While I Was Away

So, apparently some trees have been knocked dow,m Jahvid Best was and now isn’t a Heisman contender, and Cal wasn’t then was and now isn’t ranked.

The sky is not falling.

Maryland, despite their early season struggles, has talent.  Cal, while clrealy more talented, is still very young and it wasn’t exactly a pleasant road trip.  None of that totally excuses the Bears.  Despite all the above, If Cal converts in the redzone with touchdowns 2 out of 3 times in the first half they win the game.  The defense made plenty of stops to keep it close in the middle but the offense, when it needed to, sputtered when it mattered most.  at one point in the first half, Cal was 0 for 6 on third down.  That’s inexcusable.

Going forward it was nice to see the receivers get going in the fourth quarter.  Boateng made some very nice catches and Cunningham and Calvin turned it up a bit too.  Thankfully, Vereen will probably be ready to play in two weeks and as it stands, the team isn’t suffering any serious injuries.

The fact is, second place in the Pac 10 is wide open.  Tier 1 is USC, Tier 2 is Oregon, Cal, and ASU, and Tier 3 is everyone else.  It’s a down year and there isn’t a single game on the schedule that Cal can’t win, including USC, though that will be the only game where the odds are less than 50 percent.  Most prognosticators pegged Cal somewhere between 7-5 and 9-3.  Not much has really changed, but after watching this team over the past three weeks I tend to think they will finish more around 9-3 than 7-5.