Wow, we barely pulled that one out.  That was a very strange game (although I didn't see the whole game - I only saw parts), but I guess we gutted out the win.  Hopefully this will give our guys some confidence going into the toughest part of the season (Oregon and U$C and what is looking like a tough Big Game).  So I don't know how the game started out.  I flipped on the tv with about 3 minutes left in the first half - we were up 14-10, and WSU had the ball.  Soon after we started watching, Van Housen intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown - boom - 21-10 Cal.  After a kickoff, WSU threw another pick that Mixon returned to like the 6 yard line.  Couple of plays later, Ayoob hit Manderino in the end zone - 28-10 Cal going into halftime.  Looking good.  Unfortunately, a football game is two halves, not 1.

The 2nd half opened about as badly as it could have - they quickly scored on a long pass.  We had a 3 and out and then they scored on another long pass.  A few minutes into the 3rd quarter and it was 28-25 Cal.  We put together a good drive but then fumbled in the redzone and they came down and scored again - 32-28 WSU was how the 3rd quarter ended.  Momentum shifted like you wouldn't believe.

The 4th quarter started out as poorly with them scoring again to take a 10 point lead (we blocked the extra point - which would come back to haunt them).  38-28 WSU.  We finally woke up after that, with Ayoob waking up and hitting LaReylle Cunningham, a walk-on freshman receiver for a long 50 yard touchdown pass.  That pulled us within 3, 38-35 WSU.  Then on our next drive, we got some good runs and nice passes to get into the redzone and Ayoob hit Lavelle Hawkins in the endzone (his first touchdown of the year I think) to give us the lead 42-38 with about 2 minutes left in the game.  Since the PAT block, they were down 4, instead of 3, so they had to get a touchdown.  They drove down pretty well, but they ran out of time around midfield.

We finally had a comeback win after losing the last two games in the 4th quarter.  Hopefully this gives us the confidence to never feel like we are out of a game.  Of course, it would be nice if we could hold onto a lead and keep the momentum going when we jump out on a team like we did here (and we had done at UCLA).

Next up is Oregon who is 6-1 with their only loss being to U$C.  The game is up at Autzen, but Kellen Clemens, their star QB broke his leg so she will be out of the game.  Their backup is supposed to be a stud, but this will be his first start.  Hopefully we can make his first start a difficult one.  We have a bye before the game (as do they), so hopefully all of our hurt guys can recover and play in Oregon.  We definitely missed Desean Jackson and Robert Jordan at WR.

We are 6-2 and could still pull out a decent bowl game if we can play hard in these last 3 games.  None of them are gimme games though.  We got to come out and play.

Go Bears!

Yes, that is read ugh-ly, with an emphasis on the 'ugh'.  First half was okay, we were able to move the ball okay (although not much on the ground) and we forced some turnovers.  However, Marshawn was not himself - he fumbled twice on critical drives that either killed momentum or gave them great field position.  Of course, we forced some turnovers too which helped us keep our slim lead - 14-9 at halftime.

Second half was horrible, especially the 4th quarter.  We were okay in the 3rd, getting a couple of good drives and 1 touchdown, but turnovers bit us again, when Ayoob fumbled on a good drive deep in their territory.  One big difference was that their running game came alive in the 3rd quarter.  We had shut their running game down completely in the first half, but they came out in the 2nd half and they just kept running it on us and getting lots of yards.  Their guy was pretty quick and was able to get around the corner before we could get to him and was gaining 5 or 6 yards on every carry.  Brandon Mebane and Philip Mbakogu, our two best defensive linemen were out, which could explain it, but still, it was ugly.  And the 4th quarter was definitely not ours.  We did absolutely nothing on offense - Ayoob was 1-13 or something like that in the 4th quarter.  They took the lead and we couldn't mount a comeback at all.  I don't blame Ayoob for everything because the offensive line played horribly - they weren't able to open up any holes for Forsett (who was the primary back in the 2nd half after Lynch fumbled twice) and they gave no protection to Ayoob.  Of course, Ayoob was pretty off target as well in the 2nd half.  The defense couldn't stop the run and they completely dominated us statisticallly.  If not for the turnovers on both sides of the ball (we had 5, they had 4), it could have been a lot worse (or a lot better I guess if we didn't turn it over as much).  Regardless, it was an ugly game, an ugly loss and something that I really hope we can bounce back from.

For some reason, it seems that we almost always have problems with OSU.  The worst game of Aaron Rodgers career was 2 years ago against OSU where we got crushed and he was like 9-34.  Last year was the exception where we blew them out in Corvallis.  Hopefully next year will be better up there.

It was supposed to be a rebuilding year, but after going 5-0 and almost beating UCLA on the road, I thought this might be a big year.  Now, not so sure - we need to beat WSU and then see what we can do with UO and U$C before taking on Stanfurd in the Big Game.  7-4 would be decent for the season, beating WSU and Furd and losing to Oregon and U$C.  We just have to bounce back from this ugly game. 

Go Bears!

Argh!!!!  We had the game.  Up 12 in the 4th quarter, we couldn't hold on.  It started out so well.  We scored on our first drive - thanks in part to a controversal play where Desean Jackson fumbled the ball while trying to reach the ball past the pylon into the endzone.  He was ruled out of bounds at the one, which made no sense.  The play was reviewed by the instant replay staff and it came down to two possibilities.  He fumbled the ball after it crossed the plane - which would be a touchdown - or he fumbled it before it crossed the plane and then went out of bounds - which would have been a touchback for UCLA.  However, there weren't any camera angles that could definitelyl say it was across the plane or not, so they couldn't overturn the call - so we kept the ball at the 1 and punched it in the next play.

Special teams worked well on the kickoff, causing a fumble and recovering at the UCLA 15.  In a few plays, we were up 14-0 with only 3 minutes gone by.  They quickly came back to tie it at 14, but then we pushed it back to 27-14.  It was 27-21 at halftime.  Second half was more of the same, with us extending our lead to 40-28.  Couple of things to note with that was that we were 4-4 on field goals (great!) but we were in the red-zone each of the drives that resulted in field goals and we couldn't score a touchdown (bad).

Then came the big play - we held them on 3rd down to leave them with at 4th and 2 at their own 45 with 8 minutes left.  Would they fake the punt or really punt it?  They faked it (on a great play) and ran it to like the 20.   Turns out that we only had 10 people on the field during the critical play - another special teams mistake. 40-35 Cal.  On our next drive, we were moving the ball on the ground (both Marshawn and Forsett were unstoppable - 130+ yards each) but ended up with a 3rd and 3.  I figured we would run it up the gut, grind out the 3 yards.  But instead we tried a pass to the tight end that didn't work.  They got the ball back and promptly drove down the field and took the lead 40-41.  We had one chance left with 1:30 min left.  Ayoob ended up throwing an interception and that pretty much ended the game.  They punched in another touchdown on the last play of the game to give us the final of 40-47 Bruins.

Now the big issues that I left out were the long punt returns that we kept giving up on special teams, including one to the 6 and another for a touchdown.  Maurice Jones Drew was unstoppable, we couldn't tackle him.  Actually, on the punt returns, it really seemed like he was almost untouched.  He ended up with over 150 return yards.  That was the difference in the game.  We had better stats - both passing and rushing, but we screwed up on special teams and they ended up on top (eerily similar to last year's U$C game where we dominated in every category except for special teams and the final scoreboard).  On the upside, it was tough road game against a ranked team in a hostile environment and we played pretty well overall, with a few big gaffes.  Our first big test and we did decent overall.  I would give us a B overall.

Now, the question is, where do we go from here?  We have 2 winnable home games next (Oregon State and Washington State) before our big November games against Oregon, U$C and Stanfurd.  So, does this young team take their first loss in stride and come back hungry or do they wallow in the defeat and fall apart.  The last time Cal was 5-0 was in 1996 and we proceeded to lose 6 of the last 7 to end up 6-6 (including a bowl loss to Navy).  I don't think anything like that will happen to this team (we have too much talent and Tedford is too good a coach), but this week's game will really tell us a lot about this team.

Go Bears!

So the team really came together for this game.  The defense had some solid stands and forced several turnovers.  The running game was pretty solid.  Marshawn was back and did pretty well, although he didn't quite seem himself.  He seemed a little tentative.  Forsett was pretty awesome - the 1 - 2 punch is pretty amazing.  Ayoob had some flashes - a great rolling out/scramble/long pass to Jordan for a touchdown but he still seems off.  He missed several long passes by a half step.  The receivers were open too.

Now, the pre-season is over.  The real season is next - #10 Cal vs. #20 UCLA at the Rose Bowl.  Hopefully it won't be our only Rose Bowl visit this season