Updates

The trees are down, the protest is over, and no one but the protesters really cared (and the media who tried to make something big of this).

Now, in a few short weeks (or 8), the bulldozers and excavations will begin, and the new building will start to go up. It will be two and a half years of construction, lasting until the beginning of the 2011 season. Instead of the 2009 season.

I wonder what would happen if there is an earthquake, and Tedford is injured in the football office in the stadium. Do you think he has a right to sue the protesters and the City of Berkeley? In essence, what this entire thing has done is delayed the inevitable for two years, and endangered the lives of the folks who work in and around the stadium. This has been the most crass form of self-interested protest I have ever seen in Berkeley. These folks are the ones who failed to make MTV's Big Brother, and decided that this was the next best thing. It makes my skin crawl.

But it is on it's way.

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The Bears leave on FRIDAY for a game Saturday morning at 9:00 AM pacific time. I hope JT is getting those boys up early this week. That is going to be one hell of a early morning start for them. The weather also may be a concern, with rain possible. At least it will be warm - in the 70's. The rain may break up some of the humidity. In any event, if the Bears can keep their footing, they should do well.

They are playing in Byrd Stadium, which has a capacity of about 50,000 fans (they are going through a renovation soon to increase it to 60,000 or so, with luxury boxes, etc). It is only about 10 miles from downtown Washington DC, and I think it is the only real Division 1 program close. So it should have some decent local representation. But DC is a pro sports town, and the Maryland football team has not always been a powerhouse. There are also a lot of other smaller colleges locally (Georgetown, George Washington, etc) which are mostly basketball schools. College hoops is much more important there than football.

But Maryland has had some decent success under Ralph Friedgen. This year has not gone quite as well as they have hoped, but they have found a way to stitch together a number of 10 win seasons over the past 6 years. Of course, they are playing in the ACC - the worst college football conference in the BCS. So that may not be the accomplishment that it once may have been, when Miami and Florida State were at their peak.

The Bears have crawled into the top 25 this week, and have made some headway into some of the media folks conscience. For example, Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated has the Bears breaking into the SI.com top 15 at number 18. Others in the national media have started to notice Jahvid Best's numbers. That can and will help to propel the Bears up the BCS ladder. We are looking for a top 12 finish and a 10-2 record or better to be considered for a BCS game.

Speaking of rankings, Sagarin's pure points predictor, which is the best at determining - over a longer period of time that the Bears have been playing this season - the victor of a particular game, has the Bears at number 4, tied with Oklahoma, and behind USC, Florida and LSU. He has us essentially at a 22 point differential with Maryland, which would be reduced by 3.5 due to the Maryland home game. So looking at an 18.5 point differential. Vegas has us at 14.5 - essentially giving us a touchdown discount for the trip back east. Maybe it's time to bet the house...

I do think that the Bears SHOULD cover the spread this week. It will be a good test for Riley to play on another coast, against a different kind of crowd. I think there is also safety in this trip. It is a trip where, if all else fails, we just put the ball into the fullbacks hands and run it right up their gut. Let's face it - Maryland has a pathetic run defense, and we should just go straight at them, eat the clock, and get out of there.

Another interesting thing about this week is that in the Massey computer program poll, we dropped from 40 to 66, which moved our average on the computers to 22, from 17 last week. So, even though we increased four places on the human polls, we dropped in the computers and we are therefore still at number 22. Interestingly about Massey - Ohio State is number 115. So I am not really thinking it is doing it's job this early in the season. If we win again on the road against a BCS team (and most of the computers add a huge plus on the away game victory) we should have a good increase, even if we do not move that far in the Human polls. I can not see a victory against maryland propel us very far up. A loss, of course, would be a disaster. We simply need to get though this game with a W and move on.

GO BEARS!!