Here is a link by USAToday that shows the Coaches voting.

You can see where all the teams were put.  Also, you can see how each coach individually voted.  And its in an easy graph.  I’m unsure if USAToday has ever published anything not in graph form.  

Interesting notes:  Lord Tedford put Texas at like 20th.  HELL YEAH!  That’ll show him for winning the Rose Bowl in 2004!  Oddly enough, Mack Brown actually put us at like 18.  So, there.

John L. Smith, who is the coach at Michigan State and put 3 Big "X" teams in the top 4, hates us.  He put us 23rd, while he has A+M 17th.  Rallying cry for the Holiday Bowl?  Unimportant note in the long run?  Splendiferous Zeppelin Escapade of Filliam H. Muffman?  Yes. 

Rutgers coach Greg Schiano put Rutgers at 10, even though they were at like 13 and lost.  Wonder where he had them before?  #1??? 

I love Bowling Green, Indiana, and Lousiana Tech.  They all rated us high.  

I cant find Pete Carroll on there.  He must be there, I must have just missed it.  Oh well.  

Either way, its all very interesting.  Go Bears! 

So what to expect next season? Every team in a BCS conference has the ability to put together a "dream" season - meaning 9 or 10 wins and a nice bowl berth. It usually takes a senior-laden squad or some really good coaching (witness Wake Forest, who had both and won the ACC this season). However, it takes a lot to develop one good season into sustained success year after year, as most of us feel Jeff Tedford has done at Cal. For that to happen, you need the following: 1) a solid recruiting base in your local area, 2) the ability to occasionally and successfully dip into the national/out of state recruiting pool, and the ability to convince players that they will be competing not just for a bowl game or a winning season, but to win the conference and go to a BCS bowl every year. 5 years into Jeff Tedford’s reign in Berkeley, consider how he went about sustaining his success:

2002: Tedford comes into the 2002 season with mostly Tom Holmoe recruits, as well as some good character guys he brought in who hope that 1-10 will be a distant memory under this new energetic young coach. Cal enjoys their first non-losing season since 1996 and finishes 7-5. This season was clearly a pure coaching victory for Tedford. He took underachieving players like Kyle Boller and made them max out their potential.  It was a solid start, but no way did Cal fans expect much more than similar 7-5 seasons.

 
2003: Tedford, realizing that he cannot yet get the top tier recruits he needs to win the Pac-10, heavily recruits JC players (Aaron Rodgers and JJ Arrington to name a couple) to go for the quick fix and win as much as possible now before worrying about the long-term. The Bears go 8-6 and win the Insight Bowl against a solid if not spectacular Virginia Tech team. Tedford then uses this as a springboard into 2004.  Cal was ineligible for a bowl in 02 because of the sins of the previous administration, so the 03 goal was simply a bowl game appearance.  That was accomplished, Tedford could now set his sights higher.

2004: The ‘03 season parlayed itself into a top 15 recruiting class for Tedford in 2004. Using mostly Tom Holmoe guys and JC guys, Tedford had put together 2 winning seasons in a row and won a bowl game (and also dealt USC their only loss of 2003), showing that top high school talent that Cal was an up and coming national player. Tedford landed the 2nd rated high school RB in the country: Marshawn Lynch. Lynch had almost committed to Oregon (and had Holmoe been the coach at Cal almost assuredly Lynch would have been a Duck), but Tedford did he had to do to be competitive: he kept the top local talent in the Bay Area. Now the top Bay Area players HAD to consider Cal as a top option, and not bolt to the LA schools and Oregon. The Bay is an extremely fertile recruiting ground which Oregon, UCLA, USC and even Stanford had been using to the detriment of Cal. Not anymore. Using a combination of Tedford’s top high school recruits and the JC guys from 2003, the Bears went 10-2 and came within a single play at USC from being considered for the national title game (I’ll pretend the Holiday Bowl never happened - although with Chase Lyman and Geoff Macarthur healthy, I guarantee the final score would have been MUCH different).

2005: The ‘05 season was perhaps the biggest test of what Tedford had built in Berkeley. He lost his 2,000 yard running back in Arrington and his stud QB in Rodgers. In addition, other veterans such as Ryan Riddle and Matt Giordano were gone. Tedford had a young team, built almost entirely of "his" guys, and somewhat predictably they struggled. However, they were close to another 10 win season (close losses to Oregon and UCLA being especially painful). Despite the adversity (by Tedford standards), Cal finished 8-4 and won the Las Vegas Bowl over BYU. Tedford had his 4th straight winning season and 4 Big Game victories. No small feat.

2006: This season was supposed to be THE YEAR. The year of sky-high expectations.  Three straight bowl games had Cal fans hungry for one thing: The Rose Bowl.  This was also to be the year the Bears knocked off USC and won the Pac-10 outright, banishing nearly 50 years of futility. Suffice it to say, a few bounces didn’t go the right way (DeSean’s big toe was a bit too big, Dwayne Jarrett didnt quite have possession before he fumbled, Daymeion Hughes got called for phantom pass interference, etc.) and the Bears now sit at 9-3, Pac-10 co-champs but missing out on the Rose Bowl because of the head-to-head tie-breaker against the Trojans. A chance finish 10-3 with a bowl game win is still a great season and cannot be overlooked.

Conclusion: Tedford has shown a proven model for sustained success in college football. He now lands the top bay area recruits, and he has pulled players from Texas (Forsett), Washington (Anthony Felder), Oregon (future QB Kevin Riley), and nabbed DeSean Jackson out of USC’s clutches. He also now is looking into Arizona and Nevada.  Clearly things have changed in Berkely.  He has convinced his players that the ultimate goals are the Rose Bowl and the National Title game. His players expect 10 win seasons. He has built a program that had no history of winning (sorry Mack Brown, Bob Stoops, Pete Carroll, Jim Tressell, Lloyd Car, Urban Meyer, and Charlie Weis) and now aims just as high as the traditional powerhouses do. Here’s to Jeff Tedford. Here’s to hoping there’s a statute erected 20 years from now in front of Memorial Stadium in his likeness. Here’s to sustained success.

Anyone who’s ever attended a game at Memorial Stadium has a clear idea of just how badly it needs to be renovated.  From a distance, it’s still beautiful, with one of the most incredibly picturesque settings in all of college football, but up close it’s obvious that the facilities are cramped, outdated, inadequete and decrepit.  No one is disputing these facts, and yet, just as when they try to do anything in Berkeley, the University faces vocal opposition from a small minority, which of course includes the Berkeley City Council.

Anyone who’s familiar with the Berkeley brand of democracy knows that everyone is entitiled to voice their opinions, no matter how ludicrous, because we can’t possibly allow anything to get done if there’s a possibility that anyone or anything might be hurt or offended by it.  Some of the objections raised include:

- 42 trees will be removed to make room for the High Performance Training Complex below the stadium.
People are actually camping out in the trees to protest this one.  42 trees.  Really?  That’s the best use of your time?  I hope you fail your finals (a couple of the protesters are actually students).  Especially considering the fact that University plans to plant 3 new trees for every one cut down.  Have you seen the facilities inside the stadium?  Do you know how cramped and inadequate they are?  You want to build the project somewhere else?  Where?  Do you happen to know of some empty lots near campus that we could use?  There aren’t any trees there, are there?  *$@#&!@ hippies make me laugh.

- Some of the views on Tightwad Hill *might* be blocked.
Not even sure if this is real.  The project designers say none of the views will change.  Longtime Hill patrons aren’t so sure.  They don’t know that they’ll be blocked, they just suspect that they might.  UC Berkeley alumnus Dan Sicular is planning to sue the University to stop construction.  Now, if he’s concerned about Tightwad Hill, he’s obviously a Cal fan, albeit one who doesn’t feel like shelling out a few bucks to his alma mater to actually get into the stadium.  He clearly doesn’t have a problem shelling out a lot of money to lawyers to fight the University, however.  Man, with fans like these, who needs rivals?

- They’re going to ruin the area and it’s historically significant architecture.
Have you looked at the proposed plans?  It’s about as unobtrustive a final project as I can imagine.  The stadium will be retrofitted, and much of the original facade and inner walkways restored.  The training complex will be built into a hill, and will not infringe on either the stadium or Galey Road below.  The parking structure will be mostly underground.  The lighting will be specifically designed to minimize light pollution into the surrounding neighborhood.  And nobody seems to have a problem with the Law school and the Business school coming together, architecturally speaking.

- There will be an undue burden on the city and it’s residents regarding construction, traffic and infrastructure.
This is the same objection the city brings up anytime UC wants to build anything.  You’d think the University was built to support the city, rather than vice verse.  Yes, construction does get in the way of things; there’s no avoiding that.  But when we tear up Southside to put in new dorms and parking, has that seriously impeded your life and your neighborhood?  And I cannot imagine how anyone who knows Berkeley could be seriously opposed to more parking, especially as unobstrusive as it is.

- The stadium is on a fault line and is unsafe.  You should play football in the Oakland Coliseum.
That’s why we’re renovating it!  To make it safe!  What about Bowles Hall, or the Greek Theatre, or Foothill?  Are they safe?  Tell you what, we’ll just pick up the whole University and move it somewhere less seismically active.  Yes, let’s do that.  And we can play football in Oakland, in a stadium just as shoddy but about 8 billion times less charming, and stadium so terrible that it has prompted the Oakland Athletics to move to Fremont!

- There hasn’t been enough time to review the project and raise objections.
Really?  This isn’t a new project; it’s been in the works for years.  I went to a presentation of the design in February.  The University has been quite open and forthcoming regarding information on this project.  C’mon people, if you care so much, why has it taken so long to raise objections?

The Regents are meeting today, and hopefully they will approve the Environmental Impact Report that will allow the first phase of the project to get underway.  It’s obvious that something has to be done to fix the stadium, and no matter what is done, somebody else is going to scream bloody murder, most likely in the form of a groundless lawsuit.  Let’s hope the Regents realize the importance of getting this project moving.  Do it for the kids!