Arizona Recap

The Bears lost another one in Arizona on the grass, and the sky is falling...

On the message boards and in the comments, it is clear that people are ready to burn the team in effigy.

Let's face it - we lost to a better team tonight. And here is why - they are faster, they have experience at the skill positions that count (QB, receiver) and they ran a second year spread offense which we always have trouble with defensively. That being said, we scored 10 more points on their defense than they have allowed this year on average. And that is with our incredible pass-dropping receivers.

Here is the real deal - our players are not executing. And it is driving the fans crazy. They are not used to seeing receivers drop balls, and the offensive line fall down on the job. And maybe that is because this is the youngest team that JT has had at Cal. But expectations have been built to a boiling point. So let's look at it.

Freshman playing now:

Punter, Kicker, Receivers, defensive ends.

Sophomores playing now:

Running backs, offensive linemen, defensive linemen, back-up QB (who plays a lot anyway), Cornerbacks, safeties, nickelback.

Seniors playing now:

Center, Linebackers, Starting QB.

Let's face it - this is a young team. The line has fallen apart because the young guys are not yet ready. Imagine if Mack had not stayed around. The defense is young, The skill players, except for Nate, are young. Or else starting at receiver for the first time in five years, because never before could they break into the first team.

We had to burn a true freshman's redshirt tonight at defensive end because everyone else was injured?

What did you expect?

The good news is, as we now know, this is not going to be a team that is going to dominate the Pac 10. But it is going to be a team that wins at least four more games, and then gets to a bowl for a possible 9 or 10 win season. It is a team that will get better each week. This week, we played better than we did at Arizona State. Arizona was a much better team, and we scored three more pints, put up tons more yards, and made more dramatic plays on the road in the Pac 10. If this game is at Cal, we win.

I believe that we will win out at home. We have two more road games - at USC (loss) and at Oregon State (50-50). This is a team that plays better at home in general, and we are getting better each week. About half of those dropped passes would have been caught at home. That would have been a big difference.

As for the commentators on the coaches and Nate - get real. Tedford is not catching the passes. Longshore is not the devil. He looked better than Riley did tonight, even with the Pick 6. When KR came in, he was all over the place. Not that Nate played well - I was pulling for JT to put Riley in the series before he did. But I was really disappointed with the results. For example, in taking shots into the end zone, you need to throw into the end zone, not 5 yards beyond. You need to not take a sack on the last play of the game - reminiscent of the Oregon State game last year. You do not need to scramble each time you get the ball because it takes you sooo long to make the read. It was painful to watch because I think he will be the future for the next two years and he has not gotten it yet. I am not really sure what happened to the guy who played in the Air Force game last year, but he has not seen the field this year.

In any event, I do not believe that Nate has a confidence issue, even when bounced out of the game. I believe that when the tapes are parsed by JT, he will see that there were a number catches that should have been made. There were at least 10 drops in this game, for both QBs. So I expect the QB battle to continue.

Good news from the game: Statistically, we played about even with AU. Two turnovers each, but we did not capitalize on ours like they did (another patented Nate Pick 6 helps with that). Also, we called a game where we went downfield a lot, in comparison to our other games. I think that was good. Our play calling was better. Our defensive line was a bit weak, but we were down on players there. But we still had decent pressure on Tuitama, with two sacks and a bunch of hurries. We held them short a number of times. Let's give them credit - they played well when they had to. Most of their points came in bunches - 28 points in the second half in 11 minutes. 14 points in the first half in 88 seconds. Our inexperienced defensive line took too long after the half to make the adjustments and that caused the game to go to them in the second half. Nate and the offensive boys did not do that - the defensive front did. And that goes to the LBs as well, who did not have a good game - except for WW, who was unblocked quite a bit and took advantage of that for some big plays.

I think we will be fine. This is the culmination of Stoopid's 6 year plan, and he has a decent team, and they will probably make a bowl game. I think they are better than you would think. I don't think that they will win the Pac 10, however. If Cal wins out, we still win. So all is not lost. But it is a difficult road from here. I would be very happy at this point with a Holiday Bowl bid. I like San Diego.

GO BEARS!!