Here’s the poll for the week:

The California Golden Blogs Top-25

RankTeamDelta

1	LSU	—
2	Kansas	1
3	West Virginia	2
4	Missouri	2
5	Ohio State	4
6	Arizona State	1
7	Virginia Tech	3
8	Oklahoma	4
9	Georgia	1
10	Southern Cal	1
11	Florida	2
12	Texas	—
13	Illinois	5
14	Boston College	2
15	Boise State	—
16	Virginia	1
17	Oregon	15
18	Clemson	4
19	Hawaii	—
20	Michigan	2
21	Wisconsin	4
22	Connecticut	1
23	Tennessee	2
24	Texas Tech	2
25	Brigham Young	1

Yup, your projected BCS Title Game participants are now LSU and Kansas?  Wow.  Not that they don’t deserve it, but Kansas has literally come from nowhere to finally get into the drivers seat of this season’s championship race.  Of course, now they get Missouri, their toughest game so far, and if they can get past that, there’s the Big XII Championship game, which will be against Oklahoma if the Sooners can beat Oklahoma State on Saturday.  Of course, if Missouri can run the table, they’ve got a great shot at the title game too.  West Virginia and Arizona State have to hope for a Big XII meltdown.

The big mover this week is Oregon, dropping all the way to #17 after having their BCS title dreams, much like Dennis Dixon’s ACL, torn apart in Arizona.  (I’m sorry, I’m a terrible human being for writing the above sentence.  I actually feel really bad for the guy.  He’d come so far this year, and to have his season end like this, well, it just kinda breaks my heart.  If I had one, which, judging by the insensitive comment above, I evidently don’t.)  I actually thought they played OK in the second half, and Brady Leaf is a senior quarterback with quite a bit of game experience.  Yes, he’s Ryan Leaf’s brother, but if you’ll remember, before he famously flamed out in the NFL, Ryan Leaf was a darn good college quarterback.  Anyway, if Oregon can pull it together and win out and USC beats Arizona State, the Ducks will win the Pac-10 and go to the Rose Bowl.

Unmoved this week are WAC powers Boise State and Hawai’i.  No, Hawai’i, winning by two at Nevada doesn’t impress me, and it won’t get you into the BCS.  Finally, though, we get to see these two teams go at it this weekend.  Rainbow Warriors, prepare to meet thy doom!

Georgia moves down 1 mostly because we had Ohio State too low last week, Clemson moves down 4 after falling to BC, Oklahoma only falls 4 after losing at Texas Tech (I think that’s not far enough), and Michigan moves up(?) two after scoring only 3 points against Ohio State.  No, I’m sorry, that doesn’t make any sense.

Also, Tennessee falls two spots after coming from behind to eke out a win over Vanderbilt.  Yep, barely beating Vandy is kinda like a loss.  Still, if they can beat Kentucky this Saturday, they get to play LSU in the SEC Title Game.  Good luck with that, guys.

"Yknow, if I was eligibile to play fullback, maybe we could score from the 1" 

I don’t know if I could take this season to a big Hollywood producer anymore.  After the Tennessee game (and, of course, after the Oregon game), I thought this could be the Hollywood ending we were looking for.  But now if I were to take it to one of my Hebrew brethren in the entertainment industry (my rolodex has more Gold and Silver than Fort Knox!), I know what the producer would say.  Well, actually, he’d probably say something like "Look, the whole kicking off twice thing is an interesting twist, but does Longshore have to throw a ball?  Can we make it a blonde girl with fake tits instead?  And how about instead of throwing her, he loses her to an opposing player when she watches the ASU game.  Otherwise, I don’t know what I can do with the same boring story over and over and over again."

I mean for the love of everything Tedford, this was the most predictable loss I’ve ever seen (and believe me, I’ve seen a lot).  I was watching the game with Helen Keller and Tommy The Pinball Wizard and even THEY knew what was going to happen.  Here, I’ll reprint part of the court reporter’s transcript (Note:  After some prior "unpleasantness" which you can read in the landmark case of Mack Brown v. Twist N. Hook, I am now legally required to keep a court reporter around me at all times):

Twist N. Hook:  Well, guys, what is your thought on Cal’s upcoming game against UDub today?

Tommy The Pinball Wizard:  Look, Twist, I’m blind, deaf, and dumb and based solely off of my sense of smell, I predict terrible run defense, horrifically inopportune turn-overs/penalties, and a 4th quarter Longshore interception just as it looked like we might get right back in the game.

Helen Keller:  The terrifying plight of the modern American worker pales in comparison to the terrifying plight of 1st and goal at the 1 for Cal’s offense. 

Tommy The Pinball Wizard:  Yknow, I’ve never been able to tell anybody this, but I think my uncle touched me inappropriately when I was younger.  Although, to be fair, not even I can figure out what was going on in that scene.  

That last part was probably not necessary to reprint, but that scene is fairly confusing.  I mean c’mon Pete Townsend, can we get a direct narrative here????  Is that so much to ask? 

But look at the transcript there.  The only prediction that failed to materialize was the killer 4th quarter interception by Longshore.  That was because

a)we were too far down by then to get back in it,

b)the offense decided moving backwards was the hot new way way to emotionally devastate its fans (its all the rage in Milan!), and

c)the interception came well earlier in the game when Longshore decided that Cal was wearing the Joe Roth throwback jerseys again and Joe Roth apparently played for Washington.

So, who is to blame for my inability to interest the friendly MOT down South?  Some might say that Tedford is to blame.  Others might place the blame on Longshore.  But now, after UDub, I finally know the real problem.

The Writers Guild Of America.

Please, you guys HAVE to come back to work.  I don’t care HOW many According To Jims I have to see, we need somebody writing new endings for the Cal games.  Although watch out, because after just 20 minutes of According To Jim, I feel like Michael Douglas in Falling Down.

Then again, if Cal loses the Big Game, I’ll make Michael Douglas in Falling Down look like Michael Douglas in some other movie where he was a total pansy.  Clearly, to make that joke work, I need to have watched more Michael Douglas movies.  But I also value my sanity, so you can see my problem here.   

 

"I’m not a very good actor."

I’m not sure what it will take to get the Writers to stop their strike.  But I do know what it will take to win Big Game.  Better run defense.  Minimizing turn-overs.   A healthy DeSean and red zone efficiency (especially within the 5 yard line).  Those deficiencies are so glaring, you don’t have to be HydroTech or even just a regular run of the mill genius to figure it out. 

Let’s just keep the Axe!  GO BEARS!! 

Apparently, I should run my posts by the guys over at ExcuseMeForMyVoice.com, because both Ken and Jason made some insightful comments on my post earlier today regarding Cal’s bowl chances, and as such, I’ve corrected/updated my bowl projections.

First, Ken pointed out that he thought a 10-2 Pac-10 team would be pretty much a sure shot for the BCS, at least assuming that they didn’t get shut out because a conference can only send 2 teams.  While I’ve certainly felt that way about Oregon and USC, I’ve been ambivalent about Arizona State.  I thought that, given their strength of schedule and low BCS standings, they couldn’t afford to lose again, certainly not at home to lowly Arizona.  Ken has in fact written an entire post regarding this point, and I found it pretty convincing.  Anyway, I made a minor change to my numbers to allow a 10-2 ASU to be BCS-bound, assuming either Oregon or USC aren’t also.

More damning to my argument, Ken pointed out a rule whereby all 7-5 teams must be placed in a bowl before 6-6 teams can be considered.  I’ve often heard this applied to at-large bowl berths, and I assumed that that was what Ken was talking about.  Jason then came back at me, explaining that, within the bounds of a conference filling out its contractual obligations, all teams with a winning record must be placed in a bowl before 6-6 teams may be considered, even for the purpose of filling out a conference’s bowl slots.  Called out twice on this point, I went looking for some evidence one way or the other, and I found it here, on the NCAA’s own website (check page 9 of the associated PDF).

The upshot of all this is that the Big Game really DOES matter, bowl-wise.  If Cal can beat Stanford on Dec. 1 (no gimmie anymore, by any means), there’s no way the Bears can be denied a bowl berth, as they would have to be placed in a bowl before a 6-6 Arizona.  Moreover, a 7-5 Cal squad would have to be place in a bowl BEFORE either a 6-6 Arizona or a 6-6 UCLA (but not a 7-5 UCLA), despite either team having a better conference record, which means that the odds of landing in the Emerald Bowl are much greater than I stated earlier today.

In fact, let’s run down the odds now, as I have re-calculated them:

Emerald - 37% - Still the most likely destination after all, a Cal win in the Big Game plus two Pac-10 teams in the BCS virtually assures us of this.

Las Vegas - 27% - If you believe the Emerald would trade down with Vegas to grab Cal (and I’ve heard strong rumors, but nothing factual), you can add this number to the one above and arrive at a robust 64% chance of BARTing to the bowl game.

Armed Forces - 21% - As long as Cal takes care of business on the Farm, this is a worst case scenario.  Even if they don’t, this is still a possibility, though not a strong one, as I had led you all to believe earlier.

No Bowl - 15% - Cal is not out of the woods yet.  Still, if we fail to retain the Axe, this team probably deserves this ignominious fate.