Back to work
By Jonathan Okanes
Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 9:33 pm in Mid-week.
Hi, everyone. i hope you all enjoyed your bye weekend. The Bears were re-united tonight for practice after parting ways for the weekend. Many players went home while coaches were off recruiting. When they returned, the Bears found themselves all alone in first place in the Pac-10.
Of course, it’s still extremely early. But if nothing else, it’s compelling to think Cal is the only team in the conference that controls its own destiny at this point _ win out, and win the Pac-10.
That’s getting way ahead of ourselves. But after Arizona lost to Stanford yesterday, the Bears became the only conference team without a loss at 2-0. Of course, there are six teams with just one defeat, so things can change in a hurry.
Arizona is one of those one-loss teams, and the Bears started game planning for their trip to Tucson on Sunday night. The Wildcats are one of three Pac-10 teams at 2-1 (USC and Oregon are the others). Stanford is in second place at 3-1. Check out the complete Pac-10 standings here.
As expected, nobody is talking about the implications of being in first place this early in the season. If nothing else, the Bears remember all too well what happened last season when they started looking at the big picture.
“There is so much football to be played,” Cal coach Jeff Tedford said after practice tonight. “We talk about it all the time. One play at a time in practice and give great effort. Do the work it takes to be prepared to play one game.”
Linebacker Zack Follett and quarterback Nate Longshore both talked tonight about the 2006 loss at Tucson, which doomed the Bears’ Rose Bowl hopes. You can bet the team is going to use that game as motivation all week.
Follett also downplayed the significance of being 2-0 in conference right now.
“It’s so early in Pac-10 play, it hasn’t been talked about,” he said. “We’re going week by week. I’m feeding off that ‘06 loss. We’re going to be motivated to get a win.”
Many of you may have seen the latest rankings that were releaed today. The Bears are back in the Associated Press top 25 at No. 25 while they moved up to No. 22 in the USA Today poll. Here are the complete rankings.
The most significant development tonight was that tailback Jahvid Best returned to practice for the first time since dislocating his left elbow against Colorado State. Best practiced in limited fashion but continues to improve rapidly from the injury. He caught passes and ran through some reps, even falling to the turf on the arm a couple of times.
Best said he feels confident he’ll be ready to go against the Wildcats.
“I’m progressing more than I thought,” he said. “Coming from the first couple of days when I couldn’t move it at all — now I can do pretty much everything functionally with a little bit of soreness.”
Best admitted the mental part of the recovery is the hardest and said he’s still a little worried about taking hits on the arm. But today’s practice helped alleviate some of those concerns.
Best also fell accidentally while running sprints after practice. “I haven’t done much in a while. I guess I”m a litte rusty.”
Longshore sat out practice. He didn’t practice much last week after slipping a disc in his back while lifting weights, but plenty of key players didn’t participate last week because that’s the norm for a bye week. It seemed a litlte more significant that he was wearing a baseball cap again Sunday, but Tedford said Longshore will be back at practice Tuesday.
“We just wanted to let that thing rest,” Tedford said. “It went back in, but once it goes back in, you let it calm down a little bit. We just wanted to give him one more day of rest.”
Longshore said he felt fine after practice.
Here’s out story that ran today on the emergence of Cal’s suddenly dominant defense.
Also, in case you didn’t see it, here’s Tedford’s lastest entry on his blog.
One other note: The time and TV coverage for the UCLA game on Oct. 25 should be announced tomorrow. There is one TV spot open, the ABC slot at 12:30 p.m. It’s between Cal-UCLA and Oregon-Arizona State. If ABC picks Oregon-Arizona State, then the Bears would set their own gametime and look into getting a local TV production for the game, likely by Comcast SportsNet West. But the way Arizona State is going, with four losses in a row, my hunch is the Bears wind up on ABC.
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October 13th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Hey JO how is Mike Calvin’s toe doing?
October 13th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Lowly Stanford whipped Arizona with their 3rd string quarterback. Cal should easily take Arizona and then UCLA. That’s 6-1!!
October 13th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Calduke Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Lowly Stanford whipped Arizona with their 3rd string quarterback. Cal should easily take Arizona and then UCLA. That’s 6-1!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You will lose both. Arizona will stop your running attack and pass like crazy on you. The lowly bRUINS will surprise everyone and outcoach you for the win.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Hey look MoreNCs is back - hasn’t lost any of the inane babble he’s known for either!
Did you see the way Stanford ran on Arizona? Yeah.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Hi MoreNCs!
Congrats to the Trojans on the win agains the ASU powerhouse!
But I’m confused! last week you were on the Cardinal bandwagon - I really thought they were your team because they gave the nation the biggest laugh when USC vomited all overthemselves in the most embarrasing loss in the history of college football. Did you wipe Rey Rey’s chin after the game?
Sure, the lowly bRUINS did hold USC to one TD in 2006 (or was it 05 or 07? sorry i can’t recall, as the yearly choke jobs are hard to keep track of!)
And between the Cardinal (worst home loss in history) and the Bruins (most inept, uninspired performance in history), i can see why you’re wavering on USC lately.
You are an important part of the Trojan progam… so
Fight On! the trojans need you now more than ever!
October 13th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Technically, JO, I think OSU still controls their own destiny as well. If they win out, they win the conference. (That would mean that Cal doesn’t win out, of course…)
October 13th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Actually, Arizona is a decent team and can’t be overlooked for an easy win. They’re coming off a hard loss to Stanfurd and are going to be pissed about that = strong motive to win over Cal. Then they are playing at home as well. I didn’t see the Furd/Zona game this weekend, but it sounds like Arizona played solidly overall with the exception of their secondary having a few hiccups to give up some big passing yards. Arizona, along with Oregon, Oregon St., U$C, and Stanfurd should not be overlooked this season! Yes, Stanfurd as well. Harbaugh’s got em playing a lot better and they’ve got a decent offense. I think we could very well go undefeated in the pac 10 this season if our offense picks up, but I could see us just as easily taking 3 or 4 losses too.
October 13th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Cal is gearing up for next year.
If they can finish with 3-4 losses I would call it a successful season and a great start to next year
October 13th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
The offense is gearing up, but we have three stud LBs in their senior seasons, not to mention the best NFL Center prospect in a long while. None of these guys have beaten U$C, and I can imagine that will be huge motivation for probably our biggest game of the year.
Oh, and ‘Furd controls its own destiny too since its only loss is to a team that’s lost twice in the Pac-10… and it beat Oregon State. Furd would have to beat $C two years in a row though…
October 14th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Holiday Bowl is a distinct reality, and hopefully the Rose bowl - as long as we stay healthy, which hardly ever happens, we have enough talent to run the table and beat SC on thier own turf…if we can stay healthy. USC’s receivers worry me a bit, however. And even without Rulon Davis…maybe he’s just too big, poor guy gets hurt all the time…after the choas of last year, anything’s possible.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Holiday bowl actually won’t be bad this year…there are some solid big 12 teams. Texas, Missouri, OK, etc etc. However, Rose Bowl would be a many people’s dream come true. Penn st? Ohio St?
October 14th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Please God, not another tOSU egg laying! Davidson, don’t forget about Michigan State. We will know how much they’ve improved this weekend against tOSU on Saturday. If our Bears are stuck with the Holiday Bowl, I’d like to see them go against an SEC team for the sake of redemption (Maryland) and weakening the east coast bias. But, the stupid PAC officials will have the Holiday representative playing the 5th best team from another conference. When will Hanson get his walking papers? Maybe, he could take over the muppets.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Jan, didn’t forget about MSU, just didn’t want a rematch for our bowl game. I think Ohio St. or Penn St. would be a unbelievable game. Can you imagine Follett chasing down Pryor? Or our run D stopping Chris Wells? Insane. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Jan,
Maryland is in the ACC not SEC. Hanson will be leaving after this year if I’m not mistaken.