Good News Nate Longshore Fans!!!

We will be having our fearless leader back for another season. After totally zoning out for 6 quarters of football, Nate finally realized that he needs to actually throw to his recievers. I think those lapses in concentration will be a big part of why Nate is not moving on to the next level that soon. Not that he is not a good quarterback. But he is still just a Junior in College - a kid really. And it shows a bit.

I also think that DeSean's thumb is really irritating him. Last winter, I dislocated my pinkie. I immediately popped it back in place, but it hurt like the dickens for a while - a few months at least until it got better. And the most athletic thing I did with it was to try to hit the shift key. So crunching back your thumb and trying to catch a fastball from Nate is probably not the easiest thing to do. And, when you drop one or two, you probably start to get a little irritated, frustrated and, if you are a spoiled young man, defensive about things. Maybe even start to lash out at others on the team (not that there is evidence of this). This could be a test of Tedford's and Nate's leadership.

I think it must be interesting for Tedford now that we have great success and great expectations. I think coaching a team with different expectations is different than coaching a overachieving team, like the Bears have been in the past. I know on the message boards that a lot of people are getting on the team for a not looking dominating all the time. I think there are two groups of people who are worrying about it: the young blues - who think you have to always dominate and generally are pretty silly about making big pronouncements like "anything less than a Rose Bowl and the season is a waste," and "lets bench Nate". Then there are the old guys, who are happy to have a winning team, but are certain that there is no doubt the bears are going to lose a few, and frankly they can live with it. In other words, the old Cal fans who are certain that doom is impending.

I hope that there is the third way. This is what I will call the Joe Montana way. When I was young and watching Joe, the 49ers never looked totally dominating all the time. They always had a number of crappy series where something stupid happened, where the players looked a bit out of synch. But I always knew that the Joe would always pull it out in the end, and he did. There was a general confidence that the team itself was just head and shoulders about the other teams, and that they would be able to fix it.

USC has mastered that level of play. They haven't been the champions each year, but they certainly think they could have been and should have been. I think this season, Cal actually has the ability and probably the capability to have that type of play. It is just a level of confidence and the capability to back that confidence up. It is also the ability to play loose because you know you are going to win. Sometimes what happens is that you play loose too long and you are shocked that you lost a game, and you get pissed off at yourself - mostly against inferior opponents. But in generally those types of teams win. And they get up for big games, because that is where the real challenge is.

This is real different for Cal. I think that if I were a Cal player, I would believe that we should be favored in every game. The players are, frankly, fantastic. And they know it. My guess is that they probably believe that they match up fine with USC, and they crushed Oregon last year. Do you really think they are nervous about going up to Eugene? Of course not. Everyone else is worried, but they players know the are going to win that game.

The games that we have to worry about are Washington, after we beat USC at home. And then Stanford. Or maybe Arizona State. Those are the type of games that confident winners can lose. And ruin Old Blue lives.
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As far as the LA Tech games goes, we won by 30 and only gave up 12 points to a team that was putting up 35 per game. So we did fine. The biggest problem from the game was we lost two defensive linemen, one for a good part of the season (Rulon Davins) and the other (Matt Malele) for probably the year.

Injuries can sharpen the focus. Hopefully a bunch of young players get some good playing time here this week. This is the 4th of 5 weeks in a row where revenge is on the plate. The against Tenn, Col State, and La Tech, we had lost the last meeting. Arizona is the same thing. And then, Oregon at Eugene, where we have not won under Tedford. So two more games with some motivation behind them.

I think Cal crushes Arizona this week. I predict a 40 point differential. My guess is the guys are pissed from last year, and as soon as the first few TDs go up, AZ decides to call it a day.