Please excuse us while the new site is being built.

So, our new SBN site was supposed to launch today.  At noon.  Seeing as how we’re all still here, that obviously hasn’t happened.  We’re told it’ll go down tomorrow.  Minor issues, minor touchups.  Hey, let’s make sure we get this right.

Anyway, while we wait for the new site (and another AWESOME post from HydroTech that’ll really get us started over there), here’s some possible topics of interest.  Discuss amongst yourselves…

* According to reader RR, some guy was murdered in front of Top Dog last night.  That’s crazy, man.  I used to eat there at 1 AM all the time, and while people were sometimes pretty boisterous, I never felt like something like this would go down.  Crazy.

* Cal baseball lost 9-5 at UC Davis last night.  Man, the Bears have really struggled in the mid-week games this year.  They’ve got basically no pitching depth, which I’d have to imagine will come back to bite them in the postseason.

* Myles Brand says he’s going to look into the O.J. Mayo allegations.  Sucks to be an ‘SC basketball fan right now.  Personally, I don’t care, but I think at least part of the blame has to come down on the NBA and its age limit rule.  Mayo’s been essentially a professional basketball player for years, doing just enough to preserve his ‘amateur’ status, and there was no good reason he shouldn’t have been playing in the NBA last season.  None.

* Man, that Iron Man movie was pretty awesome.  At this point, I’d have to say that Robert Downey Jr’s career is pretty darn indestructible.  Try as he might, he can’t screw it up permanently.

Please excuse us for the lack of content lately.  Not only is it May, a traditionally slow time of the year for Cal sports (at least for those who only follow football and basketball), but we’ve finally(!) been handed the keys to our new Sports Blog Nation site, which should be up and running shortly.  We’re very excited, and honestly spending way too much time working on it right now.  Anyway, to tide you over until then, I give you…

Golden Bear Diamond Notes

First off, a note of congratulations to our women’s softball team (which BTW gets exactly zero coverage around here), who have qualified for their 23rd consecutive NCAA tournament.  23rd!  That’s just crazy.  I’ll bet there isn’t a single player on the Bears’ roster who is even 23 years old!

Anyway, the Bears will face off against San Diego State on Friday in the Fresno regional.  Fresno State and Sacramento State will be the other teams in the double-elimination regional.  Something to note is that host Fresno State is only the 16th national seed, meaning that they’re the weakest of the hosting teams.  The Bears will have a tough road to hoe (they already lost to San Diego State earlier this season), but I think they’ve still got a pretty decent chance of advancing to the super-regional.

—–

Now, I don’t want to go off on a rant here…but the next time someone decides to use the excuse of football players missing too much class as an argument against having a playoff, please point out that the Bears’ softball team, in participating in the NCAA tournament, will be missing finals on Friday and Saturday.  In fact, given the double-elimination format of the regionals, the softball team might be in Fresno until next Tuesday (an unkind fate, to be sure).  Of course, they’ll still get studying done on the road, and get their teachers to give them makeup finals; it’s not like these girls are getting out of their academic responsibilities.  If major college football decided to host a playoff, I’m sure that all the football players would have to do the same thing.

—–

From sustained success to ending a long dry spell, my next congratulations goes to the Cal baseball team, which accomplished something this weekend that they haven’t done in 30(!) years; with a 5-2 win on Saturday, the Bears took the season series vs. Stanford.  Even with a loss on Sunday, the Bears still went 3-1-1 vs. the Cardinal this year, an impressive accomplishment against a team that was ranked in the top 10 last week by Baseball America.

Despite having won 5 of their 7 Pac-10 series this year, the Bears sit at just 11-10 in the Pac-10, 4 games in the loss column behind ASU, and have basically no shot at winning the league this year.  Still, their overall record of 32-16-2 is quite impressive, and should almost guarantee that they don’t get snubbed by the NCAA tournament selection committee for a third year in a row.

—–

Finally, I thought I’d comment on the draft prospects of two of our Golden Bear stars.  I already talked a little about Friday starter Tyson Ross this year.  Keith Law of ESPN isn’t such a big fan.  Not only did he leave him off his list of top 60 prospects for the upcoming draft, but he had this to say about him in a chat last week:

Vern (SF): Going to a bonus baby double heder tomorrow. USF/USD to see Matusz v Frederickson and then down to Stanford to see my Cardinal pount Tyson Ross and Cal Teddy Bears. I know your thoughts about Matusz…what are your thoughts about Frederickson and Ross?

Keith Law: Frederickson’s results are lousy for a guy with good stuff in a bad conference. Some arm strength, but not first-round stuff. Ross’ delivery is awful and his stuff isn’t that special. Neither is a top-two-rounds guy for me.

Ouch.  John Sickels, formerly of ESPN (and currently running the site ‘Minor League Ball‘ for SBN) likes him a bit better, listing him as #11 on his Top College Pitchers in the 2008 Draft.

11) Tyson Ross, RHP, University of California: 7-2, 4.47 ERA with 51/24 K/BB in 56.1 innings, 56 hits allowed. He’s winning games but command has been an issue for him and his component marks aren’t outstanding. Big guy at 6-6, but delivery looks funny (stiff and upright) and that hurts his stock a bit. Can hit 95 MPH.

From what I’ve seen, that sounds like a fair assessment.  He’ll definitely draw interest from some teams, because while you can teach someone a breaking ball, you can’t teach him how to throw 95 MPH.

However, Keith Law did include one Golden Bear on his list, placing 1B David Cooper at #20.  While Law is careful to note that his list is a ranking and not a mock draft, that sort of interest, should MLB baseball teams share it, could put Cooper into the first round of the June Draft.

Sickels also likes Cooper.  While he didn’t include him on his Top College Hitters of the 2008 draft (he named 10), Cooper was the first name mentioned in his list of Other Interesting College Hitters for the 2008 Draft, implying that he thinks Cooper could go towards the end of round 1.

Anyway, we’ll have more coverage of our Golden Bear draft prospects as June approaches, although I’m hoping I’m too busy obsessing over a Golden Bear run to the College World Series.  Stay tuned!

For those of you that do follow recruiting, I’m sure you’ve already heard that Cal got a football commitment.  For those of you who don’t follow recruiting, then I’m telling you that Cal got a new football commitment.  Why should you care?  

Well, he was named Co-MVP of the Nike Camp in L.A. 

For those of you that don’t know about the Nike Camp in L.A., well, it’s like… a big deal.  Basically a bunch of really good high school kids converge on one location to run drills and compete against each other in front of scouts in hopes to get noticed and get scholarships.

So who is this stud Co-MVP stud?  Meet QB Allan Bridgford of Mission Viejo High School.  

 

Here’s his Scout and Rivals profile.   

What do you need to know about him?  Well, he’s a junior.  Meaning he still has to play his senior year in high school.  This is a significant point to point out.  Why?  Well, Tedford & Co.  are very selective when it comes to offering juniors in high school.  Usually JT & Co. like to wait until the recruit’s senior year to see how they fair before offering.  Only a select few elite recruits get offered as juniors.  The fact that Bridgford got a scholarship this early speaks volumes as to how highly regarded he must be by the Cal staff.  

Want evidence of his capabilities?  In Bridgford’s junior season he threw for 2500 yards, and 22 TDs on about 290 attempts.   In this Scout interview, Bridgford reported was throwing at an 80% completion percentage towards the end of his junior season.  For those of you who aren’t stat junkies, that’s a very very good completion percentage.  65% is considered par.  Anything above 70% is great. 

What’s also interesting about Bridgford is that he apparently told the Cal coaches they could stop recruiting QBs because he committed.  So this brings up the question, is Cal really only taking one QB in this recruiting class?  Remember, Cal recently had former Cal QB Kyle Reed transfer to San Jose State.  This leaves only 4 scholarship QBs on the roster come fall (Longshore, Riley, Mansion, Sweeney).  Tedford has publicly stated that he likes to recruit one QB every year.  So will he recruit another QB this year to replace the loss of Reed?  I wish I had an answer.  Things get pretty crowded when you have 5 scholarship QBs on roster (most of which are Elite 11 QBs) when only one can play in the game.  Only keeping 4 scholarship QBs should prevent too much of an overcrowding and somewhat minimize losses due to transfers.  So this question of whether Cal will recruit another QB is something to chew on between filing court motions or pencil pushing. 

Thoughts On Recruiting Videos
(videos available at Bridgford’s Rivals’ profile page - premium subscription required).

First:  The first thing that popped out to me in his videos was his composure in the pocket.  He looked relaxed.  Calm.  Poised.  He didn’t look rattled or have jittery feet. 

Second:  He appeared to have good footwork.  Lots of clean dropbacks without false steps.  Little to none wasted lower body motion. 

Third:  Good eyes.  Bridgford can be seen reading the field in many of his clips.  His head turns from one side of the field to the other as he goes through his progressions to find the open receiver. 

Fourth:  Bridgford has great accuracy.  Of course, I was seeing his highlight tape with all his best throws, but if he can consistently do what he does in these highlight videos I think we’ve got ourselves one incredibly accurate QB.  Ball after ball was neatly placed at chest height when they needed to be or up high for the WR to go get it. 

Fifth: Bridgford seems to have a very effortless throwing motion.  It almost seems slow although it’s probably not.  It’s just not the fastest motion but he sure does still get a decent amount of velocity on the ball despite the effortless looking throw.  I imagine if he did really put his arm into the throw if needed he could really throw a bullet but the videos really didn’t show much of that.  Clearly, from his videos he appears to be more of a touch passer.  His balls have a nice arcing trajectory - no Kyle Boller laser beams here.

Sixth: Nice mechanics.  Holds the ball well.  He does seem to have a bit of a 3/4ths release though.  It’s a little hard to tell in the videos.  It certainly doesn’t look to be quite a 100% overhand motion, but still efficient enough. 

Seventh:  Great timing.  Hits his WRs in stride. 

Eighth: decent speed.  He’s not going to beat out linebackers but he should be able to scramble for a few when the pocket breaks down.

Overall, he looks like a very very promising prospect and worthy of his Co-MVP L.A. Nike Camp title.  FYI, who did Bridgford Co-MVP with at the L.A. Nike Camp?  None other than #1 QB prospect Matt Barkley who is currently a Southern Cal commit (yeah, he’s so good he has his own Wiki page already).

Here’s a few more links to read and a good way to waste your employers’ time: 

ESPN: Barkley and Bridgford are the most talented QBs at the L.A. Nike camp;  

ESPN: Bridgford Scouting Report.

The nominal author of this regular series, Yellow Fever, is on vacation these days.  So, I figured I’d whip something up.  Something linky.  With just an added dash of link.  And an extreme Marxist bias!  I mean we are from Berkeley, right?  And don’t worry, we are aware of Bridgford, Hydro’s drafting something up about it.

LINK #1:  Comrade DeSean Jackson understands the nature of the communal demands.  From each according to his ability, to each according to his need!  He must do not for himself, but instead for the greater entity: the team.   "“I just want to do anything and everything possible to help out this team. I don’t want to come in expecting to do too much or not expecting to do too much. Any way I can fit in, that’s what I’m willing to do.”" said the reformed Trotski-ite.  He hopes to succeed better than the previous six WRs taken by Andy Reid:  Billy McMullin, Gari Scott, Todd Pinkston, Reggie Brown, Freddy Mitchell, and Freddy Mitchell’s hands.  Wow!  Really shooting for the stars there, DeSean.

Sub-link:  Glorious Punt Returner Of Sun-Rising Skill is also featured on the front cover of a video game.  Such as:

The California Golden Blogs *would* congratulate DeSean on this achievement, BUT video games are the modern day opiate for the masses.  The bourgeois hopes that the proletariat will lay down their arms in the global struggle against capitalism to pick up their copies of Guitar Hero or Rock Band.  Golden Running Runner Of SupraHuman Ability should know better!  Punt returners of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your drum kit and microphone!

LINK #2:  Potential Capitalist Pig Tom Schneider has joined another team!  Oh noes! The central NCAA politburo has rejected Shneider’s bid to return to Cal and so he must ply his trade elsewise.  Here’s the money quote:  ""I was expecting this bumbling town, but I was really impressed," Schneider said. "They have regular stores, like Best Buy and Target.""  Schneider’s fairly controversial thesis is that Alabama as both a concept and a state isn’t really just crazy hick weird like you might think.  Thanks, Tom!  Making us Dub See-ers look good! 

LINK #3:  Lavelle Hawkins is kinda like Derrick Mason.  But better?  How can one player be better than another when we are all equals in the great battle against capitalism?  Good call.  Clearly, Lavelle is equal to Derrick Mason!  This is how the bosses keep divisions within the worker class.  All of history is class strife!  We must not allow the bosses to slice us up like this.  Lavelle MUST be equal to Derrick Mason!  For all global future success!  He is the vanguard of the wide receivers!

LINK #4:  Photos of some of the draft picks in camp.  Now you can *see* the football proletariat get exploited by the ruling owner class.  Such as:

"Take that ball for all workers, Justin!  The bosses may no longer have the means of production!" 

LINK #5:  An ESPN analyst has Cal baseball going to Omaha.  According to his projection, we’d be in Nashville and potentially face off against something called a Lipscomb.  Many people would be shocked to find that Karl Marx LOVED baseball.  And baseball loved him.  He had quite the cult following back in the 1800s.  Where do you think Johnny Damon got his inspiration:

    

I think I once saw a "Karl Is My Homeproley" shirt sold at a 19th century Urban Outfitters.  Yes, Urban Outfitters existed in the 19th century.  And it was brutally overpriced back then.  3 bees for a pair of pantaloons!  Nothing has changed.  Nothing has changed. 

LINK #6:  Much to the frustration of the California Golden Blogs, the Cal Band is engaged in a "voting contest" to see best college marching band.   The best college marching band should be chosen by the Party Newspaper, Pravda.  But since the cultural zeitgeist of the Best.Damn.Band.In.The.Land cannot be trumpeted by the party mouthpiece, voting *sigh* must be employed.  Cal faces off against Troy State.  Vote for Cal, people!  This is an excerpt what Pravda had to say about Troy State in a recent editorial entitled "Muddle Instead Of Music" with an anonymous byline:

"With the general cultural development of our country there grew also the necessity for good music. At no time and in no other place has the composer had a more appreciative audience. The people expect good songs, but also good instrumental works, and good marching band halftime shows.

From the first minute, the listener is shocked by deliberate dissonance, by a confused stream of sound. Snatches of melody, the beginnngs of a musical phrase, are drowned, emerge again, and disappear in a grinding and squealing roar. To follow this "music" is most difficult; to remember it, impossible.

Boy did I just waste your time!  That’s a joke (used in the loosest sense of the word), that even many Shostakovich fans might not get. 

 

"You don’t even know who I am" 

But hey don’t blame me when the entire Troy State marching band gets hauled off to the gulag (i.e. the cellar under Mack Brown’s house).  You won’t be able to hear the Sound of the South through those sound-proof walls!  What?  Too soon? 

Ok, fair enough fair enough.  Can I interest you in a joke about Mack Brown’s rather disastrous choice to allow Barabbas to go free instead??  Really takes the onus off of us Jews for that one.  Then again, Barabbas probably wouldn’t have died for our (your?) sins, so I guess it evens out.

(Metaedit:  Can I just say that that is the least funny, most hilarious joke I have ever written.  It manages to involve a)Marxism, b)20th century Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, c)Shostakovich’s relationship with Stalin as it regards the legendary Pravda article, "Muddle Instead Of Music", d)that Family Guy episode where Peter doesn’t know who Benjamin Disraeli is, e)marching bands, f)that emotionally devastating Austrian cellar situation, g)Cal fans’ everloving hatred for Mack Brown, h)Biblical history, and i)two thousand years of blood libel.  What, I couldn’t stuff a Rachmaninoff’s 5th Piano Concerto joke in there somewhere?

And the best part.  The target audience!  College football fans.  Oh, college FOOTBALL fans.  Yeah, those bastions of Soviet culture and Biblical knowledge. Well, maybe Biblical knowledge.  Most of them probably won’t make it past "20th century Russian composer" without moving on to the next Link.  EPIC PHAIL!  I love it!  I love it!  You’re just begging for Yellow Fever to come back from vacation, aren’t you?  I’m so filled with self-loathing right now.  Now I know how Dennis Miller feels.)   

LINK #7:  Forget Marxism (and that most of the Link #6 joke, please).  The politics of failure have failed!  People can, should, and MUST earn what they deserve.  And by people, I mean Tedford.  And by Tedford, I mean GOD!   According to the Chron, Teddyboy makes the most money of an UC employee.  Take that, Phillip Leboit!  Capitalism rocks!  Just like video games, minor Alabama colleges, AND THE CALIFORNIA MARCHING BAND!

Next week, Yellow Fever will return and this series will return to a calm, genuinely hilarious normalcy.  I’m filled with self-loathing!  Until then, vote for the Cal marching band above and GO BEARS! 

Here’s a look at the depth chart at the end of spring ball.  This needs to be taken with a large grain of salt because of the number of notable players (Best and Nasty Nate, for starters) out with injuries.  There is also room for some fall arrivals to make the two deep, particularly at wideout.  That said, here’s where things stand now:

CB	Free Safety	Rover	CB
(5) Syd’Quan Thompson	(2) Bernard Hicks	(20) Jesse Brooks*	(17) Chris Conte
(26) Darian Hagan	(25) Brett Johnson	(29) Marcus Ezeff	(27) Charles Amadi

Strong OLB	Strong ILB	Weak ILB	Weak OLB
(9) Eddie Young	(1) Worrell Williams	(7) Anthony Felder	(56) Zack Follett
(10) Devin Bishop	(18) Mike Mohamed	(3) D.J. Holt	(43) Charles Johnson

Strong DE	Nose Tackle	Weak DE
(44) Tyson Alualu	(98) Mika Kane	(95) Rulon Davis
(95) Ernest Owusu	(76) Derrick Hill	(97) Cameron Jordan

Owusu and Jordan were two of the most impressive guys on the entire team this spring.  They will definitely play notable minutes.

Offensive Line

Tight End	Left Tackle	Left Guard	Center	Right Guard	Right Tackle
(5) Cameron Morrah*	(79) Mike Tepper	(70) Mark Boskovich*	(51) Alex Mack	(55) Noris Malele	(58) Chet Teofilo
(83) Skylar Curran*	(71) Sam DeMartinis	(75) Matt Summers-Gavin	(57) Todd Huber	(74) T.J. Emery	(78) Justin Prueitt

The offensive line, particularly the second string, is pretty muddled right now.  I couldn’t find #54 Chris Guarnero, but it’s safe to assume he’ll be somewhere in the two deep.  Tedford and Offensive Line Coach Michalczik have always emphasized that they’re looking for the top 8 guys, so looking at the second string as a whole is almost irrelevant.  We’ll have to wait until fall to see who becomes the 7th and 8th guys.

*Cameron Morrah was sick for the last week for practice so Skylar Curran and Tad Smith shared first team reps in his place. 

*Mark Boskovich and #73 Richard Fisher Split first team reps at Left Guard, so it’s unfair to call either of them second string.  Matt Summers-Gavin ran with the second team at this position.

Skill Positions

Wide Receiver	Fullback	Quarterback	Tailback	Wide Receiver	Wide Receiver
(8) Nyan Boateng	(23) Will Ta’ufo’ou	(13) Kevin Riley*	(22) Tracy Slocum*	(3) Jeremy Ross	(84) Mike Calvin
(85) LaReylle Cunningham	(31) John Tyndall*	(10) Brock Mansion	(28) Covaughn DeBoskie	(88) Drew Glover	(40) Ian Albrecht

*First, the elephant in the room: the starting quarterback has not been determined.  Nate missed most of spring practice with an injury, but he was taking first team reps before he went down.  This battle will (hopefully) be decided in the fall, and Mansion will be third string.

*Likewise, the starting (and backup) tailbacks have not been determined due to injury.  Best participated in practice wearing the red (no contact jersey) and # 34 Shane Vereen missed a lot of time with a hamstring injury.  Slocum had a strong spring, but with Best and Vereen healthy in the fall, it will be a tough competition.  I would expect all three of them to get carries, and DeBoskie might see the field as well.

*The second string fullback appears to be up for grabs as well.  Your guess is as good as mine.

Calvin, Boateng, and Ross are clearly the top 3 receivers, but it is wide open after them and I would expect some of the new recruits to make the two deep this fall.  Drew Glover stepped in as the third receiver for Ross after Ross went down with an injury late in the spring. 

Go Bears! 

According to Scout, Cal men’s basketball has a new recruit:  Jorge Gutierrez.  ESPN says that this Mexico native may have trouble qualifying.  The world reknowned Miami Hawk Talk has this blurb about Cal’s newest Golden Bear:

2008 PROSPECT; Jorge was a former Mr. Basketball in Colorado and now runs the show at Findlay Prep in Henderson, NV.  Gutierrez does whatever his team needs for a win. His team does not need any plays runs for him on offense to keep him involved. Gutierrez has a high basketball IQ as well as great basketball instincts. He prefers to involve his teammates over scoring the ball himself, though he indeed has the ability to score. He easily finishes around the rim, using his either hand, though he shoots jumpers as a righty. He rebounds the ball well for a player of his height and seems to make the right plays at the right times. He also plays defense well and typically matches up with the opposing teams best perimeter player. Gutierrez plays with a remarkable amount of poise and maturity beyond his years and does all of the dirty work for his team.

Judging from this photo, it is true, he won’t have trouble scoring:

MAJOR HOTTIE ALERT!  Finally, Cal has found somebody with hair as amazing as my own to fill the void.  It has been many rough years since I left.  Nobody with the sort of je ne sais quoi attending our fine institution.  Nobody as attractive as me.  Such as:

"Stock TwistNHook photo used for the 50th time" 

Damn, I’m so hot, if I don’t say so myself!  Either way, hopefully this modern day Samson will qualify for school and help with our team’s diversity.  Max Zhang and Michael Cera-lookalike can only do so much.  Go Bears!

Cal’s sports report cards are out.  And the situation looks good!  Yes, the Academic Progress Report was released for 2008.  What’s the APR, you ask, hypothetical question construct?  Here is some general information:

Academic Progress Rate (APR). The APR is the fulcrum upon which the entire academic-reform structure rests. Developed as a more real-time assessment of teams’ academic performance than the six-year graduation-rate calculation provides, the APR awards two points each term to student-athletes who meet academic-eligibility standards and who remain with the institution. A team’s APR is the total points earned by the team at a given time divided by the total points possible.

Ok, so you get two points per term per athlete.  But what is the goal each team is attempting to reach?

925. This is the cut score the Division I Board of Directors approved for immediate (or contemporaneous) penalties. APR scores have already become meaningful numbers to the NCAA membership and general public. Based on current data, an APR score of 925 (out of 1,000) translates to an approximate 60 percent Graduation Success Rate.

900. This is the cut score for historical penalties. This benchmark of 900 APR translates to an approximate 45 percent Graduation Success Rate.

Immediate penalties?  Historic penalties?  Speak English!  Does this mean there’s a chance an athlete might get tarred and feathered???  Damn, calm down non-existant computo-being, we’ll answer all your questions.  You ask more questions than my wife!  But at least, fewer than my mistress.

Immediate penalties. Known also as contemporaneous penalties, these are the most immediate penalties in the academic-reform structure. They occur when a team with an APR score below 925 loses a student-athlete who would not have been academically eligible had he or she returned (an "0-for-2" student-athlete). An immediate penalty means that the team cannot re-award that grant-in-aid to another player. In effect, a team’s financial aid limit is reduced by the amount of countable aid awarded to the student-athlete who did not earn eligibility and was not retained.

Historical penalties. While immediate penalties are designed to be rehabilitative in nature, the historically based penalties carry more significant sanctions for teams that the APR identifies as chronic under-performers. The penalties will be incremental in nature, beginning with a warning once teams fall below a 900 APR cut score. Historical penalties progress to practice and financial aid restrictions, postseason bans and ultimately restricted membership in Division I. Teams scoring below 900 are subject to further examination to determine if historical penalties are warranted. Specifically, teams are compared against the bottom 10 percent within their sport, general student body academic performance, and performance expectation given the resources of the institution.

There’s a lot more information to the situation, but that is a sort of general overview straight from the horse’s mouth.  But enough of these bland generalities, what about Cal?  Here is a link to Cal’s APR.   The good news:

Cal is above both cut scores in all sports.  In some of the racing sports, like Men’s XC and Track/Field, the numbers are close.  And, the biggest eye popper is that men’s basketball is very close, too.  It posted a score of 942.  However, men’s basketball across the board is not very good.  The average score is 928, barely above the cut score of 925.  A comparison of poor scoring sports might illustrate the difference.  Men’s XC had a score of 947, which translated to a percentile rank of 20th-30th in its particular sport. 

Men’s basketball had a slighter lower score, but had a percentile rank of 60th-70th in its sport.  This is not to excuse the poor showing by men’s basketball, but instead to give a fuller context for what the number 9-4-2 means.  In better news, football has a score of 967, which puts it in the 80th-90th percentile.  Congratulations to coach Tedford for maintaining both on the field and off the field success. 

Let’s take a broader look at the Pac10.  Here are the links for the schools:  Arizona State University, Wazzu, Stanford, Oregon State, Arizona, USC, UCLA, Oregon, UDub.

Here are the rankings for the two money sports.  First, let’s look at basketball.  The average for basketball, as noted previously, is 928. 

1.  Oregon - 975 

2.  UCLA - 968

3.  Stanford - 954

4.  Washington - 943

5.  Cal - 942

6.  OSU - 935 

7.  Arizona - 933

8.  ASU - 905

8.  Wazzu - 905

10.  USC - 863 (!!!! They got dinged for this) 

Cal is in the middle of the pack here.  Now, let’s look at Football.  The average for football is 934. 

1.  Stanford - 986

2.  Cal - 967

3.  USC - 948

3.  Washington - 948

5.  UCLA - 941

6.  ASU - 933

7.  OSU - 926

8.  Oregon - 921

9.  Wazzu - 916

10.  Arizona - 903 

Cal is way up at the top.  USC was the only team to receive penalties (as noted above).   As a minor note, the score for "private schools" is higher than the score for "public schools" pretty much across the board.  Ammo for the Stanford complaintniks?????  Only time will tell!

Go Bears! 

As you may have noticed, we don’t have much Rugby coverage around here at the California Golden Blogs.  It’s not that we don’t care; it’s just that we don’t have anything particularly interesting to say about their continued excellence.  Still, a national championship is a National Championship, and you sure don’t see one of those around every day at Cal.  It’s something to be celebrated — perhaps one of those margaritas you toss back tonight could be for our beloved ruggers?

Anyway, I thought a fitting tribute for our Bears might be to compare Jack Clark’s record with the greatest dynasties in American sporting history, just to see how these guys stack up.  For the record, Saturday’s 59-7 smackdown of BYU was the Bears’s:

* 5th consecutive National Title
* 17th Title in the last 18 years
* 20th in Jack Clark’s 25 years as the Head Coach of the Bears
* 24th overall title (since a championship was first staged in 1980)

It’s also worth noting that, before the Bears lost in the 2003 semifinal, they had won the previous 12 consecutive championships.  In his 25 years of coaching, Jack Clark has compiled a 440-66-5 record, good for an .870 winning percentage.  Frankly, these accomplishments are just ridiculous.  I don’t know how the Bears live up to these impossible standards year after year, but they do.  So, how does this compare to America’s greatest dynasties?

NFL - Probably the greatest dynasty in pro football was the Vince Lombardi-led Green Bay Packers of the ’60s.  Between the ‘61 and ‘67 seasons, the Packers won 5 NFL titles, the last three in a row, including the first two Super Bowls.  In those seven seasons, the Packers ran up an 83-20-4 record, good for an .806 winning percentage.  Mighty impressive, but neither as lengthy nor as dominant as Cal has been.

NHL - The Montreal Canadiens were the most dominant professional hockey team in North America for much of the latter twentieth century.  Between 1956 and 1979, they took home the Stanley Cup 15 out of the 24 times it was contested, including 5 in a row between 1956 and 1960.  Ridiculous?  Sure.  Better than our Bears?  Hardly.

MLB - What name says domination over a sport more than the New York Yankees.  Still, the Bronx Bombers’ longest championship streak was 5, between 1949 and 1953, though they did take home 12 of the 18 titles between 1936 and 1953, and a ridiculous 20 of the 40 world championships between 1923 and 1962.  Unfair?  Perhaps, but still not as good as our Bears, who needed just 25 years to get Jack Clark his 20th championship.

NBA - Of course, the longest championship streak in American professional sports belongs to the Boston Celtics, who put together an unbelievable 8 consecutive titles between 1959 and 1966.  They also captured 11 of the 13 titles between 1957 and 1969, and 16 of 30 between 1957 and 1986.  Anyone else think this should more than make up for all those years of Red Sox futility?  Still, even the Celtics’ 8 straight titles fell 4 short of what Cal accomplished between 1991 and 2002.

NCAA Basketball - When you think of dominant college teams, you think of John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins.  Between 1967 and 1973, the Bruins took home 7 consecutive titles, and 10 of 12 between 1964 and 1975.  During those 12 years, the Bruins ran up a 335-22 record, good for an unreal .938 winning percentage.  OK, I’ll concede that the Bruins may have been as dominant as our ruggers (though I couldn’t find a winning percentage for the years of the 12 consecutive titles), but their dominant period has been for less than half the time of our Bears.

NCAA Football - Of course, the NCAA doesn’t sponsor an official championship, but even unofficial ones are hard to string together.  You have to go back to Minnesota in 1934-36 to find a team with a legitimate claim to even 3 consecutive titles.  Of course, if you want to go back to the 1800’s, you’ll find Yale.  All titles in this era have been awarded retroactively, but between 1874 and 1894, Yale went 170-7-6, good for a .966 winning percentage, winning pieces of as many as 16 titles, depending on who you ask.  Of course, some of those years involved playing only 5 games or so, but if you’re looking for a dynasty to rival the Bears, I think you’re going to have to go with 19th century Yale football.

Other NCAA sports - The record for the longest championship streak among an Division I sports belongs to Arkansas‘ Indoor Track and Field team, which took home 12 consecutive titles between 1984 and 1995.  That would certainly match the Bears.  Among all Divisions, the record is a mind-boggling 28 years, belonging to the Men’s Swimming and Diving team of Kenyon College, a Division III school in Gambier, Ohio.  That streak, by the way is still active.  Also, their Women’s Swimming and Diving team holds the women’s record, at 17 years, a streak that lasted until 2001.  Listen, that’s amazingly ridiculous and all, but I wonder if anyone at Kenyon ever thought, "You know, perhaps we should try competing in Division II next year.  You know, just to see?"

In any case, it’s clear that Cal’s Rugby team is ridiculously awesome.  Let’s enjoy it while we can, because it may not be here tomorrow.  So, my final thought:

You gotta think they’d play this song at stadiums a whole lot less if it came with video…

This title of this post is merely a rhetorical question; obviously, NFL-caliber talent alone is not enough to win college football games.  That talent must be coached and work together as a team.  Cal’s most recent draft class is a cautionary tale; 6 players were drafted off of a team that finished above just one team in the conference.  Ignoring the rhetorical nature of my title, however, I had actual, interesting questions regarding the relationship between the NFL talent on a college team’s roster and that team’s success on the field.  These questions led to some online research, as well as me playing with numbers for a couple days.  That, in turn, led to this post.

Because I only have so much time on my lunch breaks, I had to limit my research; I ended up looking at the Pac-10 during the last 10 years, encompassing the 1998-2007 seasons (1999-2008 drafts).  Also, because each team played a widely variable non-conference schedule from year to year, I limited my ‘team success’ rating to conference games only.  From there, I began to ask questions.  Which teams were the most stacked with NFL talent?  Did those teams win the most games?  Who squandered their Sunday talent on Saturdays, and who made the most out of relatively meager prospects?

The talent rating proved a little difficult to settle on.  Should I simply count the number of players drafted?  That seemed too simplistic, as a Marshawn Lynch is clearly more valuable than most 7th-round picks (I won’t pick on any here).  How much more valuable?  I don’t actually know, so I guessed.  I eventually decided to assign 7 points for a first-round pick, 6 for second, and so forth, on down to 1 point for a 7th-round pick.  Cal’s draft this year, for example, featured a second-rounder, two thirds, a fourth, a sixth, and a seventh-rounder, for a total score of 23 (6 + 5 + 5 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 23).  How accurate is this?  On an individual level, not terribly.  One can come up with all sorts of exceptions where low-round picks turned out to be better than top-rated ones (Tom Brady and Ryan Leaf being overused examples).  However, at an aggregate, team-wide level, it does tend to give us a pretty good indicator of how much pro-level talent was on a college roster.  Throughout this article, I’ll be referring to this number as a team’s ‘Draft Score’.

USC dominates the Pac-10 on the field and on draft day

By any standard, the Pac-10 was loaded with NFL talent this year.  34 Pac-10 players were drafted, the most in the past 10 years, and their aggregate score of 129 was the second-most this decade.  (The 2002 draft scored slightly higher, 132, with only 32 players selected, due to more of those players being taken in the early rounds.)  This year’s success, however, was driven almost entirely by USC, which had 4 of the conference’s 6 first-round picks, and 7 of the 11 first-day picks; their 10 picks earned a Draft Score of 53, more than double the score of the next-best Pac-10 team, Cal.

Indeed, USC’s dominance in this matter has bordered on ridiculous.  Only two teams in the Pac-10 have had more than 6 players drafted in a single year:  this year’s ‘SC team, and the 2005 edition, which had 11 players taken in the ‘06 draft.  They’ve had 40 players drafted over the past 6 years for an aggregate Draft Score of 199; Cal ranks second in the conference over that time-period, with 24 players taken for an aggregate Draft Score of 92, less than half of USC’s.  Cal’s 6 first-rounders over the past decade also ranks second, as does their 9 players in the first two rounds combined; USC has had 13 first-rounders over the past 10 years, and another 14 taken in the second round.

Over- and under-achievers

Of course, at least USC has made full-use of their ridiculously loaded roster, going 59-23 in the Pac-10 over the last decade.  The same cannot be said for Cal, which rode all those NFL prospects (36 in all) to a less-than-stellar 38-44 record, good for just 6th over the last 10 years.  Yes, Tom Holmoe was coach during the first four of those years, but underperformances like what occurred this past season played a part as well.  Other notable underachievers include Stanford (30 draftees, just a 32-50 record) and Arizona State. where 31 draftees, tied with Oregon for 3rd in the Pac-10, produced just a 40-42 conference record.

Oregon, however, was a notable overachiever.  Over the last decade, they had the same number of pro prospects as ASU (31) and a lower Draft Score (129 to 118), but went 53-29 in the conference.  In finishing just 6 wins short of USC, they did it with far less talent; USC had 55 draftees for a Draft Score of 254, more than double what the Ducks managed.  Also notable is Oregon State, who has a winning record over the past 10 years (44-38) despite having just 24 players drafted.  Only Arizona and the Washington schools had fewer, and none of them were close to finishing the decade above .500.

Team	Conference Wins, ‘98-’07	NFL Draft Picks, ‘99-’08	Draft Score
USC	59	55	254
ORE	53	31	118
UCLA	45	28	114
OSU	44	24	81
ASU	40	31	129
CAL	38	36	139
UW	37	21	81
WSU	33	17	61
STAN	32	30	100
UA	29	23	71

Distribution

For the most part, the players drafted were distributed fairly evenly amongst the 7 rounds of the draft.  Two exceptions, however, were notable:

- USC had 27 of its 55 draft picks (almost half!) taken in either the 1st or 2nd round.  I don’t know why this is, exactly, but I can think of two plausible explanations.  1) USC is *so* loaded with top talent that it doesn’t have room on its roster for even late-round prospects.  Stars at any other school end up riding some pine for Pete Carroll.  2) USC’s excellence over the past 6 years has caused teams to overdraft ‘SC players out of line with their talent; simply put, being a Trojan might bump you up a round or two.  I have no way to verify either explanation, however.

- Arizona, on the other hand, saw 9 of its 23 prospects (39%) taken in the 7th round.  For a team that has generally lacked the top talent of most of the teams in the conference, it has to be concerning that even its best players were mostly marginal pro talents.  Of course, you could perhaps argue that perhaps the Wildcats’ ineptitude on the field hurt their player’s draft status, though that didn’t stop the San Diego Chargers from taking Antoine Cason in the first round of this year’s draft.

A better assessment of roster strength

If you look at where a team finished in the Pac-10 in any given year and then compare that to how their players did in the draft the following April, you often don’t get a lot of correlation.  This, of course, is because teams are not made up exclusively of seniors; underclassmen will always play a significant role.  To get a better picture of actual roster strength (in terms of NFL-caliber talent), I decided to create a rolling Draft Score for each team, where each season would get a Draft Score that totaled the scores from that season’s draft as well as the next two drafts.  (I stopped at three because freshmen rarely make a huge impact on a football team, and when they do, they’re usually so talented that they declare for the draft after their junior seasons [i.e. Marshawn, DeSean]).

As a illustrative example, consider the 2000 Oregon Ducks, who finished that season in a three-way tie for first in the Pac-10 at 7-1, earning a Holiday Bowl berth.  However, their Draft Score for that year was just 3, as the only Duck drafted in 2001 was backup quarterback A.J. Feeley, taken by the Eagles in the 5th round.  This is because most of the best players on that team, including QB Joey Harrington, wouldn’t be drafted until 2002, after the Ducks won the conference outright and came within a Nebraska screw-job of playing for the national title.  Combining Draft Scores from the 2001, 2002, and 2003 drafts gives the 2000 Ducks a very respectable score of 37, much more indicative of the overall talent level of that team.

The strength of left-coast football

Of course, even these rolling Draft Scores don’t tell the whole story; they need to be placed within the context of the league as a whole.  As an extreme example, Stanford won the Pac-10 in 1999 with a rolling Draft Score of just 30; just two years later, Cal would go winless in the conference with the exact same Draft Score.  The reason?  In two years, the league got a lot deeper.  In 1999, the highest draft score, excepting massively underachieving Arizona State, was Oregon’s 37.  Two years later, 5 teams broke 40, and Cal’s score of 30 was better than just one team, woeful Arizona.

Season	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Total Draft Score	293	321	352	383	368	364	344	356

The chart above details the total rolling Draft Score for the Pac-10 for the seasons between 1998 and 2005.  As you can see, the Pac-10 was at a relative low point in 1998, when UCLA managed to run the conference table at the tail end of their 20-game winning streak (one that nearly put them in the national title game).  Remember, this was during a period of great parity in the Pac-10, as 7 different schools represented the conference in the Rose Bowl in the 7 seasons between 1994 and 2000.  Conference strength (in terms of pro talent) quickly swung upwards, however, jumping by more than 30% in peaking during 2001 season.  That season, of course, was the one in which a Cal team that would see 8 players drafted over the next three years, including first-rounders Kyle Boller and Nnamdi Asomugha, couldn’t manage to win a single conference game.  The talent level has remained high ever since, though never as evenly distributed as that year, as USC built its dynasty and began to horde more and more of the West Coast’s best prospects**.

** I have left the most recent two seasons off the chart, as that data is incomplete pending the next two NFL drafts, but the partial data strongly suggests that recent trends have continued unabated.

More Trojan dominance

Armed with rolling Draft Scores, USC’s dominance becomes even more apparent, and one can begin to see how it might really be hurting the rest of the Pac-10.  Between 1998-2001, only 4 teams achieved a rolling Draft Score of at least 50; ASU in 1998 (50) and 1999 (56), Oregon in 2001 (52) and USC in 2001 (52).  Even in ‘01, the most draft-loaded year of the Pac-10’s last decade, both Washington and Washington State tied for 2nd in the conference with a Draft Score of just 35.  Parity was king.

The next year, USC would tie for the conference title and earn a berth in the Orange Bowl.  Their rolling draft score?  72.  No one else topped 45 that year.  Even that, however, was nothing compared to the rolling Draft Scores the Trojans would post over the next three seasons:  102, 101, and in 2005, 127.  Cal managed a high of 48 in both 2004 and 2005, while no one else topped 44.  For the record, that’s 26 draft picks factoring into the Trojan’s 2005 score, the kind of nigh-unstoppable juggernaut that could only be derailed by some sort of super-human intervention (i.e. Vince Young and the Texas Longhorns in the 2006 Rose Bowl).

What’s more interesting is that not only is USC stockpiling talent at an unheard-of rate, but that they’re actually making the rest of the conference weaker in doing so.  Yes, USC is renowned for its ‘national’ recruiting strategy, regularly going across the country to pluck out another state’s top recruit, but the heart of their success still lies in mining the rich southern California talent pool, a vital recruiting area to any Pac-10 program with pretensions towards the conference throne.  Even as conference talent levels reside near recent highs (see the chart above), the combined pro-talent level of the 9 teams not USC has dipped below late-90’s levels, as the chart below illustrates.

The blue line represents the total rolling Draft Score for the Pac-10, while the red line represents USC’s Draft Score.  The yellow line represents the rolling draft score of the other 9 Pac-10 teams (basically, the blue line minus the red line).

Good for the conference?

One item I’ve often heard debated is whether USC’s dominance is good for the conference.  Sure, they carry the Pac-10’s banner nationally, annually debunking the myth that good football isn’t played west of the Rockies, and they’ve given the conference their only BCS National Champion, but they’ve also led East Coast critics to deride the conference as ‘USC and the Nine Dwarves’.  At best, I think it’s been a mixed bag.

While the Trojans have certainly played a part in the rise of the Pac-10’s talent level, much of their success had certainly come at the expense of their fellow conference members.  If the Pac-10 is to truly rise towards the top of the college football heap, more teams must engage in the kind of ‘national’ recruiting programs that USC has built.  Oregon has, to some extent, done this, and Cal is beginning to do the same.  However, Stanford has always been the only truly national recruiting program, and I think it’s no coincidence that the conference’s overall talent level peaked around 2001, the last year of Tyrone Willingham’s successful run on the Farm.

(Actually, Stanford’s NFL talent level would remain high for several years after Willingham’s departure, due in part to the slow dwindling of Willingham’s stocked cupboard.  In fact, given the Draft Scores for Stanford during Buddy Teven’s three years (45, 38, and 44, good for 2nd, 4th, and 2nd in the conference, respectively), it’s amazing that the Cardinal managed to win just 5 conference games, as inept as Teven’s coaching might have been.  At least he never lost to UC Davis!)

Conclusion

Anyway, I found this to be a very interesting tool for exploring the various talent levels of college teams, independent of how well those teams performed on the field.  If some of my conclusions made you go ‘duh’, then that’s a good thing; if whatever these numbers tell us jibes with what we already know, we can infer that these numbers are grounded in reality.  In general, good teams have lots of NFL talent, while bad teams have less.  Some coaches (Mike Price, Ty Willingham, Mike Riley, Dennis Erickson) were able to win with less talent.  Wherever we see relatively loaded teams do poorly (ASU and USC in ‘98-’00, Stanford in ‘02-’04), those coaches (Bruce Snyder, Paul Hackett, Buddy Tevens) are soon fired.

The lesson?  NFL-caliber talent ain’t everything, but it sure makes life easier.  Like I said, ‘duh’.

• Andy Staples (who?) at SI.com named Covaughn DeBoskie as an impact early entry.
• Stewart Mandel published his Spring Top 25.  Our Golden Bears check in at…well, they don’t check in at all.  That’s just a little depressing.
• Boom goes the dynamite!  Tasteless?  Too soon?
• Nnamdi Asomugha is probably the best corner to ever come out of Cal (except maybe this guy), and hell, he’s a great guy. 
• Not sure if this needs to be here, but Bruce Feldman weighed in on the whole bloggers vs. Bissinger thing among other tidbits, so you might as well give it a read.
• What didn’t kill Sammie Stroughter made him stronger.
• The Oregon Ducks are rolling a fat Blount.
• Andy Katz says our Bears have all the pieces to be a serious player in the Pac-10 - if Ryan Anderson returns.  I was about to say that sounded like the same old misguided optimism that we hear every year that Braun is around…thank God for Montgomery.  STAY, RYAN, STAY!
• Tosh Lupoi talks about last year’s defense, and why defensive schemes were the way they were last year.
• Belated links from last week’s draft, with conference call transcripts with Mike Gibson and DeSean Jackson.
• A bit of dirt on DeSean from a respected scout for an NFC team.
• But hey, if you still love him, here you go!  Mine’s in the mail.