Golden Nuggets: Cal's Front Seven is Key to Upsetting Ohio State

Ohio State head coach (and good friend of Jeff Tedford) Urban Meyer said on Wednesday that his new team's offense will look similar to the Oregon offense. Our eternal optimist Ted Miller believes that the Bears--who have mostly stifled the Oregon offense over the past couple years--can take advantage of the lowly tOSU offensive line and pull an upset in the Shoe. Is it time to start pumping the sunshine again?

But there's no escaping this: California will go to Ohio State with perhaps the biggest and most athletic front seven the Buckeyes will face in 2012. And the Bears line up against a highly questionable offensive line, one that welcomes back just two starters from a unit that yielded 46 sacks -- 118th in the nation -- on just 245 pass attempts.

For comparison: Arizona, with four new starters on its offensive line in 2011, gave up 23 sacks on 577 passes. Washington State gave up 40 on 492 passes.

The Ohio State offense in 2011 was QB Braxton Miller, who led the Buckeyes in rushing (715 yards with seven touchdowns) and passing (1,159 yards with 13 touchdowns) as a freshman. He's a major talent, but he certainly won't be the first dual-option QB the Bears defense has seen.

I know Cal fans don't want to hear any optimism from the Pac-12 blog because they well know that is typically the program's ineluctable KISS OF DEATH.

So I won't mention the plausibility of the Bears visiting USC on Sept. 22 at 3-0 and nationally ranked.

After the jump Cal Athletics responds to the Wall Street Journal article and the entire football team shows up at the 49ers Pro Day (or it least it seemed that way).

Football

• Several Bears attended the 49ers Pro Day: Trevor Guyton, Giorgio Tavecchio, Anthony Miller, Brock Mansion, Justin Gates, Justin Cheadle, Sean Cattouse, D.J. Campbell, Marvin Jones, and Mychal Kendricks. Breech also reports that Michael Calvin and D.J. Holt are participating. Bryan Anger is also there, but he is not participating.
• Tedford and the coaches decided to hold an actual game at this year's open practice. Tedford singled out Richard Rodgers and Brendan Bigelow as two players who have made impressive strides over the past few weeks.
• Jeff Tedford talks to 95.7 about the spring game and the upcoming football season.
• Athlon ranks the top-20 RBs in the Pac-12: Isi Sofele is 5th and C.J. Anderson is 16th.
• The Wall Street Journal questions the manner in which the university funded the Memorial Stadium renovation. Cal Athletics responds with some details that should clarify some confusing points in the WSJ article.