Golden Nuggets: A Trip Down Memory Lane

The Register-Guard looks back to when Tedford first noticed Kevin Riley.

As Jeff Tedford remembers it, he was attending a scouting combine for high school football players in the Bay Area in the spring of 2005, back when college coaches were allowed to be present at such functions, and noticed a quarterback throwing the ball in warm-ups.

The Cal football coach didn’t know the kid but liked the “zip on the ball” when he threw. Intrigued, Tedford watched the young quarterback throughout the day, and “kind of liked everything about him.”

Tedford followed up by getting some video of the quarterback, still a high school junior, and after studying that “liked him even more.”
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Except, it’s not quite the whole story.

 

It seems that Riley had spotted Tedford standing under a tree with Fresno State coach Pat Hill. Of the 200-some coaches at the combine, Tedford and Hill were the first coaches that he recognized.

So Riley, not generating much recruiting interest at that time — Eastern Washington, Idaho, Portland State; Oregon hadn’t even invited him to its annual Junior Day — grabbed a receiver and positioned himself directly in front of Tedford.

“It wasn’t an accident that he was so close,” said Faustin Riley, Kevin’s father, who was there that day and tells the story.

 

After the jump we look at how close former Cal RB James Montgomery came to losing his leg or, worse, his life, press luncheon quotes from Mohamed, Ross, and Alualu, a television coverage map for Cal at Oregon as well as the link for the internet stream, looks back at Minnesota, looks ahead to Oregon, and more.

• TheBearWillNotQuit has a great recap of the Cal-Minnesota game with notes on what went right and what went wrong.
• Click here for the ABC/ESPN coverage map for Cal at Oregon.  For those of you outside the coverage zone, this is the confirmed link for PRD's stream. Tune in Saturday at kickoff.
• JO has press luncheon quotes from Mike Mohamed, Jeremy Ross, and Tyson Alualu.
• Best leaps into first on Sports Illustrated's Heisman watch.
• Cal regains the top spot in Wilner's Pac-10 power rankings.
• The Bears are fired up about potentially winning the Pac-10, but grounded by the belief that every game matters.
• SportingNews.com's Dave Curtis interviews Riley after the Minnesota game.
• Oregon's O-line is comforted by playing at Autzen and only executing a few simple plays to open up the running game.  Oregon players feel their OOC schedule has prepared them well for the beginning of Pac-10 play.  The Ducks are ditching their winged jerseys this weekend for some old school uniforms.
  
  via blogs.registerguard.com

• Former Cal running back James Montgomery might not play football for up to a year.  Had they delayed the surgery to relieve his acute compartment syndrome, he might not be able to walk again.
• No. 4/5 men's soccer takes on New Mexico and Air Force this weekend in the Stanford Nike Classic.
• Cross country runs in the Stanford Invitational Saturday morning.
• Water polo's junior goalkeeper Jacob McIntosh left the team after losing his starting role.
• Cal golf alum Sophia Sheridan will be in the San Ramon Valley to compete in the CVS/pharmacy LPGA Challenege at the Blackhawk Country Club.