• Some random Stanford wide receiver returned from a one game suspension.  He leads the team with 38 receptions and 646 yards, which is pretty good.  But I mean, does leading Stanford in receptions and receiving yards really qualify you to be a prima donna?  That’s a rhetorical question.
• Stewart Mandel has our Bears in the Sun Bowl.  And so do Maisel and Schlabach.  Although this was all done before Oregon decided to lose, which will probably bump everyone down a notch, and our Bears right out of the Sun Bowl.  Getcha Emerald Nuts ready.
• Our basketball team beat Southern Miss.  That’s good.  What’s not so good?  Too little Max Zhang.
• Jake Locker has returned to practice…but doesn’t look to be returning to the field this Saturday.
• No.  No one is.
• Breakdown of Cal/Washington on Scout.com.  You know, the team’s offense has become thoroughly mediocre.
• Once again, Tedford defends Longshore.
• CBS Sportsline points out the two things that have contributed most to the team’s downfall - hookers and blow turnovers and Longshore’s ankle injury.
• Jahvid Best and Rulon Davis (who’s become far more famous not playing than he would have had he actually stayed healthy) are out this weekend against Washington.
• Feldman picks!  Once again, no Cal/Washington.  Not that anyone should be surprised.

And finally, the Mid-Season Report Card.

TwistNHook:  What do we start with first?  The greatness of our return game?  Or the disaster of our kicking game?

Ragnarok:  Well, I’ll start with 3 positives:

Andrew Larson has been quite good as Cal’s punter, and is a pretty awesome tackler, too.

I’ve also been loving Jahvid Best as one of the gunners on the punt team.  He’s so freakin’ fast!

Hawkins and Best have been great returning kickoffs, which have become much more important this year (with virtually no touchbacks due to kicking from the 30).  Best’s return nearly won us that UCLA game (before the interception killed us).

Yellow Fever:  By college kicker standards, Jordan Kay has been good.  Andrew Larson just got nominated for the Ray Guy award, and as a bonus, he hasn’t stabbed anyone in the leg (or gotten himself stabbed either!).  Plus he’s a friend of mine on Facebook.  Bonus points for both.  THA1 is THA1, even if he hasn’t been THA1 since the Tennessee game.  I like our special teams, but I feel like they’d feel a lot more special if the rest of the team were doing well too.

HydroTech:  A lot of people have been wondering why THA1 hasn’t returned a punt for a touchdown since Tennessee.  Some have suggested that he’s been chickening out of catching the punts and running with them.  That notion is wrong.  The biggest reason why we haven’t seen THA1 return a punt for a touchdown is because of the lack of hawk blocking.  The hawk defenders have continuously let their defenders past them and prevent THA1 from a clean fielded punt.  Throughout the season we’ve tried to remedy the situation by sometimes applying two hawks to one gunner but even that has not produced the results we have wanted. 

So besides teams shanking, and rugby punting to THA1, when they don’t, it’s usually a blocking breakdown which prevents THA1 from fielding punts. 

TwistNHook:  I do agree that its not really DeSean’s fault he hasnt done much since Tennessee.  The worst thing to happen to him really was returning the FIRST kick.  I mean that was amazing and it all happens like 20 yards from me, so I’m clearly very awesome.  But since then he hasnt had barely an opportuntiy.  I think it was the Arizona game where he tried to force some and it didnt work out well at all.  Either a)people are kicking away from him or b)as Hydro noted, terrible blocking forces DeSean to fair catch nearly every single time a punt is close. 

It is very frustrating for a killer threat like to be neutralized. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so harsh on Kay to call "disastrous."  He was a backup pressed into duty by a really sudden injury to local Dub See-ite Shneider. He has done pretty well given that qualification.  Nonetheless, given that many of our losses were very close and involved missed and/or blocked kicks, it has been frustrating.

Yellow Fever:  You know who’s disastrous?  Jason Collins.

I think our special teams have been adequate this year.  I don’t think, for instance, they’ve had any more or less big plays than an average team, and like I’ve said, Kay is reasonably good by college kicker standards.  Since we live in a universe where mighty SEC teams have to trot out kickers like this.  And, well, okay, Kay’s been the worst in the Pac-10.  But come on.  It’s not all his fault.  I’m giving our special teams a B-.

Ragnarok:  Twist, it took me quite a while to figure out what the heck you were talking about regarding Schneider.  For a while there, I thought you were implying that he lived in a Water Closet.

Jordan Kay’s leg is average at best, but he’s at least been consistent.  Inside 35 yards he’s been pretty good, and he’s been perfect on extra points.  But he doesn’t have much range — his long of 47 came in the thin Colorado air.  He’s like one of those really old kickers that keep hanging around the NFL, even though they’ve lost their leg strength, simply because they’re money up close.

Overall, though, special teams haven’t been that special.  Thoroughly average sounds like a ‘C’ to me.

TwistNHook:  DUBSEE4LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE! 

Is this your first time in San Francisco?  Well, if so, here is a handy guide for the first-time Cal fans going out to San Francisco for the Emerald Bowl.  I have found these kind of bowl game touristy guides very helpful and thought I could return the favor.  I’m not gospel here or anything, but I did attend an undergraduate institution fairly close by. 

Travel:

Well, one easy way is to fly right in.  There are flights leaving from Oakland to San Francisco daily!  Orbitz has found the cheapest fares.  Only $258?  What a steal!  And that’s only 1 stop (LA). 

But not all of us can be Wealthy Von OwnASlaves.  We don’t *all* go to USC.  Some of us have to drive out to these bowl games.  Most travel sites might tell you to take the direct route.  But you miss a lot of stuff doing that.  Take the scenic route.  Only 4 hours.   Don’t forget to stop in Agnew on the way there.  Beautiful Agnew.  Local landmarks include Agnew Park, Agnew School, and Agnew State Hospital.  And don’t forget to wave at Great America as you drive by.

Another slightly cheaper method is by BART.   Its only a handful of bucks, but try not to touch, sit, or look at anything or anyone.  Definitely don’t look at those ads for Cal football on the train ride over.  You’ll only end up in the fetal position feeling shame.  Lots and lots of shame. 

But, Twist?, you say, now I’m in SF, what do I do now?  Well, thanks for asking, disembodied non-human who exists solely to ask hypothetical questions about realities that have yet to occur.  I’ll get to that, but first I have to feel a lot of shame.  So much shame.  

Ok, done with the shame (for now….) and ready to tell you what to see on your wonderful San Francisco vacation.  And remember, you don’t have to look at stuff *just* in San Francisco, there’s a whole Bay Area to visit.  You could even check out this cool place I know called Berkeley.  I heard they used to have a good football team.  

But sticking to SF, there are tons of things to see in this exotic, faraway bowl location.  For example, how many of you lusted after the Olson Twins from 1991 to last Tuesday?  Me too!  Well, if you were a huge Full House fan (I LOVE YOU UNCLE JOEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’M CUTTING IT OUT RIGHT NOW!!!!!!), you might want to check out this:

Even if you don’t like Full House, you still might want to check out The Seven Sisters.  Because as we all know, that’s the same nickname as our Defensive Line.  What’s the odds?????

This is called Alcatraz.  It’s a big tourist spot.  It is apparently, the worlds toughest prison to escape from.  Nobody has ever done it.  Or something.  It’s overrated, because they shut it down DECADES before Marshawn was even born.  No stupid island prison could hold Marshawn.  He’d stiff arm the water all the way to freedom.  Forget Alcatraz.  

This is Coit Tower.  It is a giant inanimate object.  Don’t confuse it with Nate Longshore.  Here’s a photo of Nate Longshore.   

And here’s a photo of Coit Tower. 

Can you tell the difference?  One moves at the speed of continental drift.  The other is Coit Tower.  One should have designed quarterback draws written up for them.  The other is Nate Longshore.  

Basically, the overarching theme to this joke is that Nate Longshore is a slow QB.  If I were to put it in bullet point form, it’d look like this:

-Longshore:  slow, not fast

If it were opposite day, I would say Longshore is fast.  If I were a Spanish speaker, I’d say Longshore was "culo."  At least I think thats what "slow" is in Spanish.  It’s what all my Latino friend were screaming at the game.  I’m just putting 2+2 together here.  For the U$C people reading this, look below to find out how much that equals.

Don’t forget to check out Fisherman’s Wharf!   Tons of great eating.  Beautiful views of the Bay.  Plus, Ripley’s Believe Or Not is out there.  You can see check out amazing things like a UCLA fan who loves Karl Dorrell.  They exist!  Who woulda thunk it?  And a punt DeSean can return.  I’ve heard that is in there somewhere, too.  Way in the back.  Unfortunately, you’ll never get to see an 8-limbed Indian girl.

Above you see the Palace Of Fine Arts and Exploratorium.  Besides being the place where I went on Sunday to see John Santos and the Bay Area High School All-Star Jazz Band, it also has the Tactile Dome.  In there, you close your eyes and feel your way around hoping not to run into something painful. 

Which I think is also the Webster’s definition of the verb "To Ayoob."   So, go Ayoobing over at the Tactile Dome and have a great time!  I Ayoobed at my 14th birthday party back in the day!  Unlike a Warriors game (0-6???), it was a great time out!

And there you go.  Some great sights to see on your trip to our far away bowl location, San Francisco.

P.S.  Hey, U$C fans, 2+2=4.  Also, as long as I have your attention, Trojanites, much respect to your team.  I am not so insane to not know a kwality team when I see it.  But for the love of God, that was the worst band show EVER.  THEY BARELY MOVED!  Was it like the Jim Morrison/Kurt Cobain show?  Its a Marching Band not a Standing Groups Of Persons Playing Music Poorly.  Much credit to the football team, much credit to the fans for staying out there in the rain with us, fuck the band forevermore.

As you might have noticed in our earlier post, the Cal Band halftime show from the Wazzu game is getting major pub.  And, look, I might not know too much about football here, but I do know how to mooch off of the success of others.  Sure, I haven’t been in the band since 2002 and sure I never took on any responsibility while there (spending most of my time thinking new and inventive ways of taking it down XXXXXX style), but that doesn’t mean I can’t parlay my 4 years there into entitlement towards all future shows.  As such, I’d like to take personal credit for the success of the show.  Thank you, thank you!  Check out all the bignfancy websites posting about the/my show:

Digg and Deadspin and MilkAndCookies and Gizmodo.  And TechBugTV and  Destructoid and  EDSBS and DeuceOfDavenport (with special guest stars Daniel Chapman and Christopher Lee!)  and well probably thousands more.  This is viral video at its greatest.  Now, of course, we here at the California Golden Blogs were there at the Wazzu game.  And I, of course, have my pathetic and grainy photos.  To wit:

But luckily for us, friend of the blog and all around stand up human being Tristan Harward was there with his super snazzy camera.  Rivals ExcuseMeForMyVoice for awesomeness.  For example, here is my ever so amazing photo of Air-Bears catching the baton.   

Wow!  Unbelievable!  It looks like that yellow blurry thing is standing around.  I’m the new David Lachapelle!  Below you see Tristan’s amazing shot:  

Tristan has been kind enough to allow us to use some of his more amazing photos of the show.  His are clear and crisp.  If you want to thank him, check out his blog, TrisWeb. And without further ado.

That last photo is my personal favorite there.  The only drawback of the video is that you cant really see some of the stuff that took place in the front of the student section.  You do see the fight between Oski and the Trojan (at least one of them), but not the others.

I think the band had been hearing all the whispers, all the rumors.  "You peaked in 2002."  "It hasn’t been the same since Twist left."  "Someday you will finally know what a vagina looks like, don’t worry."  This show was clearly a shot straight to the heart of all those criticisms (except for the vagina one, combining video games AND marching band doesn’t exactly lend to success with the ladies) 

Either way, CALBANDGREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!