Grantland’s John Brandon put it best: “Well, Cal can’t win this game.”
A Bears win over the No. 3 Ducks is as inconceivable as Mitt Romney winning California’s electoral college votes.
How about the defensive matchup?
Cal ranks 74th in the country in defending the run. USC’s run defense is better than the Bears’, and the Trojans let Oregon to rush for 426 yards last week.
Containing a running quarterback?
Redshirt freshman Marcus Mariota was an instrumental part of those 426 rushing yards. When the defense gives Mariota an iota of space in the pocket, he takes off running faster than any quarterback Cal has faced this year.
And everyone remembers what happened when Cal took on Nevada’s fleet-of-foot signal caller Cody Fajardo of Nevada in the Bears’ season opener.
How about trying to score some points?
Wide receiver Keenan Allen is almost certainly out with a knee injury. Same with starting quarterback Zach Maynard. The other starting wideout, Bryce Treggs, has been hobbling around campus with a boot on his right foot.
And the Bears’ strongest offensive lineman, senior Matt Summers-Gavin, is still under a questionable status in regards to playing on Saturday.
Meanwhile, ESPN analyst Brad Edwards calls Oregon’s defense “a dominant unit that ranks among the nation’s best.”
Let’s see: The second string of an already-inept Cal offense versus one of the nation’s best defenses.
Hmmmmm.
Clearly, any way one attempts to break down or analyze this matchup, it’s going to simply say there is no way Cal wins.
But strange things happen when teams have only their pride on the line.
Not to mention their jobs.
Boy, Cal has something to play for.
The UCLA game was Cal’s only satisfying game of the season. The Washington State win featured sloppy quarterback play, and Southern Utah was an almost unwatchable exercise in playing to an FCS team’s level.
They’ve lost every other game.
So yeah, there’s probably a little incentive to remove a bit of that humiliation. This isn’t a standard disappointing season. This campaign was flat-out mortifying for the program.
People had legitimate expectations for this team. There are probably three future first-round picks on the offense and a bunch of future NFLers on the defense.
A team with this much talent doesn’t get blown out by Utah. A team with this much talent doesn’t let its rival mercilessly eviscerate its offense and not indicate it gives even a nanogram of crap.
But it did.
This team’s main problems could be attributed to discipline problems. Penalties, turnovers, third down conversions — problems fixed with awareness of spatial arrangement and a little bit of extra will.
The Bears are beating themselves.
To even have a shot of keeping it close for a half, the Bears need to limit these controllable mistakes. No boneheaded personal fouls, no telegraphed passes.
Obviously, the Cal players themselves wholeheartedly believe they can win this game. How could they not? These athletes are bred to exude confidence in the face of doubt, to neglect the naysaying sportswriters and to prove their worthiness in the face of likely defeat.
They understand the stakes of a potential win here. Dethroning Oregon here would be analogous to the Stanford-USC upset of 2007. USC was headed for the national title. Stanford was staying home in December. Stanford beats USC. Season made.
No logic points to a Cal win. But weird things happen in sports. Maybe Allan Bridgford is the next Aaron Rodgers.
You know what? Never mind. It’s over. Did you see Kenjon Barner against USC? That guy is unstoppable. Cal is so screwed.
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I don’t think we’ll even beat the odds even though McCain believes we can hold the Ducks to less than 42 points.
Guaranteed losers. Expensive losers! VERY, very expensive losers!
Would you like to continue to pay for the tutors, maintainence of the “Athletic center, water and power and janitorial for same, scholarships, recruiting costs, under the table cash payments and all the things that make a Research and Education University the laughing stock of the world?
Well, Do You Punk?
You think Berkeley is the laughing stock of the world? Pretty brave words from a geologist, I think. Maybe you’re secretly from geography and can’t admit it?
Geologists are fairly hard headed. I guess you are what your study.
Geologists are fairly hard headed. I guess you are what your study.
Yea, no doubt, we pay too much to support sports programs and then those athletes go out and make millions. They also help make millions for our school. A good program is actually a money maker and not a drain on resources to the school. It’s a business. Hence, the sooner we dump Tedford and find a competent coach, the sooner we will roll in the dough for the students.