Bears Come Home With Hopes of Ending Three-Game Skid

For the Cal football team and coach Jeff Tedford, tonight can’t come soon enough.

After almost sitting on top of the country with a No. 2 ranking and a chance to reach the BCS national title game, the Bears are reeling after three straight losses and three straight weeks thinking about what could have been.

Cal (5-3, 2-3 in the Pac-10) will have a chance to begin to move on from Tedford’s first three-game skid as a head coach when the Bears take on suddenly surging Washington State tonight at 7 p.m. at Memorial Stadium.

Self-questioning and a return to focusing on the little details filled this past week of practice. But while the Bears may now lack an impeccable resume, confidence is still not an issue.

“We still have to believe we’re a great team,” linebacker Justin Moye said. “We have to be the best team that’s not ranked right now.”

To its credit, Cal has remained poised and optimistic over the recent rough stretch, which has left it now battling just to reach a bowl game. Instead of fighting for a Pac-10 title, many concede that they are now playing for pride and need to re-examine their approach.

“You can say you’re going to go out and win the rest of the games but you have to really act that way in the meeting room, the film room and on the field,” starting safety Thomas DeCoud said. “We’ve been speaking a little more than we’ve been acting.”

Wideout Lavelle Hawkins has made sure to not dwell on the recent losses.

“Everyone’s a little hurt, but we just need to move on,” Hawkins said.

What once looked like an easy tune-up before a much-anticipated bout with USC next week now seems a little more daunting. A week after the Bears lost to UCLA, the Cougars exposed the Bruins’ vulnerable defense en route to a 27-7 blowout win and their first conference victory.

WSU recently switched over to a 3-4 defense, which has appeared to pay dividends thus far. Sophomore Andy Mattingly leads the way for the Cougars with seven sacks and 10 tackles for loss.

The Cougars will be without tailback Dwight Tardy, who burst onto the scene last week with 214 yards and two touchdowns but tore his anterior cruciate ligament in the process.

Quarterback Alex Brink, however, is still the undisputed leader of the WSU offense and the conference leader in total offense. The senior has thrown for 2,350 yards and 19 touchdowns while spending the season overlooked in favor of signal-callers at bigger-name schools. He is on pace to become only the sixth quarterback in Pac-10 history to throw for 10,000 yards and toss over 70 touchdowns.

“Yes, he’s under the radar, I think probably because he’s not a flashy guy,” Tedford said. “He’s mobile, he’s very accurate, he throws the deep ball extremely well and does a nice job with the packaging of plays to get them in and out of plays. Plus, the experience he has, he’s been starting there ever since I can remember.”

Tedford boasts his own experienced quarterback in Nate Longshore, but whether the junior starts will be a game-time decision. Longshore has been hobbled by a sprained ankle injury the last few weeks and will sit in favor of freshman Kevin Riley if he is still not ready by game-time.

It should be a high-scoring, aerial affair no matter who Tedford decides to start at quarterback. Cal is ranked seventh in the Pac-10 in pass defense efficiency, WSU ninth.

“We can work on making plays on the ball a little more, cutting off the deep ball,” DeCoud said. “We got to the top (with the No. 2 ranking), thought we couldn’t be any higher, and kind of eased up a little bit mentally.”

This lack of mental focus has led to an inordinate amount of penalties over the past few weeks for a Tedford-coached team. The Bears have racked up over eight penalties a game, seventh in the conference.

“We’ve never been a perfect team,” Hawkins said. “But now that we’re losing, the penalties and those things have caught up to us and guys are looking for something to blame. But we can’t cry about it. I definitely don’t want to lose another one.”

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