Tosh Lupoi spoke to the media today for the first time to address his messy departure from Strawberry Canyon. It appears the Washington coaching staff has done a good job coaching him up for this interview. Pretty sure that month away from the media provided him with all the time he needed to conjure an alibi. Here's what he had to say about his departure.

On how many times he said no to UW: "I don't know, but it was a process for about two weeks. Kind of like all the places, I had never taken an interview anywhere, I don't have an agent, it was something that just felt like it was going to be the place that I remained and that's where I played and I had a lot of great opportunities and days there. So it was natural for me to say no. And then just talking to him throughout those weeks you realize what a great recruiter he is and a lot of great points he expressed kind of weared on me.

On Jeff Tedford's reaction: "I think he understood and was always kind of been there and I've been offered good advice over the past year so it was kind of a quick conversation and I think at that point, I had already said no to the opportunity for some time so I think he understood that there was a lot that was put into this decision and it wasn't something that was done in just one day or so so I think he was understanding of the opportunity that was offered here and the reasons to want to start something new.''

This differs slightly from the version of the story we've heard, which goes something like.

Offer 1: They gave me lots of money. Cal matched.

Offer 2: They gave me lots more money. Cal matched.

Offer 3: A boat? SIGN ME UP! OH I'LL LET COACH KNOW AFTER I LET SHAQ AND THE RECRUITS KNOW.

Speaking of which, he did give this direct quote.

"Yeah, I haven't been on that boat. Maybe it's a canoe or something.''

They gave him a canoe too??? Pretty impressive rewards package!

I hope it's not to go seal-poaching with Sark in the Pacific Northwest. That'd just be abhorrent. We hope Tosh and Sark make a public statement soon denying that they wrestled baby seals on the beaches of British Columbia, then cooked them piece by piece.

I just hope we're not too late to save the rest of them.

You can watch video of the interview by clicking here, or you can listen to the audio by clicking here.

PS: Check out this secondary vid of Tosh’s eye-darting. This is a man who has nothing to hide!

TwistNHook: Last time we discussed the increasing "arms race" of college football, including increasing assistant coaches' salaries. We pick up today with Ragnarok being sad.

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Avinash: When the Pac-12 TV contracts were released, several teams in the conference immediately started pouring their resources into their football programs. The most noticeable names are probably Washington State (who managed to pool money together to land the Pirate), Arizona (who has one of the most dynamic spread coaches in the league in Rich Rod) and of course Washington. One of the top priorities (particularly in Washington's case) was to put a lot of money in their assistant coaches, which is how they got Lupoi and Kiesau to make the move up North.

It appears that Cal has decided to take another path to start out. Jon Wilner with more.

The bottom line: Cal has the money to ramp up its lagging salary pool for assistant coaches. How much? By my calculations, the Bears will have a net gain of $5-6 million in revenue thanks to the new Pac-12 TV deal — and that’s just for 2012-13. The windfall increases over time because of the 4% escalator in the TV deal and the elimination of one-time expenses (such as buying back media rights from IMG). But the school, for various reasons — many of them are admirable and high-minded — has chosen a different fiscal structure for its athletic department in general and football program in particular.

Although I'm not sure who Wilner's sources are, it tends to back up what we've all heard from this story. Otherwise it's hard to explain why we didn't have the money to pay Tosh and the rest of the coaching staff. There might be raises coming, but they weren't significant enough to placate Tosh (and maybe Kiesau, although he seems to be more of a vagabond).

Basically, it looks as if Cal wants to ensure the health of ALL their athletic programs while hoping football can handle its own. Cal has just received a huge renovation project that helped a lot of programs, but primarily it was for the benefit of the football team. So now everyone else believes it's their turn and wants their taste, probably to help upgrade everything else long-term.

Because of the number of sports on campus that need financial assistance, it drains the well for football. So if we were to give Tosh a raise and other coaches were to demand a raise, we probably wouldn't have been able to do it, and we might've been forced with a greater array of defections on our staff. We probably wouldn't have come out any better.

What do you guys think? Should Cal football be the #1 priority of the Athletic Department?


CBKWit: I think that, if we don't make football the #1 priority, then we will continue to be pretty mediocre at football. I think there are basically two routes to football success - recruiting better or coaching better than your opposition. Right now, Oregon is an example of the latter, and Stanford (specifically Andrew Luck) is an example of the former. Tedford has shown over the last half decade that he's not going to outcoach teams - we need to be more talented than our opponents to win consistently. Thus, Tosh's departure is going to hurt us far more than, say, Oregon would get hurt by losing their top recruiter (similarly, Oregon would be hurt much more by Chip Kelly leaving the program, which seems likely to happen in the next few years, than Cal would by Tedford leaving).

If we're not going to invest in football as much as other teams, we're probably not going to get the recruits we need to overcome our mediocre coaching. Then, the money we "saved" will be moot, because football attendance will fall. We need to be successful at football to generate enough revenue to cover our other sports, so we need to either invest more in the Tedford regime in the hopes of bringing in better players, or find a coach that produces better results with commensurate talent.

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SUPER BOWL XLVI

LUCAS OIL STADIUM, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

NEW YORK GIANTS (12-7) vs. NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (15-3)

3:29 pm PT, NBC

The National Football League's championship extravaganza is here. The stage is set for Super Bowl Extra Large Vee Eye in Indianapolis. The New England Patriots and the New York Football Giants will play for the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the second time in the last four years.

In Super Bowl Extra Large Eye Eye four years ago, the Giants pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, defeating the heavily favored Patriots 17-14 in Glendale, AZ, to deny New England's bid to be the first NFL team to go undefeated since the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Will Serra High School grad Tom Brady and the Patriots get their revenge in this rematch? Or will Eli Manning and the Giants stay hot and cap off a remarkable run that seemed unlikely when the Giants were a mere 7-7 just six weeks ago?

Cal fans who don't have a rooting (or betting) interest in this game might be wondering: what Cal alumni are in this game for us to cheer for? Well, unlike last year's game when we cheered Aaron Rodgers and Desmond Bishop on to their Super Bowl championship, we don't have any former Golden Bears to watch in this year's Super Bowl. The Giants don't have any Bear alumni on their roster. As for the Patriots, neither of the Cal alumni on their roster will play today: Andre Carter (who had a fine season for the Pats) is out for the season with an injury and running back Shane Vereen is inactive (along with the Patriots' veteran running back Kevin Faulk). With Vereen and Faulk inactive, the Patriots' running back stable consists of BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Danny Woodhead, and Stevan Ridley.

Though inactive for today's game, at least Vereen will get to be there with his teammates, which is more than you can say for poor Tiquan Underwood. The now former Patriots wide receiver was released by the team last night -- less than 24 hours before the Super Bowl kickoff.

As for the biggest story of the Super Bowl hypefest related to on-the-field matters, there was a development yesterday: Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski (listed as questionable with a high ankle sprain) appeared for the team's Saturday photo shoot and walked without a limp.

For the Giants, we will not get to see the culmination of a cancer-to-Super Bowl story. Linebacker Mark Herzlich, the former Boston College star who overcame cancer to land on the Giants' roster as an undrafted rookie, is on today's list of the Giants' Super Bowl inactives. As expected, running back Ahmad Bradshaw (foot) and wide receiver Hakeem Nicks (shoulder), who were banged up in the NFC Championship game, are good to go for the G-Men.

This is your open thread for the game. Talk about all the hot game action here. And the commercials. And Madonna's halftime show, too. That should be good, amirite? Get into the groove.

Arik Armstead was originally supposed to announce his commitment to Cal on January 16th (at least, all signs indicated he was going to choose the Bears) but the departure of Tosh Lupoi made him reconsider his decision. With two weeks to think about it, has he decided to go elsewhere or will he be sporting the blue and gold for the next four years? We will find out today around 3:00pm PST.

Arik Armstead, Pleasant Grove High School's towering and dominant 6-foot-8, 295-pound All-American linemen, will make his college scholarship announcement on Sunday.

He will announce at his family church - The House Christian Church - on Broadway in Sacramento. There will be prep teammates, coaches, family, friends and local media on hand, and why all the fuss? He's a unique talent, a unique kid know for his humility as much as his considerable football and basketball talents and upside. He has been on everyone's short list on national recruits and seemingly every prep All-American team across the country, including MaxPreps, Sports Illustrated, Parade and a host of others.

If Armstead commits to Cal, this could be a huge momentum boost to help the Bears close out on a strong 2012 recruiting class. Follow @sb_joedavidson for the latest updates and join us in this open thread to discuss the events as they unfold.

Kodiak: Statistically, the Cal defense ranked first in the Pac-12 and in the top 25 nationally. But did we really perform that way? What went right? What went wrong? We were worried about replacing Cam Jordan, MikeyMo, and Chris Conte; were our fears answered or justified? Going into his 2nd year, Coach Pendergast was supposed to be more comfortable with the college game, and his players should be more familiar with his system. Did the schemes, adjustments, and on the field performance reflect an improvement over last year?

HydroTech: I think our defense is actually better than it often appeared. The problem throughout many of our losses where the defense didn't look good, was also that our offense was horrible. When a team's offense sucks, it puts a lot more responsibility on the defense to keep the opposing team from scoring, and keeping the game manageable. For example, the Oregon game was a great defensive performance for one half of the game. If the Cal offense had managed to stay on the field longer and score some points, I think our defense wouldn't have become so overrun in the second half. Same goes with the USC game. If our offense doesn't turn the ball over five times and stays out on the field longer, and scores some points, the defense will be more rested and wouldn't have had so many short fields to defend. And then the UCLA game. That game was a rare occurrence of both the offense and defense being pretty inept. Although, if the offense was actually competent that day, then I think they might have bailed out the defense for once -- instead of the defense always bailing out the offense.

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With our palates sufficiently cleansed of dribbled shotgun snaps, matador blocks, and air-mailed passes, let's pump a little sunshine and look forward to better and brighter days. Or can we? What improvements do we need to see out of our offense next season? Who needs to step up? Do we have the players and coaches in place to expect better performances, or is it going to be more of the same? What are reasonable expectations for the New Tedford Offense, Year Deux?

TwistNHook: I don't think that it is unreasonable to demand a cut in the turnovers. Many of the games Cal lost this season came down to dumb turnovers. Over and over and over and over. And then when Cal actually played crisp football and managed to hold on to the ball, they looked pretty damn good out there.

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As if the bombardment of recruiting and coaching rumors has not reminded us, the offseason thrives on unchecked speculation and wild predictions. Like watching a multi-car pileup on the freeway (or the defenses in that Baylor-Washington game), we cannot help but have a morbid yet insatiable desire to gobble up these predictions and speculation.

I am certainly not immune to the temptation to offer some speculation of my own (nor are you readers, as evidenced by the hundreds and hundreds of responses we get when we solicit preseason predictions).

So let's take a look at how accurate we were with our predictions. In the chart on the right we tallied the pre-season predictions in mid-August while the pre-game predictions were collected about a week before we played that opponent.

At first glance, it looks like we generally won games we were supposed to win (except that UCLA debacle) and lost the games we were supposed to lose. We roughly broke even on the toss-ups.

Of course, predicting the outcome in terms of wins and losses is interesting, but rather simple. What happens if we match up our predictions with the final score? Are we still fairly accurate or is this just a gilded curtain hiding our woeful inaccuracy? Let's break it down.

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