Not only are these guys great rugby players, they're extremely well educated.

Last Saturday was a bit of an issue.  I couldn't make the noon game vs. Notre Dame due to a previous commitment.  Apparently, we used several reserves and won 17-7.  How DARE those silly Domers score a try, AND A CONVERSION, on us!!!!1  The only logical conclusion was that Notre Dame must have cheated, much like stanfurd in pretty much any game they (allegedly) won, ever.  I know this ND score very much upset Ohio Bear, because I had earlier told him that ND didn't look so hot.  Regardless, I was still confident, and was looking forward to the 5 pm game vs. Dartmouth.  With our 42-0 drubbing of Hah-hah-hahvahd, it was clear that the Ivy League was Bear Territory.  

It rained hard in the afternoon, and my contacts in the stadium indicated we were about 2 hours behind.  Then at 4 pm (one hour before kickoff), a big storm came through, so I thought I now had a 3 hour cushion.  So as Mrs. CALumbus Bear and I were getting ready to drive to Crew Stadium, I saw a teaser on NBC just before they went to commercial, which teaser basically said "when we return, we'll watch the Cal-Dartmouth game LIVE!"  Effing eff to the eff!  So, we watched the game on TV at home, which admittedly had better and less marked-up beer, but my screaming "Kill those Dartmouth pansies!" didn't have the desired inspirational effect on the team.  I should have known that the national TV audience afforded by NBC pretty much DEMANDED that the Cal game be shown, no matter the terrible inconvenience caused to EVERY OTHER TEAM in the tourney who was skipped in the rotation (they skipped about 6 games to get to ours). 

Many of us saw that 29-0 shutout of Dartmouth on TV.  We looked solid, particularly in the second half.  So Cal had won its games by scores of 42-0, 17-7 and 29-0.  I was looking forward to Sunday and its better weather forecast.

On Sunday we played Tennessee at noon, and the day was bright, cool and breezy as Coach Clark took the field, where I think we should have plaques installed that read "Jack Clark Stepped Here" in every place where his size 13 Nikes trod:

This is Bear territory, and this is Bear territory, and this too is Bear territory...

In this pic, I had just sent a text to NBC's Jimmy Roberts saying that if he interviewed any Cal players and they used big words, I was ready to help him understand: 

How the eff did this CALumbus Bear get my email address, and is there really an ‘e' in douchebag?

The first thing the ref did was declare our team the "coolest", as proven in this photo:

No, you Tennesseeans are not cool.  This team over here, though, is super cool, or as they say in Germany, zupah kühl

During the game there was lots and lots of this:

Scrumming, aka butt shots for the ladies

Running

Even more running

And lots of scoring

And of course the kicking

Which resulted in us congratulating TN for not scoring any points while we racked up 36:

Does this beatdown remind you of a certain 2007 football game? Well, does it, Tennessee???

After once again making the SEC (so much SPEEED, except in rugby) our beeyotch, we turned our attention to teaching our brethren Pac-10 members Arizona that there is no shame in constantly being beaten down by the Bear.  As you can see, an Arizona player immediately started bowing down to a Cal player:

Your shoes - I must kiss them!

Our domination started early, so there was lots of this:

Running

Scoring (not the Rishi kind, the rugby kind)

And lest we forget the kicking (not just of asses, but also balls -- er, rugby balls)

My favorite sequence was on this scoring drive, which I am calling the "pwned sequence."  Note AZ's number 5.  Here he is getting pwned en route to another Cal try:

I sleeps here now.  Mmmm, grass taste good.

Now here's that same guy just sitting there moaning while the coaches were running up to attend to him.  He was probably saying something like "what was the number of that truck that just pwned me?"

I'm in my happy place, I'm in my happy place...

The best part about this, and I apologize in advance for not having a photo of it, is that the ref then came over and gave AZ's number 5 a yellow card and he was sent off for 2 minutes.  OK, maybe not sent off, more like rolled further off.  Ostensibly the yellow card was for some attempted rough tackle, but I'd like to think it was for getting massively pwned.  Epic rugby phail.  We may have taken pity on the poor pwned AZ squad, so we kept the score to a respectable 33-0.

Another shutout.  Would the good times continue?

Meanwhile, after the first 2 days of matches, the field was divided into the top 8 teams (championship bracket) and the bottom 8 teams (challenger bracket).  On Sunday, the challenger bracket had their own single elimination tourney, which resulted in Bowling Green pleasing the Ohioans by winning the challenger bracket.  So because BG lost twice on Friday and Saturday, they got put into the short bus bracket and beat up on the other 2 or 3 loss teams.  And you should have seen them celebrate afterwards.

We're number 9! We're number 9! Everyone celebrate! Next year, NIT!

So to recap, Cal had won its games by scores of 42-0, 17-7, 29-0, 36-0 and 33-0.  Using my math skills, that adds up to a cumulative score of 1,372,978.4 - 1.  Clearly we were on a roll, and the other champion bracket finalist, Utah, couldn't stop us, even with their PROFESSIONAL RUGBY PLAYER on their squad.  Right? Right?  To be continued.  Maybe.