You might wonder why I make such a big deal out of a bunch of basement dwelling, Will Leitch wannabes (like me!) getting together to cast their unimportant votes on who should be the football champion.  I mean it doesn’t even really affect who becomes the champion at all!

But enough about the AP Poll (burn!).  Today I want to talk about MGoBlog’s BlogPoll.  And the reason that I feel it’s fairly important is because nobody obsesses over college football than us passionate bloggers.  Who knows how close the lackeys employed by the Coaches to do their ballots actually watch football?  And we all know the AP media Pollsters are too busy touching themselves inappropriately to photos of David Ortiz and Josh Beckett to pay attention to college football.  So, these intronet denizens might have an insight into these sort of titanic shifts before the rest of the world picks up on it.  Or maybe not.  I mean apparently Stanford got some votes on the BlogPoll, so, yeah…………

Anyway, the new BlogPoll is out.  Unsurprisingly, Cal is #2 with 3 1st place votes.  One of those votes is us.  I feel like in our own way, we’ve changed the world.  We’re like Ghandi!  Except I’d let my wife use modern medicine instead of dying. 

Here is Cal’s votes breakdown.  Mostly 2s and 3s with the 3 1st place votes (more on that in a bit) and 1 7.  WHAT?!?!??!  Marshawn is totally gonna beat that guy up.  Does anybody have his new Buffalo area phone number?  

Let’s see.  It’s a Navy blog.  Hmmm, have to tread carefully here.  Don’t want to seem anti-American.  Better put on at least 35 American flag lapel pins.  This is extra painful, because I always blog naked.  Even at work.  Especially at work.  Well, ok, looking at the guy’s deltas, clearly this is the first blogpoll he’s done for the year.  New to this.  Rookie mistake.  No big deal.

Noted American hero, Buckeye Commentary is one of the voter’s who put us #1.  Here is his ballot.  What is interesting here is that this guy’s team is currently battling ours for the National Championship game.  Certainly, there is a lot of football left to be played, but there might be a chance an undefeated OSU team could be locked out of the NC by Cal.  I think this guy is doing the reverse jinx.  God knows I do that all the time.  "DESEAN DOESN’T STAND A CHANCE WITH THIS PUNT!"  "OREGON IS GOING TO TIE THE GAME WHEN THIS DE LA SALLE GRAD RUNS DIRECTLY INTO THE ENDZONE WITH COMPLETE POSSESSION OF THE FOOTBALL!"  That last one REALLY worked!

So, I am a bit wary of this American hero’s poll.  But he does have some nice things to say about Cal.  Last week he said this:

"1. California* - Name a team that has played better in every quarter.  Maybe LSU, maybe not.  On a neutral field you have to like the Bears chances against anyone."  

And this week, this is what he says about Cal:

"I honestly think they would beat LSU on a neutral field.  At this moment, their skilled players are the best in the country."

Now, *I* agree with that, but still.  Could all be part of complex karmic scheme involving the reverse jinx.  So, I’m nervous.  Stay wary!

The next guy to vote Cal #1 is Frank McGrath, a Tulane blogger.  Here is his vote.  He seems not to be very high on LSU based off of their first half struggles with Tulane.  Whatevs!  I’ll take it.

But you are probably saying "TwistNHook, besides being incredibly attractive facially, you missed that other blog from last week that voted Cal #1.  Where’d they go????"

Firstly, you can call me by my first name.  Matt.  MattNHook.  It was MattNHooksteingoldbergman in the old country.  But Ellis Island and the whole thing.

Well, that Louisville Cardinals blogger dropped Cal back to 2nd.  But wait, put down that torch!  Before you march upon his Kentuckylvanian castle, note what he says about Cal:

"2. California: Look, we knew if LSU won this was probably going to be the result. Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened."

I think one of my old girlfriends used that same reasoning when she dumped me.  Also, that it wasn’t me, but was, in fact, her.  Couldn’t argue with that back then.  I mean look at this jaw line.  You could cut diamonds on this thing. (Ok, don’t worry, I’ll stop stealing my jokes from The Superficial soon enough.)

And I don’t think we can argue with that logic now.  Clearly, it’s not Cal’s fault they dropped down on this dude’s poll.  It’s his fault.  So, let’s just leave him alone with emotional emptiness and Brohm envy.  We need to work on charming that Navy guy anyway. 

So, there you go.  I probably owe you like 10 minutes of your life with this "analysis" of the MGoBlog BlogPoll.  But it is interesting to get a view of how the rest of the interworld views Cal.  And judging by the comments of the various blogs here that have Cal placed in #2 or #1, many people HIGHLY disagree.  Oh well, those people don’t have their own blogs, so THEY DON’T COUNT! 

Stay tuned to see if we can win the Straight Bangin’ Award. 

While I was watching the Cal @ Oregon game, I got a really good look at Dennis Dixon and how he forced defenses to account for him, and I developed what one might call ‘quarterback envy’.  I’d watch the Bears secondary shut down the Ducks’ receivers, and Oregon’s pocket start to collapse, and I thought, ‘he’s gotta throw it away or take the sack’.  Several times I thought Cal had Dixon, but then he would elude them, turning a 5 yard loss into a 7 yard gain.  It’s incredibly frustrating to try and defend such a dynamic quarterback; just as you think you’ve got the play defended, Dixon finds a way to keep moving the ball.

Look at him run!  I am green with envy.

Then, I’d watch our own offense, run by Nate ‘Slowest Man On Earth’ Longshore, and I’d really get envious.  Whereas Dixon might find a way to turn a broken play into a big gain, Longshore, finding no one open, would be forced to throw it away.  Even quarterback sneaks don’t always work because it takes him so long to get moving forward.  And on one particular play, Tedford decided to mix things up and call a designed quarterback run.  It worked, but oh god, it was painful to watch Longshore oh-so-slowly head downfield.  Dixon might have had 3 or 4 more yards on the same play.  After 3 quarters of play, I coveted a mobile quarterback; you know, like Ayoob, but less awful.

The 4th quarter, however, changed my tune.  Dixon, while he continued to move the ball, threw a couple costly interceptions to kill drives.  Meanwhile, Longshore continued to move the ball steadily downfield.  Nothing spectacular, but no mistakes.  He made the short and medium throws.  He handed it off efficiently.  He threw the ball away when he had to.  He not only threw no interceptions, he didn’t throw a single ball that was in danger of being intercepted.  One advantage of being 6′ 5" is that your passes are hardly ever tipped at the line of scrimmage.  On this team full of offensive playmakers, Longshore just has to spread the ball around and avoid costly mistakes, and in the hostile environment that is Autzen Stadium, he did just that.

Stand tall in the pocket, young man.

Just for kicks, I looked up some statistics on Pac-10 quarterbacks on ESPN.com.  Longshore isn’t among the conference leaders in most of the sexy QB statistics.  5th in QB rating.  7th in passing yards.  5th in completion percentage.  Tied for 6th in TDs.  Just based on these stats, he sure looks like nothing special.

However, he leads Pac-10 starting QBs in two important categories.  First, he’s tied with Dennis Dixon with only 2 interceptions.  OSU’s Sean Canfield has 13 on the year.  13!  J.D. Booty has 8, while Willie Tuitama and Jake Locker have 7.  Heck, UCLA’s McLeod Bethel-Thompson and OSU’s Lyle Moevao, neither of whom have more than 50 pass attempts on the year, each have 4 interceptions.  Second, he leads the conference’s starting quarterbacks in sacks taken with only 3.  ASU’s Rudy Carpenter has taken 22.  T.C. Ostrander already has 15, while his replacement Tavita Pritchard, already has 4.  Tuitama has been taken down 14 times, while Ben Olson, just as statuesque as Longshore, has taken 12.   Even the elusive Dennis Dixon has taken 8 sacks on the year.  Much of the credit for this has to go to the offensive line, but Longshore still has to release the ball quickly and know when to throw it away (and also, he has to not force the ball in a tight space and cause an interception).  Oh yeah, and no fumbles on the year either.

Simply put, better than anyone else in the conference, Longshore minimizes mistakes and lets his playmakers make plays.  I’ll bet there are quite a few other Pac-10 teams that wish they had a quarterback like that.