Are you trying to say “Just Touchdowns” O’Sullivan isn’t going to play well this season? Why, I never!

’nuff said.

I wasn’t at the game because I had to fly to New York (terrible planning – could have waited until today and gone to the game), so this is second-hand information, but: a friend reports that some people chanted “Go on your mission” at one point. Which is:
- cruel and uncalled for; and
- hilarious

I don’t think specific athletes should be booed. But I will say that sometimes as a fan you need some way to express the opposite of a cheer. You want to be able to do more than groan, or swear, or whatever.

after the 1st pick there was some quite chants of Riley but stopped after Best’s amazing stop. Then after the pick six there were 1) booing, 2) chanting Riley 3) bench him and 4) fuck Longshore.

I’m all for booing the refs but not the players

I was embarrassed and ashamed by the actions of a lot of the fans around me.

So he threw an interception. Okay… Give him a chance—he just threw a freaking awesome long bomb downfield that you all LOVED. Okay…he threw another interception. It’s not YOUR call to take him off of the field, and your booing is not going to change anyone’s mind. Tedford make the RIGHT choice in giving the offence a second chance and mad the RIGHT choice in taking him out of play.

Not only was there booing of Longshore (at the drop of a hat, of course), but many of our fans were generally mean-spirited to begin with.

With nearly 4 minutes left, a large chant of the “Goodbye” song started. 4 minutes! MSU tried very hard to come back, and very well could have. There were also chants of “Pac 10 Football” and a lot of people were chanting whilst simultaneously double-flipping-off the MSU sections.

All of the MSU fans that I encountered yesterday were decent to me and respectable people. It’s too bad that I can’t say the same thing about our fans. They were doing things that we only reserve for U$C, things that Michigan State—and Longshore—did NOT deserve.

I think most Cal students boo because they think it’s their job and because they don’t look beyond their acts towards the implications of their acts. Frankly, I think they just do it because they think “it’s the thing to do.” It’s social custom to boo something you don’t like. But what these fans don’t realize is that this is a different and unique situation. These are college players out there, fan negativity doesn’t make productivity, and it makes our fans look like asses in the eyes of recruits who may be in attendance for the game. There are many more compelling reasons NOT to boo but not a single really strong and compelling reason to boo.

I feel really sorry for Nate, actually. He spent an entire offseason being hated on by the fans, lost a close competition during training camp, and all he wanted to do was prove himself to the fans yesterday. He obviously failed in a huge way. It must suck for him. However, no one needs to tell him that he did something wrong. I have a hunch that he knows that already, because Nate Longshore is not an idiot. College athletes should never be booed and I was disappointed to hear people booing last night. I hope that Longshore gets some chance to prove himself against WSU next week even though I strongly feel that Kevin Riley is our #1 for the duration.

Would the results of the above poll have been different if it had been worded: “should any cal player be booed?”

For the benefit of those not there, we actually didn’t hear any booing on the alumni side where I was… only a smattering of cheers and, “oh, look, here comes Nate!” So it wasn’t a huge obvious full stadium boo, it was limited to the dumb students. I even had a friend in QQ, admittedly not tuned into such things, who said that she didn’t really notice it. Still, very poor form. Don’t pay money to boo your own team. It reveals to the world that you are a complete asshole.

Yet no explanations as to why in the comments. Anyone care to play Devil’s Advocate?

I was in Q and nobody booed Longshore when he went in. In fact they and I were happy and interested in seeing him play. There are a lot of things he does well. I don’t remember a lot of people if any booing the first INT. We were definitely surprised that Tedford put him back in immediately but no booing.

The second INT however loudly booed.

Was the INT booed. Yes.
Was Longshore booed. Yes.
Was Tedford booed. Yes. [Tedford made a fucking HUGE mistake putting him back in.]

I’ve said this before but silence is acquiescence. We can cheer. We can sit there. We can boo. I was surrounded by a ton of passionate knowledgeable supportive fans absolutely locked onto the game. They were there. They were loud. And they booed.

You may not like this but there is good and bad in each of us. Don’t expect perfection from us.

There were very obvious boos – one of which was a ~70 year old dude right behind me. So it wasn’t entirely the students. My response was to sarcastically yell, “Booing makes things better!”

I think what bothers me most isn’t as much the disrespect to amateur athletes trying their best (though it is despicable) is how friggin’ stupid it is. There’s no way in hell it helps and it will almost certainly make things worse. Hydro’s example of scaring recruits being a great example I had never even thought of before.

BTW, the micpersons do seem to suck this year. My lady and I went to the pregame band performance (when you can actually get close and hear the halftime songs!) and their attempts to get the crowd excited and chanting were both sad in their execution and their volume. It would be my guess that they don’t have the bravery to challenge a few thousand angry drunk people – an important trait amongst micpersons.

In conclusion, sometimes the crowd mentality sucks.

I’m anit-booing of any players.

As for the “Na na na na na, hey hey hey, good-bye” it really makes me cringe, because I know that in 1993 Cal had a 21-7 lead on UW and their fans were leaving, and the student section sang this with about 5 minutes left. And long time Cal fans will know what happened (as I remember it, touchdown, onside kick, recover, touchdown, some shennanigans, field goal. Game UW)

So I, Leon Powe, hate the goodbye song.

i was pretty upset by the booing. i feel like that was a really isolated part of what we did for the game though. stupid and regrettable, yes, but we did a lot of good stuff throughout the rest of the game. i was really happy with our volume, despite the mic men apparently not understanding the tv timeouts and telling us to get loud a full minute or 2 before they were even back from break…

also: so much secondhand smoke! cough cough

Kevin Riley talked a little bit more about the disappointment of hearing fans boo Nate Longshore: "I remember my first game I ever went to at Cal it was Joe (Ayoob) against USC. From the first pass he threw, they were booing him," Riley said. "I was like, ‘God, I hope that’s not me.’ (Longshore) goes to school here and represents the school. It didn’t go his way.

"Yeah, they can be upset because bad things happen, but it’s tough going through that. Nate went through a lot last year as well. Nate is a strong kid so I don’t think it will bother him that much."

Heh, kid. Nate is older than Riley by a few months isn’t he?