Apathy

Even the normal wind-sock beat reporters (Crumpy, Okanes, and Miller) were calling for Sweeney.

I, too, thought he should’ve put in Sweeney at the half. I wonder if Tedford wanted Riley to fight back and lead us to a fighting chance. If he did, though, he should’ve taken him out after the 1st or 2nd series in the 3rd quarter. If anything, he could at least tell him that he was mixing it up.

Tedford used to feel comfortable pulling under-performing QBs. I remember it was actually Reggie Robertson, not Aaron Rodgers, who won the triple overtime game against USC. Rodgers was struggling so Tedford pulled him in the 2nd half and replaced him with Robertson. Look how that turned out.
I would like to have seen if some other QB could’ve sparked the team to victory last night. Maybe Tedford thinks the backups aren’t ready for prime-time, as only he would have the real inside information on that, but at the same time I don’t think they could’ve done any worse. If Riley struggles like this again, I really think it’s time to try another QB, at least on a trial basis. Heck, we might be surprised, look how well Darron Thomas is doing as a sophomore.

J. Torchio FTW!

Did you see us ripping off a streak of 3-4 wins in a row last year after the USC game?

I’d think a fan of 30 years would remember the Holmoe Era, which was worse than the Tedford/Theder/Kapp/Gilbertson/Snyder/Mariucci eras. We’re still bringing in 60,000-65,000 people to home games. We get national coverage. How is this worse than going 1-10 while losing the Axe?

We need to support the kids…they are out there putting it all on the line for our game day or arm chair enjoyment…it’s a tough effing game….I’m not saying that we should brush all critiques under the table, but support and optimism do seem to have their own power…I recall at the big game last year no one seemed to give up on us…we were down but there was a tangible sense in the stands that we were still very much in it…cause or effect, we’ll never know…but I do know that for myself it just feels better to keep some optimism in the well..take the shit games in stride, love the kids for what they do for us and at the end of the day, just keep on bleeding that blue an gold…pumping a little sunshine on an awful "day after "day like today just can’t hurt..roll on you bears

Old Blues: appreciating not getting nutpunched every other day.

Well said, SoCal Oski. There have been many comments here from the youngsters excoriating us Old Blues for being too negative. But here we are with Cal having had eight straight winning seasons and gone to seven straight bowl games, and after a few disappointing seasons and a few ugly losses, some of those youngsters are as negative as we ever have been. I hope to never hear criticism of Old Blues again!

How dare you be calm and rational!! This is a time for PANIC!!!!

Of course as die hard fans we will continue to be there for our Bears. But, we can already see attendance falling. Look at the weak turnout for Colorado or the UCLA game with 10,000 empty seats. Cal has peaked at about 44,000 season tickets and are under that, I believe, this year. Most of those are our die-hards. Those extra tickets, the single game ticket goers, they are falling off, and they like to see a winning product. And, Twist, you are right, a lot of people care because this team has been good. There is no other explanation for the meteoric attendance rise since Tedford arrived. Lose and that goes away.

None of that is to say this trend HAS to continue. But it’s hard to avoid the warning signs.

I might not be the smartest fan here, I might not be the heaviest donor, I might not bleed the most blue and gold, but it is fucking insane to me that people are jumping off the bandwagon like this. —TwistNHook

Does this mean Cal is still #1 on your Top-25 CGB Poll???

I might not be the smartest fan here, I might not be the heaviest donor, I might not bleed the most blue and gold, but it is fucking insane to me that people are jumping off the bandwagon like this. "I see Cal trending downwards in the future." "This is like 1988." "The hot seat gets hotter."

None of us who have been suffering through this for 20+ years are jumping off the bandwagon. We are trying to throw Tedford out of the driver’s seat to prevent the program from going off a cliff.

Well said sir!

We are Cal. Disappointment and exultation is in our DNA. We want to be a dominant program, I get that. But the reality is that only so many teams are dominant each and every year, and there are reasons for that. But we’re on a path that’s more positive than anything I’ve seen in 25 years of being a student and alum.

Think about this. We haven’t had a losing season in nearly a decade. Our stands are nearly full. We have a new facility about to open. Our recruiting is still Top 25, and the coaches have been able to merge the Cal degree with top athletics. And we’re in the national conversation.

THESE ARE POSITIVE SIGNS. Now, I predicted that Cal will improbably end up in the Rose Bowl because THAT’S WHAT WE DO. We reach depths, then reach heights, and then leave us feeling like we have so much possibility.

AGAIN: CAL IS GOING TO THE ROSE BOWL.

Twist, where did I call for Tedford to be fired?

I’m saying that fans are going to start tuning out the Bears, and attendance will start dipping year-by-year. These are the signs of a program that’s stuck in the mud, if not sinking in it.

Unarguably your finest post.

But first: PANIC!!!

1. I think people are tired of getting blown out 5 times in the past two years versus maybe 2 times the previous 6.

2. The last time Cal was .500 this late in the season was 2007, that wasn’t very fun.

3. Indeed most of our remaining games are winnable, but they are also loseable. The only game anyone could consider a guarantee is WSU, and that isn’t a guarantee IMO.

Margins make a difference…

No one’s complaining about the losing, so much as the manner in which we lose. When the majority of your losses these past two seasons have been soul-crushing blowouts, there’s clearly something wrong with the program. Losing is fine – this is Cal after all – but getting demolished in games so often is not.

5 blowouts in two years versus 2 in the previous 6. Something is wrong.

Would 6-6 with an blowout loss at home to Stanfurd be The End? I hope not.

Exactly. I just want to be competitive. If we can do that but still lose, it’s a much easier pill to swallow.

…it’s easy to dial down the enthusiasm. Five years ago I went to 40+ A’s games. Last season, barely 10. I just couldn’t handle getting burned by seeing my favorite players leave for greener pastures and fan experience at the Coliseum dwindle down to nothing. I feel that being an A’s fan is an exercise in hopelessness. I don’t know where they are playing in a few years, I don’t want to get too attached to a player because I don’t want my heart to be broken when they leave. I don’t like the fact that I have to walk at least a third way around the Coliseum just to wait in line for concessions when there are barely 10K in attendance; it’s like the ownership doesn’t even value my passion and business.

So it’s easy for me to be apathetic about the A’s, my favorite team in my favorite sport.

However, for these Bears, hope is around the corner with the SAPHC and Stadium renovations. Yeah the last few seasons have been frustrating, but we are nowhere near hopeless. For that, just take a BART ride to the Coliseum during baseball season.

I knew the trend of inexplicable road game ineptitude would likely continue, so there was little reason for feeling nervous in anticipation of a hard fought game. However, when you’ve got a coach who is well-respected nationally as an offensive guru and yet his team can’t pick up a first down for hours, you’ve got a serious issue.

I’m glad someone else sees the light!

They go by really quickly for me. Usually our offense sucks it up enough such that we can’t sustain long drives, and once our opponent (be it Tennessee ‘06 or Oregon ’09) gets ahead enough they can just control the offensive tempo and run out the clock. I don’t watch “highlights” or replays, and move on to the next (usually home) game, which we often win. For some reason blowouts to me are just plain old vanilla losses.

The ones that really hurt me are the close games when we manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I remember a lot about Arizona 06, OSU 05/07, all our non-blowout USC losses. But last year’s Oregon game? I just know that we lost 42-3, and that’s about it.

Go to Cal. It’s worth it. Best university in the fucking world. Opens so many doors, it’s not funny

Dude this is a sad post.

Wait — you’re re-thinking going to UC Berkeley because the football team can disappoint you?

Dude, priorities.

I think fans have a right to be upset. We are now 5-13 in road games dating back to our peak, a win in Eugene in 2007. Obviously, given our recent road performances and the state of our passing attack, nobody should have been expecting a victory…but I don’t think it’s too much to ask to be as competitive with sc as Virginia and Minnesota (who just fired their coach) were. There is clearly something quite wrong in our program, when we have been blown out 5 times since last fall. We have the second highest paid coach in the conference (or is it third?), and while our recruiting fell off for a few years it’s not like it went off a cliff (still middle of the conference). I do not think it is too much to expect for this team to play competitively against this mediocre usc team.

My expectations with Tedford’s program are at an all time low – I don’t expect a good passing performance (and therefore a good offensive performance) against any decent team, and I do not expect to win any road game, aside from perhaps WSU. But even I was a bit surprised at how completely we were destroyed yesterday. We did not belong on the field.

Of course, we are going to turn around and beat ASU on Saturday, because we have won 36 straight at home aside from sc/osu, dating back to 2003. Of course, some people will take that as a sign that we have turned a corner and fixed our issues, etc etc, and they will be disappointed when we lose to OSU the following week.

I don’t know if people are calling out the players for not trying hard enough. I’ve been happy with the effort level I’ve seen this year and even last, even in bad losses. However, the complete lack of execution is very frustrating. People aren’t upset just because we lost. Take the Arizona loss, for example; people took that in stride pretty well, because we at least had a good game plan and we were at least competitive against a good team. The Bears acquitted themselves pretty well, even in defeat. Yesterday, though, was an embarrassment.

Secondly, as someone who has brought up the “killer instinct” point myself, well, I’m not giving up on the Bears, or on Tedford yet. I’ll always be a Cal guy. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with criticizing the coaching staff for perceived shortcomings though.

K-Town there’s a time for rationality and this is not it.

Um, it’s easy to tell which team will show up. Home? Usually a win.. Road? Usually a loss.

There are a fair amount of other examples as well, JoePa, Mack Brown, etc. Sometimes it takes these guys over a decade to really change a sinking program.
Let’s see where the new SAHPC and revamped Memorial take us in terms of recruiting THEN give those (hopefully improved) recruits some years to come up through the system and then see where we’re at.

Thanks for finding this old post.

This happened to me too… and I was in LA… :(

well, the players change from year to year, so what is the constant…?

First, I just don’t buy this “arc of career” idea and the premise that coaches have an expiration date after which their ideas no longer work. Yes, there have been some coaches whose teams tailed off at the end of their career (e.g., Paterno, Bowden). But there all also plenty who enjoyed success to the very end, or perhaps experienced ups and downs throughout their career , including at the end (e.g., Osborne, Alvarez, Bellotti, James, McKay).

Second, as disappointing as Cal football has been since the 2007 Oregon game, Tedford’s Bears haven’t exactly fallen off the cliff. Winning records, bowl games, national rankings, home dominance, NFL talent…all remain part of Cal football. The SC game notwithstanding, Tedford remains comfortably above the territory staked out by the likes of Glibertson, Kapp, and Holmoe.

Third, Cal’s current “mediocre, middle-of-the-PAC 10 team” is good enough for me as long as it remains competitive (at least most weeks), fun to watch, and full of student-athletes who continue to make me proud to be a Bear. Yes, I’d love to see the Bears in the Rose Bowl and competing for a national championship, but not at the expense of the institution’s values. The disaster and embarrassment that was the Pete Carroll era at ‘SC is not a deal with the devil that I want Cal to make. I know there are fans who feel otherwise—Just Win Baby!—but I’m not one of them. I’m a Cal alum first, and a Cal fan second.