A few thoughts of mine after the game:

Props to Ainge for playing through the game with his broken pinky.  Also, props to Ainge for going 32/47, and a 68.1% completion percentage.  Prior to this game I wasn’t sold on Ainge.  Last year he got easy touchdowns on us from a few missed tackles, but this year he proved his abilities to me.  He stood in the pocket, had good pocket awareness, and made excellent throws - with a broken pinky.  Props to Ainge.  

But then again, Tennessee really nickeled and dimed us.  Screen.  Screen.  Screen.  Slant.  Screen.  Drag.  Screen.  Slant.  Drag.  Lots of short passes underneath our zones.  Sort of reminds of me of how we nickel and dimed USC in 2004.  

We had a lot of poor tackling early in the game.  Lots of wiffed hits and bad angles.  

The atmosphere of today’s game was average.  The crowd was loud on critical 3rd downs and 4th downs but other than that, the stadium felt sort of flat.  Having a packed stadium against a big time opponent, I was expecting much more.  Maybe my expectations were too high.  I was expecting the crowd to be just as energetic and loud ALL THE TIME, such as against Oregon last year.  In my opinion, and from where I was seated, it seemed like we only reached 2006 Oregon levels when it was 3rd and 4th down.  Against Oregon last year, I felt like the crowd managed to stay loud the entire time Oregon was on offense.  I had never seen and/or heard a Cal crowd that loud and energetic before.  I thought for sure that I’d see the same thing yesterday.  I didn’t, and thus I was rather disappointed.   Please don’t read this the wrong way.  I know a lot of our hardcore readers were out there giving 110%.  I’m not talking about you guys.  I’m talking about all the other casual fans - such as these two little freshman in front of me (picture below).  Apparently their poor little legs got tired.  They also were too busy conversing with themselves to even watch half of the game or make any noise.  Oh, they also left in the 3rd quarter too.  LAME. 

And excuse me while I go off on a tangent.  Football is not a spectator sport.  Real football fans don’t go to games to sit there quietly and watch the game.  Football is a participatory sport.  Real football fans go to games knowing they are going to lose their voice from screaming and yelling.  I hope your throat, like mine, is raw and sore from all the yelling you did during the game.  In fact, that’s the official rule.  If your voice isn’t hoarse or gone, then you didn’t yell enough.  Plain and simple.  No excuses. 

How bout Forsett?  A nice 6 yard average and tons of Tennessee players with broken ankles.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Not that I don’t think that Forsett is good, it’s just well… I don’t think I’ve seen him put on such a sick show before.  He hit the holes hard and fast.  He had great vision.  He cut the ball back across the grain when he needed to.  I think this might have been Forsett’s game EVER. 

Speaking of runningbacks, we didn’t see much of James Montgomery.  Has Jahvid Best already surpassed him on the depth chart?   Either that or JT just wanted Best in there to add another dimension to our offense.  This little story is definitely worth keeping on eye on in the future. 

Hawk had a fantastic game.  Good kickoff returns, great route running and hole-in-the-zone finding.  

And Robert Jordan (or as some of our readers like to call him: RoJo), had a cool little touchdown dive.  

And DeSean "THA1" Jackson was well… the one.  He had that clutch catch on the east sideline despite getting hammered by the safety and the Sportscenter highlight punt return.  Wow.  So talented.  

Did you notice that Hawk, RoJo, and THA1 all came out of the north tunnel together at the start of the game?  I’m really glad those guys are good friends and getting along.  There was definitely some friction for the first two years, but it seems like these guys have all gotten past that.  I think that shows their maturity and team-first mentality. 

Dude, how about Rulon Davis making that 4th and Goal stop?!  Even if he didn’t swat the ball out of the receiver’s hands, he would have made the tackle anyways and saved the touchdown - proof being that Rulon tackled the receiver anyways!  And Rulon took out the sideline ref too!  Comedy!

I was really surprised to NOT see THA1 back returning kickoffs.  But it was nice to see Jahvid "Little Bush" Best back returning kickoffs.  He did well.  Oh, except for Best’s first play as a collegiate football player.  He was nervous - if it wasn’t evident from him splitting himself out wide right prior to lining up in the backfield.  And I swear I saw his legs shaking too.  It’s all good though.  I suppose I’d be a little nervous too being in front of 72,000 fans on national TV against an SEC powerhouse. 

I really wish we had gotten that QB sneak touchdown with just over 2 minutes left in the 4th quarter.  While beating Tennessee by 14 is pretty good, a 21 point win with a final score of 52 points would have been killer.  Oh, and the fact that JT went for the touchdown with a two touchdown lead is worth talking about.  Up by 14 at the time, a field goal would have given us a 17 point lead.  That’s a three possession game at minimum for Tennessee… with only 2 minutes left in the game.  A field goal would have been the nail in the coffin.  Yet, Tedford went for the touchdown.  Either Tedford was breaking out of his conservative playcalling self and being more aggressive or he wanted to break 50 points and really make even MORE of a statement.  I think it’s both, but mainly the second reason. 

And while I’m glad that God is doing the playcalling again, did it seem like he really didn’t want to throw downfield in the 3rd quarter?  It seemed like God went into hardcore "ball control"/conservative mode for the 3rd quarter.  And then in the 4th quarter, when most teams with a lead will get conservative and run, we aired it out down the field.

I was really surprised that for the most part, Tennessee went 1 on 1 with Desean Jackson.  I thought that for sure they were going to tag a safety on him all the time.  

Oh, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Longshore got sacked at all!  Yay for awesome pass protection! 

Oh, and how ’bout Gregory putting Follett wide on WRs, then blitzing him?  Pretty nifty.  Gregory said that he’d be putting Follett all over the field and Follett was sure all over the field this game.  Also, Gregory did a great job of disguising his defense.  Our defense would show one formation, then would often shift after Tennessee had made their play changes.  I have to give props to Gregory.  He had a great gameplan.  I know Ainge had a good completion percentage and Tennessee did score 31 points, but Gregory’s conservative, drop-back-into-zones, and keep-everything-in-front-of-us defensive strategy worked well.  It forced Tennessee to take what we gave them (the short, underneath passes), and to sustain long drives.   

Normally I would break down the game and provide some analysis but my stupid Tivo had some technical difficulties.  So until I can download the torrent of the game I will not be able to break down our offense.  Maybe in a week or two I’ll have the analysis ready.

Go Bears! 

 

Ok, so now that we have those initial thoughts out of the way, let’s take a look at the day as it went by.  I had heard reports of Tennessee fans in the local region, but had yet to see them.  I was a bit shocked when I got to the BART station in the morning and saw a lot of them buying tickets.  I helped a family buy some tickets, though I had half a mind to direct them to take transfer onto the Fremont train (which, for those not in the know, is the totally wrong direction).  But hey, they coulda seen Verlander outduel Haren!  So, I did my part as the nice guy.  I even later directed some Tennessee fans on how to get to the student store, because they wanted to buy a few souvenirs for the road. 

The scene on the streets in Berkeley was similar to USC when huge throngs of opposing fans roamed the streets.  Automobiled Tennessee fans would drive by pedestrian Tennessee fans and rev their engines et al.  They would walk in packs singing their fight song.  At one point, I went to Jupiter’s and it was lousy with them.  But the energy was good.  Unlike USC 05, I didn’t hate the Tennessee fans and so, I wasn’t quite as put off by the throngs.  I even chatted with a few about the AppState-Michigan game.  We were saying that no matter what at least the loser of Cal-Tenn wouldn’t have to endure the title of the most embarrassing loss of the day.  Way to be, AppState! 

 

"Of course, we’ll share our alcohol with you!" 

At about 3:30, we made our way up to the band concert on Sproul steps.  The place was packed.  Apparently, Cal had given Tennessee the Pauly Ballroom or something for their pep rally, because there were tons of Tenn fans up on that balcony overlooking Sproul.  The band ran up and began their performance.

 

  They sounded so very crisp and clear.  Really, that’s just the trumpets and percussion.  It’s not like you can hear the saxes or anything.  You could have the world’s greatest sax section, as I’d like to think we did from 1999-2003, and it wouldn’t really matter at all.  It’s all about the brass/percussion and then mostly the trumpets.  They played the Michael Jackson show, which is derivative of when they also played the Michael Jackson show at USC 01 (aka BEST.SHOW.EVER).  But I can’t help but feel as if people aren’t coming to this blog to read critiques of the marching band shows. 

There is a new Mic-Human Of Female Gender.  I wonder what Kate thinks of this.  If only we had known before we interviewed her.   The main dude, seen here rubbing his hands together as if he is plotting and/or scheming, was actually pretty good.

"Runnie Dub is mine!" 

Lotsa kwality cheering and yelling.  Hopefully, many Tennessee fans were there to see how we do it out in Californ-i-a.  After the band played, we headed up to the stadium.  I didn’t get a chance to go by the protestors, so I have no idea what was going on there.  I later heard they put a second fence up.  I also heard that one of the posts that holds up the California banner in the stadium broke and they couldn’t fix it, because it’d be a permanent alteration to the stadium, which is banned by the injunction.  How odd.  

I guess it was because of the fact they closed some of the gates, but I have never seen the entrace so crazy with humanity.

 

This photo is a little bit tougher to see, but the people were just massed all the way down to the street.  

 

On the way in, we ran into what I can only assume is Max Zheng.  Look at how tall he is!

 

We got into the stadium and settled into our seats.  They were fairly low down near the goalline.  So, at times, they were really amazing (i.e. if the play was near the goalline).  But if play started to move to the other goalline it was tough to see what was going on.  It also meant that we were close to the Tennessee fans and that their team was warming up right in front of us.  So, instead of getting some sweet pre-game shots of our Golden Bears warming up, I got some sweet pre-game shots of random people I don’t know anything about warming up.  To wit:

 

 

 

There’s our boys! But come closer!

 

They have a whole new opening to the game.  They did individual introductions for each starter with the starter doing a little something or other in a video clip.  For example, here is Syd Quan going dumb.  He went quite dumb, I must admit.  And with his giant mop of dreads, it was actually pretty cool.

 

For cereal, Syd Quan must be the happiest camper EVAIR right now.  He was the poster child for the loss last year and had the most reason out of anybody to want vengeance.  To want victory.  He played a great game and helped us get that victory.  As I said the other day, although he might not have agreed with this sentiment on the night of 9.2.06, he’ll be a much better player because of last year’s game.  From humiliation stems the desire to never feel that again.  Syd Quan is one of my favorite players and I hope he went very dumb last night after the game.    

Then, the band did pre-game.  Went really well for the first game.  Most importantly, I started to feel we had a chance to win, because the drum major caught the baton.  After the band runs onto the field, the drum major marches out in front of them and then throws their baton up in the air.  Superstition has it that if they catch it, Cal will win.  And if they drop it, Cal will lose.  

Here he is, catching it:

Then, there was the flyover:

 

And then the team ran out.

 

 

Even though we were on the far extreme side of the field from North Tunnel, some of the players ran all the way over to the Tennessee side.  That player Young with the super long dreds came screaming out of nowhere shaking his dreds everywhere.  I wonder what effect that had on the Tennessee fans. 

 

You can see him in the front there.  In the next post, I’ll post some photos from the game.  From our vantage point in the first half, we were looking straight down the sun.  It looked like this:

 

So, it was a bit tough to see at times, esp. on the far side of the field.  But we were right there, in the thick of it.  Great times, great times.   

 

Wow!  What a game!  Biggest victory since USC 03 easy.  Might even be bigger.  USC 03 put us on the map.  This might ensure we stay there.  Since USC 03, we had had a lot of opportunities to reinforce the perception that Cal was a national power.  H Bowl 04.  USC 04.  USC 05.  Tennessee 06.  H Bowl 06.  I guess our best victory in that time span was our close loss to USC in 04.  You can see the dilemma.  The utility from a game 4 years ago can start to wear off.  Cal needed this not only to erase the demons from yesteryear, but also to try to shed the moniker of “Most Overrated Team.” 

Some overarching thoughts first before I bust out the fotografias for a photo narrative.  However, it is my 1 year anniversary.  I am frantically writing this all as fast as possible before my wife wakes up and I have to atone for the fact I spent the first chunk of our anniversary at the game.  So, that photo narrative might not come until tomorrow.  Thankfully, she’s a late sleeper!

But first, initial thoughts, just from my viewing of the game yesterday without really looking at the stats or reading a recap. 

What to say about DeSean?  He is certainly making his way to Marshawn levels of unreasonable man-love.  I am sure people are going crazy about his punt return and I can’t blame them.  From where I was standing yesterday, that mostly all took place right in front of me and it was sick.  Especially the part where he kinda falls backwards to avoid a tackle, regains his balance and then keeps going.  He’ll be like Barry Bonds when it comes to punts.  We should bring rubber chickens!  After everytime Tenn wouldn’t punt to him, many people in the student section would put up what I will delicately describe as the Dealtha O’Neal sign.  But it means something else.  Cough cough.

But I didn’t even think that was the most impressive thing DeSean did yesterday, although the punt runback (or the DeSean as it should be renamed) was unimaginably impressive.  The coolest thing he did was on that end around.  I can’t seem to find a video of it, but if I do, I’ll post it.  Anyway, when he like just stopped and let those two Tenn players run by him.  From my memory, it wasn’t like a crazy Marshawn juke or anything.  He just was able to run, stop, and then move on a dime all in the span of 1 second, allowing for the Tenn player’s momentum to carry them past him.  I mean he was just like standing there looking at his watch being all “Dudes, great talking with you, I got a play to complete, though.  Have to talk with you later.  Hugs all around, well, ok, on second thought, nix the hugs.” 

He also saved Longshore on a key pass that was thrown over his head.  DeSean has HOOKS!  DeSean keeps this up, he might (and that’s a very iffy might) enter the Marshawn Pantheon of Guys Almost As Awesome As Marshawn.  He’s close.  He really is.

Speaking of Longshore, was something wrong with him?  I haven’t seen the stats, but I bet they don’t look bad.  He threw for a few TDs.  Snucked in for another.  It wasn’t as much that.  It was more that Tedford was asking him to do NOTHING.  All before the game, I heard how Cal had the 3 amazing WRs and Tenn’s DB corps was new this year.  I thought we might go for a vertical passing game, which would open up holes for Forsett. 

I could not have been MORE wrong.  We just ran ran ran ran ran ran ran.  And it worked.  More on that later.  But I was shocked by the ultra-conservative game plan.  There were even a few rabble rousers around me yelling for Tedford to start passing.  I wasn’t quite as vocal, but I was a bit confused.  At the half, I was speaking with a few friends and we thought he’d really open up in the 2^nd.  There was some more passing, but not as much as I thought.  No bombs to DeSean at all, too. 

I mean that’s the craziest thing of it all.  The offense scored 31 points off of a supposedly SEC defense.  And we barely opened it up at all.  Think of how amazing it could have been.  So, my fear is that there was something wrong with Longshore.  A minor injury or something.  Some of his passes seemed off at times.  And he did fumble that snap that one time (right after the center muffed the snap).  Hopefully, whatever the problem was, Longshore can move past it.  If we can combine the SICK running game from yesterday with the passing attack we all expected, this is one SCARY offense.  No joke!

Speaking of the running game, Forsett really showed me something yesterday.  Perhaps it is due to my manlove for Marshawn, but, as I mentioned last week, I was concerned about Forsett.  He had some very ineffective stretches last year, spelling Marshawn.  But being the big dog CLEARLY works for him.  Moreover, it wasn’t just the run straight forward, let’s hope there’s a hole there stuff I saw a lot of last year.  He was making moves.  Juking people.  Spin moves.  He didn’t have any of the power of Marshawn to make stiff arms and shed a lot of tackles.  But he was shedding some tackles.  Especially that tackle on his screen where the guy just kinda pushed him forward.

It was like the Tenn player was all “Ok, c’mon, keep going forward.  You can do this!  Believe!”

And our other new RB, Jahvid Best, looked great right out of the box.  A new christmas present in September!  There was his 34 yard scamper, which I was barely able to see since it happened on the other side of the field.  He also ran for a key first down, which basically sealed the game.  Took a vicious hit, but fell forward to get just enough inches to get the first!  I get the feeling that someday I’ll be telling my friends I saw Best’s first run.  

I don’t know if we were playing a very conservative defense, too, but we were getting very minimal pressure on the QB.  I heard Ainge penned the great American novel with his time in the pocket.  It’s coming out this winter.  It’s about a quarterback who has endless time to throw passes, but gives it all up for the woman he loves.  Sounds derivative to me, but whatever.

It seemed that whenever we blitzed, great success was had (similar to whenever we threw a forward pass down the field, generally great success was had).  But blitzing seemed as rare as a forward pass down the field.  One of the most exciting moments of a Cal game came early on when we blitzed with Follett and he forced that fumble.  Bee Tee Dub, how totally awesome was Williams just scooping it up with 1 hand.  That probably broke the heart of every fundamentals teacher he ever had, but they were too busy going crazy. 

As for their run offense, I felt we did a good job of stopping the run.  Foster is a beast, but we were able to keep him in control.  But man Ainge, pinky or not, is G-O-O-D.  How many passes were incomplete?  He was automatic.  Especially to Aaron Rodgers, who apparently gave up a lucrative professional contract and had radical facial reconstructive surgery so he could illegally play wide receiver for the Tennessee Volunteer.  Or there’s some other dude named Rodgers.  Who knows?  So, while we did do a great job stopping the run, which might have been helped by the fact we got up by 17 at a point, they were able to pass all over us, easy.

Those are just some thoughts that arise out of the game.  Hopefully, I will get a chance to put up the photo narratives similar to the FanFest.  I am also sure that Ragnarok and HydroTech, who were also at the game will have more thoughts for posts.  Plus, I took some videos and am working on getting them up on YouTube.  I always hate how the video kwality decreases so significantly on YouTube, but don’t really know another place to put them.  So far, there is only this one video of a run late in the game.

Others to follow.   GO BEARS!  WHAT A DAY!  WHAT A GAME!