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Football: Thursday night update
By Jonathan Okanes
Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 10:09 pm in Mid-week.
A couple of interesting notes from Thursday after talking to defensive coordinator Bob Gregory:
–We now have a better explanation why safety Marcus Ezeff hasn’t played quite as well as the past couple of years and has fallen out of the starting lineup. Ezeff has been practicing in full just one day a week. It turns out Ezeff has one class he needs to take to graduate by December, and that class is only offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays during practice. It ends in time for Ezeff to join the team for about the last 10 minutes of practice. He practices in full on Wednesdays.
Gregory said it didn’t make sense for Ezeff to simply take some other classes just to play football and extend his stay at Cal another semester just to take the class next semester.
“That’s a guy taking care of business first,” Gregory said. “He’s getting his degree from Cal. That’s a good deal.”
Gregory said it’s been hard for Ezeff to maintain a high level of play because of all the practice time missed, especially when you consider he always misses Tuesday’s practice, the only day during the week Cal goes in full pads.
“It’s just hard to get better, especially at that position, if you’re only practicing one day a week,” Gregory said. “I feel totally bad for him. We all do.”
–Gregory said Josh Hill will continue to start at corner opposite Syd’Quan Thompson. When asked if Darian Hagan will play Saturday, Gregory said “We’ll see.” Gregory said Hagan is no longer suspended but implied that Bryant Nnabufie and Chris Conte might see the field before Hagan. “I think Bryant did a good job when he went in there and i thought Chris Conte played well.”
–While Gregory said the four starting linebackers — Eddie Young, Mike Mohamed, Devin Bishop and D.J. Holt — will remain the same, he expects Mychal Kendricks to see more playing time. That might be because Gregory needs as much team speed on the field as possible to contend with Oregon State’s explosive Rodgers brothers — Jacquizz and James. “They’re awesome,” Gregory said. “It’s a big challenge. People say they only have two guys. But those two guys are good.”
–Gregory said Sean Cattouse will continue to start at safety. Cattouse played well against Arizona State on Saturday and has emerged as a vocal leader of the defense. “He’s a very positive leader,” Gregory said. “He has kind of a special deal. I think he’s going to be a really good football player and good leader for us. He’s leading these guys right now.”
–Coach Jeff Tedford officially ruled out left guard Matt Summers-Gavin (shoulder) and nose tackle Derrick Hill (stinger) for a second straight week. No decision yet if Mark Boskovich or Richard Fisher will start for Summers-Gavin. Aaron Tipoti will continue to start in place of Hill.
–Tedford said the kicking duties will once again be a gametime decision, but did say that as of “right now, it would be Giorgio (Tavecchio).”
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November 6th, 2009 at 6:51 am
“Gregory said it didn’t make sense for Ezeff to simply take some other classes just to play football and extend his stay at Cal another semester just to take the class next semester.
“That’s a guy taking care of business first,” Gregory said. “He’s getting his degree from Cal. That’s a good deal.””
This is something that can’t be emphasized enough since Tedford arrived. Holmoe, like everything else, was a joke when it came to the whole notion of “student-athlete”. Since Tedford arrived, graduation rates are way up…he genuinely cares about setting these kids up with a future after college, and that should be applauded. Gregory’s quote really shows that academics are a priority for Cal football, not just a hassle getting in the way of winning.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:15 am
I applaud the dedication to academics shown by the Cal staff towards Marcus Ezeff and all the other players in their program. The priorities are obviously in the right place.
That being said, if Ezeff can’t put in the time to prepare himself each week to play at an optimal level, then why in the hell was Gregory starting him over Sean Cattouse?
November 6th, 2009 at 7:25 am
I’m sorry, but no organization can thrive when double standards apply. All of the other players have worked so hard and fully committed themselves and the Cal staff is going to allow one guy’s “special circumstances” to undermine their efforts?
Putting aside the fact that Cattouse has been clearly a better player through Fall camp and in every game he’s played, allowing Ezeff to practice one day a week and then start on Saturdays is exactly the type of thing that divides a team and compromises trust.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:13 am
JO- did the Times go back to combining the football and basketball blogs into one? If so, why?
November 6th, 2009 at 10:29 am
On an entirely different note. Fitz from SF Chronicle has written a great nostalgic article on Stanford and their 69, 70 and 72 Rose Bowl teams. Why don’t you petition the Chronicle to write one on your modern day Rose Bowl teams? Whhat’s fair is fair.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/05/SPOL1AFQMF.DTL
November 6th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Blue, ever since we added basketball to the blog last year, they have always been combined.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Can’t say I agree with that at all, Clunky. Well, maybe Ezeff shouldn’t be starting – especially if he isn’t performing, but it seems like that’s been worked out. Maybe Cattouse just wasn’t practicing well enough before to replace him, who knows. I don’t see why Ezeff missing practices is going to divide the team, though – academics is a pretty understandable reason to miss class, if there’s nothing Ezeff could do to take the class another time, then there’s simply nothing he could do. Especially as a senior with all the time he’s put into the program, there’s no reason to question him missing practices. Stressing academics over football should be a good thing.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
To miss practice*
November 6th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
B, couldn’t agree more.
I know I must be starting to bore some of you but, to me, the above is another reason why JT is the perfect HC for Cal.
Beat OSU ( by 7+)! Go Bears!
November 6th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
JO- I get that, but the reason I asked the question is that football and basketball had been separated into separate “archives”, so that you could select which sport you wanted to read about. But today, I found basketball threads incorporated into the football archive. I thought perhaps the separate archives had been abandoned. Or perhaps its just a technical glitch?
November 6th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
JO,
I think you maybe missed BluenGold’s message?
The basketball posts are now showing up in the URL for the football-only posts:
http://www.ibabuzz.com/beartalk/category/football/
includes “Basketball: Murray State also breezes” and “Basketball: Chico St. game thread” etc…
No big whoop, but this is different than it has been for awhile now, when you guys were kind enough to create the separate URLs for us readers. If you can get it fixed, that would be super-cool.
Go BEARS!!