Given how the rest of the team mailed it in after USC, I’m still amazed at how much people want to hold Longshore responsible for the team’s performance against Washington and Stanford. I only use the last two games because I think a reasonable fan would be happy with a record of 8-4, given that three of those losses came right after the ankle sprain. There’s no question that Longshore wasn’t as effective after his ankle sprain, but it’s impossible to separate his subpar performances from that of a team that gave up. The Cal team that lost to USC played with pride and went toe-to-toe with the winner of the second toughest football conference. The Cal team that lost to Washington … what else can be said? Longshore was hurting for a few weeks, during which the team suffered several ugly losses. Not having a good quarterback will do that. And all of a sudden, we went from national championship contenders to Pac-10 also-rans, a bigtime let down for a program unaccustomed to national championship talk. Longshore was good enough to win those last two games; Tedford just couldn’t motivate the entire team to play as hard as they had earlier in the season.

I hope the team can get over their stages of grief also, so that Cal will have a respectable showing in the bowl game. Otherwise, I may be quite drunk quite early on Saturday morning.

when its obvious that longshore isn’t getting it done why not at least see what riley gives ya?

P.S. Hydro, Ayoob couldn’t redshirt. He was a JC trxf.

But seriously, what do I know. I’m just saying what I think with my limited knowledge.

Anyways, the point is, while you suggest that Tedford’s choice of starting QB was based on scenario (a) - Longshore is better than a game-ready Riley, you have reached this conclusion by assuming that Tedford’s opinion of Riley did not change at all following the OSU game. True, Tedford did come out and say on TV that it wasn’t Riley’s fault, but to be honest, I’d have to say that the main purpose of that statement was to discourage a huge backlash against Riley by Cal fans. You have to remember that the end of this game was the first time we saw Tedford lose his cool, and to me this is an indication of his gut reaction and thus the most accurate interpretation of what he actually thought at the moment.

I’d argue that Tedford has been thinking that an injured Longshore is better than Riley, who he thinks is not game ready. In terms of your scoring explanation, I think Tedford is scoring Riley as a 2 or 3 and Longshore as a 4 or 5. I don’t think Tedford could honestly rank Longshore higher than 5 after the UCLA or ASU games, at least the way he played in the fourth quarter. So to me, it seems that Tedford thought an injured Longshore was better than Riley, who he thought was not game ready. And I’d continue to say that the reason he thought Riley was not game ready was due to his mistake in the last play of the OSU game.

If this is indeed the case (which I believe it is), then while I definitely think Tedford is still the coach for Cal, I think that his assessment of Riley after the OSU game is way too harsh and that it cost us the season. Of course, Tedford is a very loyal person, and this combined with the aforementioned probably sealed the deal.

Anyways, hopefully the Bears will get some sort of motivation and team chemistry going into the bowl game, since while Longshore has sucked the past two months, it’s clear that the whole team, especially the defense, stopped caring a while ago.

Aside from CA Pete’s post, there’s some pretty stupid comments here. Where do you ladies come up with this stuff? It’s pure comedy. Judging by the stubbornness and irrational comments (you guys complain that the blogger is not backing up his reasoning, yet you guys back your claims up with nothing), I would have to say some of you guys must be a part of the Bear Insider community - where EVERY poster is a “smart and intelligent Cal football fan” …. *BARF*.

Levy > Longshore? Yeah right. If any of you guys watched those 2 games Levy started and actually knew something about football, you would realize that Stevie Wonder would have been able to execute 05 QB game plans vs BYU and Stanford. Quick hitches for YAC, handing the ball off to your future 1st round RB, and occasionally throwing a wobbly pass off line down the field that your future 1st round NFL WR pick makes great plays on is not grounds for a “Levy > Longshore” statement. Levy is fortunate we played 2 of the crappiest teams in his starts. Put in that same Levy game plan vs USC, and Carroll could have setup a recliner and put his feet up on the visitor’s sideline.

And for the poster hinting that Tedford is purposely holding his QBs back from being all stars, that is a seriously disturbing thought to read. Yeah, Tedford is keeping Nate in there to spite all of the unhappy Cal fans for not thinking he is God and because he hated Levy and wanted to crush and destroy Levy’s dream of being an NFL first rounder. Tedford is a complete idiot. He’s so stupid that he must have lucked out putting those 5 QBs into the first round. haha yeup

Because of you, I will be lucky to hold my Xmas Eve dinner down tonight knowing that I sit in the same stadium with such an irrational fan. What’s next? I bet one of you guys will say that Tedford doesn’t want to abandon Longshore like Tedford’s father abandoned him, and then you’ll reason that is why Tedford won’t switch to Levy. Oh wait, a brilliant blogger on another blog already made that assumption.

Happy Holidays.