1.6.09 DBD Hold Me Tighter, CaliforniaGoldenBlogs, I Just Want To Smell Your Hair A Little

How do you have a rundown of memes and forget about Bak Bak?

Cal men enter Wilner’s poll at # 20

earlier he mentioned Monty as CoY…

I just got back from Tampa last night too…my clock isn’t back to PST yet…

found a nice article on Jesus with a Headset.

He’s already bearing down on school standards. His seven seasons as coach (football, James Schaefer fans, not rugby) rank fifth — Pappy Waldorf, Stub Allison and Andy Smith hold the record with 10. He’s fourth in games coached (89; the record is 103), and wins (59; the record is 74). His .663 winning percentage is third among Cal coaches with 20 games or more. Of the 10 bowl wins in Cal history, Tedford has accounted for half.

There are holes on the resume, to be sure. He has yet to win an outright Pac-10 championship. Then there’s the Rose Bowl thing. But if he hasn’t delivered Old Blues and their clinical obsession to Pasadena, he’s at least revived the notion as a possibility.

Even bigger than that, he has resolved a monstrous, long-standing parochial “what if?” — as in, what if Cal ever combined its considerable resources with a good football coach who stuck around. What would happen then?

Steve Mariucci referred to the program as a sleeping giant when he took the head coaching position in 1996. He was right then, he was right when he left for the 49ers after one season at Cal, and he was right until the moment Tedford showed up in 2002.

The program isn’t sleeping anymore. Its highly regarded coach has it annually competitive pretty much to the extent that resources and institutional philosophy permit. He’s got the full support of donors and the administration. He runs a relatively clean machine, and by all appearances he has dropped anchor.

What does that kind of thing get a fellow at Cal? Well, Waldorf won 103 games, and he’s got a statue on campus. Smith won 97 games, and is immortalized by the Andy Smith bench on the Cal sideline at Memorial Stadium. The team’s annual most inspirational award is named for Allison (102 wins).

Jeff Tedford Field at the New Memorial Stadium? There have been longer shots at Cal. We’ve been watching one the past seven years.

A’s close to signing Giambi…

He’s going to have to ditch the pornstar ’stach…grow a goatee…and get a mullett for me to accept him

Shot through the heart and you’re to blame. You give love a bad name.

So, in this extended metaphor are you having a relationship with CGB or with Nailed It? Or are you in a relationship with CGB and having an affair with Nailed it? None-the-less, it’s a little dirty either way.

I must know the answer or my fan fiction sequel won’t come out right!

Patrick Christopher is the Pac-10 player of the week.

If the tournament started today…

Keep in mind it’s the first week of January and none of this means a thing, but my buddy Joe Lunardi, ESPN’s very smart "bracketologist," projects Cal as a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament. He says the Bears will play No. 11 Dayton at Minneapolis.

UCLA will earn a No. 3 seed, Arizona State a No. 7 and Stanford a No. 11, according to Lunardi. Arizona and USC are not in the mix at this point.

Hmm, gymnastics is starting. I think I’m gonna end up going to a meet or two with my wife. I’ll be sure to have photo essays, ya’ll know you are dying for more gymnastics posts.

Your icon always reminds me of a friend of mine who looks like Pappy’s statue. I believe I used the same picture in a little project I made.

Project follows…

I met Michael Bennett.

Looks like Minnesota doesn’t want him either.
LINK

I say Ian Zeiring in the airport yesterday. Just wanted to put that out there.

He was wearing a Giants jacket, and his handler guy had a Giants jacket too.

Looking at the sales racks at Macy’s Mens.

I am not making this up.

check out my Pre-BCS game Top 25 poll.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/

Wilner wrote a nice article on Cal’s tourney hopes.

I love to make fun of Wilner but I got nothin’ on him in terms of bball.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=West_Recruiting

Is Carroll better suited for corner?
Having watched (Los Angeles/Cathedral) athlete Randall Carroll play numerous times over the last two years, I really think his upside at the college level might be highest playing corner.

Carroll has very good speed and on the track, no one is faster. However on the football field, I’ve never seen that same separation speed you might think you would see from someone who can run a sub-10.4 100 meters.

Does he have a burst? Of course he does and he’s not going to get caught from behind too many times, but he’s still raw as a pure pass catcher and his skill set actually may be best suited to corner. Carroll is not afraid to mix it up and has good size as well.

We know his preference is to play receiver in college no matter what you may hear in various interviews, but long term Carroll’s best chance at playing on Sundays is likely on the other side of the ball.

Cal lands a good one
It may not get the same fanfare as some of the other commitments from this weekend, but Cal landing offensive lineman Mark Brazinski (Somerville, N.J./Immaculata) was huge.

Brazinski is a player I loved at the NIKE Camp at Penn State where he earned OL MVP honors in what was a strong group of linemen. He then committed to Rutgers back in June but de-committed just two months later.

Brazinski took official visits to North Carolina, Boston College and Cal and also had Florida State and Pennsylvania in his final five. The visit to Cal was his most recent but still most felt the lineman would stay closer to home and Penn even looked like a possible favorite, where his older brother played.

In the end, the Bears won out as Brazinski said he loved the warm weather, the Business program and his relationship with the coaching staff. Just how good is the future center? Brazinski is rated the No. 2 player in the country at his position by ESPNU and with three-year starter Alex Mack graduating, it would not be a surprise at all if the physical lineman starts as a true freshman next season.

need recruiting update on Tiny

Sadly true.

• USC is better than PSU. Not shocking, but obviously a great win for the Pac10.

• The 2nd best team in the Pac10 is better than the 4th place team in the B12. Not shocking.

• In a good win for the Pac10, their 3rd place team beats the Big East runner up. Of course, this is the Big East and, as such, should be considered a mid-major football conference.

• The 4th place Pac10 representative beats the 7th place ACC team. Again, not shocking.

• Finally, the 3rd best team in a mid-major conference is beaten by the 5th best Pac10 team. At this point, I’d like to ask the Pac10 if they want a medal for this amazing accomplishment.

The rub:
The Pac10 bowl affiliations are a joke. They always have been for as long as I can remember. In years where the Pac10 only has one BCS representative (USC), the effects of this become magnified because 2-3 of their match-ups turn out to be against the n+1th best team (see the Holiday Bowl where the Big12 sent their 4th best team due to OU and Tex going to the BCS, and the Vegas Bowl where their champ, Utah, unexpectedly received a BCS berth (andand the unexplained selection of 3rd place BYU over 2nd place TCU)). The simple fact is, the Pac10 plays down in their bowl match-ups. Go back to look for the Pac10 record in bowl games. They are almost always 5-1 or 4-2 or 5-0. But look at who they placed in those games.

Yesterday, during the Fiesta Bowl, Texas WR scored and got hit with an excessive celebration penalty, assessed on kickoff.

But when Lockergate happened, it was assessed on the PAT?

???!!

JO’s year in review: running backs

Best’s success this year surprised nobody who has watched him practice every day since he’s been at Cal. I’ve probably written this before, but after a couple of days of training camp last year, when he was a freshman, he had observers wowed with his athleticism and ability. And it became clear as a freshman that he was more than just a track star playing football. All one has to do is look at how he played gunner on punt coverage — something he had never done — to see the natural football instincts he has. Best was named All-Pac-10 first team for his work as a gunner.

Backup Shane Vereen had his moments — he actually only had 52 fewer carries than Best — and rushed for 715 yards (55 ypg). He and Best also had 27 catches each, tied for second on the team. When Best missed the Arizona State game because of his elbow injury, Vereen rushed for 93 yards.

Will Ta’ufo’ou established himself as perhaps the best fullback in the Pac-10, leading the way on so many of Best’s big runs. Never was that more apparent than the Emerald Bowl, when he had a couple of key blocks on crucial plays. The graduating Ta’ufo’ou will be one of Cal’s biggest holes to fill on offense next season.

2008 RUNNING BACKS GRADE: A

Oh Oklahoma is honorable oh ho ho ho ho!
 

Oklahoma did its best to tilt the scoreboard late in its last couple of games — but the Sooners did no such thing for most of the season. In fact, other highly ranked teams did more of it.

Of the teams that finished the regular season in The Associated Press top five, only Alabama scored a smaller percentage of its points in the fourth quarter than Oklahoma — the Crimson Tide scored 12.9 percent of their points in the final 15 minutes, Oklahoma 13.3 percent. Texas, whose fans were maddest at the Sooners because of their down-to-the-wire battle for a BCS berth, scored 21.8 percent of its points in the fourth quarter. Florida: 22.8 percent. And USC was the team most likely to pad its margin late at 23.6 percent.

What an utterly meaningless stat. All you need is two to three more TDs to jump up a few percentage points.

This might be of interest to those who believe in booing

    With three minutes left in the third quarter of Monday night’s game vs. the Kings, Keyon Dooling stole the ball from Kevin Martin near halfcourt and was immediately fouled by Martin. Dooling went to the line for two shots on the clear path violation. After he missed the first, one in a series of missed free throws by the Nets, a cascade of boo’s rained down on the Nets’ guard. Dooling made a motion with his hands as if to say, “bring it on” while mimicking the crowd’s boos. After making the second and then quickly hitting a three, Dooling turned to the crowd as he ran down the court and sarcastically mouthed the word “boo!”

    Marv Albert and Mike Fratello noted the episode and even replayed it on YES.

    After the game, Dooling explained his feelings to the media.

    “We don’t like the boo’s at home. It doesn’t make us play better,” Dooling said. “If they come and cheer us, that will be more helpful. We want to get it right. We don’t want to lose, especially on our home court. We want to give them a good show. We want to play hard, we want to play with intensity we want to do all the things that make them happy. But in this league, sometimes you have rough starts, and cheering would help us get through it.”

    He was asked, Is it that bad? Dooling responded: “I played for the Clippers, and it was never like this,” he said, a testament to just how bad he thinks things are.

This has not been confirmed anywhere other than a Bear Insider post, but he has apparently been told he will be allowed to play in 2009; apparently his Facebook status says he’s coming back.

Today’s postings/comments got me through 8 hours of sitting at my desk, while chipping away at 45 mins worth of work. Good job, guys, good job.

Cal basketball may face treacherous conditions en route to Pullman

This has been one of the most severe winters ever in Washington. A locale known as Pigtail Creek received 100.9 inches of snow in December. Fish Lake had 153.9 inches. Some place called Waterhole was massacred by 192.9 inches — that’s an average of more than 6 inches per day.

The city of Spokane was pounded with 61.5 inches of snow in December, an all-time record for any month dating back to when the National Weather Service began keeping such records in 1893. Almost all of that snow came in the final two weeks of December, and on Dec. 17 the city got 24 inches in 24 hours.

The first week of January brought 15 more inches to Spokane, including 8 inches Sunday night into Monday, causing more school and road closures and stories of roofs collapsing on homes and businesses.

The good news for the Bears — and for those of us who are about to follow them up there — is that the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday is a bit better. Predictions are for highs in the upper 30s on Wednesday with rain. More of the same Thursday, with the possibilty of snow at night.

I realize that the following may sound a bit retarded.

First, let me say that I’m ecstatic with the amount of and quality fanposts/shots of late. It makes my miserable life in this Slovakian jail cell only that much better.

Second, let me remind everyone that we’re about to venture across a dry desert that takes 8 months to cross, and it’s known as The Offseason, and it is among the most treacherous places known to man. Many have not made it across.

Which brings me to a suggestion: remember to start saving save the posts for when we need it most, for instance, July, when the only sound that permeates the air is the buzzing of horseflies and the soft thwuck of bare, sweaty skin as it peels off vinyl seats. Thhwwwwuck.

Carry on.

-Spaz

At 1pm:

http://www.ibabuzz.com/beartalk/2009/01/06/football-live-chat-3/