Comments on: Football: Thursday practice update

By: Caladan

Caladan — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 04:02:08 +0000

Ted Miller was right about Cal fans and their 2000 word essays.

By: miked

miked — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 03:44:54 +0000

@bigdruid, he is not saying that Tedford is stupid, he is saying that the approach is stupid, and I agree. What other teams are doing or not doesn’t matter. We’ve had a rich history of QB’s going down and n00bs being forced to step in. We’ve also had a rich history of a complete lack of QB development so that when the senior leaves the next in line has to be developed on the field during playing time, and the program suffers. This has really been our downfall over the last few years and in my mind one of the big reasons that the program is always in a rebuilding mode. Would we be in a rebuilding mode if we had a Barkley/Foles/Luck behind center with everything else being the same? These backup QB’s are not being developed and *will* flail if Maynard goes down.

But let’s play the other side of the equation out – if you think that Tedford is approaching this correctly, how do you see any QB than Maynard being able to step in at this point and be effective? You are ok with them stepping into the huddle in any game with a complete lack of game experience and trust that they are going to be able to lead the team as well as a game experienced QB?

By: bigdruid

bigdruid — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:18:17 +0000

I’m making the point that Stanford and USC have had a number of big wins/losses where they had ample opportunity to play their backups. And yet they are not. Ditto for UW, and ASU, or anyone else in the PAC-12 that isn’t either dealing with injuries or a QB controversy.

And yet, the fact that Cal is not playing Bridgford is somehow a sign that Tedford is stupid, etc, despite the fact that *almost nobody* plays their backup QB.

So, yeah, it’s a stretch to say Jim hates Tedford. But criticizing Tedford for doing something that 99% of other college coaches do is pretty weak, especially with hyperbolic language like “I feel sorry for [the players]“.

By: Juancho

Juancho — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:29:02 +0000

Bigdruid – you feel that Andrew Luck and Matt Barkley make for good comparisons to Maynard and Cal ? Urban Meyer made the QB series a half famous. So it has been done.

By the way kind of a stretch to say Jim hates Tedford and wants to criticize anything.

By: Ocean Blue

Ocean Blue — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:10:05 +0000

“The running game was the strength of UCLA’s offense already, and you’d have to think the focus will be even more on that with the missing weapons in the passing game.”

Look for uclol to go bombs away in the air. Why not? They know they won’t be able to move the ball on the ground unless they have a legitimate passing game, so there’s no reason not to air it out. Plus, the Bears have had some weakness in defending the pass (cough-Colorado-cough). Add to that their giant douche TE, and they’ve got a game plan all ready.

Whether it works or not is another story, but my Spidey Senses tell me the Neu will go pass-happy right from the start, and use that TE as much as he can. It’s pretty much the only hope for the southern extension branch.

By: bigdruid

bigdruid — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:37:26 +0000

Jim, I advise you to take a look at the team stats here:

http://www.pac-12.org/portals/7/images/Football/2011-Stats/HTML/confstat.htm

Specifically, take a look at how many passes backup QBs have thrown at UW, USC, Stanford – the answer? Almost none.

I mean, I understand that you really hate Tedford and are looking to criticize anything he does, but realistically nobody in college football gives the backup QB significant snaps. Just doesn’t happen except in the case of QB controversy or injury.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:20:06 +0000

Bridgford is learning NOTHING in mop-up time … handing off with a minute or two left on the clock … anybody could do that. All he’s doing is getting the ball and not fumbling the handoff. He’s getting less experience than Mansion so if Maynard goes down, Bridgford will be a deer in headlights.

Can’t believe that Tedford doesn’t understand this because it’s happened before … first when Ayoob totally fell apart, but we luckily had a determined guy who could lead, but not because of playing time.

If Maynard takes a hit and goes down, gets injured, we’ll have a totally inexperienced, young Bridford and he could get destroyed, being no better than, probably worse than, Mansion last season.

I feel sorry for these guys. Great potential that is totally undeveloped then getting thrown to the wolves. STUPID.

By: Juancho

Juancho — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 23:36:43 +0000

A series a half Calduke. That’s what I’ve been clamoring for with regards to Bridgford at least. Let him learn in real-time. Not mop-up time.

By: Calduke

Calduke — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 23:08:57 +0000

Bridgford, Whiteside, McClure and Mustafa Jalil were big time high school names in SoCal. Hope JT can give them some time this saturday.

By: Calduke

Calduke — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 22:23:29 +0000

Sofele is OK now??