Meanwhile, the USC offense was spurred by the injury to Stafon Johnson earlier in the week. Matt Barkley was held without a passing touchdown by the Bears defense, but running back Joe McKnight scored twice and picked up 119 yards on the night. Despite one interception, Barkley still threw for 283 yards and his favorite target was Damian Williams, who had eight catches. The Bears, conversely, had 285 yards in total offense.
I wrote in the preview to this game that California would have to count on Kevin Riley to have a chance of winning on Saturday, but his stat line was somehow less impressive than the debacle that was the Oregon contest. Not only was Riley only 15-of-40 for the game, but he also missed opportunities to give his team momentum by hitting blatantly open receivers. Case in point: in the third quarter, Shane Vereen does a nice job of sneaking onto the field, is uncovered by the Trojans and Riley throws the ball so that Vereen is forced to make the catch out of bounds. How much of that mistake is attributed to Riley is perhaps debatable, but it is his job to make accurate throws.
Normally, this is the point in the blog where that would detail reasons for the result of the weekend’s game. Since there is really no way to do justice to every key, what follow are a couple of thoughts I had after Saturday’s loss for the Blue and Gold.
– Jeff Tedford is not losing his job. There have been murmurs around the student section in Memorial Stadium that the two losses this season so far for the Bears have put the head coach on the hot seat. Not true, especially given his recent contract extension, and with at least seven games remaining in 2009. More accurately, if California loses the “Big Game” to Stanford, many fans will feel that Tedford has taken them as far as he can.
But keep in mind that the Cardinal have put together a formidable squad this season, so a loss there – while it might sting for those in Berkeley – would not be surprising. I respect Cal fans, but those who want to see Tedford gone have about as much legitimacy as the Coach’s Poll in college football. Coaches don’t watch all the games and thus don’t have enough information to base their votes on anything other than who should be a good team. In terms of Golden Bears football, the sample size is at two in-conference games, which is far too early to call for the head coach’s pink slip. Yes, you can blame him for the inexplicable decision to kick a field goal with twelve seconds left (which missed), when Riley had time enough for about two more throws to the endzone. Also remember that although Oregon did not appear to be a stellar team entering Week 4, the Bears have seen possibly their toughest competition of the entire season in the last two weeks.– The home field advantage was non-existent. The Bears were unable to extend their home winning streak this week past nine, and (probably not coincidentally) USC was the last program to defeat California in Berkeley back in 2007.
Perhaps members of the media – myself included – were too enthusiastic about the 7-0 mark the Bears posted last season. Looking back at the schedule, California hosted multiple teams at or near the bottom of the Pac-10, including the winless Washington Huskies squad, which had lost Jake Locker earlier in the year. Still, the student section was largely silent on Saturday and was about half empty by the start of the fourth quarter. I can’t say that I blame them for leaving once the score reached 23-0, but there appears to be almost no confidence in the Bears from their fan base following another difficult loss.California will have a much needed bye week coming up, before facing UCLA in Los Angeles on October 17. The Bruins were defeated this past weekend by Stanford on the road. In their last meeting, California won 41-20 behind 115 yards from Jahvid Best and 153 passing yards with two touchdowns from Kevin Riley.
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