The Trouble With Hope
Now do you folks see why I was so upset about the text messages like, "I smell Roses"?
Let alone some kid in the stands with a sign that read "Give Me Roses or Give Me Death". Kids these days sure seem to need to learn their lessons the hard way. This is still Cal football. If there is something obscure, unlikely, or even set out as an unattainable goal (I'm talking to you Utah) that will impact Cal football negatively, it will be so.
There are signs of change, like the run back for two points agains Southern Miss. Things like that used to go against us, but change is a long process. Longer than three years of Tedford's Excellent Adventure, longer than a season.
Unfortunately, there are still things like acts of an unjust and cruel god that postponed what should have been a non-event game against Southern Miss into one of the biggest spotlight games of the season on December 4. Was it even wise to reschedule instead of letting it go away?
If Cal had finished their season with a 41-6 shellacking of Stanfurd and remained idle with Texas last weekend, who could reasonably move Texas in the standings?
Of course who could reasonably move a team down in the standings for a win on the road?
I don't blame the voters. Voters are irrational humans subject to such abject lapses in judgement that they have made W a two term President.
How can we lose .03 in the computer standings for a win on the road?
That is what I want to know. Is it East Coast PC Bias?
Isn't this what giving control back to the humans was supposed to prevent?
No, it was a toxic level of hope. Hope is like a drug. For hope junkies, who regularly have hope, and have their hopes fulfilled, they can have a lot of hope without it being toxic. They can hire coaches at will. Eventually, the hope controls the junkie and makes them do rash things to get their next fix. They fire bowlbound coaches only to get turned down by the Next Big Coach, and are left grasping for anything to give them more hope. Don't let us become hope junkies, just take it one step at a time and we can avoid the 12 step programs.
As for the Rose Bowl, Go Big Blue!
Steer them Cryin 'Horns!
Let alone some kid in the stands with a sign that read "Give Me Roses or Give Me Death". Kids these days sure seem to need to learn their lessons the hard way. This is still Cal football. If there is something obscure, unlikely, or even set out as an unattainable goal (I'm talking to you Utah) that will impact Cal football negatively, it will be so.
There are signs of change, like the run back for two points agains Southern Miss. Things like that used to go against us, but change is a long process. Longer than three years of Tedford's Excellent Adventure, longer than a season.
Unfortunately, there are still things like acts of an unjust and cruel god that postponed what should have been a non-event game against Southern Miss into one of the biggest spotlight games of the season on December 4. Was it even wise to reschedule instead of letting it go away?
If Cal had finished their season with a 41-6 shellacking of Stanfurd and remained idle with Texas last weekend, who could reasonably move Texas in the standings?
Of course who could reasonably move a team down in the standings for a win on the road?
I don't blame the voters. Voters are irrational humans subject to such abject lapses in judgement that they have made W a two term President.
How can we lose .03 in the computer standings for a win on the road?
That is what I want to know. Is it East Coast PC Bias?
Isn't this what giving control back to the humans was supposed to prevent?
No, it was a toxic level of hope. Hope is like a drug. For hope junkies, who regularly have hope, and have their hopes fulfilled, they can have a lot of hope without it being toxic. They can hire coaches at will. Eventually, the hope controls the junkie and makes them do rash things to get their next fix. They fire bowlbound coaches only to get turned down by the Next Big Coach, and are left grasping for anything to give them more hope. Don't let us become hope junkies, just take it one step at a time and we can avoid the 12 step programs.
As for the Rose Bowl, Go Big Blue!
Steer them Cryin 'Horns!
posted by Accidental Guru at 11:40 PM
2 Comments:
2 things - the reason we can lose ground in the computer rankings with a road win is that according to the computers, it was against a mediocre opponent. Our average strength of schedule for the year went down playing Southern Miss. I guess. They are going to a bowl game...then again, there are 28 bowl games. That's 56 teams going. Who cares about the teams ranked below 40, at best? Only their home fan's mothers, I'm sure.
But I digress - I do think computer rankings (and human pollsters) should depend on strength of schedule. And to play devil's advocate, you have to admit we had some weak ass teams on our schedule (along with teams like USC), so we can't go around claiming we had the toughest schedule, though I think it was tougher than Utah's, goddamit.
The 2nd thing is that your point about us having a win on the road against SMU at the end of the season makes us lose ground (because our play was...mixed), is a reason why the human polls suck! It's one of the reasons we have the computer polls as part of the mix (NOT that I'm trying to truly defend the current BCS scheme) - because the pollsters have short memories, and bias and all that crap. The computers don't have any bias, they just have calculations that don't take enough things into account.
The humans account for some things improperly...
Now after all is said and done, and I've watched almost all of Cal's games this season in-person or on TV, I would have to say that I'm not sure we're worthy of #4. I don't know if Texas is better than us, I never watched them once.
But our special teams are below average. Top 4 teams have A) Great Defense, B) Consistent or Great Offense, C) Bullet-proof special teams.
You don't need to have special teams that return punts for TDs, or regularly block kicks, or kick 60 yard field goals. But they should never let a punt (or a kickoff) be returned for a TD, and probably never more than 20 yards. They should never let a kick be blocked.
They should miss less then 1 in 50 PATs, and it should be a snowy away game for that to happen. They should miss less than 1 in 20 short field goals, and it should windy from the hash mark for that. Short field goals should be automatic, and a no-brainer way to put points up whenever your offense gets you into the red zone.
They should make 4/5 field goals from less than 40 yards. That's the main job of the kicker. At 40-50 yards, you should 60 percent or better, so people worry about you, and you have a decent chance of winning a game in the last 45 seconds by getting to the enemy 35 yard line with one timeout.
So to re-cap, our Defense was great - mostly. We had several games where our defense came out flat - I can't tell you how proud I am that we became a 4th quarter football team (really a 3rd quarter, but you know what I mean), because we used to lose so many games that way. But great teams are 1st quarter teams as well.
Our Offense went from amazing, #1 quality, to hit and miss. Top 4 teams stumble only once, not 3 times, in a season. What happened in Washington? What happened at Southern Miss? What happened in Oregon? And I seem to recall looking crappy against UCLA for a while, too.
Well, there are some answers, and our running game, after the 2nd half, always turned out to be the game winner, but again I saw flatness for entire halves. When our passing game is dead, our running game suffers, of course.
I guess we didn't have enough depth at wide receiver. I think most teams don't lose 3 great WRs in a season (Lyman, MacArthur, Makonnen/Toler together), so maybe we were unlucky...but Rodgers made some straight up weak quarters out there. He's not a Heisman winner. I hope he comes back next year to perfect his game (I think that's likely now). And also, great teams deal with adversity like injury. Maybe we had too much injury to deal with...but I don't know. Didn't USC lose like their best offensive guy, and they have 2 Heisman candidates?
Now it may seem like I'm picking nits here - great teams win games, and we won 10 games. Some of them against tough opponents. I have no question we earned and deserved a top 10 ranking. I think if we had respectable special teams, we are top 5, and if we could have come out strong in the first half in every game, and caught one more pass against USC, we would have been the legitimate, #1 team in the country, and wouldn't have to explain it to anyone. We have some great talent this year (let's all have a moment of silence for Geoff MacArthur, hope he heals up and gets a chance in the NFL, though he's kind of short for The Show), and a great coach, and great fans.
I just don't want to be one of those BS fans who claim their team is better than it is. I would pay good money to see us play Auburn, Oklahoma, USC again, or Texas, and on any given Saturday, we might well win. But we might well lose on a missed 35 yard field goal, or get too far behind in the first half to recover against a REALLY good opponent who also adjust their game at halftime.
Having said all that, the BCS sucks, and needs more fixing, because the whole nation deserves to see Cal in the Rose Bowl on New Year's day this year. And I think we'd kick Michigan's butt. It's better for everyone but Texas, and they should be playing in a BCS bowl too - their only loss is to Oklahoma.
So let's destroy Texas Tech (we play Texas Tech - goddamit that's weak!) on Dec. 30th in the Holiday Bowl, and get to work being great next year. How is our special teams recruiting doing?
Go Bears!
-Aaron
Blame Texas. It's easier.
Seriously, isn't it kinda funny that last year, we were so excited over the Insight Bowl in Phoenix, and now we're calling the Holiday Bowl 'shoddy?' I will still try to appreciate it, meself.
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