NCAA Football 2021-22 Season

MannishBoy wrote:

I haven't seen Saban that mad many times in the last few years. So that's fun.

It's Cal home against the suddenly resurgent Oregon State team this weekend. Yay? Nothing good ever comes out of Cal against OSU. Any Cal fan who has been following since the Tedford days can remember 2007 when #2 (in the country, not Pac-12) Cal (5-0) coming off a huge win @ #11Oregon and an earlier win against #15 Tennessee was heavily favored against Oregon State. Sometime in the 2nd quarter I think, the word had come out that #1 LSU had just lost, making Cal the presumptive #1 team in the country. Being the idiots we were, we started chanting "We're #1".

OSU of course cared little of this and put up a fight the whole game. Cal was down 31-28 with the ball late in the 4th. We drove all the way down to the 12 yard line, but had no more TOs. On 3rd (maybe 2nd?) down and 15 seconds left, we run a play, of course with the assumption that we'll throw it into the end zone, either for a TD or incomplete, and kick the tying FG. Instead QB Kevin Riley wants to be a hero and tries to run for it only to get tackled a good 7 yards short. Time expires, Cal loses.

After starting the season 5-0, Cal ends the season 6-6, winning only one more game during the rest of the season settling for the Armed Forces Bowl.

If the story ended there, it would be fine... But Jeff Tedford after leading us to massive success the prior 4-5 years (including screwed out of the Rose Bowl by the Great Satan Mack Brown), is visibly upset after the game. He becomes more involved in the playcalling and overall gameplanning, and it basically becomes the beginning of the end for this time at Cal, and the dawn of the current dark-ages of Cal football.

There was a twitter-meme thing where the question was something along the lines of "show a picture that foreshadows dread" and most were say the Challenger sitting on the pad, Kennedy getting into the car in Dallas.. maybe a blank electoral map in November 2016. Cal fans posted pre-snap screenshot with the scoreboard and clock overlays.. and we all know what happens next.

Carlbear95 wrote:

OSU of course cared little of this and put up a fight the whole game. Cal was down 31-28 with the ball late in the 4th. We drove all the way down to the 12 yard line, but had no more TOs. On 3rd (maybe 2nd?) down and 15 seconds left, we run a play, of course with the assumption that we'll throw it into the end zone, either for a TD or incomplete, and kick the tying FG. Instead QB Kevin Riley wants to be a hero and tries to run for it only to get tackled a good 7 yards short. Time expires, Cal loses.

Yep, the screengrab at 0:05 is the shot I mentioned for the twitter-meme. Impressed I memorized most of the facts correctly... not sure why we didn't try to spike it..as it was 1st down? maybe we couldn't have with 3 seconds left.. but there was a chance.

You can see at least one offensive lineman expecting to line up for the spike, then turning his head and seeing the QB run off.

Just looks like panic to me.

Carlbear95: Cal, OSU, Tedford, Suck, Downfall.. blah blah blah

Cal Athletics:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/N2947jT.jpg)

Can't make this stuff up.

Upside.. non-zero chance Aaron Rodgers shows up at Memorial tomorrow. He's definitely one of Tedford's top proponents, and the NFL schedule lines up nicely for him to show up.

Aggie defense held South Carolina to 15 total yards for the first three quarters last Saturday. I was there with TheWalt and two other old friends, my first game in almost two years. It was a great time, and boy, it's nice to occasionally just watch a game where you can relax.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Upside.. non-zero chance Aaron Rodgers shows up at Memorial tomorrow. He's definitely one of Tedford's top proponents, and the NFL schedule lines up nicely for him to show up.

Or not

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/M90h4Gr/48-FCDB3-C-1-F4-D-40-CE-BCDD-261032-F46-BAA.png)

Go Bears!

Well, the Dawgs were bound to play a clunker eventually. Only beat the lizards by 27, should have been at least by 45.

FRESNO STATE, on the road, knocks off undefeated #21 San Diego State.

Rank Fresno again!

My 2-week-old dream of a Wake Forest-UTSA National Championship is still alive.

Show of hands if anyone at any time and in any universe predicted that the only ACC team in the AP poll would be Wake Forest at No. 10.

Congrats to the Deacs on their best-ever rank. Their previous best was 11th in 1947.

Speaking of the Week 3 1947 poll, here's the top 10 from that week:

1. Michigan
2. Notre Dame
3. Texas
4. California
5. Illinois
6. Army
7. Georgia Tech
8. Penn
9. Penn State
10. USC (the one in LA)

#25 FRESNO STATE

CALIFORNIA'S TOP FOOTBALL SCHOOL ONCE AGAIN

Ags have the 2:30 CBS game vs Auburn in a top 15 matchup this weekend.

Dan Mullen wrote:

We're in the season now. We'll do recruiting after the season – when it gets to recruiting time we can talk about recruiting.

Please give this man a lifetime contract in Gainesville!

Badferret wrote:
Dan Mullen wrote:

We're in the season now. We'll do recruiting after the season – when it gets to recruiting time we can talk about recruiting.

Please give this man a lifetime contract in Gainesville!

There's a guy on the radio in Knoxville that calls him Meatloaf Mullen. Meatloaf isn't bad and in fact can be pretty good at times. But it's never a ribeye or fillet.

Kind of fits.

That said, UT would have been better off if we'd have gotten him vs Pruitt in that coaching cycle. But Mullen is an odd dude.

Rumor that has been making the rounds on Georgia boards for awhile now (I first saw it last spring) that he really wanted the Jets job; thought he had it and so had mentally checked out by the end of last season. He's never been a great recruiter, which was fine being a pretty good system guy at a place like State, but that ain't going to fly for the lizard people.

The problem for all the Florida schools is that there has now been a generation plus of kids, where the very top high school kids have been leaving the state for the likes of Bama, Georgia and Clemson.

Florida fans love to throw 1980 at Dawg's fans, but in reality the Gators haven't been a true national power in current high school kids memory. Can Florida recover and gain ground, absolutely, but it's going to take a lot of work and it certainly doesn't seem like Mullen wants to put in the hours.

Enix wrote:

Show of hands if anyone at any time and in any universe predicted that the only ACC team in the AP poll would be Wake Forest at No. 10.

Congrats to the Deacs on their best-ever rank. Their previous best was 11th in 1947.

Speaking of the Week 3 1947 poll, here's the top 10 from that week:

1. Michigan
2. Notre Dame
3. Texas
4. California
5. Illinois
6. Army
7. Georgia Tech
8. Penn
9. Penn State
10. USC (the one in LA)

So of course I had to go look it up.. Cal went 9-1 that season, with our only loss to USC. USC went 7-1-1 but went to the Rose Bowl despite the worse record (tie Rice, loss to Notre Dame). Notre Dame who ended the season 9-0, including beating USC DIDN'T GO TO A BOWL.

I'm sure there is a narrative in there that I can twist to apply to todays game, but in short WIN YOUR CONFERENCE! THIS IS THE WAY. None of this ND or SEC exceptionalism.

Good thing there was no internet back then to debate quality losses... and looking at that seasons wikipedia page.. an interesting final note.

The official final AP poll, taken before the bowls, had Notre Dame No. 1 (107 first place votes) and Michigan No. 2 (25 first place votes). Michigan won the Rose Bowl 49–0 over USC while Notre Dame did not play in a bowl game. Detroit Free Press sports editor Lyall Smith arranged an unofficial post-bowl poll with only Michigan or Notre Dame as choices. Michigan won that poll 266–119.

Fresno State went 3–6–2 that year, finishing 3rd in the California Collegiate Athletic Association.

They lost to, let's see... Oklahoma City, the mighty Santa Clara Broncos, then the, uh, Honolulu All-Stars?

Then to New Mexico, to College of the Pacific (now known as University of the Pacific), and finally, their final loss of the year was...

*Legion* wrote:

And Fresno blows their top 25 ranking by losing in their traditional spot: on the road in Hawaii.

... on the road in Hawaii. HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON?

For the record, their wins were against the, uh, Moiliili Bears, Cal Poly (suck it SLO!) and San Jose State (suck it SJ!)

They played San Diego State and Santa Barbara to a pair of scintillating 7-7 ties.

You'll notice an unusual entry in the 1947 college football rankings: my alma mater, W&M, which finished the season at No. 14.

How did a small public liberal arts college get up there among the Notre Dames, Michigans and Penn States of the world?

They cheated their asses off! Folks in the athletics department had been changing grades in multiple sports for years. The scandal blew wide open in 1951.

That monkey really seems like it will do what it needs to do to get a kid. Dan Mullen, meet your new recruiting a coordinator.

Pretty sure that monkey pics pro games on Tony Kornheiser's podcast.

It doesn't matter-matter yet, but Bama at 2 is just hilarious.

All I can think of is, is there a permutation where Oregon wins out, the Pac-12 south is a total mess and Oregon blows out whoever that is in the Pac-12 conference championship game, sending them to whatever non-Rose Bowl (might as well be the weedeater bowl) and the Rose Bowl is forced to choose between a Pac-12 south loser (Utah is 5-3 and leading the south) and a 7-5 Cal that just ran the table including wins over all California Pac-12 schools.

Barring that, then the only thing I don't want is Utah going to Rose Bowl. Oregon losing a game (but winning the Pac-12) is the best chance to guarantee that.

So first things first, Cal wins out.. Utah and/or ASU has to lose a few more games, Oregon blows everyone out and hope that's enough to keep them in the top 4... Cal Rose Bowl!!!

Cincinnati, Oklahoma, Wake, and even UTSA should feel insulted, and lol Bama.

No Wake's schedule is dog sh*t. And they had incompetent/cheating referees to beat Louisville by 3 and should have lost to Syracuse in regulation but got lucky in overtime.

Cincy has legit beef. They scheduled the best they could and won convincingly. They have better wins than Alabama so far.

A little surprised to see Oregon so high. Yes they have the best non conference win in the nation right now, Ohio State on the road, but they lost to a bad Stanford team and have barely beaten the other mediocre teams they have played on their schedule.

#23 FRESNO STATE

The only Group of 5 school to ever be in the initial rankings despite having more than 1 loss.

CFP selection knows that Hawaii road games are bullsh*t!