OC and OLine coaches firedโฆ now what?
11/14/2022 - After another atrocious offensive performance, Muscrave and McClure were fired on Sunday. And the Expand
11/14/2022 - After another atrocious offensive performance, Muscrave and McClure were fired on Sunday. And the tone of people’s emotions seem to be best summed up as “finally”. But I actually think this is just the tip of the spear of the problems at Cal. What’s going on with this sub-mediocre defense? How is that possible with […] Collapse
Colorado game thoughts
10/15/2022 - No excuses for the last two losses other than that the Bears are a sub-mediocre team. Although it Expand
10/15/2022 - No excuses for the last two losses other than that the Bears are a sub-mediocre team. Although it doesn’t help that we caught Colorado at exactly the wrong time: First game with interim coach and on their turf, which has the additional complication of being at altitude (under discussed by the game commentators). Don’t forget: […] Collapse
The South Shore Line Train Debacle
9/23/2022 - Let’s start with the simple… DO NOT TAKE THIS TRAIN! When looking at the options for Expand
9/23/2022 - Let’s start with the simple… DO NOT TAKE THIS TRAIN! When looking at the options for getting from Chicago to Notre Dame stadium we found 3 choices: Rent a car – But staying in a downtown hotel (and thus overnight parking being very expensive) we chose to go without a rental car. Take one of […] Collapse
UNLV Game thoughts
9/14/2022 - Sorry for the lateness of this… it’s been a crazy busy few weeks and I’m heading Expand
9/14/2022 - Sorry for the lateness of this… it’s been a crazy busy few weeks and I’m heading out to the Notre Dame game on Friday, so I have a lot of stuff I can’t just push off… Here are my UNLV game thoughts: One thing I haven’t much seen in other commentary is the theory that […] Collapse
Back for another season
9/3/2022 - The Bears kick off the season today versus UC Davis and I’ll be back this evening (or Expand
9/3/2022 - The Bears kick off the season today versus UC Davis and I’ll be back this evening (or tomorrow morning) with my thoughts on the game. I again have season tickets so I’ll get to see the bigger picture that is often off-screen on TV. (I’ll also be going to the Notre Dame game in South […] Collapse
Understanding COVID rules
11/6/2021 - (NEW NOTE: All of the below is likely meaningless. It turns out that it was City of Berkeley Expand
11/6/2021 - (NEW NOTE: All of the below is likely meaningless. It turns out that it was City of Berkeley health department rules that drove all of this. In other words… Cal is playing at a disadvantage to other schools.) (ORIGINAL NOTE: All of this All of the following is simplified based on the article I saw […] Collapse
Program turning win
11/6/2021 - (Apologies for the delay… I wrote most of this on Tuesday but forgot to post it) The Bears Expand
11/6/2021 - (Apologies for the delay… I wrote most of this on Tuesday but forgot to post it) The Bears had some program turning wins in 2018 and 2019. The road UW win. The road USC win. The home UW win. These all told the world that the Bears needed to be taken seriously. They told the […] Collapse
Will the real Bears stand up?
10/20/2021 - I left the WSU game utterly despondent. That WSU team was sub-mediocre and the Bears looked Expand
10/20/2021 - I left the WSU game utterly despondent. That WSU team was sub-mediocre and the Bears looked downright pathetic. What has happened to Garbers? (His accuracy and decision making were horrible.) Why can’t this defense tackle? (a big on-going problem.) Why is it the offense always seems good the first few drives but stinks after that? […] Collapse
UW Preview
9/25/2021 - (FYI, I didn’t have a lot to say about the Sac State game… although I guess I should Expand
9/25/2021 - (FYI, I didn’t have a lot to say about the Sac State game… although I guess I should have said something. It’s just so hard to know what to say with FCS games…) Now that we’ve got the non-conference slate completed, I’m finally starting to feel like I might be able to say something intelligent […] Collapse
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Thought on Oregon and USC
11/9/2022 - Sorry for the lack of writing recently. But I haven’t felt like complaining lately. Expand
11/9/2022 - Sorry for the lack of writing recently. But I haven’t felt like complaining lately. It’s not reached the point for me where it would be cathartic. Nevertheless, here’s my analysis of the current state of affairs: The wheels are coming off the bus. There’s no way to sugar coat it. Don’t be deluded about another […] Collapse
Arizona game thoughts
9/29/2022 - I still feel like I’m trying to catch back up with my life after that Notre Dame trip (which Expand
9/29/2022 - I still feel like I’m trying to catch back up with my life after that Notre Dame trip (which was at the tail end of a series of trips). But late is better than never, so here are my Arizona game thoughts: Does anyone else feel like we’re allowing the fact that the offense came […] Collapse
Notre Dame trip report
9/21/2022 - As a pre-cursor to the trip report, for those of you who’ve never gone on a Cal game Expand
9/21/2022 - As a pre-cursor to the trip report, for those of you who’ve never gone on a Cal game road-trip, I highly recommend doing it some time. It’s probably wise to start with a conference game like ASU, Oregon or UW and then build up to a cross-country trip. With all of that said… I left […] Collapse
UNLV pregame thoughts
9/10/2022 - The biggest problem with the UC Davis game is judging the quality of the UC Davis team. Last year Expand
9/10/2022 - The biggest problem with the UC Davis game is judging the quality of the UC Davis team. Last year they were a good but not great FCS team. The few pundits who are qualified at the level of judging UCD tend to be a bit too close to being homers, but nevertheless, they speak very […] Collapse
End of Season Thoughts
12/5/2021 - Just some random thoughts after last night’s win over USC: That stinking Arizona-COVID game. Expand
12/5/2021 - Just some random thoughts after last night’s win over USC: That stinking Arizona-COVID game. Obviously the Bears win that game if they get to bring the whole roster… and then we’re bowl bound. But once you get into the coulda-shoulda-woulda… what about all the close losses that shouldn’t have been. Nevada, TCU, UW are all […] Collapse
Arizona โ initial revulson
11/6/2021 - Obviously my preview post didn’t know the extent of the COVID losses for this game. 10 Expand
11/6/2021 - Obviously my preview post didn’t know the extent of the COVID losses for this game. 10 starters, including Garbers?!?!? How can one expect to win that one? But somehow, despite all the personnel losses, the Bears still had a shot. And I guess a certain type of person would have an optimistic view of still […] Collapse
OSU preview
10/30/2021 - Well, last week was nice wasn’t it? And I won’t even point out that I just about got Expand
10/30/2021 - Well, last week was nice wasn’t it? And I won’t even point out that I just about got the Cal score right. ๐ A month ago when people looked at the schedule, OSU was the middle game of a 3 game more winnable stretch. And while Colorado was and Arizona appears to be as weak […] Collapse
WSU preview
10/2/2021 - Ever since the departure Mike Leach, WSU has been headed the wrong direction. There’s no Expand
10/2/2021 - Ever since the departure Mike Leach, WSU has been headed the wrong direction. There’s no doubt that Leach gave the Wougs some recruiting credibility as well as his offensive style fit them well. It’s not that much of a surprise then that new coach Nick Rolovich is struggling. There are already serious calls for him […] Collapse
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Washington game thoughts
10/26/2022 - Here are my thoughts on the game: Washington is not very good. They had a good start to the Expand
10/26/2022 - Here are my thoughts on the game: Washington is not very good. They had a good start to the season, but they’re going to lose a lot more games before this season is over. That’s a quick way of saying the fact the Bears kept it close into the 2nd half is less a positive […] Collapse
Notre Dame game thoughts
9/23/2022 - OK, with the major trip stuff done, finally onto the game commentary: Fundamentally this team has Expand
9/23/2022 - OK, with the major trip stuff done, finally onto the game commentary: Fundamentally this team has 3 problems: Offensive line. Defensive line. Plummer keeping his cool when under duress. Let’s take those one at a time… The offensive line might just be the weakest part of the team. They’re mediocre for opening up running lanes, […] Collapse
Post-Notre Dame blogging plans
9/20/2022 - Got back from my trip yesterday and spent the rest of the day catching up on all the work/personal Expand
9/20/2022 - Got back from my trip yesterday and spent the rest of the day catching up on all the work/personal stuff that were neglected while I was gone. But my hope is starting this evening I can do a total of 6 posts about the trip: Overall trip report The Chicago -> South Bend train debacle […] Collapse
UC Davis game thoughts
9/5/2022 - Nice to start off the season with an easy win. Here are my thoughts: The Bears were definitely low Expand
9/5/2022 - Nice to start off the season with an easy win. Here are my thoughts: The Bears were definitely low energy to start the game. I’m not sure if they were told to pace themselves or whether the slightly warm weather had them taking a ‘take it slow’ attitude, but it was definitely true right up […] Collapse
What a Big Game!
11/22/2021 - Wow, what a joyful evening Saturday was. After the rust of 2 weeks off and lacking practice due to Expand
11/22/2021 - Wow, what a joyful evening Saturday was. After the rust of 2 weeks off and lacking practice due to COVID in the 1st quarter, the Bears laid the wood to Stanford again and again and again. If I was a furd fan (and could somehow rise above my ideocracy ๐ ), I’d have been very […] Collapse
Arizona preview
11/6/2021 - Today’s game is both very important (for bowl eligibility) and very dangerous. And it just Expand
11/6/2021 - Today’s game is both very important (for bowl eligibility) and very dangerous. And it just got more dangerous: https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32554434/multiple-cal-golden-bears-put-covid-protocols-ahead-game-vs-arizona-wildcats We all know how much COVID shortages messed with the Bears in 2020… the big question is: Who’s out? But the game was dangerous before that for a few reasons: It’s a road conference game in […] Collapse
Colorado preview
10/23/2021 - The fundamental question one has to ask themselves when considering the strength of Colorado is: Expand
10/23/2021 - The fundamental question one has to ask themselves when considering the strength of Colorado is: “How bad is Arizona?” This is particularly so because the Bears and Buffs have no common opponents… which is kinda rare for conference foes this late in the season. But the one conference team Colorado beat (Arizona) has two common […] Collapse
Another winnable game lost
9/28/2021 - How many times are we going to do this before the season is over? It’s not hard to imagine Expand
9/28/2021 - How many times are we going to do this before the season is over? It’s not hard to imagine that this Cal team with a few less mistakes could be 4-0, not 1-3. I might add that my prediction (27-20) would have been darned near right had the field goal at the end of regulation […] Collapse
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