Bears and Hose, Hose and Bears: Cal vs. Presbyterian Football Game Day Open Thread

CAL WINS IT 63-12! THE BEARS ARE 3-0. CLICK HERE TO TALK ABOUT IT ON THE POSTGAME THREAD To look back at the Fourth Quarter Thread, click here.To look back at the Third Quarter Thread, click here.To look back at the Second Quarter Thread, click here. To look back at the First Quarter Thread, click hereAvi has in-game updates over at SB Nation Bay Area.

Wake up! It's gameday! Are you ready from some home-away-from-home Cal football?

Today is the "home" opener for the Cal football team, as the Bears take on the Presbyterian Blue Hose, a Division I-Football Championship Subdivision team from Clinton, South Carolina. The Blue Hose make their first trip to the west coast in the history of the program. But instead of enjoying the beautiful Strawberry Canyon setting of California Memorial Stadium, Presbyterian will take on the Bears at the beautiful bayside setting of AT&T Park in San Francisco, on a baseball field transformed into a gridiron.

Presbyterian comes into this game 1-1, losing a tough opener, 35-28 to Furman, a highly ranked FCS team, before rebounding last week for a 35-21 victory over North Greenville. Cal, meanwhile, is 2-0 after 36-21 and 36-33 (OT) wins against Fresno State and Colorado, respectively.

Can't go to the game? Can't do without watching the Bears and Hose get it on? CLICK HERE for Calbears.com All Access, which is streaming the game live. You can watch for the low, low price of $7.95. Seven dollars and ninety-five cents! In American money! I can't help but harken back to my college summer job at Costco in Richmond, where a cashier coworker of mine used to say at the end of each transaction, "It's a bargain at half that price!"

BUT WAIT! According to the venerable Redonkulous Bear, you may be able to watch the stream for free. FREE! As in, no cost!

Use promo code FREEMONTH10 when subscribing to the monthly subscription here:

http://www.calbears.com/allaccess/#

Enter stuff into internet, get free stream.

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This is your pregame thread. Get our your pregame swerve on here Watch here for links to the first, second, third, and fourth quarter threads as the game goes on.

Follow CGB on Twitter and Facebook: There are lots of CGBers at the game today, so look out for eyewitness tweets of the action from AT&T!

Some basic game info:

Cal Opens Home Schedule Against Presbyterian

Saturday, Sept. 17, 2:30 p.m. (PT)
Cal (2-0, 0-0 Pac-12) vs. Presbyterian (1-1, 0-0 Big South)
AT&T Park, San Francisco, CA

Live Coverage
TV: None
Live Stream: All Access
*Audio will be used from KGO 810 AM broadcast
Cal Commercial Radio: KGO 810 AM (San Francisco) - Joe Starkey (Play-By-Play), Troy Taylor (Analyst, Pregame Show), Todd McKim (Sideline Reporter, Pregame Show), Lee Grosscup (Postgame Show*), Kate Scott (Postgame Show*) *The Decks at Mission Rock, San Francisco, CA
IMG College/Cal Radio Network Affiliates: *KFPT 790 AM (Fresno), KESP 970 AM (Modesto), KPRZ 1210 AM (San Diego), KMZT 1260 AM (Los Angeles), KTKZ 1380 AM (Sacramento), ^KFIG 1430 AM (Fresno)
^Primary; *Secondary
All-Access Radio:The Cal commercial radio broadcast feed of the game can be heard on the Internet through the All-Access channel on CalBears.com. All-Access can be found under the Multimedia tab at the top of the page.
Cal Student Radio: KALX 90.7 FM, kalx.com (Berkeley) - Beni Shpringer (Play-By-Play), Jeff Anguis (Analyst), Josh Toyofuku (Analyst)
Sirius XM Satellite Radio:The home team's commercial radio broadcast feed of the game can be heard on Sirius XM satellite radio. The channel for the Cal home feed of the Cal-Presbyterian game is Sirius 139.

CalBears.com:Visit CalBears.com for complete coverage of Cal football, including a live play-by-play update via Gametracker.

Are you dying to know more about what we can expect from the Presbyterian Blue Hose this afternoon? Your intrepid CGB writers have what you need to know.

norcalnick previews the Presbyterian defense:

Against the run

2010 stats: 228 yards/game, 120/125 FCS teams. 5.1 yards/carry

Yikes. While I do think Presbyterian has improved a good deal from last year's 2-9 record, it would take a huge leap forward to make those numbers less ugly. And unfortunately for Presbyterian, both Wofford and North Greenville averaged over 5 yards a carry on the ground. Like I said above, Presbyterian just doesn't look like they have the team speed to stop teams from gashing them for big games on the outside, and that's against non-BCS type talent. Remember Keenan Allen against UC Davis last year? I would anticipate it being kinda like that again.

Against the pass

2010 stats: 163.7 yards/game, 15/125 FCS teams. 6.83 yards/attempt

I was shocked to see these stats, which are downright above average. The yardage total is a little low, likely because teams didn't have to pass the ball much last year after building big leads against the rebuilding Blue Hose, but the yards/attempt number is average and it indicates that Presbyterian has some solid players in the secondary with the discipline to break up some passes and the speed to prevent frequent big plays.

Make of it what you will, but the Blue Hose held Wake Forest's passing attack pretty well in check, with QB Ted Stachitas around a 50% completion rate, with his backups looking much worse. Granted, I'd like to think that Maynard is a much better QB than anything Wake Forest can throw out there. But the bottom line is that, based purely on the stats, the Presbyterian secondary might be a pretty not awful test for Maynard, and more importantly and Cal back-ups that might see playing time. Hell, Clemson's backup quarterback last year couldn't complete half his passes either.

And ManBearCal sums up the Presbyterian offense. Here's his take on the Presby offensive line, which is a veteran unit:

STARTERS

LT: Tim Fowler, Sophomore (RS) - 6'2, 270 lbs
LG: James Festa, Sophomore (RS) - 6'2, 275 lbs
C: Blake Dowd, Senior - 6'5, 295 lbs
RG: Billy Kaylor, Senior (RS) - 6'4, 279 lbs
RT: Max Travis, Senior - 6'3, 280 lbs

This is the most seasoned group on the Presby offense, and the right side of the line is especially battle-tested. Travis is a preseason all Big South selection, and he's played in every game since 2008 (he played a mere 8 games that year). He's a versatile guy who they currently have at RT. RG Billy Kaylor has played in every game since 2008, save one last year. Center Blake Dowd started every game last year too. On the left side, Fowler and Festa got a good amount of playing time last year, but aren't quite as proven as their three counterparts. This group does a pretty good job up front, specifically in the run game. They aren't really asked to do a lot in pass protection since the QB typically is getting rid of the ball quickly. My generous assessment? This line reminds me of Nevada; undersized but pretty disciplined in blocking schemes. They've surrendered three sacks in two games.

Upside: "Fight? Against that? No! We will run. And we will live"...experience, run blocking

Downside: Size

What to expect:

This line saw 3-4 defenses in its first two games, but they were a lot bigger than the defensive linemen of Wofford and NGU. That won't be the case on Saturday. I'm praying Moala gets extended PT this weekend. This won't be a total cakewalk for the front 7 though. This group is pretty good. At least, they seemed to be against Wofford and North Greenville. Worth noting that this OL did give up 32 sacks in 2010 and I HOPE we would be the toughest defense they face this year. We should be able to push these guys around. Still, don't be surprised if they have some success if (really when) we start subbing some less experienced guys in.

There you go. Everything you wanted to know about the Presbyterian Blue Hose, and more.

Enjoy the game. GO BEARS!