Golden Nuggets: UCLA's Pistol Fires Blanks Against the Cal Defense

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Tedford and Pendergast were obviously pleased with the defense after the game.  The offense, however, was another story.  

"The last six years I've been a defensive coordinator, we've always gone back and worked on the fundamentals within the defense during a bye week," said defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast. "We did that last week. We worked on gap-integrity, getting off blocks at every level of the defense and a lot of technique-type work. That night against Nevada, we didn't play with a lot of discipline. We didn't play with good gap integrity, and that was something that I felt like, during the bye week, it was more about us, not about who we played, who we're going to play, so we really focused on improving as a defense. We made some strides just in terms of doing those things better."
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"Reading your keys, trust, accountability; we meet as a whole defense, a lot, and we put peer pressure on guys and say, 'Look, this is your gap and you're not in it,' and we've got 30 guys sitting in the room there, and 29 of them can see that there's 10 out of the 11 on the field doing it right," Pendergast said of how he prepares the defense. "The peer pressure of those guys, having to be in the right spots and being accountable, is how you get it done."

When asked about the passing game, Tedford was surprisingly blunt:

"(Riley) needs to improve, and we need to improve as a pass offense," Tedford said. "We made some decisions that we need to get better with. He needs to throw the ball away when he can throw it away. He needs to complete balls. He didn't throw any interceptions, though, so he's smart with the football, and I would prefer that. But we need to improve in the passing game. We need to protect the passer a little bit better and we need to make sure that we're making good decisions and completing balls to guys who are open."
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"The defense just kept answering," Tedford said. "But, I was not pleased, at all, with the offense's production in the second half, and some of the things on special teams: a roughing-the-punter penalty, a fumbled punt return inside the five-yard line-those are just things you can't have happen, because they're going to come back to haunt you. The offensive play has to get better. The defense cannot be on the field for that long."

After the jump Cal rises in the Sagarin ratings, players and coaches from both sides talk about the game, several recruits attend the Cal-UCLA game, and the rest of Cal sports enjoys a successful weekend.

Football

• Cal is 9th in the Sagarin ratings.
• CalBears.com has more quotes from post-game, including comments from Kevin Riley, Mike Mohamed, Shane Vereen, and the UCLA coaches/players.  DailyCal has a few more quotes, including Mychal Kendricks saying his lifting tackle on Franklin is the kind of play he dreams about.
• What did we learn in the Pac-10 this week?  The middle of the conference is going to be very crowded.
• Shane Vereen and the Cal defense earned two of Ted Miller's Pac-10 helmet stickers this week.
• BearInsider has a score-by-score recap of the game as well as some post-game quotes.  JO posts his CCTimes recap of the game.
• Several recruits were present at the game (though they reportedly left after the first half).
• Darian Hagan's sacks were the first two of his football career (as long as he has played the game).
• Tedford was visibly frustrated with Riley after the game, particularly with Riley's inability to throw the ball away before being sacked and difficulty finding open receivers.
• Since he knows many members of the UCLA team, Shane Vereen was especially motivated to perform well.
• A product of West Oakland and son of a man incarcerated for about two decades, Derrick Hill came to Cal so he could serve as a role model to the youth of his community.  He wanted to stay close to home and give back to a city where it is easy to go down the wrong path in life.
• DJ Holt says football has finally started to slow down for him.  He sees the game differently than how he did in his first two years at Cal.
• Mitchell Schwartz emphasizes the mental aspect of football when he plays.  His calm, unwavering confidence prevents him from getting nervous while his high expectations for himself keep him motivated to excel at the highest level.