The Bears suffered their second loss in a row this season, finishing Saturday’s game 30-21 against the Bruins. We were thoroughly depressed for a good hour, and then we got free samples from Bakesale Betty. Other bloggers didn’t have this luck, so we’re making up for our lack of appropriate fandom. Here’s what the sports blogosphere had to say:

Tedheads No More
“Jeff Tedford did a remarkable job of being more conservative than Karl Dorrell,” Kevin of TBIOOTF write. “He flatly coached down to his competition.” The honeymoon is over.

The honeymoon is definitely over, Eli of TBIOOTF agrees. This was a game of “pedestrian playcalling.”

Avinash of Bears Necessity thinks it’s absolutely embarrassing that we were

outcoached by a laughingstock who called a timeout, took a delay of game, … punted on 4th and 1 at midfield and proceeded to have his homecrowd boo him for two minutes.

The loss could become even more embarrassing in time.

Oh, and btw, Tedford’s losing record in LA is now 0-6, Eric of Cal Football Fan mentions. Now that’s embarrassing.

Nate Longshore vs. Kevin Riley
Longshore worked well on his ankle, considering his injury, but that did eventually limit the offense in the first half, Kevin explains. Plus, he can’t “throw an out to save his life.”

Eli would have gone for Riley, whom he believes proved himself against the Beavers, over Longshore:

When healthy, Longshore is a below-average athlete with a solid arm and sound decision-making skills. With a bum ankle, Longshore is a horrible athlete who cannot generate the same physical momentum on his throws, making him a weaker quarterback, decision-making aside.

Avinash agrees that UCLA exploited Longshore’s weakness.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Was there anything good about this game? Avinash best describes the game in a single play:

We sacked a guy with a torn MCL once or twice, and I’m pretty sure one of those sacks was an accident, like two retards running into each other during a soccer game.

There was no way we could run the ball against the Bruins defense, Kevin points out. We turned the ball over too many times.

Eli calls out the horizontal passes, extremely conservative running plays and little aggression on first and second downs. Pedestrian playcalling, again. Our running game was supposed to be a strength. What happened?

No Rosy Future, but…
Eli reminds us that we have another tough road game ahead, the quarterback situation is “in shambles,” the athletic center is up in the air and there’s anything but an aura of calm. It’s not time to panic yet, but perhaps it will be soon.

Avinash isn’t destitute yet. He knows that ASU and USC will be tricky, but wins over these teams would help heal past losses. He still has hope, but we’ll need to bring it against the Sun Devils.

Our old blogger Gerald reports from the Daily Cal:

“Obviously, the national championship is out of the picture, the Rose Bowl is out of the picture, but you’ve still got to play,” linebacker Worrell Williams said. “You still have to suit up and you still have to play. We have six or seven games left. It’s about pride now, you’ve got to show up.”

Yes, we still have our pride, but we’ll seriously have none if we lose to Stanford. Then again, that game against USC did throw us for a loop.

Image Source: Shamim Pakzad, Daily Cal
Quick Hits, Cal-UCLA (Report Card) [Bears Necessity]
Oh Man [TBIOOTF]
Game Over, Honeymoon Over [TBIOOTF]
Another Year, Another Missed Opportunity [Daily Cal]
Reactions: UCLA 30, Cal 21 [Cal Football Fan]

This is slightly amusing (or scary, whichever). The “contemptible Michigan power blogger” hasn’t ceased “begging for our Teddy“. Not only that, he deemed recent “The Band Is Out On The Field Tedford-kvetching“: to be an evil plot.

The jokingly paranoid dude wrote:

bq. I call smokescreen. We still covet precious Tedford. In two weeks the Bears face off against Oregon; if Cal wins the drumbeat will intensify. Ted-ford. Ted-ford.

Now, is it ridiculous to blog about a blogger’s fake criticism of another blogger’s football assessment? Umm … No?

A few thoughts on Tedford, while we’re on the topic. Though JT is our “ass-kicking savior“:, he can’t seem to save us from annual demolishing at the hands of USC. True, we don’t receive the, ahem, “extra benefits” that a private school gets. But Cal should be snagging some better recruiting classes. It’s not like there are a bunch of pissed-off, tree-dwelling hippies standing/climbing in the way of athletic facility construction.

Oh, wait.

(Checking Internet for the first time in 7 months)

On second thought, Tedford’s a miracle worker. Eat snow, you home-wrecking Michigan Wolverweasel fans. And chill out, Berkeley sports blog community.

Image Source: Daily Cal
Unverified Voracity Unveils The Time Portal [MGoBlog
Recap: The best team that could be awful [TBIOOTF]
Earlier: An Evil Michigan Plot to Steal Tedford? Damn You, Mitten State!

It was always a joy whenever The Big Game went down to Palo Alto, especially in the Tedford era. We think Palo Alto’s the only place where Cal fans truly “take over” an opposing side’s territory.

This year, undoubtedly, Stanfurd will be painted blue all over again, but there’ll be fewer Blue and Gold clad fans inside Stanfurd Stadium.

The Card downgraded from its 85,000-seat stadium to a brand spankin’ new 50,000-seater. Less seats means less fans, unless somehow Cal fans can buy all those tickets. But at least we still get to call it The Big Game.

For this year’s Big Game (and for the rest of its home schedule) Stanfurd is reserving 35,000 of its seats for its season ticket holders, students, faculty and fans. All visiting teams will get 15,011, even the hated weenies from “Kal.”

Of those 15,011, only 5,000 will go to students, faculty and the Cal Band (and fucking Rally Comm). Actually, maybe Rally Comm will send all their kids to “guard” the Axe on the field. You know, when they walk around the sidelines, carrying the Axe. You don’t look that cool. You would look cool if you did it in front of the Stanfurd fans all game. Anyway …

The rest will be going to the donors who sit on the opposite side of the Student Section (when are we going to hear that new name?), who sit on their asses all day in the shade and don’t make any noise.

This has caused so much of a panic that even Old Blues are buying Stanfurd season tickets. But that’s blasphemy says one Cal fan.

bq. “I’m not giving them my money,” said Bonnie Hazarabedian, who is such a Cal fan that she named her daughter Callie. “There has to be a better option.”

BTW, if we were naming our kid after the university, we’d name him or her Oski or Ludwig or even Campanile, not Cal-lie.

BIG GAME BLUES [SF Gate]

We’re a long 115 days away before Cal hosts Tennessee, but for some reason people love to start talking about college football.

There are post-spring rankings from SI.com. There’s prediction of who’s going to finish where. There’s even people hating on the Big Ten already. This comes from all around, even from some newspaper in Tucson, Ariz.

Some guy at The Tucson Citizen has predicted (predictably) that USuC will finish as the regular season Pac-10 champs. Snore.

This guy also has the Bears finishing second, followed by fUCLA, Arizona State (what?!) and Oregon State (really?!).

He does have good point concerning the Small Dickless Bears.

bq. The Bruins have the talent and experience to be second, but if it’s a close call between Cal coach Jeff Tedford and UCLA coach Karl Dorrell, the benefit of the doubt goes to the Bears.

So we’re not the only one’s that think Tedford is way better than Dorrell. Like, way better.

He also says that if you take the Bears’ offense and pair it with the fUCLA defense then you get USC.

That’s a slap to the face if we’ve ever seen one.

Gimino: Chasing the Trojans [Tucson Citizen]