Academic Probation: 115th Big Game Report Card

We're eight weeks into the season. This is the fourth game that was a complete failure. These are the kinds of performances that get one kicked out of Cal, or at the very least placed on academic probation. Anymore screwups from Mr. Tedford and he's not going to be allowed to register next semester.

Category	Average Score	Standard Deviation
Pass offense	.198	.174
Rush offense	.049	.108
Pass defense	.452	.221
Rush defense	.342	.226
Special teams	.504	.215
Coaching	.133	.181
Overall	.152	.147
Win probability vs. Utah	40.2% (-14.6%)	.205

Each season I think I've seen the worst for these report cards. In 2009 there was that Oregon disaster followed by the implosion against USC. And for good measure there was that joyful trip to Seattle. In 2010 we had the USC game and the Oregon State game and the Stanford game and the UW game (man, 2010 sucked). In 2011 we suffered through that awful, awful UCLA game.

While we didn't completely faceplant in every single category, we did manage to earn the lowest score I have ever seen, a .049 for the running game. 3 yards?! I can't blame y'all. I gave rushing offense a big, fat goose egg in my report card.

The scores for defense weren't that bad, considering they were on the field for over 37 minutes.

Coaching nearly earned the worst marks of the season (thank goodness for that ASU game, right?).

Not surprisingly our win probability against Utah took a dive. Star Lotuleilei's draft stock has a good chance of rising this week.

Editor's Choice Awards:

Fortunately, this week's report cards were far more entertaining than that horrible game. As a result, we have plenty of awards this week!

Our first award is the Once More, With Feeling! award for the following ballot:

Name	Fire Tedford
Pass offense	Fire Tedford!
Rush offense	FIRE TEDFORD!
Pass defense	FIRE TEDFORD!!
Rush defense	FIRE TEDFORD!!!
Special teams	FIRE TEDFORD!!!!
Coaching	FIRE TEDFORD!!!!!
Overall	FIRE TEDFORD!!!!!!
Win probability vs. Stanford	FIRE TEDFORD!!!!!!!

Each response was more vigorous than the last. Keep in mind, this report card was submitted on Saturday, so his "Fire Tedford"s have grown exponentially louder and more forceful. By now Fire Tedford is working on a "FIRE TEDFORD" sign that can be seen from space.

Next we have the It was Everything We Imagined, But Worse award for VandyImport whose grade for the coaches was "-i"

Finally we have the Steve Marshall Award for Incompetence in Trolling for a Stanfurd fan who is so embarrassed to be associated with his school that he declined to leave a name. The Bears earned perfect scores in every category with this ballot, but let's focus on the comments.

Name	<None given>
Gameday experience	Please keep Tedford!
Pass offense comments	I am in favor of it.
Run offense comments	They say football's a game of inches.
Pass defense comments	I suspect Ertz still has Cal defenders five to twenty yards away from him, yet curiously unwilling to close distance, at all times.
Run defense comments	That...was defense?
Special teams comments	No trolling: pretty good!
Coaching comments	Hey, keep Tedford on for as long as possible. Or we'll hire him as our skill-players-recruiting-and-evaluation consultant. Either's cool with me.
Overall comments	I'm sure you can guess.

Now THAT is some grade-school-level trolling. This demonstrates neither the incredible subtlety nor the extreme, over-the-top comments that are key to trolling. What does this guy think trolling is, a game? Actually it is a game: you troll or you die.

Let us not linger too long on such an embarrassing display; we have our usual awards to hand out.

Tedford's Sunshine Pumpers:

Tedford's Sunshine Pumpers	Total Score	Percentage
1. tedford4life	4.70	67.14%
2. DingoSean	3.20	47.14%
3. VermontBear	3.00	45.71%
4. jt92	3.00	45.71%
5. FiatSlug	2.80	42.86%

You know things are bad when the Sunshine Pumpers are giving scores below 50%.

Old Blues:

Old Blues	Total Score	Precentage
1. rollonyoubears111	0.00	0.00%
1. SoCal Oski	0.00	0.00%
1. c98	0.00	0.00%
1. btbear	0.00	0.00%
5. Calfan4ever	0.001	0.00%

rollonyoubears111 is getting quite comfortable among the Old Blues and earns this award for the fourth time this season. Welcome back to the Old Blues, SoCal Oski! Aren't you glad this game wasn't on the Pac-12 Network? I was surprised only four submissions were all 0s.

Finally we have The Voice of Reason, which goes to those whose grades were closest to the community average.

The Voice of Reason:

The Voice of Reason	Deviation
1. HydroTech	0.056
2. Old Bear 71	0.070
3. 1988goldenbear	0.076
4. unclesam22	0.078
5. FiatLux	0.083

For the second consecutive week Hydro earns a VoR award. This time he launched to the top of the list and had a huge advantage over second place. You're so reasonable, Hydro. And dreamy. Mostly dreamy.

Now let's see what y'all had to say about last week's game. Thanks to JahvidKnowsBest for reading through all the comments and selecting these. It couldn't have been easy.

Comments

Gameday Experience

Oski Disciple: Gameday experience? We lost the friggin' Big Game so the game day experience was awful. Terrible. It sucked. Really, really bad.
I will say that the band and the student section were both awesome. The student section hung in there and were louder and more enthusiastic late in the 4th quarter that Snodfart's.

Rose Bowl Oski: They played a game?

Oski4Heisman: At least the weather was nice...

koalaballa: Streaker running to midfield and one of our players looked like he was going to tackle him and then thought better of it, and just shooing him away.

Furd people kept sending people wearing red shirts into section QQ and R which caused major distractions for a good part of the first half on critical downs. Several of them tried to pick fights with individual students who chanted "take off that RED shirt", and eventually event staff led them out of the section. Very disruptive. What makes you asshole furd fans think you can wear red into our sections and not get booed? Fuck Stanfurd.

Oaklandishbear: Glad to have 1988goldenbear back in Berkeley for a game. Cautiously optimistic that we could keep it close and have an opportunity to win the game. The game sucked

Willis Chong: Lots of energy in the beginning, especially after the first TO by Nunes. Then, death.

matthjudy: The game day experience was good until kickoff, then it was just depressing.

britbear: Miserable. Horrible. Awful terrible coaching- Tedford should resign

SoCal Oski: Everything was primed for a really great day. Forget the chilly, damp, grey weather. I had a beautiful tri-tip seasoned and ready to go; a giant Igloo cooler filled with Anchor, Sierra Nevada, and Pacifico; a lovely selection of tequila & Irish whiskey; and a house full of Old Blues as well as a few southern extension alums who were punching above their weight for a day.

Here's how bad it got: by the middle of the 2nd quarter even those uclol fellows stopped chuckling with their barely-contained schadenfreude and were trying to console us.

I think that is what is called hitting rock bottom

Berliner Bear: The fans were loud and spirited despite the early start and the ever increasing in-game setbacks. The crowd was easily the highlight of the day.

texashaterforlife: I left by halftime, so the BART trip home was nice and quiet. No Stanford fans telling me how awful Cal played. If Cal had somehow come back in the 2nd half, I would have beat myself up like "Fight Club". But my instincts were just like the ASU game, only worse. It seriously maybe a while before I buy Cal football tickets again.

resbear: I'm reevaluating the wisdom of telling fat male furdies who wander into the Cal section to take off their red shirts... cannot be unseen.

Old Bear 71: Not the worst Big Game score, but certainly the most frustrating game to watch, especially the last drive, where were those plays for the first 50 minutes? i am astounded that there were no scores in the second half. It seemed that the furd coule do what they wanted rushing, but our guys never quit when it counted on defense. Offensiveness of the the offense wBetter tnhan as stinko-city. Phew.

coolingfan: I went to 3 games this season -- Nevada, Arizona State, and Stanfurd. Cal NEVER led in any of these games. Not even for a second; that is, I did not get a second of pure enjoyment! I'm not wasting my money anymore on this team.

KikiRevenge: I had a training seminar so I missed the game live, but I taped it on the DVR. I made it a point not to turn on my phone, nor check the score before I started watching. I didn't want to know the result in advance. After halftime, I just started watching the game in fast forward, deleted it as soon as I finished and don't regret it one bit.

fuzzywuzzy: Apparently the ritual of trimming my redwood tree out front last night didn't do didley.

I never realized what a long way it is from the tailback position to the line of scrimmage.

Passing Offense

BrooklynBear: Maynard made most every throw difficult. The lack of roll-outs or misdirection was appalling

1988goldenbear: The young WR's looked good. Nice downfield blocks by Treggs (yet again) and some clutch grabs of offline passes by a number of guys - Allen, Harper, Anderson - pumped up Maynard's stats. But where were the quick slants or the dumps to Rodgers that worked so well the past few games? Why did we not try to take more advantage of our speed? Why did we send Maynard into 5- or 7-step drops so many times, only to watch him slowly scan the field before getting sacked or throwing an errant pass? This felt like a repeat of the 'SC game where we did not have a good game plan, did not execute, and did not adjust.

And one of these games, Maynard is going to get someone killed by laying them out in the middle of the field. Aside from the passes that were offline but caught with great effort, there were those that the receiver had to lay out just to get a hand on - I think that the safeties were looking to get picks more than to lay the wood on our guys, because they certainly had the opportunity to whack them.

dbromon: Time to let another quarterback get a chance to fail. I don't know that next in line, or next year's quarterback will do any better, but what's the point in staying with a quarterback that can't throw it to someone on the run, let alone on the run down field? Not to mention, all of the hand off problems that continue to happen. Time to give some experience to someone else.

FiatSlug: It was offensive. Actually, it was alternately dormant or seemingly non-existent at times. The pass offense will never be more than mediocre as long as Maynard is the starting QB. Fortunately, that time will close in 4 weeks.

Maynard to Allen is a liability for the simple reason that the other weapons in the arsenal are not being properly used (Rodgers, Treggs, Harper, Stevens, etc.).

texashaterforlife: I still do not believe the Stats when it says MAynard was more than 50%. JUst like in 2005, Tedford needs to bench the QB, in favor of someone who can throw from the pocket. Or maybe he should go young to devolop for the future. OSU's Riley did it last year and it seems to be paying off for their team.

ABVidale: OL play to me has been the dominant theme this year. When good, Cal has been good; when not, Cal hasn't.

coolingfan: I'm surprised that Maynard has as many passing yards as Nunes. He looked a lot worse in the game. Our line did not protect him, but he was largely inaccurate and hesitant. He was too late in realizing the pressure coming to him. Riley often was in a similar situation, but he was better in recognizing it and improvising. I've lost all my trust for Maynard in this game.

SanMateoBear: Unfortunately the wildly inaccurate ZM showed up today. From the very first throw it was apparent that he didn't have any accuracy today. Its too bad the coaches don't seem to be able to recognize when this is the case and try another QB.

TooUsedToGapage: Maynard made a couple good passes, but the bulk of his completions were short passes, and he benefited from a ton of YAC yards. Our receivers played well, though. KA21 defying gravity to snag the ball while being triple-covered, and Bigelow turning a poorly thrown pass into big yards was great to see.

rollonyoubears111: just like fecal impaction, however, manual disimpaction would probably not help out the situation

TruffleShuffle: Maynard doesn't get tremendous help from the Oline, but his continued inability to read defenses, find open receivers and throw with accuracy is tough to watch.

Fire Tedford: FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRREEEEEEEE TEDDDDDFOOOOOOOOOOOOOORDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!

Run Offense

Old Bear 71: How many ways can you say offensive? How about invisible, like shane skov was to our o-linemen? Maybe somnolent, or something like that, seeming to be sleeping off a Friday night 'Big Game' rally? How about bored, they had no interest in blocking for Isi, CJ or Brendan? Oh, a work in regress, gets worse each week? Ah, I give up, That's it!

Bear in Chicago: Again, how can you be upset at Isi? A good high school back capable of doing a workmanlike job with a great O line. He will not play at the next level, and I wish him well. Bigelow is something special, and with a new coach we should see that.

resbear: Don't let them near the swimming pool, it's more than three yards deep

Calfan4ever: 2 carries for biggie. Nuff said. O line is imaginary.

TooUsedToGapage: Last week I compared WSU's run game to a pirate ship going up against a fleet of USN destroyers. Well, this week we were more like Alderaan, and Stanfurd was the Death Star.

justbear: Fire Coach M

BandAlum: what run offense?

koalaballa: Three yards rushing. I don't think there is any bigger definition of fail. Also, why would you run straight up the gut toward the biggest defensive line we've played all season repeatedly on first and goal from the 2? If they're big, they're probably slow, or at least not terribly agile. Try to run east west before diving in, and you'll probably earn those two yards eventually. But straight into the jaws of the defense wasn't working all day, why go for it THREE times in a row? I am utterly at a loss. F*** Stanfurd.

TJDJ: In order to have an offense we need positive yards right? Otherwise it's just a meta defense and then it gets philosophical, so I'm just gonna with NO

Passing Defense

OaktownAggie: eh. It coulda been better, coulda been better

SoCal Oski: I think it's very nice to see how polite our young Cal players are. We were the hosts, after all, and it's only good manners to allow the guest to enjoy themselves by playing catch. If only our defenders would have applauded the effort by the stanfurd fellows.

BandAlum: hill had a bad day

chicagobear: Can't get to the quarterback Nunes even blitzing!!! Can someone do an analysis why that is

1988goldenbear: We cannot seem to find the TE in any game. In this case, those 6' 5+" 275 pound guys that were dressed all in white? Maybe it was easier for me to see them because there was nothing but green turf surrounding them most of the afternoon?

And not only did they make some big plays, they also dropped a few catchable ones that could have been significant, and Nunes missed a few open guys too.

That being said, there were some really good plays by the defense, especially in the 2nd half, and they were under the gun in the first half in short-field situations. Our DB's play tough, especially Williams. And our D-line sure looked like they were giving their all out there. Not many sacks, but they got close a bunch of times and they got through that big O-line with a lot of effort.

I liked what Kendrick Payne said on the post-game radio show. It gives me hope that the kids are giving maximum effort and will continue to do so.

Bear in Chicago: The big plays given up are most distressing. Either our players are too stupid to remember their coverage roles, or they don't respect (i.e., love or fear) the coaches enough to do their jobs. One or the other, and neither is good.

rileyslaststand: can't blame the D for being on the field for most of the game

GuMiBears: Those Furd Tight Ends are freakin tall. Michael Lowe was in the middle of a bunch of them and he was a good foot shorter than them. What can you do when balls get thrown above the reach of your hands outstretched, but the tall TE behind you can just reach up and grab it.

Still, in general the Safeties/DBs did decently well.

DeusEx: Shut them out in the second half, good for them. Still, blown coverage in the first half on the monstrous Furd tight ends is unacceptable. You know what they can do, and you should've game-planned better for it.

FiatLux: once again managed to make a bad QB look good. Remember, this team had not scored a TD on the road this year. Including against they-may-be-as-bad-as-us Washington.

ososdeoro: A summary of the collective thoughts of the Cal defensive braintrust: "Gee, I think we can single-cover Ertz." "Okay, NOW I think we can single-cover Ertz." "Okay, well he got us again, but I'm absolutely convinced we can put a single defender on Ertz." "Shall we try single coverage on Ertz again??? I'm more convinced than ever he can be covered that way." Etc.

iwasthere4theplay: Played decently since the pass rush was horrible. One big mistake by the S got the furd TD. I always hate the fact that the worst QB in the P12 comes to Berkeley and ends up player of the week and looks like a first round draft choice. Nunes is REALLY, REALLY bad. But he stood around and waited patiently for his receivers to open. If that was Mannion he would have had 10 TD's.

Run Defense

MJB: One big key to this game for the Bears was trying to contain Stanford's power running game like Notre Dame did last week. Unfortunately, the Bears did not even come close to doing that.

koalaballa: not bad for having their star running back run down your throat all day. They didn't take advantage of this with play action, but I guess if you're ahead 21-3, you should probably try to run out the clock. Fuck Stanfurd.

Jacobs: Could have been better - but still good enough to keep a team with no offense from giving up too many points. Kudos to defense for not quitting on a day where offense is missing from the field.

TruffleShuffle: Poor tackling turned many pedestrian plays into big gainers

VandyImport: Not up to the task. You know they're going to run Stepfan Taylor over and over and over, stack the box and do what you can to force them out of their comfort zone - whatever.

Oaklandishbear: I'm not going to hate too much on the defense. Yeah, they couldn't stop Taylor in the second half, and we seemed to give up WAY too many 3rd down conversions, but they were on the field for 37 minutes, pitched a shutout in the second half, and got NO support from the offense. They played hard.

Willis Chong: What can I say? Taylor looked like he had a giant hole every time he ran.

SanMateoBear: Taylor and the furd o-line seemed to have their way most of the time. On the other hand, they didn't score in the second half, so maybe it was not as bad as it seemed at the time.

Old Bear 71: Only one rushing td. Again 21 pts allowed should have been good enough for a win....

Special Teams

DingoSean: Mad a field goal. Didn't have any serious returns in the 2nd half. Didn't allow anything from Furd, other than some wimpy Net Punt Yardage... Furd missed 2 field goals but that wasn't really so much Cal as it was ALAMAAAARRRR!

Did what was expected I guess.

...other than run THE PLAY I suppose...

bobsyerunkle: It was a sparkle in otherwise a bleak bleak landscape

Calfan4ever: They misse two kicks. Whoop de do. Rugby punts are terrible.

Oaklandishbear: The only part of the team that outplayed the Furd. Leininger was pretty good. BB was exciting, and KA21 had a nice return. But a fair catch at your own 5? WTF.

VandyImport: Coverage needs to be better. At least the FG team seems to be on point, more or less - tough to say when your kicker takes one shot all game.

justbear: Bigelow and KA21 had nice return. We got nothing out of them though

koalaballa: They pinned us inside our 15 yard lines repeatedly. We had to punt from our 5-15 yard line repeatedly. This is very taxing on our defense, so credit to them for holding the Furd to ZERO second half points. Fuck Stanfurd.

Gbbearan: One of the worse in the PAC and they didn't disappoint.

Willis Chong: Well, we avoided the shutout. Our coverage teams regressed.

Coaching

ENOUGH-NO MORE LOW STANDARDS: ENOUGH!! I'm sick of hearing about how Cal was even worse before Tedford. What standards are we going to have? Anything more than one win a season?

secret ASian man: I've finally jumped on the fire Tedford bandwagon. It's a sad day for me. I really though this day would never come. It's time for somebody else to take the Bears to the next level.

Tedford will always have a special place in my heart, but he has to go.

c98: I'm done. I've watched my last 3rd and 24 delay draw. I've taken my last vicarious knee when we're behind with 21 seconds left in the half. Continuing to support this team at this time is hurting it in the long run. My personal fandom adds a teeny speck to Jeff Tedford's credibility and extends his tenure by some fraction of a millisecond. I can't continue doing that to the team I love. I won't. I'll watch for news of Tedford's departure and until that happens, as far as I'm concerned, my alma mater doesn't have a football team.

DingoSean: Tedford's not going anywhere folks - least not yet. We'll go 5-7 this year and he'll be back for at least one more, but on a very hot seat. That's a lot of money he's going to be owed if we fire him, and there aren't many great options for a replacement out there.

as for this game? Eh... Poor playcalling, but really that O Line just did not hold. They did try lots of things though, so at least it wasn't literally just the same play all day long.

Pendergast prepared his guys pretty decently though. only allowed 2 TD drives, really. The 3rd TD was in short field situation (and had the only glaring mistake)

Oski Disciple: Fire Tedford now. The coaching is simply not good enough. Eleven years into your tenure you have no excuses. None. Three Big Game losses in a row is Holmoe like. We are almost certainly facing a losing season. Not good enough. Not good enough. Not good enough.

crystallogrobear: Only one coach did his job today, and it wasn't Tedford. I've been reluctant to hop on the Fire Tedford bandwagon, but after todays game I have lost any remaining hope that he has what it takes to turn this team around. If he can't get the team fired up for the Big Game, he shouldn't be coaching at Cal. This was the worst performace I've seen in a Big Game, and that makes this Tedford's worst game, and should signal the end of his career at Cal.

texashaterforlife: Demote coach Gould to a graduate assistant of RBs. Fire everyone else below Tedford. Have him put another coaching staff together from scratch because the result could be no worse. PLEASE, PLEASE GET RID OF THE OPTION DRAW. Go back to the offense Cal used to run that Furd is having success with now.

DeusEx: Great playcalling. As in, "let's run the ball on 3rd and 16, our O-Line will surely run block for us, right?

ABVidale: Penalties: 9-90 (Cal). Well, it's the one thing we're leading the country in.

coolingfan: A touchdown-less Big Game... so long Tedford. You won't be missed.

francois dillinger: my eyes are so red with fury i cannot see a thing

jt92: The play calling was just unspeakably bad.

Overall Performance

slaphan****: Defense fought hard, but offensive line didn't get the memo. We should take solace in the fact that the game turned into an absolute snoozer after halftime. Stay positive, my friend. We don't always win the big game, but when we do, we do it with excitement.

MJB: Really disappointing and embarrassing for this Bears team to look so much inferior to Stanford, particularly because this Stanford team is nowhere near as good as it was the previous two years.

hardtobecalfan: i knew our lines were inferior, but i didn't think we would get curb stomped. the final score is not representative of how much we sucked.

bearcrap: most boring game I've ever been to. Stanford was nice to us and didn't keep trying to score.

Berliner Bear: This game played out as one would have expected it to on paper. We all should have known Stanfurd was superior up front, but I hoped the coaches would still find a way to keep our offense productive. Instead, this game played out just like the USC and Texas games of the last couple of years. It should be easy to predict the season from here on out. I won't enjoy 4-8.

KikiRevenge: I was shocked at how outclassed our offense was by Stanford's defense. We were absolutely shut down. If Stanford had Luck this game, it would have been like 2010 all over again.

fuzzywuzzy: Unlike other Big Games, even in the utter depths of Hol-dore, the last two home big games haven't even been close. I think I just grew another hemorrhoid.

SanMateoBear: This season is looking Holmoesque. Not making me want to make the Friday night trip for UW. I am losing enthusiasm for Cal Football. sigh


puresilence: Just bad. At least we didn't allow a score in the second half. The defense was gassed and I feel terrible for them at our complete inability to do anything on offense.

prd74: Our overall performance was simply awful. Stanfurd has nothing to brag about either. They stunk, too, but we stunk more. Crappy game. Absolutely nothing fun about attending this game. Who wants to pay to see this godawful mess week after week?

VermontBear: We just couldn't solve their front seven. Too many times a Stanfurd lineman would penetrate leaving a bewildered Cal lineman in his wake. The delay in OL strategy adjustment might have been due to expecting the players to make execution adjustments. Even when we ran outside they were in our backfield.

They forced us to pass and our OL could not protect Maynard, even on roll outs. I wish they had made more use of Maynard's running.

I loved the great 4th quarter catches and how great the D played up to the end, even after being on the field for most of the day.

I can still find pride in this team. Go Bears!
(We'll always have the Kodiak beat down of jaffe-furd!)