The Haas Business School is right across the street from Memorial. Did anyone think of getting the MBA students to do a simple phone survey to guage fan interest?

This ESP looks like a disaster. What happens when the ESP area in half full on opening day?

“If you build it they will come” only works in the movies.

Please ignore any financal difficulties associated with the new stadium. It is an inconvenient truth.

We’re 7 months from the rebirth of Memorial and there are plenty of good ESP seats available; weren’t these seats supposed to pay for the upgrades?

A sample: Section 3 of the University Club has 60 available seats at cool $11,994 per seat. That’s $719,640 of revenue for one year.

The Athletic Department badly overestimated demand for tickets for the SF season. That was for one year. Has Cal done the same for the next 50 years of the ESP?

Go Bears!

What evidence do you have that “Many of you Tedford bashers do more to hurt Cal Football and recruiting than our despired USC wannabe”?

Many of you Tedford bashers do more to hurt Cal Football and recruiting than our despised USC wannabe.

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Washington commit Shaq Thompson was at the center of one of the conference’s hottest prospect battles of the recruiting season. After a public declaration for Cal, the four-star safety, ranked No. 16 on the ESPNU 150 list, pulled a last-minute switch to Washington.

Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times caught up with Thompson and got the full story behind his decision to pick Washington over Cal — among others.

Here’s what Thompson told Condotta:

They were always there on my list. Washington always stayed in it, so from the get-go that should have told everybody ‘he’s coming to Washington,’ because that was the only school that didn’t change.

I went up there for the Cal game (in September) and it was a beautiful atmosphere, a beautiful city, the fans really love their football, the team was fun to be around, the coaches were great. It was just like a great place for me.

The sidebar to all of this — if you want to call it that — was former Cal assistant and top-flight recruiter Tosh Lupoi leaving the Bears for Washington. Lupoi was recruiting Thompson to Cal, but the safety said that Lupoi’s move had little to do with his decision.

Writes Condotta:

Shaquille said Lupoi stepped aside from handling his recruiting once the coach went to UW, leaving it to coach Steve Sarkisian, new defensive backs coach Keith Heyward and graduate assistant Donte Williams (who was able to recruit during the time when the Huskies did not have a full staff of assistants).

Thompson is considered the best safety prospect in the country and could make an immediate impact on a Washington defense desperate to plug holes in the secondary.