Golden Nuggets: Cal Fails Spectacularly in Every Phase of the Game

From the defense biting on every pump fake and misdirection to the ghost of Pete Alamar coaching special teams for the second week in a row to the decision to run directly and repeatedly into Jurrell Casey, this was one of the worst performances of the Tedford era.  After being blown out only twice in Tedford's first seven years, this team has now been blown out in 5 of its past 16 games.

Tedford addressed the issue with dropped balls and excessive pressure on Riley

"I think we had a good week, and I didn't think that emotion, coming in, was an issue," Tedford said. "I have to give 'SC a lot of credit. We were backed up early, a lot, with poor field position, and they got after us and did pretty well. We couldn't run the football on them and we couldn't pass very well. Some of it was schematic, and they had some good things going, some new things. They got after the quarterback early. We had real poor field position early in the game, and we just couldn't slow them down on offense."

Riley was sacked three times throughout the game, started the day 0-for-5 passing and only threw the ball 13 times in the entire first half. As if that weren't enough, Riley was hindered by several big drops by his receivers.

"We had some dropped footballs in there, and I don't know if you guys don't see that, or whatever, but that's not the quarterback; that's the receiver," Tedford said. "He hits guys right in the hands and they're going to run, make big plays and get us out of the hole. Somebody's got to make a play somewhere."

...while Pendergast and Conte pointed to Cal's execution errors and Barkley's great execution.

"It was our fault, all the big plays that they had, it was our fault," said Conte. "It was our defense's fault, and we've just got to go back, look at the film and correct our mistakes."
...
"I was very impressed with (Barkley) going in, and we obviously looked at a lot of tape on him," Pendergast said. "He's a very talented quarterback, he's got a very good skill set, he's very well-coached, he knows where to go with the football. It felt like we got some pressure on him early and got him out of the pocket and he made some throws under duress and they made some catches and were able to keep drives alive. It was pretty impressive, the throws that he did make and the catches that they made, as well."

After the jump Tedford defends keeping Riley in all four quarters, Shane Vereen and Keith Browner say they were fine after game (after it looked like they were injured), and men's water polo tries to redeem the weekend by defeating top-ranked USC.

Football

• Keith Browner and Shane Vereen, both of whom were injured during the second half, were both fine after the game.
• Lane Kiffin still thinks Tedford is one of the best coaches in the country despite yesterday's result.
• Why didn't Tedford sub in one of his other quarterbacks during the second half? Because Kevin Riley "gives us the best chance to win."
• Ted Miller was not surprised by result and he would not be surprised if Cal goes on to destroy ASU next week.  That's just how Cal is...
• If Cal wants to turn this season around (and get to a bowl game), next week's game against ASU is a must-win.
• What have we learned this week, asks Ted Miller.  There's a good Cal and a bad Cal and we never know which one will show up in road games.