Outlook ‘07: Cal
Everyone bought into the hype last year, including one of the Worldwide Leader’s college football experts who picked the Golden Bears to win it all. And then they went to Knoxville.
35-18.
I certainly need not go into a whole lot of detail, especially on this blog, about what unfolded at Rocky Top but suffice it to say that there was a mass exodus on the Cal bandwagon.
The Golden Bears salvaged their season to win a share of the Pac-10 title (courtesy of UCLA) and spanked Texas A&M 45-14 in the Holiday Bowl.
People should be high on Cal coming into this season but again it’s a week one matchup against the Vols that will set the tempo for the rest of their season in ‘07. If Nate Longshore is as god awful as he was last year, Justin Forsett can’t get the ground game going (the Vols completely shut down Marshawn Lynch in last year’s contest) and the defense looks as pourous as a cargo net, Cal will have an uphill battle to fight for the rest of the season. To me, that game will be decided by the play of Nate Longshore. If Longshore is patient, plays within the offense and takes what the defense gives him and maybe takes an occasional shot downfield to DeSean Jackson then UT could be in for a fight in Berkley.
On defense is where Cal will be the most effected by graduation and will need the most help. The Golden Bears are returning just 5 starters on a defense that included the Pac-10’s leading tackler, linebacker Desmond Bishop, Pac-10 defensive player of the year Daymeion Hughes and All Pac-10 first teamer Brandon Mebane. Cal will need its younger players to step up and fill the voids left by those players. The pre-spring depth chart has Jeff Tedford’s squad starting just 4 seniors and has two sophomores, Tyson Alualu and Cody Jones, starting at defensive end. The two sophs combined for 21 tackles last season. Tedford’s linebacking crew will be sured up by junior Zack Follet, who was the only non-starter named to any All-Pac-10 team (he was monorable mention). Simply put, Follet is a beast. Despite only starting one game and playing behind Desmond Bishop, Follet had 62 tackles, including a team-high 12.5 for loss, tied for the team lead with 5.5 sacks and led the Pac-10 with four forced fumbles. If the line can keep tackles and guards off Follet and weakside linebacker Worrell Williams, it’ll free them up to make tackles and stop the run, which they’ll need, Cal gave up 214 yards on the ground to UT and were the fourth-worst team in the Pac-10 against the run giving up 125 yards a game on the ground. Losing Daymeion Hughes, one of the nation’s premiere shutdown corners, will hurt Cal but even with Hughes, the Golden Bears still gave up 240.8 yards per game through the air, the second worst in the conference. Cal will give up big plays through the air, it’s inevitable.
On the offensive side of the ball is where Tedford’s genius shines and this season will be no exception. The Golden Bears are returning 8 starters on an offense that was first in the Pac-10 in scoring offense and second in total offense. When you consider that Cal is replacing Marshawn Lynch, last year’s Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year, with Justin Forsett, who ran for 640 yards last year despite starting only two games, you have to figure that Cal will have no problem putting points on the board. The Cal O-line returns three starters including Pac-10 first teamer Alex Mack and second teamer Mike Gibson. The Golden Bears also return a talented trio of wideouts led by Pac-10 first teamer DeSean Jackson, who had over 1,000 receiving yards last season. Cal will be a potent offensive team again.
The road to Pac-10 supremacy will not be easy. The Bears will play host to Arizona, who put the nail in the BCS coffin for Cal last year, travel to Oregon, play USC in Berkley, and travel to UCLA. I see Tedford finally getting the best of Pete Carroll on Nov. 11 but losing to UT in the first week of the season and falling to Oregon in Eugene on Sept. 29.
2007 Bottom Line Prediction: 10-2.
Vote here
Cal VideoEat it Desean Jackson and all of the 4.2 40 CAL WRs
Pat, keep this up and people are gonna think this is a serious college football site.
Damn. wrong post
here is DeSean
Don’t look too deep into that Holiday Bowl victory over Texas A&M. That was a Dennis Franchione-led team. Notorius choker. Look at the Cotton Bowl a couple of years ago when Tennessee destroyed Texas A&M. How did that work out the next year for your guys?
I think Patrick writes some serious shit
Just a couple things to note:
–Cal beat Texas A&M, 45-10 (A&M only scored one touchdown).
–Lynch wasn’t “completely shut down” at Tennesee. He was just underutilized.
Lynch ran for 74 yards on 12 carries, which isn’t bad.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/03/SPG8TKUMUR1.DTL
The problem is Lynch only had 12 carries, a result of the new spread offense that made its debut in that game.
Thankfully, Cal’s offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar has left to Minnesota after one spread-heavy season.
So Tedford will go back to calling the plays next year.
John:
Our coaches clearly stated after that game that the spread was not used. At all. Tennessee clearly dominated a shellshocked and (let’s just face it) vastly overrated Kal team that was full of amateurs. We put people in the NFL, John. Not the AFL. Our guys are the Pros. Kal’s are the Joes. To be completely honest, I think our trip to Berkeley on September 1st will be an even more dominating performance by the Vols than the one administered to the Kal Bare’s in Knoxville. Marshawn Lynch looked like an average back in Neyland. And compared to the talent that has been on that field in the past, he is.
I’m not sure to say that Marshawn Lynch is an average back, regardless of where he plays is completely accurate, the guy was the Pac-10 offensive player of the year last year and will easily be a top 15 draft pick in April’s NFL Draft but I’m not sure that Lynch’s number (12 carries for 74 yards) really tells the whole story. Coming into that game, Lynch was a viable Heisman candidate and Lynch picked up those numbers in mop-up duty after the game was well in hand. He did not have an impact on that game in the least, was he underutilized? Maybe. But if Cal wants to compete against UT this year, they’ll need to get Forsett more carries and they’ll need him to be a more consistent threat.
Let me tell you about berkeley. Last year they were the media darlings. I predicted perfectly what the score would be against the Vols. No kidding. If they were going to win the Pac 10 last year was the year. Now they go to the middle of the Pac. Tedford will leave and you will not hear from that program again.
vilinator u will eat your arrogance and get DELIVERANCE NO PUN INTENDED IN BERKELEY LOOKING FORWARD TO IT
BERKELEY…..spell the name right
I’m sorry for my earlier post. I have a problem with Berkeley because I did not get accepted there. My dad did, but f**k him. He never loved me!
So screw berkeley and there lame football team! I hate them!
Volunteers lose a lot of talent from last year. Will Ainge be healthy by 9/1? Last year was Longshore’s first full game, the team’s first attempt at a new offense and OC. I think 2007 will be a great game, fans will love the Bay Area, but the Volunteers are going down in Berkeley. BTW, we do know how to spell Berkeley, which is the first requirement for attending. I guess Knocksville doesn’t have the same standards for English or spelling.
Wanugee; Kiss my ass. All of those words are spelled correctly. BTW, all of the granola eating ass-grabbing hippies from Cal are the ones misspelling the city. As if anyone really gives 2 shits about Cal anyway. Did you watch the video? Does Cal offer pre-game prayers?
Jai Eugene (Is that name real or an April fool?),
No public pre-game prayers…It’s a public institution, much like Tennessee, except they agree that there should be freedom of religion and not impose their beliefs on a multitude of people that may not share the same ones. You are, however, welcome to say your own. As far as anyone moving their bowels twice over the prospect of Cal. . .it’s mostly the cerebral types as they have more Nobel laureats than any public University in the world, and are also ranked in the top 5 institutions for higher education worldwide on a fairly regular basis (most recently #1 in the Economist). But not like that matters, because you are right, it’s about football first and being a place of learning second. Is that your own incredible physiognomy in the graphic on your posts? I’ll save you the trouble, just cut and paste: http://www.m-w.com
And Amy,
FYI, Cal DID win the Pac-10 last year. But I suppose you might have overlooked that.
Hey huk…if Cal won the Pac-10 last year then why did they play in the Holiday Bowl and not a BCS game?
All major conference champions play in the BCS right? Did Cal just decide their Pac 10 championship was good enough and say screw the BCS or was Cal really the runner-up to USC….again?
Because USC won the tie-breaker when they beat Cal last year. They were the Co-Champions but because USC beat Cal, they won the BCS bid and had a better BCS ranking than Cal. Hence the Rose Bowl appearance.
Huk
Did you mean: laureates
There is no such thing as a “Co-Champion”…you’re either champion or not.
And Cal obviously was not.
What is Fullmer’s policy on players using weed? Do players take mandatory tests? Just wondering…
Huk, that was classic. Come over and talk shit about spelling, how superior Cal is, and misspell a word. A big word that is associated with academia too!!! Priceless, dumb-ass
Here you go Kalifornia: Link
I don’t get it. It is spelled Berkeley. How could we be spelling it wrong if it is named after George BERKELEY?!?
You ruin my hopes of Cals season. Nate played well last year, but played bad against the big-boys. Plus the WR who burned cal last year, Robert Mecheam is gone. And Tennessee has some rebuilding to do. ESPN college gameday Tennessee vs. Cal!!
Nate is great. He throws the Deep Ball right on the money. I would know. Go Bears
Wow, some people just don’t get it. Slap your self on the inside of your thigh if you signed up for a college because of the amount of Nobel Lariats (or whatever) that went there? Yeah, me neither. And WTF is up with not having any lights on their effing stadium – and those fucking hippies living in the trees outside the stadium so they can’t complete the renovations (www.saveoaks.com). Two words – Think Tank.
I, like many of my fellow Gators, chose Florida because they have a nuclear reactor on campus which allows unparalleled research and development possibilities coupled with infinite hands on experience for students. They also have one of the nation’s top Islamic Studies programs … wait, wait — I can’t even joke about this. I went to Florida because, #1: They’re right off the Miami/New York drug artery called I-75 – so scoring was never tough. #2: They have the sluttiest chicks in the SEC (but only the third sluttiest in the state, behind FSU and The U) – so scoring was never tough. #3: The tuition there is cheap. Oh, and did I mention they have slutty chicks? For those of you that chose your college for the academics, nice job. But your school’s overflowing spelling bee trophy case is hardley an excuse for sucking. We in the SEC hear that same shit from Vandy every season and from Georgia when they suck. We call it the “Ugly Chicks Academic Excuse.” Saying: “We suck ’cause we’re smart” is plainly Mongolic. First of all, Cal’s football program is pretty solid — so the “WSCWS” argument doesn’t really hunt. Second of all, I would say those of you that voluntarily chose to go to Cal over, say, Davis — are actually idiots – the chicks at Cal don’t shave – anything. How smart is that, dood? Hey, I like me some retro porn every now and again too but damn, when the pow pow starts looking like one of my dog’s six-month-old tennis balls – peace and I’m out. Smart people suck, anyway. Always using their long words and “expediting themselves” to their fancy jobs while wearing scarves and drinking frapa-moca-things while listening to Arcade Fire on their iPod Minis. So tell me, Mr. Academic Dan — how many STDs have you had? Yeah, I bet its just as many as the number of National Titles your football program has in its trophy case, huh? Zero. Coincidence? I think not. But, shit, Florida only has two football titles. Oh, wait, and two basketball titles and four Women’s tennis titles and two golf titles and some more gymnastics titles. Ummm, yup – I’m good. It all adds up. And just because there’s a shit gobb of stoners in Berkley doesn’t make it cool either. But that La Barrita place was actually pretty cool – as was Mario’s. Solid Mexican food up there.
Honest to God T-Kgb, why you are not writing and posting here daily is beyond me
La Burrita is actually really shitty. It just tastes good when your drunk. Mario’s grilled burrito is bomb though. If you liked the Mexican food there, you should try some Thai/Indian/Ethiopian/Vietamese/Korean/Japanese restaurants. Zachary’s Chicago Style Pizza has won best pizza in the greater SF area for like a decade now. In other words, there is a lot of bomb food here.
As of the number of football National Titles we have 5 (all before the 40’s). Yes I know that is a long time ago and for most people it doesn’t count. But we also have 1 basketball title (59′). Rugby has 22, Mens Crew has 15, Baseball has 2, Golf 1, Waterpolo 12. ect. My point is that on top of being “smart” or actually choosing a school to increase my paycheck. We also probably have more trophies in our case and probably more even if you include your women national championships. In general the P10 has more national championships then any other conference. But football does make the world go round and I probably would trade them all away for one modern day football championship for Cal.
As for your criteria for choosing a school. Nobel Laureates was not a factor in deciding but it is cool to think that many of great ideas at least partially came from our campus (ie internet encryption, nuclear destruction er power). As for accesibility to drugs, we just dont have a lot of it around (like any college) but we have smart kids who make all of them better/more potent/ more pure. Not like I’m into that or anything. As for the girls, your girls on avg are hotter and sluttier but the hot ones at Cal are smart which makes them that more desirable. This is probably where we agree to disagree….Just wished we had more of them.
so t-kgb is not only pimping uf, but also the loss of his dick to std’s? isn’t there a movie about this sort of thing (transflorida or america)? in addition, uf is just one hung over std carrying douche from 3 mile island? great point to brag about moron. and on the other side we have some tool from kal hoisting up the smart flag and the local food? have you tried our really munchable ethiopian? it’s great on a green tea/spinach infused pita.
serious – kal dude, shut it. no one cares.
– fla dude, act like you’ve been there before. and that you’re not gay….
Volinator3000
How’d that prediction work out for ya then?