Hey these ladies look happy! Maybe we didn't do so bad after all!
Quarterback: 0.9722 (D)
Running back: 1.713 (C-)
Receivers: 0.7160 (D-)
Run Blocking: 0.8333 (D)
Pass Protection: 0.4290 (F)
Run Defense: 1.086 (D)
Pass Rush: 0.7191 (D-)
Pass Defense: 0.5093 (D-)
Special Teams: 1.779 (C-)
Coaching: 0.3302 (F)
Overall: 0.3611 (F)
Shit.
Let's start with your awesome game day experiences. Have anything cool at all happen this Saturday?
California Pete: No.
BeastMode: None.MadBum: I watched in horror. Not cool
atomsareenough: the rest of my day was pretty shitty as well, thanks for asking.
Kai: Sitting in front of my TV laughing incredulously at how badly Cal was getting beat
bluehenbear: Gouging out my eyes with an ice pick.
rollonubears: I watched my favorite team get castrated on the field. I guess that can be counted as a cool experience. Never thought I would see a castration. Definitely never thought I would see one on National TV. Guess I can cross that off the list of "Things I never ever ever ever ever want to see".
GBB4188: As I write this Cal and USC are tied with Wazzu for last in the Pac. Cool stuff.
sec119: After the game was over, I walked my dog. He's a great dog. I wish Cal had played Oregon as well as my dog plays being a dog.
ohsooso: Well, the women's volleyball game is about to air on TV. Since we know the outcome, it's bound to be a cool experience.
ohlordshootmenow: God no.
rollonyoubearsdad: Shame... All I got to say is redeem yourselves next week!
Kodiak: Can't really use "cool experience" in the same context as this game. Much beer was consumed. It did not help.
YleeXOtee: Cool Experience? Yes, if its cool that my 3 year old watched me curl up in the fetal position on the couch with a beer and cry uncontrollably.
HOUSE66: With another cal fan, drinking more and more as the game went on, ever since being in permanent state of depression.katster: Sitting numbly in front of my television and providing two-thirds of the comments on Ken Crawford's site.
slaphancock: My buddy and I liveblogged the whole thing!
bearathustra: I watched the game on the back deck of the Washington Hotel. Built in 1857 in Washington, Ca.,the deck overlooks the South Yuba River and between plays I was able to watch trout jump and feed about 25 feet below me. Little micro hatch of calabatas or some such. Would have been really enjoyable if.................
vonjewstein: WASTED MONEY FLYING UP TO WATCH THESE A-HOLES BUT THE WEATHER WAS NICE AND BURGERVILLE IS GREAT
berkeleychris: Can I invoice Jeff Tedford for the HDTV I broke while watching that absolute shitfest of a performance by our team?
WTFFFFFFF!!!!!: Spent the day talking to friends about the epic beatdown while drowning myself in a choking sense of ennui.
racsan: I'm just going to cry myself to sleep :(
jelster26: no
Manwich: Pounding my head, and getting commiserations from other football fans whose teams had lost this Bloody Saturday.
MavRIck: Drank too much to drown the sower of being embarassed by an inferior team.Brian Anderson: Just being a Cal fan and staying with the team from kick-off to the final second is a cool experience. Win or lose.
highwireact: The only cool experience on Saturday was turning off the television when the game was over.
1988goldenbear: Listened to the first half on the ADF enroute from Fullerton to Hayward in a Cessna 182. Almost had to use the airsickness bag. More than once.
Berkelium97: The "fire Tedford" camp is really, really, really annoying. Same with that "next level" nonsense. Has any other team in the Pac-10 made it to the "next level" since Pete Carroll arrived? Nope. Tedford is not the problem.
polarbear91: I did a trail run in the morning.
royrules22: From the "who needs a hug" thread:
I woke up at 3AM, got ready got into the car at 4AM, entered the address for a parking lot in Eugene into my GPS and it said it would take me 10 hours to get there. WTF?! I looked at the step-by-step directions and it was telling me to go to Seattle (from Bellevue where I’m at), take 1-5 N to Vancouver, take a u-turn and drive back to Eugene. WTF!? I asked it to skip the I-5 N part and it gave me a more sensible 5:30 direction which asked me to go into Seattle and then swing back down. At this point, I ran back in, turned on my PC, looked at Google Maps and went like a normal person down south and merging with I-5S near Renton instead of Seattle.
And then I witnessed the worst fucking game of football that was played.
And then I drove back with traffic jams near Eugene, Corvallis, Salem, Portland, Tacoma and Bellevue. It was 10:30PM when I finally went to bed. What a long day.
Sounds like a blast!
Let's move onto commenter awards (most rational, most homerific, most dour), and the best of the community grades after the jump. (And if nothing else, check out Cal Bear Online's awesome photos interspersed in between the comments, some of them will even make you smile).
Thanks to the following commenters and readers for participating in this sobering duty:
California Pete, BeastMode, omnizzle, sycasey, MadBum, atomsareenough, Kai, sf49giants, bluehenbear, rollonubears, CaliforniaCMB, GBB4188, sec119, Berkelium97, ohsooso, F, rurata, ohlordshootmenow, iVinshe, slaphancock, wayangila, angelsfan, rollonyoubearsdad, Kodiak, YleeXOtee, blueandgoldrollon, Cf251, LEastCoastBears, katster, coolingfan, jporee, Oski4Heisman, HOUSE66, bearathustra, vonjewstein, jsnell, berkeleychris, WTFFFFFFF!!!!!, avsrock90, racsan, jelster26, Oski's my Dad, Manwich, MavRlck, D-, yorzepol, Brian Anderson, highwireact, 1988goldenbear, beson, royrules22, AnonyCal, polarbear91, Oaklandishbear
Steven Chu (Golden Rationality) Award
Cheers for you! Too bad Takimoto didn't participate in this.
| Commenter/alias name | Total standard deviation |
| Kodiak | 1.261 |
| racsan | 1.326 |
| blueandgoldrollon | 1.463 |
| bluehenbear | 1.469 |
| HOUSE66 | 1.490 |
Rationality is always appreciated, especially after this type of performance. The ever prescient Kodiak gets it this week. Here's his full report card!
Quarterback (C-): Didn't get any help. Missed some throws, but was running for his life all day. Delivered some decent balls that got dropped. WR's didn't show up. Oline owes him dinner and should all donate some blood for him. Put in a tough spot by the gameplan and play calls. Proved that he's not good enough to carry a team. May not ever be that guy.
Running back (C): Did sort of okay against a swarming D that sold out to stop the run. Didn't get too many chances. No holes. Lack of an air attack made it really tough.
Receivers (D): Tucker might have singlehandedly changed the outcome of this game between his early drop and then idiotic taunt that negated pass interference. Both of those brain-farts killed drives that might have led to TD's. Someone needs to run his *ss this week until he pukes. Didn't really see much out of this unit.
Run blocking (D): Didn't open holes. Missed key blocks. Did have to run against a stacked front...but didn't get anything going.
Pass Protection (D-): Tepper got abused by Rowe. Not going to be a good time in the film room. Riley's lucky to escape uninjured and without any picks.
Run Defense (D): Didn't do too bad early, but got gashed and abused later on. Outside backers had a really rough day.
Pass Rush (D): Non-existent.
Pass Defense (F): Leave it to the Bears to re-ignite the Scud Man, Masoli.
Special Teams (C): Would have been nice if Anger could have pinned them deep when he had the chance. Decent KR returns, better distance and coverage on kicks. Complete fail on their early 2-pt conversion...gee...almost like they weren't coached properly.
Coaching (F): Worst performance of the Tedford era. Outprepared and outcoached on both sides. Offense was predictable and did not account for what we all knew - Oregon would sell out to stop the run and dare Riley to pass. Defense did what three teams couldn't do - leave enough obvious openings to get Masoli back in rhythm.
Overall (D): Reminded me of pre-Tedford days. Pretty miserable, but if this is the kick in the pants that the coaches and players need to buckle in from here, I'm all for it. It's a long season and this year suggests more parity than in past years. Knock of 'sc and we're back in it.
Golden Sunglasses Award
Maybe this guy was our coach this week.
| Commenter/alias name | Average score (out of 4) |
| coolingfan | 2.100 |
| Manwich | 2.061 |
| CaliforniaCMB | 2.030 |
| wayangila | 1.545 |
| D- | 1.500 |
coolingfan is your winner here! We need all the optimism we can get, and this grader gives the Ducks a lot of credit for the win. Here are some of the best marks.
Running Back (B): Jahvid gets an average grade because we can't evaluate his performance -- he never had a chance.
Pass Rush (B-): Probably deserves a worse grade than this, but Oregon's O-line deserves a lot of credit. Masoli had all kinds of time and space to work with.
Special Teams (A): They are the only reason why we have 3 points, not 0.
Overall (C): Frustrating!
But I know the team will bounce back. Go Bears!
Old Blue Award
These commenters want refunders, names, Commies, you name it. It's a Gold Scare!
| Commenter/alias name | Average score (out of 4) |
| atomsareenough (T-1st) | 0 |
| BeastMode (T-1st) | 0 |
| MadBum (T-1st) | 0 |
| sf49giants (T-1st) | 0 |
| rollonyoubearsdad | 0.091 |
Wow. Four bagels. Never thought I'd see that during the Tedford era.
sf49giants didn't leave any comments, so we'll look at the other three. atomsareenough summed it up in his overall thoughts.
worst game i have seen in the tedford era. simply embarrassing. shameful. everything about this game was horrible; oregon's 2 point conversion, the 4th down conversions, easy oregon 1st down after easy oregon 1st down all day long, THREE points scored total by our offense, not taking advantage of our early opportunities with oregon turnovers. everything about this game was pathetic and disgusting.
BeastMode's report card comments were something to behold in terms of simplicity and frankness.
QB: Shitty.
RB: Shitty.
WR: Shitty....
Special teams: Shitty
Coaching: Really Shitty. (It should be noted Beast Mode didn't give an F here, but an FFFFFFFFFF)
Technically MadBum had the worst grades, since he was handing out F-s rather than Fs, but they're all zeros here. Anyway, this probably was the best insight he handed out.
RB (F-): I don't care
It should be noted that all of these grades were submitted about an hour or so after the game concluded. Maybe I should consider postponing Grading the Bears on occasions when Cal loses by 39 to Sunday.
Grades by position.
Most people agreed on the overall grade, with a standard deviation of 0.5624. You can probably figure out why.
For the fourth week in a row, most people disagreed on the special teams, with a standard deviation of 1.143. Mostly because our graders were confused as to whether they were good or bad. No such problem with almost every other unit.
Even in defeat, there were a lot of good opinions, too many to pick from, and I tried my best to moderate the most irrational posts out. That being said, 42-3 is hard to cover up. Tried my best. I'm really sorry if I left off any of your comments, please let me know and I'll try to straighten it out next week.
Quarterback
Brian Anderson (D): QB Kevin Riley lost composure late in the 1st quarter due to dropped passes, poor play calling and an overwhelmed offensive line. Kevin then began trying too hard, forcing throws and making poor decisions. Kevin is a good athlete in a scheme that does not take advantage of his mobile skills and he may never be a great pocket passer in a system that does not have great recievers.
highwireact (D): I haven't had the heart to go back and rewatch the game, but my initial impression was that he held the ball too long, was off on many of his throws, and wasn't picking out the right man to throw to. Of course, he got little help from the line or the receivers, so I couldn't fail him completely.
Running back
polarbear91 (D): The running game will not be effective if the passing game is not a credible threat.
ohsooso (C): Considering the offensive line play, the running backs were okay...RUNNING. Best is supposed to be a good blocker but I saw him at least once go up inside to block no one while the defensive end blew right by.
jsnell (C): The stats make it look terrible, but is it the running backs' fault that the offensive line blocked terribly and the play calling failed to use them properly? I didn't think so.
MavRIck (C-): Where was it? Bring on the backups to spark the starters to compete with enthusiasm. Cal has the best in Best, but didn't use him properly. The running game sets up the passing game, not vice a versa. Best needs to hit the holes and keep running like he wants it...He showed slowness in the Minnesota game after the first quarter and continued through the Oregon game, he is not a Heisman candidate with his lack of intensity displayed.
F (C+): Hard to grade when it seemed that the Oregon D was reading almost every play, but there were many whiffs in pass blocking and very little in the way of breaking tackles, arm tackles at that.
yorzepol (C): The Ducks did a fantastic job of containing Jahvid. I can't and wont blame him for his short yardage, there was only one occasion I can remember where he had a hole and slipped for a loss where he could have had a gain. He is still the best running back I've ever seen at Cal, the O-line just did not do their jobs in getting him the blocks he needed. The reason I gave him a C is that he whiffed on blocks all day and left Riley exposed pass after pass.
Receivers
beson (D-): I don't know if its poor playcalling, poor routes, bad balls, or what, but why can't Cal just make the "easy throws" like quick slants and what not? Is it just because that's not our offense? In the Maryland game, I loved the quick slants to Jones, what happened to those?
Cf251 (F+): I guess in a real grading system the + doesn't mean anything for a fail, but I'm going to give them a plus for catching some passes and raising our hopes once or twice that we might score a touchdown. Other than that, they failed.
WTFFFFFFF!!!!! (D-): More Offensive ineptitude. Stop jawing and get back to work.
royrules22 (F): First and foremost I have special request to Verran Tucker to NOT TAUNT WHEN THE OPPOSING PLAYER GETS FLAGGED FOR PASS INTERFERENCE. We would've have been at the 2yd line (Editor's note: it would've been a 15 yard penalty, NFL rules for PI do not apply) and probably could've punched in the ball for a TD and the game would've been a little bit closer.
Other than that the recievers were shoddy. No separation from what is supposed to be the weakest secondary in the conference (wazzu aside), dropping the balls, poor blocking for Best and Vereen, etc.berkeleychris (C-): Largely absent throughout most of the game, they appeared out of sync with Riley and out of focus with the game. Tucker made some huge plays but also missed some plays. The most frustrating thing about our wide receiver corps is that we know the talent is there but they just aren't clicking. My, how far we've come from the days of having a dangerous passing attack that would make opposing defenses have to pick their poison: stop the run or stop the pass. Now all defenses have to do is sell out to stop the run and our ineptitude in the passing game takes care of the rest. Let's just hope Pete Carroll wasn't watching today's game.
jelster26 (F): disgusting. terrible. ive taken shits with more life than our recievers exhibited today. from verrans drop on the early crossing pattern (scared of a DB 6 yards away??), jones letting them hit his hands, ross getting called for multiple bubble screens against an 8 and 9-man box? really? who let the writers from HOUSE playcall the offense---too predictable, too little to late (but i do love house).
Run blocking
California Pete (F): Worst offensive-line performance by a Tedford-coached team. Ever.
rollonyoubearsdad (F): Swiss cheese
GBB4188 (C-): Best and Vereen were hit in the backfield on numerous occasions, how can we expect them to produce if they are forced to make great plays just to reach the LoS?
berkleychris (D): The O-line appeared overmatched, and the downfield blocking was notably absent. To be fair, a lot of this is on the defensive scheme, which was designed to minimize the impact of Best by stacking the box. But our O-line ought to be able to make some holes and least give us 3-4 yards per carry. Alas, they seemed unable to do so.
bluehenbear (F): I'm speechless.
LEastCoastBears (D): Where were the holes?
Pass protection
Berkelium97 (F): Running backs and the O-line couldn't stop the rush. Riley must have been hit on every pass attempt in the first drive of the third quarter. Best is turning into a liability out there. Sure he's small and isn't great at tackling/blocking, but sometimes defenders run right past him as if he didn't even see them coming.
YleeXOtee (F-): If they are keying on the run, how is there also pressure on the QB ALL game long. Not to mention they ran screens up the ying yang which is supposed to help relieve pressure, but nooooo
katster (F): Riley just didn't have any time back there. Not sure if that was scheme or Oline or receivers, but it was bad. Since I failed the receivers, I'm failing the pass protection too.
racsan (F): MEGA F! This was the reason our offense died. You cannot allow a four man rush to get to your QB in TWO seconds EVERY TIME. And when they blitzed, I feared for Riley's health. Words cannot describe how bad our O-line was today.
sycasey (F): Total breakdown. Oregon recognized our weakness against the blitz and pounded at it all game long. You'd think our OL had never seen a blitz before.
ohlordshootmenow (F----): Jesus wept.
Run defense
sycasey (D+): This was actually looking good early on, as we seemed to recognize the option plays quickly and react to them. Once Masoli showed he had learned how to pass, though, it didn't matter, and the run D broke down.
rollonubears (C-): Alualu is the only reason Cal does not get straight F's. I actually think this wasn't too bad at their best, but they were completely worn out because of the giant shit that the offense laid on the field. Plus, if you run it 52 times, eventually you are going to get a lot of yards. This grade is relative to the team.
Fail (to a lesser extent).yorzepol (C+): I though we actually did well considering that Masoli ran the Duck offense perfectly. There was very little the Bears could do to stop the run when the pass was working so well. That being said, there were many runs that could have been stopped for a short gain or a loss IF THE DEFENDERS WOULD HAVE WRAPPED THE RUNNER UP. I haven't seen such lackadaisical tackling from the Bears in a long time. Duck were bouncing off tacklers for 10 extra yards too often for a better grade. The only reason this isn't lower is the excellent play of Alualu, he was the saving grace of an otherwise pitiful Cal effort.
Kai (C): Pretty solid in the first quarter, due to continual good penetration in the backfield. Eventually got worn down due to a good passing game and staying on the field too long. Lots of missed tackles.
royrules22 (F): How did our D-line that was supposed to be one of the best in the conference if not country get pushed around by the same O-line that got crapped on by Boise? This is an inexperienced O-line and the RB was the 2nd stringer earlier in the year.
Oski's my Dad (D): At least early in the game, the run D seemed to be holding up, forcing Oregon into third down situations in which they could then victimize the porous pass d with a wide open Dickson. And then Oregon's young backs started seeing some day light and racked up a whole lot of yards. I'm not sure if they were on the field too long or they just didn't have the heart any more, but after a while they were just getting pushed around like Rishi as a HS freshman.
Pass rush
Manwich (C-): No pressure on Masoli, this is one of the few times where I feel the 3-4 doesn't do it's job. The front 3 weren't getting through and somehow the corners and safeties weren't covering their men. That gave a really shaky Masoli enough time to make the reads and find the open man. I kind of want us to switch to the 4-3 like most college teams just to have an extra man for pressure.
bluehenbear (F): We make another pedestrian QB look like a freekin all American. No pressure.
GBB4188 (F): Masoli was back there eating crumpets and reading the funnies.
iVinshe (F): If I had as much time to study ochem as Masoli had behind his O-line, I think I would actually pass the class.
ohlordshootmenow (F): Masoli doesnt have to wash his uniform this week.
1988goldenbear (F): Never seemed to get heat on Masoli and Oregon's game plan with the quick short hits never allowed for much of a rush.
Pass defense
Even Oski is shocked and appalled!
ohsooso (F): Worst game by the secondary since Tedford has been coach....even worse than Texas Tech. Our "star," SQT, made multiple egregious coverage errors. Ezeff's (editor's correction: Josh Hill) fumble after recovering a Duck fumble was beyond stupid, and was one of the three magic plays that lost the game early. The linebackers are utterly worthless in coverage and boy howdy is it now apparent how much we miss Zack.
berkeleychris (F): Cal's DBs (especially the safeties) are going to have nightmares about Ed Dickson for at least a few months. It's almost like our coaching staff decided that it was just not fuggin' possible for Oregon to throw the ball well so we're not even going to try to defend it today. You know what, let's just take the day off, grab a drink, kick back and OH GOD DICKSON JUST TOOK IT TO THE HOUSE
highwireact (F): This doesn't all go on the players. The scheme we were playing would have been fine if Masoli was still having problems hitting his receivers - but he wasn't. Adjustments needed to be made and they weren't, allowing Masoli to toy with our defense.
rurata (D): I don't know if Masoli was just throwing perfect passes all day or what, but our D wasn't able to do anything to stop him.
Oski's my Dad (F): Another area I would like to give a grade lower than an F. Masoli completed over 80% of his passes. That's insane for a guy who isn't very tall and has a bit of a scatter shot arm. But he had hours to make his reads and passes, and had receivers who found nice holes in the zones. For the second week in a row the opposing teams best player was a huge factor. With Decker, I could at least tip my cap to him and say he had a great game. With Dickson, while his stats were awesome, he was so wide open on so many occasions, how could he not have a good game? It was just shameful
slaphancock (F): Our zone looked as porous as the local pubescent Burger King employee.
Special Teams
jsnell (C): That first field goal to put Cal up 3-0? Man, that was AWESOME. Good times. I had to shut my TV off after that but I assume Cal went on to win 300-2.
Oaklandishbear (B-): D'Amato gets a bit of extra credit for the 47-yd FG, and being the only Bear to score. Nice turnover on the opening kick, kick-offs were better, and Shane had some good returns.
The only drag on the grade is really Anger's sub-par punting, and poor coverage/lack of luck on potentially downing a couple of punts inside the 5.Berkelium97 (B+): Best unit of the day! I cannot believe it, but we were kicking into the endzone, covering the returners (how about Sofele's fumble-creating hit!), and generally not sucking. Vereen was on the returns and set us up for what should have been several successful scoring drives. D'Amato barely missed a 40-something yarder but was impressive with that 47yd FG. Anger had a case of the Tavecchios and seriously muffed a couple punts, but that was the only major flaw today.
F (D): Only the kickoff returns prevented this from being a F...every single other aspect was poor, punting was terrible - arguably Anger's worst game ever - punt returns were pretty much an incomplete; gave up the trick 2-point conversion; 1-2 on field goals.
Cf251 (A-): Not perfect, but I'm going to grade on a curve here, and special teams was stellar compared to the rest of the team. Personally, I'll take our solid offense and defense back in exchange for a mediocre special teams. I mean, really, the special teams put us in position on the first play of the game to start with a lead, and the offense lost yardage! Good thing wee hit that 47 yd field goal.
GBB4188 (C): I don't know where to peg this one. The kickoffs are definitely improved from where they were, so that's good. Anger had 4? great punts that I remember and 2 horrible shanks (his latter shank would actually put him at a pretty average punt for an average punter). However, the punt coverage team failed to down 2 punts that were inside the 5, so it's pretty much a moot point. Missed a long but not impossible FG, a clutch kicker would have made that. Made another. I'm going with "meh"
Coaching
sycasey (F): Not ready to play, no adjustments to Oregon's smart gameplan. Played the same zone coverages on D and got picked apart all game long. Hard to say how good the offensive playcalling was with all the terrible blocking up front. Bottom line, we should not have been dominated at the line against Oregon, but we were; that's lack of preparation, and on the coaches.
atomsareenough (F-): we weren't at ALL ready to play today, and when it was quite apparent from the outset that we needed to adjust the gameplan, we didn't. whatever adjustments we made at halftime were completely useless, and there was no fight or spirit from the team at all. you could tell chip kelly was pumped for this game; even when they were up by 30 points he was yelling and bouncing around... our whole team was just flat and looked like they didn't want to be there.
jporee (F): Very tired of Tedford not getting the bears ready for a big game. This is especially frustrating when he is essentially asking fans to go into their wallets for 4x as much cash for tickets. If I'm going to pay that much for the new seats, put a good product on the field or at least a group of guys that give a sh*t.
HOUSE66 (F-): Hate to say it, and its probably cause im still bitter, but Tedford isn't going to be the guy to get us to the next level. Today just proves that hes the kind of guy that will win you a couple mildly big games, but never win the big one and choke when the pressures on. Ludwig finally showed us what everyone was telling us, that hes predictable as ever, and our offense was worse than it was last year. What was our game plan? Adjustments? Piss poor the entire game.
Brian Anderson (D): The coaches showed up but did not adjust well on offense or defense. There must be reason Cal performs poorly on the road and maybe coaching is part of it. In the Oregon game the coaches apparently were out coached and therefore could not help the players who were outplayed.
sec119 (F): Ludwig's playcalling was slight variations of runs through the tackles, with an occasional playaction. THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO MITIGATE STUFFING THE BOX BESIDE A PLAYACTION!
Gregory's 3-4 was essentially slight variations of getting confused who has the ball and giving up 4 yards at a time. Tedford's motivation and attention to detail were quite the opposite.MavRIck (D): Coaches: Fire up your players!!!!! They are playing like pros, going through the motions, with no Emotion!!!! This is college ball, they should be fired up and enjoying the game. Let them play. You got beat by an inferior team, because the Ducks wanted it more!!! That is what wins college games - Emotion and motivation!!!! These are college kids, not robots that can be programmed to perform as instructed. The coaches better know that is their most important purpose - know how to get in the college kids heads to be motivated, excited, and want to win the game from start to finish!!! The kids know how to play the game, they want to win, they want to excel, let them, encourage them to let it all hang out and leave it on the field!!!!
After the kickoff fumble, Cal should of ran the ball down the Ducks throat and scored a convincing touchdown to establish their dominance and intent to win the game because they are the best team. Instead, the Ducks survived and showed the Bears they wanted it more and continued their dominance for the rest of the game. No adjustments the coaches provided worked, therefore, they failed in properly preparing the players for the game and did not have them properly motivated to come out, establish your superiority and dominate the game. Last year's excuse in Maryland holds no water now, it is obvious the coaches lack motivating the players to came into a game and play with their hearts and enjoy the love of the game!
Overall
California Pete (F): Horrible. The only good news is that the next two games offer an opportunity to turn this thing around very quickly. I no longer think this team is near as good as I thought they were this morning. But I'm also quite sure this team is not near as bad as it displayed today. A victory over USC in seven days, especially if followed by a defeat of the Bruins after the bye week, would quickly ease the pain of this one.
CaliforniaCMB (C): I think they tapped into our phone/communications system and knew what we were going to run because DAMN! we got handled from snap to whistle.
LEastCoastBears (F): Hard to find any silver lining from this game except we are hopefully physically healthy to bounce back. Now we get to play the underdog role again next week vs. U$C.
racsan (F): I came to Cal in 2006, not knowing anything about college sports. So the loss at Tennessee didn't do me much harm. But I grew to love my Cal Bears. I am one of those youngin's that hasn't witnessed the pain of the years of futility, but I can still fell the pain of crumbling dreams. I try to temper my expectations, but its damn hard when everyone around you is bursting with excitement.
I was there for every home game in 2007, and I never thought I'd feel more shocked and disappointed than OSU. More frustrated than USC. More embarrassed than UW. More shameful than Stanfurd. But damn this loss hurt.
It only counts as one L though, and the Pac-10 is still wide open.Oski's my Dad (F): Embarrassing. Ultimately, it is one game, and if this was pro football instead of college football, it would be easier to brush off. But nationally televised embarrassments like this can impact future rankings and recruiting, IF, the season does not turn around. I think the big question is how this team reacts and responds to this game. What I saw today was a team that seemed to think that because it was the 2009 version of those guys with Cal written on their helmet, that things were going to fall into place. And after the quick start, they just seemed shell shocked that everything else didn't come as easily. And instead of responding, digging in their heels, and putting in some serious fight, they went through the motions and just got punished. This team so far this year has done things close enough to good, with things falling their way, that they have appeared better than what their performances really showed. And this week, that simply didn't cut it. Because when you do things close to good or close to perfect, but not perfect, then those flaws show against better competition. They were out coached, out hustled, out physicalled, out executed, out everything.
It's up to the team to show heart in working to run routes crisper, catch everything that hits them, make the proper reads, set all the necessary blocks, tackler, cover, coach, blah blah blah exactly as they are supposed to, not simply close to how they are supposed to. At that point, the results will live up to the potential. If not, it will be probably a bigger disappointment than previous seasons, simply because of the talent and the promise.yorzepol (D+): Let's have a little perspective here, Masoli basically had the game of his life; I don't think anyone could have beaten the Ducks that day. Also, I said last week that I thought we were overrated at #8 (that was before the polls came out.) It was also highly unlikely that Cal could have navigated the Pac-10 gauntlet unscathed. That being said, I we gave a very poor effort and made the Ducks look better than they really are. I still think that Cal is a contender for the Pac-10 crown and that this could be the best chance we have of going to the Rose Bowl for a long time. Can the Bears regroup in time for U$C? If we do well in the next few games that will determine our season, not the Oregon debacle.
beson (F): As an alumni from the Holmoe era, I've experience the worst of the worst, but at least back then, we knew the team was bad. All my friends, other Holmoe victims, were very pessimistic coming in to this game but I told them the night before, this is a different team. Tedford is handling things different this year. We are taking everything seriously.
Well apparently not. This loss was the most embarrassing loss I've ever witnessed. The way we just gave up and died is inconceivable.