Well another Superbowl has passed. Forty of them…

The first thing to note is that Superbowl Sunday is quickly becoming “Ken’s obligitory annual beer day”. For some reason I just don’t drink very much at all and it isn’t because of any religious aversion. When offered a beer or a soda most of the time my mouth desires a soda. In any case, I’ve made a point of ensuring a drink a beer on Superbowl Sunday just to make sure I drink a beer now and again. Kinda odd…

Along those lines, Wendy said something that every man wants to hear now and again from his wife: “Can I get you another beer?” Admittedly, she isn’t exactly given a lot of oportunities to say that, particularly the “another” part.

Also, I realized how much I miss watching the Superbowl with my Dad. Every year I’d get to hear my Dad lose his cool because someone was talking during a commercial. The best part was that he’d rewind the segment to hear it again and inevitably everyone would be quiet just long enough for him to rewind, re-watch the part he heard the first time, and then someone would say something just as he was trying to hear it the 2nd time. The resulting fracas was always fun to watch. I’ll have to make sure I watch the game with him next year.

On to this years commercials:

This year started with a pretty good batch. I particularly like the following (in order):

1. Bud’s secret fridge and the rotating wall.
2. FedEx’s pre-historic manager “that’s not my problem”
3. Bud’s running from the bear.
4. Bud’s “cleaning the gutters”
5. AmeriQuest’s “that killed him” bit (the fly by the doctor) even though I didn’t like the “Don’t judge too quickly” series as a whole.
6. CareerBuilder’s Chimps running company think sales are up because they’ve got the chart sideways.

But as the day wore on, not only did the commercials get worse, but I saw A LOT of already running ads, particularly from Carls Jr. What every happened to every ad on the superbowl being new?

Next up, the halftime show:

This just gets worse EVERY year. This year we just have a standard run of the mill Rolling Stones concert. What’s special/super about that? I mean it was fine, for a Rolling Stones concert. But who cares? If I wanted to see the Rolling Stones I’d order up whatever pay-per-view thing they’re doing right now. At least last year with Paul McCartney they had a pretty cool fireworks display synchronized to the music. That was somewhat unique. But the Rolling Stones doing they’re regular thing just isn’t special. In the end, the whole concert halftime show is the wrong way to go. I’d rather see the traditional marching bands or similar stuff. I want to see something unique even at the expense of “guaranteed” enjoyability. It doesn’t make any sense to do a rock concert. That’ll just never be special or unique. Add on the pre-game concert by Stevy Wonder and you’ve got a bad joke on your hands. Something really needs to be done about this.

Finally, the game itself:

Every Seattle fan this morning needs to shutup about the refs. It wasn’t that bad and you probably would have lost anyway. There’s actually a petition circulating this morning asking for the NFL to add “reviews” to penalties.

Listen people, that’s THE ABSOLUTE LAST thing that the NFL needs. I already don’t like the reviews and you can’t have reviews of judgement calls by the refs. See, the underlying problem is that every play has 10 fouls if you go just by the rule book. By the letter of the law tons of rules get broken. The refs therefore reasonably have to make judgement calls as to what was a big enough infraction to justify calling the penalty. Often times they are using their knowledge of the minor infractions that weren’t called before that to decide whether to call a penalty now. So, in the case of the offensive pass interference call that overturned a touchdown (which admittedly was the most objectional call) for all we know he’d been pushing off the defender all day and that was the straw that broke the camels back. But that doesn’t change the fact that the player did indeed break a rule even though he didn’t break the “spirit” of the rule.

I also think the replay of the TD was handled correctly. There wasn’t enough evidence to OVERTURN the call. People forget that the ref’s job is not to determine what was most likely the case but to determine if there is solid evidence that the call on the field was wrong. This didn’t exist for two reasons:

1. the ball was hidden behind the QB’s arm
2. the camera that had the best angle wasn’t on the line but in the endzone (I’d say 4-5 yards deep) and that slight angle change is more significant than you think in making the location of the line difficult to judge.

Which brings me to an on-going complaint I have about football TV coverage (both college and pro). Why is it that the sideline cameral is always out of position? Seriously, on a play like that the camera should be RIGHT ON the endzone line! Why is it always slightly off. At least if it had been right on the line of scrimage (another thing they frequenly fail to properly place it on) they’d have an excuse, but no, it’s 4 yards deep in the endzone. And this is the case just about EVERY time. They NEVER put it right on the line even when it is clear that they set it up for the line shot. Just ridiculous.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!

For those not in the know, today is the first day that future students of colleges can sign commitment letters to attend those schools with the intent of playing football. That doesn’t sound like a big deal at first, but it turns out it is a VERY big deal. Coaches have been traveling all over the country for the last 3 months courting the best high school football players. Up until now, none of them have been able to sign on the dotted line so other coaches come in a try to sway those who intend to go to one school or another. Today is the day that the coaches get the majority of their recruits to sign on the dotted line.

Click here for a list of the Cal recruits who have signed as of today.

In general, it seems like a pretty good lot, ranked by most as the 4th best in the Pac-10 (USC, Arizona, UCLA in that order being better). However, the QB, Kevin Riley is supposed to be incredible and there are THREE highly touted running backs: R.J. Garrett, James Montgomery and Tracy Slocum. This is an indication that Cal is getting a reputation with running backs as being one of the premiere running schools on the west coast, and why wouldn’t it with all the talent that has gone through here in the last few years. Also of note are two junior college transfers who will be immediate help on the depleated offensive line.

Things continue to look up in Berkeley…

For those not in the know, Tightwad Hill is a hill just behind Memorial Stadium that is high enough to allow very good viewing of the games in the stadium. For just about every Cal football game there can be multiple hundreds of fans watching the game from this free location.

Well, it turns out that there is an official website (Hat tip: The Seventh inning Stretch)

UPDATE: updated to include my brother’s contribution to the trip

Well it seems of all the Cal Bloggerbacks that I read, I’m the only one who actually went to the game. So here’s a wrapup of both the game and the event:

My brother Brian and I left Sacramento on Weds. the 21st at 6 PM headed for Vegas after I had a long day of work trying to wrap things up before my Christmas break. Brian works an early day (5 AM to noon) and met me at my place for the trip after driving up from Oakland. 9 hours and a refresher clutch driving lesson for my brother later we arrived in Vegas (my first ever trip) and checked into the Hard Rock Hotel, the official hotel of the Cal Bears for the Las Vegas bowl. The Hard Rock Hotel is about 6 blocks off the strip and let me tell you it was DEAD. Granted, it was 3 in the morning, but there was absolutely ZERO sign of a partying Cal contingent. When I woke up, after remembering just how loud my brother can snore, I showered and we checked out of my room, the place had transformed itself into a Cal dominated hotel, but a very mellow one. I thought we were in Vegas?

Besides driving the strip to see the various hotels, Brian and I knew one of the important sights to see in Vegas was the buffet line. After a long decision making process including calling one of Brian’s long lost friends who lives in Vegas and accounting for Brian’s numerous food aversions, we ended up going to the MGM grand for a lunch. The cash register lady looked none to pleased to see us approaching, knowing it was a losing proposition to let us eat…

Tailgating at Sam Boyd stadium was relaxed and jovial. Cal fans just aren’t experienced tailgaters. May have something to do with the fact that there is no where to tailgate in Berkeley… BYU fans seemed to be similarly as inexperienced at tailgating because despite the fact that Cal fans were greatly outnumbered in the stands, Cal tailgaters outnumbered BYU tailgaters 2 to 1. The first true sign of us being in Vegas was the cadre of Cal fans (OK, only two of them) who came over asking for food because they spent all their money on beer.

Sam Boyd stadium is nice enough and has a TON more legroom that Memorial stadium. The entire seating areas is elevated, so even being in the 6th row, we had pretty good depth perception and no visibility problems. The stadium also has remarkably little sideline room so the stands are VERY close to the field. The TV announcers greatly over estimated the dominance of the BYU fans at the stadium. Basically the BYU fans took one side of the field plus the endzone while the Cal contingent took the other side (the second endzone having no stands). I’d say the crowd breakdown was 15K to 25K in BYU’s favor. While their cheers were loud, the fact that they were opposite the press box I think made them sound louder than they were compared to the Cal fans who were below and facing away from the announcers. In other words, Cal fans made plenty of noise. In fact, there seemed to be moments where the BYU players seemed a little surprised to hear so much Cal noise when they were expecting a home crowd.

OK, on to the game.

I think Cal played below their potential and BYU played above theirs. They also got some VERY generous penalty calls and Cal didn’t get any penalty breaks. Said another way, there was only one way this game could have been closer than the 35 to 28 Cal victory that occured: Cal turnovers. That is the #1 thing to be happy about in the game. Cal made ZERO big mistakes. No bad penalties, no turnovers, no special teams mistakes, nothing. In fact, the worst play of the game was a 50 yard pass play that the defense gave up. Other than that Cal made BYU earn every point they got and didn’t leave any points on the board that they should have got.

Levy played OK. Mistake free, no doubt, but his accuracy left something to be desired. It’s harder to see on TV, but receivers had to make a lot of corrections to get to his balls. In fact, the just before halftime touchdown catch and run was facilitated by a bad throw that required the receiver to make a correction (and the defender was unable to adjust). He also threw a number of low balls that hurt the ability of the receivers to get yards after the catch. All and all, he did his job, but he didn’t impress me for next season. I’d take him any day of the week over ‘booya in reverse’, but he’s not the QB who is going to take us to the Rose Bowl or to a National Title.

The BYU quarterback on the other hand was pretty darned good. He threw a number of VERY impressive passes and did a very good job of keeping out of trouble. One has to remember that both of his interceptions were off of balls thrown as he was hit. The reality was that he kept them in the game by making key throws to some VERY tight spots. The Cal DB’s did a very good job of pass coverage, particulary on the ouside and deep and the few passes they made there were because the QB threaded the needle. The one place the Cal defense could have played better was protecting the underneath passes to the TEs. A great deal of the offense BYU had came from those plays. For some reason Cal had a tough time adjusting to that. I think they were trying to get more pressure on the QB and as a result were one linebacker short on the underneath protection.

I watched the TV coverage of the game when I got home and laughed to see them spend time focusing on number 76 or “lunchbox” the offensive lineman of BYU. This guy was PATHETIC. He looked like a pregnant woman woddling on and off the field. He couldn’t block, was falling down all over the place, and was useless for just about anything. For those watching the TV coverage, they may have noticed that they didn’t focus on him later in the game. He was basically benched in the 2nd half for not getting the job done.

Looking forward to next season, I’m really optimistic if we can just find that QB to give us balance. Everyone knows Ayoob isn’t it and it is my opinion that Levy isn’t it either. We could be 9-2 with him but not the 10-1 we need to be to get to the Rose Bowl. I’m hopeful that either Longshore or Reed will be the QB we’re looking for. Everything else seems to be falling into place. We’ve got great and improving WR’s, the offensive line will have a lot of experience after this injury plagued year for the graduating seniors, we seem to have enough depth at our DB positions to make up for the loss of our safeties and our defensive linemen are all back next year. I don’t even need to mention how awesome Lynch and Forsett are…

GO BEARS!

Sorry for the delay on this, it has been a busy week:

Well, I got both games right this week, although I SERIOUSLY underestimated Stanford’s ability to score. Why is it that they can’t score 10 points agianst Cal in two years but can put up 31 against Notre Dame. Cal must be better than ND…

Here are the updated metrics:
-Winning percentage: 71.6% (up from 70.5% last week)
-MVD: 14.4 (down (that’s good) from 14.7 last week with additions of 0 and 15 )
-TPD: 15.2 (down (that’s good) from 15.3 last week with additions of 8 and 21)

And seeing how there is only one Pac-10 game this week, I might as well do that prediction now:

UCLA 24, USC 38: UCLA will keep this game just interesting enough to merit a watching but USC will control the game from start to end by effectively running the ball with Reggie Bush and the precision passing by Leinart. There’s an outside chance that UCLA will get too desperate too early and turnovers will turn the game into a USC blowout before half time, but I think there will be just enough intensity on the UCLA sideline to keep the game respectible.

Tune in next week for the final regular season metrics (I’ll do metrics for the bowl games as well) and for an update on whether Cal ends up at the Sun Bowl with Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl or in the Las Vegas bowl because the Pac-10 got the BCS shaft yet again.

Oh man, I almost forgot to post my picks! I don’t have much time but here I go:

Notre Dame 35, Stanford 13: I think Stanford will come to play in this game but will just be overwhelmed. I’m sure Weis and Co. are dutifully watching the Cal game footage to see how they can break the 9 sack mark we set.

Arizona 24, ASU 28: I am REALLY having a tough time figuring this one out. Which Arizona team is going to come to play? The one that killed UCLA or the one that bent over for Washington? My guess is that Washington was a post upset anomily and Arizona will come with their ‘A’ game. But will that be enough? The big question mark is whether ASU’s defense will come to play. They held the high flying WaZoo to 24 but gave up 45 to Stanford! My guess is that their ‘B+’ defense will come to play and that will be enough to win this tight game because Arizona’s offense will sputter too much and ASU will be able to put up just enough points to take home… the… um… er… sand? What the heck do they play for in their rivalry game? What’s the game even called? The cactus fight?

OK, enough for good fun. I might be flying through pheonix someday and don’t want to be blacklisted/put on the cavity search list for airport security like my brother is for talking smack about Pheonix while in the Pheonix airport.

Tune in Monday for updated metrics and an update on the likely bowl scenarios.

UPDATE: I just found out what they play for in the Arizona vs ASU rivalry game. Oh man this is great: the TERRITORIAL Cup. HA! HA! HA! I can’t make this stuff up.

I was reading the yahoo sports preview of the Stanford vs Notre Dame game when I came across this gem of a quote:

“The Cardinal have lost three of four, including a 51-21 defeat to top-ranked Southern California three weeks ago.”

Wait a minute, I thought this was the team that had won 4 of their last 6 a week ago? While it was technically true, it didn’t indicate that while having won 4 of their last 6, they had also lost 2 of their last 3 (and of course now 3 of their last 4).

See, there is always a streak that runs both ways for anything but a team on a sustained continuous win or loss streak (say more that 3 games). It’s all just a matter of when you cut it off. If you’re trying to promote Stanford, you go back to they’re last win of note and use that to say that they’ve won 4 of their last 7. If you want to make them look bad, they’ve lost 3 of their last 4. For Cal, you can do the same thing: won 7 of their last 11 or lost 2 of their last 3.

Streaks are meaningless unless their contiguous win or loss streaks.

After that wonderful Big Game, I get to come back to the joy of having mostly picked the winners of rivalry weekend. I was 3 out of 4 with the only game I got wrong being WaZoo vs. Washington. I would have been right if Washington had been able to do what every other Pac-10 team has been able to do: shut down WaZoo in the 4th quarter. For the first time WaZoo was actually able to come back. Such a shame…

For the rest of the games I called them about right. Sure, Oregon blew out OSU by a much bigger margin than I expected, but I still called the easy game. I also called the easy Big Game and called that the Fresno St., USC game would be a high scoring affair (although I undershot a little on just how much Fresno could score). So while from a metrics perspective it wasn’t incredible, overall it was a pretty good week.

Here are the updated metrics:
-Winning percentage: 70.5% (up from 70.2% last week)
-MVD: 14.7 (up (that’s bad) from 14.6 last week with additions of 9, 31, 12 and 8 )
-TPD: 15.3 (down (that’s good) from 15.5 last week with additions of 11, 19, 16 and 4)

Tune in on Wednesday for my prediction for the two games this week:
-Arizona at ASU
-Notre Dame at Stanford (I’m not sure I can count high enough)

I always record the Cal game even when I attend so that I can go back and see the plays that were confusing to me when in person. As I was watching the end of the game (which I completely missed while celebrating and taking pictures) I saw the effectively failed attempt of the Cal players to drench Tedford with Gatorade. Tedford made SUCH a sweet move, ducking and running under the cooler just as it was turned over. For a guy like me, I would have only been half way across when I got drenched but Tedford was fast enough that the gatorade barely caught his butt as he flew through.

Tedford’s got the moves!

What better way to celebrate a wonderful Big Game victory than with a monumental announcement of the creation of a new blog!

OK, maybe that’s an overstatement. After getting the little bit of polling info from my readers about the need for two blogs, I decided that it would be worth if it I could have a separate Cal blog, but also have a for everything, including Cal stuff, blog. For the last week or so I’ve been playing with how to do that with the blog software I have. I’ve managed to do that by mucking with the code on my server so that if you go to cal.thecrawfordfamily.net/blog instead of to www… then you’ll get the limited to Cal stuff blog (I force to the sports category and change the styles to match a new style sheet).

So go check out my “new” blog Bear Territory, Anyone who was at the Big Game this year will know where I got the inspiration for the name…

Although I changed the color scheme to be a True Blue blog, much of the look and feel and some of the quirks of it not REALLY being its own blog are not yet cleaned up, but it’s a start. Expect to see improvements in the future.

If you link to my blog as a Cal blog, please change your link to the new location: cal.thecrawfordfamily.net/blog