juarezbear said:

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#GoBears #Cal #FSU #CalvsFSU #ACC #CalTwitter #Calgorithm pic.twitter.com/At9Yug3eGQ

— Lawrence Ross: An Ice Cold Alpha Man (@alpha1906) September 16, 2024

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I think we just redistributed a win.

> ...

# Go Bears

And here I was assured by NYCGOBEARS and his fellow blowhards that Cal owned FSU. I was told that the memes were just fun and meant nothing, that Cal wouldn't stumble at FSU. Yet, here we are once more; Cal faceplanted in front of a national audience.

01Bear said:

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And here I was assured by NYCGOBEARS and his fellow blowhards that Cal owned FSU. I was told that the memes were just fun and meant nothing, that Cal wouldn't stumble at FSU. Yet, here we are once more; Cal faceplanted in front of a national audience.

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Yeah so they're not really related

01Bear said:

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And here I was assured by NYCGOBEARS and his fellow blowhards that Cal owned FSU. I was told that the memes were just fun and meant nothing, that Cal wouldn't stumble at FSU. Yet, here we are once more; Cal faceplanted in front of a national audience.

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The losing memes are equally funny

Does anyone really think the faceplant had nothing to do with overconfidence and hubris on Cal's part?

Does anyone really think that FSU wasn't taking extra motivation from them? How many other games this season has FSU gotten seven sacks?

The players all knew about the hype. It worked as expected. The Cal players and coaches let it get to their heads and they took FSU less seriously. FSU players and coaches were understandably upset and took it out on Cal on the field. They held Cal to 9 points!

"Bulletin board material" is a thing for a reason.

What's a bulletin board?

Anarchistbear said:

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What's a bulletin board?

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Username checks out.

" Act like you've been there before."

Ahh, the ad hominem arguments now flow. Yes, I played sports. I participated in both team sports and individual combat sports. But that's beside the point. That you lot have to resort to ad hominems just goes to show your arguments are crap.

In any case, you lot are hilarious. Do you really think any team walks on to the field of play without having practiced? Do you really think that the players just woke up on Saturday and decided, what the heck, why not play some football?

Obviously, there was a week of game preparation before yesterday's game was played. What do you think happens at the practices? Do you think players who are told the other team thinks they're cupcakes will practice with more intensity or less? Do you think that practice attitude will carry out on to the field during the actual game or not?

For those who don't know, there's an old saying for people who do more than just play sports "you fight the way you train" (or variations thereof).* If a person practices with intensity, he'll play with intensity. If a person practices lackadaisically, that's how he'll play. If a person practices with the idea that he'll inevitably win, that's how he'll play. This invites mistakes, mental and otherwise, because he'll think his victory is inevitable, despite the mistakes.

From what we saw last night, Cal made a pletohora of mistakes, including mental ones. Was this the result of hubris and overconfidence? I admit only those in the Cal locker room would know for sure. But as an outside observer, it sure as heck looked like it. It looked like Cal took FSU as lightly as it took Davis and SDSU. The coaching staff thought they'd be able to make second half adjustments and win the game. The players looked like they believed they would make the plays down the stretch when needed to win the game.

FSU didn't take the game lightly. They looked like they wanted to punch Cal in the mouth from the get go. Sure, they went 3 and out in their first drive. But they looked to drive the ball early and often. They recognized that Cal's weakness was its run defense. So FSU looked to run the ball up the middle. When Cal started playing to stop the run, DJ Uiagalelei started to pick apart Cal's defensive secondary and hit his receivers. This turned 3rd and long (not to mention 3rd and looooooong) situations into first downs.

Sure, FSU struggled to convert the positive field position into points. Kudos goes to Cal's defense for holding the Seminoles to just 14 points. But FSU should never have been given so many opportunities to score, in the first place. Cal can't expect to win when it keeps surrendering first downs on 3rd and longs and 3rd and extra longs. Yet, that's exactly what it appears like Cal's doing. Along with playing like they think they'll be able to make second half adjustments to win a game, thereby allowing themselves to flat in the first half of games.

But yeah, you guys must all be right. None of the hype played a role in Cal's loss. None of the players heard any of it and to the extent they did, they just ignored it and otherwise didn't allow it to impact how the practiced and played. /s

*Miyamoto Musashi said "You can only fight the way you practice" while the US Army goes by "The way you train is the way you fight."

Musashi also wrote "In battle, if you you make your opponent flinch, you have already won."

Wouldn't you agree that a team feeling a need to print out and post a meme from a Cal burner account in order to motivate themselves to defeat the Cal football team. . .

is flinching?

AunBear89 said:

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Musashi also wrote "In battle, if you you make your opponent flinch, you have already won."

Wouldn't you agree that a team feeling a need to print out and post a meme from a Cal burner account in order to motivate themselves to defeat the Cal football team. . .

is flinching?

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Not at all. The flinching Musashi mentioned was with regard to sword fighting. I'm not sure if you've ever watched any kendo contests,* but the attacks are extremely fast. If someone flinches, his opponent will quickly take advantage of that and score a point. In a real sword fight, that means the person who flinched is either dead or maimed.

The flinching had nothing to do with posting material to motivate themselves. In fact, it had absolutely nothing to do with motivation.

*These would be the closest modern analog to a sword fight from Musashi's era.

sycasey said:

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AunBear89 said:

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Musashi also wrote "In battle, if you you make your opponent flinch, you have already won."

Wouldn't you agree that a team feeling a need to print out and post a meme from a Cal burner account in order to motivate themselves to defeat the Cal football team. . .

is flinching?

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Just leave him alone. He desperately wants to believe that trash-talking from fans has a huge impact on the results of major college football games. Let him believe what he wants.

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First, I never claimed it'd have a "huge impact." That's just a blatant misstatement of facts. I stated that it would provide extra motivation and extra fuel to FSU's fires on the one hand and feared it would contribute to hubris on Cal's part on the other hand. I also stated I worried this could contribute to a Cal loss, that in turn could nip in the bud the momentum Cal football has been building. Based on the fact that Cal's offense was unable to score a single touchdown and also FSU's seven sacks last night, it seems my fears were well-founded.

chazzed said:

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This will be my only contribution to this thread.

01Bear is amusingly wrong.

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I have yet to see how that is so.

LessMilesMoreTedford said:

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I think Florida State was being motivated by being 0-3 and being the natural laughingstock of college football, not by a photo of Oski the Bear in a Fidel Castro hat spreading the woke mind virus on the field in Doak Campbell.

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Again, those weren't the problematic memes. The memes poking fun at the perception of Cal as a a bastion of liberalism and communism were generally funny and not bulletin board material. The ones at issue were the memes suggesting Cal had beaten FSU at football before the game was even played, that trash talked FSU, and otherwise deprecated OSU (especially while building up Cal).

If memes were motivators you would have seem it at the start of the game, yet Florida State's players looked pretty unmotivated in the first quarter. They looked like a bad team we could beat if we started playing better, then came to life once they took the lead and got some confidence, or maybe in the middle of the game they all suddenly remembered a meme they saw this week?

We lost this game because on six trips to the red zone we only came away with three FGs, mostly due to poor play calling and penalties. We did not look like a well coached team.

calumnus said:

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If memes were motivators you would have see it at the start of the game, yet Florida State's players looked pretty unmotivated in the first quarter. They looked like a bad team we could beat if we started playing better, then came to life once they took the lead and got some confidence, or maybe in the middle of the game they all suddenly remembered a meme they saw this week?

We lost this game because on six trips to the red zone we only came away with three FGs, mostly due to poor play calling and penalties. We did not look like a well coached team.

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Yeah, the thing is that Cal mostly outplayed FSU. We had more yards, fewer penalties. Turnovers evened out.

Just couldn't cash it in after reaching the red zone, while FSU did twice. Is that due to better motivation? Maybe, but why wouldn't it have affected things elsewhere on the field?

calumnus said:

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If memes were motivators you would have seem it at the start of the game, yet Florida State's players looked pretty unmotivated in the first quarter. They looked like a bad team we could beat if we started playing better, then came to life once they took the lead and got some confidence, or maybe in the middle of the game they all suddenly remembered a meme they saw this week?

We lost this game because on six trips to the red zone we only came away with three FGs, mostly due to poor play calling and penalties. We did not look like a well coached team.

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The memes cut both ways, though. They served as motivation for the Noles and to make the Cal squad (starting with the coaching staff) think victory was assured. The Cal team never dug deep because they never feared they would lose; they figured victory was inevitable and would be handed to them on a plate.

01Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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If memes were motivators you would have seem it at the start of the game, yet Florida State's players looked pretty unmotivated in the first quarter. They looked like a bad team we could beat if we started playing better, then came to life once they took the lead and got some confidence, or maybe in the middle of the game they all suddenly remembered a meme they saw this week?

We lost this game because on six trips to the red zone we only came away with three FGs, mostly due to poor play calling and penalties. We did not look like a well coached team.

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The memes cut both ways, though. They served as motivation for the Noles and to make the Cal squad (starting with the coaching staff) think victory was assured. The Cal team never dug deep because they never feared they would lose; they figured victory was inevitable and would be handed to them on a plate.

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A team that has not had a winning record in 5 years, that struggled against UC Davis, in an away game at Tallahassee against Florida State? From reading funny memes? Oh, and only the offensive players read them?

I view your as an ally on this board but you have dug in too deep on this one.

calumnus said:

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01Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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If memes were motivators you would have seem it at the start of the game, yet Florida State's players looked pretty unmotivated in the first quarter. They looked like a bad team we could beat if we started playing better, then came to life once they took the lead and got some confidence, or maybe in the middle of the game they all suddenly remembered a meme they saw this week?

We lost this game because on six trips to the red zone we only came away with three FGs, mostly due to poor play calling and penalties. We did not look like a well coached team.

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The memes cut both ways, though. They served as motivation for the Noles and to make the Cal squad (starting with the coaching staff) think victory was assured. The Cal team never dug deep because they never feared they would lose; they figured victory was inevitable and would be handed to them on a plate.

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A team that has not had a winning record in 5 years, that struggled against UC Davis, in an away game at Tallahassee against Florida State? From reading funny memes? Oh, and only the offensive players read them?

I view your as an ally on this board but you have dug in too deep on this one.

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Fair enough.

I tend to think the Cal team just never showed a sense of urgency in the FSU game. TBH, they haven't shown it since after they beat Auburn. I attribute that to their expectations that they'll just beat whoever is in front of them, much of that being the result of "believing their own press clippings" as was said back in the day (but now it'd be believing the social media posts). As has been pointed out by others, there were any number of podcasts that praised Cal to the rafters and criticized FSU as bums. I have little doubt the Cal team found some of them and may have been influenced by them. While I have no proof that is indeed what happened, it doesn't seem far fetched for that to be the case, IMHO. But it looks like many others disagree, including you.

I will say this, if you think I've got it wrong, I will reconsider my position. I tend to agree with you more often than not and find your positions to be well-reasoned. If you're saying I'm too far gone on this one, I'll give it some serious thought.

01Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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01Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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If memes were motivators you would have seem it at the start of the game, yet Florida State's players looked pretty unmotivated in the first quarter. They looked like a bad team we could beat if we started playing better, then came to life once they took the lead and got some confidence, or maybe in the middle of the game they all suddenly remembered a meme they saw this week?

We lost this game because on six trips to the red zone we only came away with three FGs, mostly due to poor play calling and penalties. We did not look like a well coached team.

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The memes cut both ways, though. They served as motivation for the Noles and to make the Cal squad (starting with the coaching staff) think victory was assured. The Cal team never dug deep because they never feared they would lose; they figured victory was inevitable and would be handed to them on a plate.

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A team that has not had a winning record in 5 years, that struggled against UC Davis, in an away game at Tallahassee against Florida State? From reading funny memes? Oh, and only the offensive players read them?

I view your as an ally on this board but you have dug in too deep on this one.

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Fair enough.

I tend to think the Cal team just never showed a sense of urgency in the FSU game. TBH, they haven't shown it since after they beat Auburn. I attribute that to their expectations that they'll just beat whoever is in front of them, much of that being the result of "believing their own press clippings" as was said back in the day (but now it'd be believing the social media posts). As has been pointed out by others, there were any number of podcasts that praised Cal to the rafters and criticized FSU as bums. I have little doubt the Cal team found some of them and may have been influenced by them. While I have no proof that is indeed what happened, it doesn't seem far fetched for that to be the case, IMHO. But it looks like many others disagree, including you.

I will say this, if you think I've got it wrong, I will reconsider my position. I tend to agree with you more often than not and find your positions to be well-reasoned. If you're saying I'm too far gone on this one, I'll give it some serious thought.

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I think the issues were: 1) Bad offensive game plan and play calling, 2) False start penalties that killed drives and momentum 3) Missed FGs 4) A couple critical no calls on pass interference, 5) Bad in game coaching especially at the end by our HC.

The players looked like they were giving it their all, Ott fought for every yard. Nando had his parents in the crowd and if anything probably wanted it too much. I just don't think the coaches put the players in the best position to succeed.

01Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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01Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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If memes were motivators you would have seem it at the start of the game, yet Florida State's players looked pretty unmotivated in the first quarter. They looked like a bad team we could beat if we started playing better, then came to life once they took the lead and got some confidence, or maybe in the middle of the game they all suddenly remembered a meme they saw this week?

We lost this game because on six trips to the red zone we only came away with three FGs, mostly due to poor play calling and penalties. We did not look like a well coached team.

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The memes cut both ways, though. They served as motivation for the Noles and to make the Cal squad (starting with the coaching staff) think victory was assured. The Cal team never dug deep because they never feared they would lose; they figured victory was inevitable and would be handed to them on a plate.

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A team that has not had a winning record in 5 years, that struggled against UC Davis, in an away game at Tallahassee against Florida State? From reading funny memes? Oh, and only the offensive players read them?

I view your as an ally on this board but you have dug in too deep on this one.

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Fair enough.

I tend to think the Cal team just never showed a sense of urgency in the FSU game. TBH, they haven't shown it since after they beat Auburn. I attribute that to their expectations that they'll just beat whoever is in front of them, much of that being the result of "believing their own press clippings" as was said back in the day (but now it'd be believing the social media posts). As has been pointed out by others, there were any number of podcasts that praised Cal to the rafters and criticized FSU as bums. I have little doubt the Cal team found some of them and may have been influenced by them. While I have no proof that is indeed what happened, it doesn't seem far fetched for that to be the case, IMHO. But it looks like many others disagree, including you.

I will say this, if you think I've got it wrong, I will reconsider my position. I tend to agree with you more often than not and find your positions to be well-reasoned. If you're saying I'm too far gone on this one, I'll give it some serious thought.

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this is probably true that we didn't show much urgency. And probably FSU had a lot during their week of practice, which frankly really didn't show on the field.

And podcasts and memes had nothing to do with it

Dare to Dream @CollegeGameDay pic.twitter.com/ZQLC6u995m

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It begins

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