But the coaches have to put him (Riley) in a place to succeed. I don’t understand why the first play off the kickoff turnonver is a Riley pass downfield? The strength of CAL is it’s running game. We run to set up the passing game. Not pass to get guys out of the box so Jahvid/Shane can run. Until someone stops the run game, you go with it. Don’t try to get all fancy and “fool” the other team or try and get Riley in rhythm from the get go. Run that ball up the gut with Best and Vereen. Anything would have been better than losing yards and settling for a field goal after a turnover like that. After I saw that I knew we were in for a long afternoon.

I don’t buy all the “guys just didn’t execute” excuse. This loss was on the coaches plain and simple. When the score was lopsided, the team gave up.

The coaching staff needs to make better play calls, they need to adjust better after halftime (I can’t remember the last time CAL came from behind to win a game), and they just plain need to strategize better.

Until that happens, CAL will always be a middle of the road pac-10 team. Because despite the talent, without a skilled coaching staff, our team will always get outplayed. And the staff in the Pac-10 is nothing to sneeze at (PC, Riley, Chip Kelley, Neuheisel/Chow, Erickson, Harbaugh, Sarkisian). Tedford/Ludwig/Gregory better step it up.

We’ll see if they have what it takes Saturday.

Plus U$C didn’t look impressive against lowly WSU. If SC wins this week you can bet it will be back in full annoying mode. If SC loses, that punk will jump as fast as possible from the SC bandwagon along with most of those so called ‘fans’.

I think if you look at the coaches who have the top programs, they coach from confidence and without fear- they don’t play not to lose, they play to win- think Pete Carroll, Les Miles, Urban Meyer, Mack Brown. The opposite of Jim Tressel- that’s why Ohio State gets drilled when they get up against comparable talent.

Being grateful to Tedford for all the great work he’s done and realizing he probably doesn’t have what it takes to take Cal to the next level are not mutually exclusive. Both can be true. I feel exactly like you do. But Tedford’s stubbornness, conservative and predictable approaches on both sides of the ball seem like they continue to limit Cal’s potential. Cal was badly and noticeably out-coached and I would even say out-smarted vs. Oregon.

Even the trouble at QB for several years now (Ayoob, Longshore, Riley)- I mean Tedford is hailed as a QB guru, and maybe he was at one time, but the position has not been a strength for awhile now. He recruited these guys, he coaches them- if they they end up disapoointing and not being a strength, then that is on Tedford. I see OCs come and go, but the problem persists- in fact, it might be getting worse. The constant is Tedford.

I wonder if at some point, the program will start to trend down. Recruiting classes have been ranked lower the past 2 years than before, Stanford, UW and UCLA – maybe UofA and ASU-are now on the rise and are grabbing better recruits. Things are about to get tougher in the PAc 10 and for teams that are inconsistent, as Cal has been, and who do not win on the road, like Cal does not, are going to be in for rought times. There are not going to be many easy wins any more.

I hope I am wrong- I hope this game starts to wake up Tedford and his staff that they need to be better. A LOT better. But I have seen Tedford be pretty stubborn about a lot of things, as I have noted on an earlier post.

I think we’ll really know a lot about where this team and the program is by 8:30 this Saturday night. I