Penalty!  On Cal! 15 Yards!  Part II

Penalty!  On Cal!  15 Yards!  Part I 

Well, we finally get to the game.  Exciting times.  Before the game, the Mic-GenderIsMerelyASocialConstruct reminded us all to do the Hawk.  But not the vertical Hawk.  No, the horizontal hawk.  From side to side instead of up and down.  Said it was more aggressive.  Not sure if thats truly, really.  But true to the Mic-Dudes word, when Hawk scored a TD he came running over to the Student Section and did the Hawk and he did it horizontally.  So, just a reminder, its the Horizontal Hawk.  Not the Vertical Hawk.

 

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWK!" 

Again, the Mic-Guy did a frigging Roll On You Bears chant before the game even started!  WHAT?!?!?!  But one of my friends nearby reminded me that traditions are fluid.  They come and go organically and Tedford alone knows how many traditions have been birthed and died at Memorial Stadium.  Things that seem so ancient might have just come from a few years back.  So, I guess it’s OK.  It’s a new tradition.  Do Roll On You Bears whenever the Mic-Man feels like it.  yay…………………………………….

As for the game, it was not really all that close, as you might have noticed.  We shut down their running game, forcing Tuitama to throw throw throw.  A lot of times Tuitama was off the mark.  To wit, look at #23 for the Cats:

 

"Why’d you throw it to the cheerleaders?" 

On the other side of the ball, Forsett was unstoppable.  Look as he is literally floating through air on his way to what I can only assume is another huge gain.

 

"Lighter than air!" 

Best, jealous of all the attention Forsett is getting, decided to score a touchdown.  What is he averaging now, like 3 TDs per touch?  Impressive tally.  Also, note how he’s all blurry while the D players are not.  Trick of the camera or real life?????

 

Even when Tuitama was able to put the ball in the right place, sometimes he wasn’t helped by his receivers.  I remember on this play, the Arizona receiver dropped the ball:

 

With all the scoring in the first quarter, fans were very, very happy. 

 

"A defensive TD???  I didn’t see that coming at all, but I’ll take it!" 

When Tuitama wasn’t failing to hit his targets or watching his receivers drop balls, he was completely missing wide open guys:

 

"28 sez ‘I’M OPEN FOR THE LOVE OF TEDFORD!!!!!!!!!!!!’"

Also, just for fun a photo of the Chancellor wandering by our section.  He’s got the best seat in the house! 

 

In the 2nd half, things got a bit testy as Arizona started to mount a bit of a comeback.  And the Refs got a bit bored.  Decided to spice things up with random penalties at the oddest times.  Well after plays ended.  Middle of time outs.  I think one ref even called an unnecessary roughness penalty against Cal for its use of gravity.  You just had to start laughing, it was so preposterous.   

 

"15 yards for illegal use of a stationary bike?? What???" 

All in all, it was an exciting 1st quarter, followed by 3 more quarters of Tedford keeping everything close to the chest.  Fair enough.  I’ll take another Cal blowout with some moments of boredom and frustration as Arizona mounts a comeback as long as it means Tedford has some arrows left in his quiver for Oregon.  My prediction?  

Legal use of gravity!  GO BEARS! 

• Our esteemed Ragnarok made yet another appearance on a college football podcast, this time over at CFBweekly.com.  For what it’s worth, he thinks he did a good job, but said, "um" too much.  Listen and judge for yourself!
• And two more links from ESPN.com on the game of the week.  First from Ted Miller we have a story on all the playmakers our Bears have - did you know Jahvid Best is averaging more yards per carry than Noel Devine?) as well as another article on Dennis Dixon, this one from Mark Schlabach saying that playing baseball over the summer helped him as a football player.  That sounds like one of those after-the-fact rationalizations where the one probably really didn’t have anything to do with the other (at least not significantly), but I suppose if Dixon himself believes it, then there probably is some truth to it after all.

• A couple of notes for tomorrow: if you’re going to the game, wear blue, because Oregon told their fans to wear yellow.  And gold can be mistaken for yellow.  So wear blue.  Also, apparently the game will be on ABC HD.  This is unconfirmed, but what else are they going to show on HD at that time?
• Some under-the-table, hush-hush notes that the stadium plan is definitely going through.
• Ted Miller’s Pac-10 Notebook has a few notes - the 14 penalties for 121 yards last week were the highest ever during the Tedford era, which isn’t a surprise.  Our Bears are also averaging 25 more penalty yards per game than last year as well.  I don’t think there’s any obvious reason for it, so I’m going to go with the belief that it’s early in the season and things will even themselves out over the course of the year.  And Miller adds that, again, Malele is probable, and Ta’ufo’ou and Follett are questionable.  Man, I hope Follett plays.
• Todd McShay actually has a decent bit of analysis about last year’s Oregon/Cal game (box score) where he says much of the Bears’ success was due to the defense’s increased blitzing and effective pressuring of Dixon into mistakes.  He also says Dixon is much improved, but I’m withholding judgement until this Saturday night.
• Bill Curry, Mike Gottfried, and Jim Donnan break down the game, with Curry taking over Cal and Gottfried taking over the Ducks.  I particularly enjoy these snippets from Curry: "Bottom line for my guys: we have the better team," and, "The goal: Stuff Stewart and fence Dixon into the pocket. If this becomes a game where Dixon has to beat us throwing, Oregon is in trouble."  Let’s not get into who Donnan picked to win the game.
• Or who Feldman picked.
• But we will, however, highlight this pick because ESPN simulations usually tend to be extremely accurate.  Except for 2004, where they somehow projected our Bears to lose to the Sooners in the national championship game.
• Mel Kiper rates his top draft prospects and lists Thomas DeCoud as the fourth best safety prospect in the senior class; Andrew Larson the fourth best punter; Longshore, THA1, and Alex Mack the best at their positions in the junior class, and Follett the fifth best outside linebacker.
• Kiper’s really developed quite a crush on DeCoud.
• Miller also adds that Oregon’s best wide receiver, Brian Paysinger, is out for the year.  I’d never even heard of the guy before this discussion.  Apparently he’s a man’s man for NOT playing, but DeSean is hurting is his team (in that they’re still scoring 40+ points with him taking up space on the field) by playing.  Go Bears.
• CBS Sportsline notes that Robert Jordan has caught a pass in the last 34 games.  He must be the James Thrash of the offense by this point - two catches every week for the 2001 Eagles.
• Another rather generic story on the back story between the Ducks and Bears.
• Maisel and Schlabach both pick our Bears to make the Rose Bowl against the Buckeyes.
• Make your picks.
• And I was originally planning on heading out to go see The Game Plan, but then I got offered a 150 dollar bonus if I put in a 14 hour day today.  I’m gonna do it, because cash rules everything around me.  C.R.E.A.M.!  Get the money.  Dolla dolla bill y’all.