Emerald Bowl Win

Well, the Bears defeated the Hurricanes in a dominant display of running and defense, and a truly terrible display of our passing game. Apparently, Kevin Riley was injured and Nate Longshore needed to play the entire game. Normally, I think that it would be fine for Nate to play the whole game. I remember watching Nate and DeSean Jackson after the Holiday Bowl when we defeated Texas A&M in 2006 - Nate was the MVP, and he played great. They were predicting a national championship the next year. And we almost made it - except for those last 6 games.

it is a strange end to a pretty good Cal career. He ends up as 5th on the all time Cal passing list. There are some pretty good players on that list. He has started and won more Cal games than any other QB for the Bears in the last half century. He has been the starting QB for half of Jeff Tedford's tenure at Cal. And that has been a pretty impressive tenure. Tedford and Pete Carroll are the only Pac 10 coaches to not have a losing season at their current schools. Nate - for all the hatred that is thrown his way, is a big part of that.

That being said, he played dreadfully on Friday Night. It was really surprising. I mean, there were plenty of people open who would have made big plays and gotten plenty of receiving yards after catch if Nate could have hit them in stride. In the first quarter, there were three passes that were just horrible.

I understand the desire of JT to have a balanced attack. Generally that works, and it would have worked very well if Nate could hit anyone. But at the end of the day, it was clear that Jahvid Best was the best option, and he should have had at least 35 carries on the night. The Bears would have had at least 400 yards rushing. Anything that the Bears ran outside was at least a 15 yard gain. It was like watching a man amongst kids.

The defense also was dominating. It was fun watching the three and outs, the negative yards for almost the entire first half, the interception, fumble, etc.

But this game did not give us the bounce that I think we needed. The Bears will certainly be taken more seriously next year that this year - Jahvid Best is going to be on everyones radar screen as a Heisman hopeful, and certainly as one of best running backs in the country. Averaging more than 8 yards per carry is pretty good in a single game. Over a season, it is crazy.

At the end of the year, Jahvid Best had 1580 rushing yards - number 5 in the country right now. That was averaging less than 15 carries per game this year. All of the guys currently in front of him in total yardage have at least 80 more carries than he has this year - in other words - about 30% more.

In any event, he is going to be a devastating weapon for the Bears next year. And I am excited about that.

But our offense needs balance, and to that end, the Kevin Riley era needed to begin well in this bowl game. It would have been nice to bring positive momentum into the offseason for Kevin, and it would have been nice for him to have gotten in synch with the receivers a little bit. I think it will happen, but it would have been a bigger media splash if he came out, had a huge game, and we destroyed the U. Instead, we barely win on a defensive play (not that it ever seemed to me that the game was in doubt) and the Bears go into the offseason worrying about the QB position again.

Oh well. At least we know one QB who has been eliminated.

GO BEARS!!