Comments on: Cal football: Helping a new era begin

By: Calduke

Calduke — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:19:20 +0000

Pre-season polls(pre 3 months) are always entertaining.
Where has Minnesota been ranked in pre-season??

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:06:06 +0000

Jan K, thanks for your definition of what a “trap”, or as you later mention, a “tramp” game is. I agree that Minnesota’s pre-season national ranking (not ranked everywhere but enough to get our attention) should help the Bears focus, and one would assume we learned a few lessons at Maryland last year. My point in calling Minnesota a trap game or simply, a game we might be looking past, is that we have our two highest profile conference opponents coming up in consecutive weeks following that game. Let’s hope the Bears are ready!

By: Jan K Oski

Jan K Oski — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:21:08 +0000

A trap game is defined as a game where a good team finds itself in a competitive game against a inaccurately-perceived weaker opponent. Are the Gopher’s a rated team in the preseason publications? YES! Thus, this isn’t a tramp game. The Bears will be playing a tough opponent, period. A trap game might come in the later part of the season. The Bears could be looking past ASU to OSU for an example.

Onto Oregon, don’t believe the hype. Games are won and lost in the trenches, and guess where Oregon has the most questions with new personnel? Plus, they have a new Head Coach, Chippy, with zero head coaching experience. He thinks they’re fine, but time will tell.

Then, U$C game is followed by a bye week before fUCLA. Of course, bye weeks haven’t been good to our Bears in recent years, but fUCLA is still in rebuilding mode. This could also be a trap game, though.

Go Bears

By: deltha

deltha — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:54:37 +0000

I read somewhere that Minnesota is returning something like 17-18 starters from last year. Is that right? If so, its a serious trap game!

By: Marv

Marv — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:39:08 +0000

Looking at the virtual tour of the Gopher’s new yard I was struck by the absence of anything remotely similar from Cal regarding their plans for SAHPC/Memorial.

By: rollonubears

rollonubears — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:15:55 +0000

i can’t believe that #11 ranking was based on our ease of schedule. we’ve got one of the toughest schedules ever, next year. oregon is always tough, plus they buy the officials. same at ucla. i totally agree about minnesota, too, they were loaded last year, not sure how they look going into this year, but they always seem to win games they shouldn’t and vice versa. e washington is really our only easy game next year. lots of “should wins” but no gimmies. tedford must have been smoking when he agreed to this schedule. i’ll be shocked if we go 5-0, and i’m usually way more optimistic. it really all boils down to the qb and javid not being hurt. if we get solid work out of both, we’re…golden. go bears.

By: milo

milo — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:20:51 +0000

I agree, this is a trap game for Cal. Minnesota is good. One upside is it’s the second game and not the opener in the new stadium. Minnesota should still be psyched but it won’t be on hyper drive. Another upside, brand new artificial turf…should be fast and Best and Vereen should love it.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:01:23 +0000

This is a huge trap game for the Bears with the Oregon game the next week, followed by USC at home and then UCLA at the Rose Bowl. If we can handle an improved Minnesota team on the road in their new stadium, it will be a huge confidence boost for going on the road and winning at Oregon…but beating Minnesota is going to be a big challenge. Looks like a nice stadium though…especially in Sept. Not sure I’d want to be there in November though.