Today we have a smorgasbord of delicious nuggets of information. First off, let's look at Cal's post-game press conference.
Tedford on Sofele's interference and Riley's performance
"Well the hit in the end zone was a football play. I felt terrible about the punt return. The true freshman covering the kick Isi Sofele, as a true freshman he hasn't been in that situation very much. He got down field and he got caught in the situation. It was not intentional by any means. I apologized to Coach Brewster about it because it is not what we are about. It was not intentional. We would never coach something like that. Isi felt bad about it as well."
He gave us a chance and I thought he was pretty excellent throwing the football. His long ball in the first quarter was beautiful. He's making great decisions. He's doing a great job of reading and I feel good about what he's doing."
Best on being tested in the 4th:
"I just think that's a good test for us. Next week we're going into Oregon, and that's going to be another hostile environment. So, I'm kind of glad that they came back and kind of tested us, so now we have that under our belts, so when another team does that to us we know how to handle it."
After the jump we have all sorts of Cal stories from Bay Area newspapers, Minnesota papers, Cal bloggers, and Minnesota bloggers. We also have some rosy bowl predictions, Cal's updated rankings, and photos from yesterday's game. Tomorrow I'll have coverage of the rest of Cal sports' results.
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- Quotes from Minnesota's post-game press conference.
- Injury note: Nyan Boateng has broken his foot and will be out an unspecified amount of time.
- Cal has moved up to sixth in both the AP and coaches' polls. We're also 4th and 6th in the ESPN fan poll.. Both Mark Schlabach and Bruce Feldman predict a Cal-Penn St Rose Bowl. Feldman apparently thinks Maryland is good enough to make it to the Emerald Bowl this year.
- Jahvid's record-tying five touchdown performance earned one of Ted Miller's helmet stickers. Best played as well as Dr Saturday predicted, but it was Riley's performance that confirmed Cal's ability to contend seriously for the Pac-10 or even national title. What we learned in the Pac-10 this week, according to Ted Miller, is that Best is a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate.
- Ken Crawford podcasts his post-game thoughts. BearsWithFangs on what went well and not-so-well in yesterday's game. OskiTalk also looks back at yesterday's game.
- SFChronicle and CCTimes recap yesterday's game. JO has two reasons why this team is different from last year's: a solid passing game and the ability to make clutch plays on the road. The way the team won gave them a confidence boost according to Tedford and Best. Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel was impressed with the way the Bears responded to adversity. It sounds like the Bears are believers in their ability to meet the high expectations placed upon them.
- Minnesota's SBN blog Daily Gopher responds to the loss. The comments are a good illustration of a variety of responses Minnesota fans had to the game. Another fanpost has a look at how five game-defining factors played out.
- Minneapolis Star Tribune recaps the game. The Tribune looks at how Decker battled through the day. No one on the team will call it a moral victory, but in yesterday's loss Minnesota showed that they are a solid team. Two of Rileys 4th quarter passes sucked the life out of TCF Bank stadium.
- Photo galleries: from Cal, from ESPN/AP, and, best of all, Star Tribune's photos.