margin of victory (81st).

This is a team that is ranked six spots above 11-1 (yes, 11 wins) San Diego University, the very school that Stanford’s new head coach was hired from.  Said another way, even the guys at Stanford think San Diego is a better team!?!

OK, that’s enough of kicking a team while it’s down…

(As a short but interesting aside, Sagarin ranks Stanford as having the most difficult  schedule in the country.)

OK, I finally got around to posting the best pictures (I know, pretty pathetic that this was the best I could do) I took as a Cal reporter this season.  You can find them here:

http://thecrawfordfamily.net/gallery/cal-reporter

I hope to do much better next season.