Cal center Alex Mack couldn't come up with specific memories when talking about last year's loss at Arizona State.

He does, however, remember the feeling -- one that recurred with regularity in 2007 -- with decent detail.

"It slipped through our fingers," the All-American center said, recalling the 31-20 defeat in Tempe. "(I remember thinking), 'We had this one.' Then that same feeling just kept happening."

Last week, Mack and the Bears (3-1, 1-0 in the Pac-10) did their best to make sure that that feeling didn't carry over into 2008, stomping out an impressive 42-7 home win against Colorado State following their season's first loss two weeks prior at Maryland.

On Saturday at 12:30 p.m., they get the chance to carry over that home momentum when the Sun Devils (2-2, 1-0) come to Berkeley. The second conference game of the year for both sides, the match-up carries explicit Pac-10 implications, especially in the now wide-open conference where every team has at least one loss.

In light of that openness, it seemed somewhat fitting that Cal coach Jeff Tedford has re-opened his quarterback competition this week, following Saturday's shaky performance from sophomore Kevin Riley.

Riley, who completed only six passes Saturday for the second time this season, now has a glimpse into what senior Nate Longshore experienced last year. After being written off following two consecutive interceptions in the season-opener against Michigan State, Longshore pieced together a strong performance (completing nine of 13 passes for 100 yards and two touchdowns) to throw his hat back into the starting mix.

Both quarterbacks took first-team reps this week in practice.

"I feel like we need to start a little bit faster," Tedford said, describing his rationale for bringing Longshore back into the fold. "Offensively we have started kind of slow in our games. We need a little boost there. We cannot afford to continue to wait and wait and wait for things to happen. We need to find out who is the guy that puts us in the best situation."

There's no question as to which quarterback puts Arizona State in its best situation, senior Rudy Carpenter, the unchallenged signal-caller for coach Dennis Erickson's team.

His gaudy resume, highlighted by 72 touchdowns and more than 9,000 passing yards (both second-most in ASU history), is one of his school's most comprehensive. Perhaps most impressive is Carpenter's longevity -- he has thrown passes to 32 different Sun Devils on his way to 35 straight starts under center.

Yet despite the laundry list of statistics, Cal senior linebacker Zach Follett sounded less than intimidated by the four-year starter. From the sound of it, Follett clearly recalls the last time Carpenter came to Berkeley -- a 49-21 Bears' win in which the then-sophomore threw four interceptions and 20 incompletions in the worst statistical game of his career.

"In (the 2006 victory), which was kind of my coming out game against Carpenter, we just put in a special package and got a lot of good pressure," Follett said. "It was in a 3-4 package we ran in '06. That's our base package now, so I'm excited to see what we can do against him."

Follett didn't stop there.

"(Carpenter) definitely can get flustered," Follett said. "Any game you watch him, if you can get to him, you can definitely get inside his head. I don't think the maturity side of him is there, and that's something we can exploit."

Cal's feature back Jahvid Best will miss the game due to the dislocated elbow that he suffered against the Rams, paving the way for increased roles for Shane Vereen and Tracy Slocum.

Meanwhile, Arizona State's top runner, Keegan Herring, who has seen the field in just one game this year, is expected to play despite not being 100 percent, according to Erickson. His presence could potentially take pressure off of Carpenter and leading receivers Michael Jones and Kerry Taylor.

Tags: CAL FOOTBALL