Riley was way better.At least against the weaker teams.

4th and 1 at the 5 yard line and we kick a field Goal at Arizona. A key game and a conservative approach kept us out of a bowl game. Still hard to understand, especially knowing thet Stoops would let his Qb throw with time running down in the 4th quarter. we would have been better off to have gone for it and not made it than kicking that lousy field goal.Then they have to go 95 yards. I guess not worth revisting at this point.

OzoneTheCat;495790 said:

---

A result of his greater involvement with coaching our QBs perhaps. Like the CEO who hasn't spent as much time on the factory floor in recent years.

---

Yeah, JT needs to be an undercover boss!

...throw Mansion under the bus too. he had his chance and showed nothing, nada, zip, bubkas!

:headbang

Oaktown - yours is the most accurate history I hve seen so far. Sweeney was never anything but a legacy pledge to the fraternity, Hinder was always a project, Ayoob always a head case. Imo,tt is time for the staff to start getting a bit more ruthless and telling guys who aren't going to contribute (Aiguama sp. Sweeney) that their time is up.

Well, maybe its not worth revisiting, but you did, so let's revisit.

With 11 minutes left of a game that is 6-3, we kick the field goal instead of going for it. Repeat. 6-3. Not exactly an offensive battle. As a result, we go ahead 9-3. Arizona then gets the ball and does not score. We then drive down for a 40 yard field goal and miss on 4th and 5. They then drive down and score.

How do you figure the conservative approach lost the game? If we had gone for it and ended up with a touchdown, yes, we would have been up 10, and that would have been great and probably won the game. If we don't make it, we are only up 3 and they only would have needed to get a field goal. To do that they did not need to drive 95 yards. And again, that was not the drive they scored on. Other point. Had we gone for it and not made it, we would have been up by 3. So when we attempted the 40 yard kick on the next drive, we would have only extended the lead to 6. As it was, because we kicked it, we had the winning field goal sitting in front of us.

This is easily a decision that was reasonable to go either way. For me, the deciding factor is that the game was 6-3, not 30-27. I don't see how that decision is hard to understand at all. There were a lot of things that lost that game for us, mainly an anemic offense that only managed 9 points and a kicker who missed the clinching kick, but the conservative approach being one of them is debateable at best.

OaktownBear;495773 said:

---

Don't agree. There were a lot of hints from insiders that Ayoob was practicing very poorly. Its just that Cal fans wanted to believe that Tedford had lined up the next Aaron Rodgers so didn't want to hear anything else. Almost every report I've seen said Bridgford threw fine. It was things like the fumbling that was an issue. And it was one practice.

I think that with respect to the RS frosh, its a matter of situation. Bridgford was hurt his entire frosh season, and my understanding was that some of that was lingering last year. Sweeney is terrible. Mansion is poor as a RS junior and as a RS frosh would have had to beat out Riley and Longshore to break the top 2. Riley beat out Reed for 2nd string, but certainly wasn't going to beat out a healthy Longshore.

With respect to Longshore's situation, when he was a RS frosh he should have been battling a Holmoe recruit (Schwartz - transferred to Davis) a last minute Tedford recruit from his first recruiting season (Levy), and Tedford's first full fledged QB recruit (Dove - academically inelegible). So due to a situation, much of which was not of his own making, where the cupboard was bare, the job almost defaulted to Longshore. That was why Tedford got the best JC QB he could find to compete with him.

As for Hinder - all the reports about him as a recruit was that he had great tools but had a long way to go physically. Not surprising if he isn't ready at this point.

---

Not quite true about Ayoob: LINK Both he and Longshore were said to be looking good.

Quote:

---

Quarterbacks Nate Longshore and Joseph Ayoob combined to complete 12-of-15 passes for 298 yards and four touchdowns, as California concluded its spring workouts with the annual Spring Game Saturday in Memorial Stadium.

Longshore, a redshirt-freshman, was 5-for-6 for 106 yards and three scores. He connected with LaReylle Cunningham on a 47-yard pass for one TD, with his other touchdown tosses going to Noah Smith (29 yards) and Robert Jordan (24 yards).

Ayoob, the transfer from City College of San Francisco, finished the day 7-for-9 for 192 yards. His lone TD strike was a 70-yarder to Smith on his first attempt of the afternoon.

"There is no front runner," head coach Jeff Tedford said of the battle to replace Aaron Rodgers as the Bears' starting quarterback. "We'll come into fall and there will be competition."

---

Then before the opener:

Quote:

---

Perhaps the biggest task facing head coach Jeff Tedford is replacing departed quarterback Aaron Rodgers, with both redshirt-freshman Nate Longshore and junior college transfer Joe Ayoob battling for the starting nod. Both players are expected to see action in the opener.

---

Tedford said:

Quote:

---

On the starting quarterback choice:
"Nate Longshore is going to start the game for us. He has done an excellent job for us, not only through the spring, but it's evident that he worked really hard through the summer. He has really done a nice job of understanding what we are doing schematically with our offense, has really been consistent and accurate with throwing the ball, so I feel that he has really performed well. Joe (Ayoob), very pleased with what he has done as well as far as his retention from the spring through the summer. It's very similar to the situation where Aaron (Rodgers) came in; it's hard to make the strides you need to make in a short period of time when it comes to game planning. We will continue working both of them. We hope that both of them will play in the first game and we'll see what happens from there - how they handle game situations and continue the competition. Right now Nate (Longshore) is the guy."

---

Tedford was the one who made the comparison between Ayoob and Rodgers with Longshore potentially in the Reggie Robertson role. Of course, we know what happened after that. Against Sac State, Longshore played well but went down with a season ending injury. Ayoob played very poorly but got the starting position by default. Ayoob struggled all season but, had some OK games before he went into a serious slump culminating in a horrible game against SC with Cal fans booing him and finally being replaced by Levy.

drunkoski;495748 said:

---

i must say i do wonder why redshirt freshman can't hope to compete for a starting position anymore.

---

Is this true?

OaktownBear;495773 said:

---

As for Hinder - all the reports about him as a recruit was that he had great tools but had a long way to go physically. Not surprising if he isn't ready at this point.

---

What!!! Didn't you hear? Hinder just isn't being afforded the opportunity to compete.

I'm not going to get into arguing things 6 years after the fact, but by insiders I did not mean Cal marketing or any source that would have as a sub-headline "Noah Smith Has Big Outing".

OaktownBear;495928 said:

---

I'm not going to get into arguing things 6 years after the fact, but by insiders I did not mean Cal marketing or any source that would have as a sub-headline "Noah Smith Has Big Outing".

---

LOL, I agree about Cal marketing, but I was going by the [U]stats[/U] and what [U]Tedford[/U] said, not what Cal marketing said.

I also don't trust the "insiders."

"Insiders" also blamed our 2007 collapse on Desean Jackson and said we would be better in 2008 due to "addition by subtraction."

"Insiders" have been touting Brock Mansion for years.

I'll trust the stats and what Tedford actually says over second hand reports from unnamed "insiders."

BearsLair72;495881 said:

---

...throw Mansion under the bus too. he had his chance and showed nothing, nada, zip, bubkas!

:headbang

---

Thats great and all if we had a star behind him. however, i wont be surprised if mansion is our starter this year despite his deficiencies just as riley remained a seriously flawed starter for us last year.

granted it was only one practice, but from what i saw on sat at laney, we are worse off at qb this yr than we were last year. no d1 qb at any depth of the roster should be missing wrs and throwing ugly ducks as badly as i witnessed on sat. Hinder and sweeney did not look like d3 qbs, let alone d1. mansion did not look great by any means but clearly has the most zip on his throws and knows the off best. maynard looked ok at times but still looked plain bad on some throws. bridgford looked great at times, but none of the three looked to be in command. out of probably 40-50 throws in 7 on 7 drills, there were maybe 10 completions, and thats being generous.

i hope either maynard or bridgford gets it together and begins to look like a d1 qb, and learns the system, but from what i saw, i wont be surprised if our qb play takes a step back this yr. ouch that hurts to say.

oskidunker;495873 said:

---

Riley was way better.At least against the weaker teams.

4th and 1 at the 5 yard line and we kick a field Goal at Arizona. A key game and a conservative approach kept us out of a bowl game. Still hard to understand, especially knowing thet Stoops would let his Qb throw with time running down in the 4th quarter. we would have been better off to have gone for it and not made it than kicking that lousy field goal.Then they have to go 95 yards. I guess not worth revisting at this point.

---

JT's strategy would have resulted in a win if
1. Tavecchio had hit that last FG and put the game out of reach.
OR
2. The Cal D had stopped that long bomb pass which was barely caught. The D had done it earlier in the game, why not expect that to occur again.

CAL6371;495887 said:

---

Oaktown - yours is the most accurate history I hve seen so far. Sweeney was never anything but a legacy pledge to the fraternity, Hinder was always a project, Ayoob always a head case. Imo,tt is time for the staff to start getting a bit more ruthless and telling guys who aren't going to contribute (Aiguama sp. Sweeney) that their time is up.

---

Are you actually throwing a RS Frosh who has not played a minute of time on the field under the bus?

"I know you will never be any good (even though I have never seen you play at this level) so you are history!"

1BigTroyFan;495859 said:

---

I don't know why any of you are worried about your next starting QB. Whoever wins the starting job will be better then Riley.

---

Common misconception among non-Cal fans. Riley was really just mediocre -- he had awful receivers and an even worse OL. His pocket collapsed and his targets dropped balls faster than Pop Warner league teams at times.

If I could make a comparison you could relate to, I think Riley was a lot like John David Booty, except Riley didn't have one of the best WR and OL units in the nation to help him out. Had Booty been put in Riley's shoes, you'd see a similar performance.

And frankly, I can very easily see Mansion doing a lot worse than Riley. (I can see him doing better too though, we'll just have to wait for fall to know).

drunkoski;495748 said:

---

i must say i do wonder why redshirt freshman can't hope to compete for a starting position anymore. nate got it why can't hinder?

---

Looks good apparantly, but the view is he is body has not matured sufficiently, and will break after some Pac XII hits.

Maynard hasn't been on a football field for a year and half and deserves some slack. Brigford has been injured, so he also needs the reps. Hinder is underexperienced and underweight, and JT said he wasn't ready physically. Mansion should look the best at this point. Let's see where everyone is at the end of the month. Things may look more interesting.

1BigTroyFan;495859 said:

---

I don't know why any of you are worried about your next starting QB. Whoever wins the starting job will be better then Riley.

---

If only ...

wifeisafurd;496004 said:

---

Looks good apparantly, but the view is he is body has not matured sufficiently, and will break after some Pac XII hits.

---

i'm sorry, but hinder did not look good on sat. his ball routinely flutters, rarely a spiral, and he's consistently inaccurate. honestly i expect a lot more from a high level D1 qb, even one a semester into his college career.

and if you think his lack of size/bulk is a factor in him not being considered for the starting job, you can rule maynard out for any meaningful snaps. maynard looked as skinny if not skinnier than hinder.

BearEatsTacos;495998 said:

---

Common misconception among non-Cal fans. Riley was really just mediocre -- he had awful receivers and an even worse OL. His pocket collapsed and his targets dropped balls faster than Pop Warner league teams at times.

If I could make a comparison you could relate to, I think Riley was a lot like John David Booty, except Riley didn't have one of the best WR and OL units in the nation to help him out. Had Booty been put in Riley's shoes, you'd see a similar performance.

And frankly, I can very easily see Mansion doing a lot worse than Riley. (I can see him doing better too though, we'll just have to wait for fall to know).

---

I'm not sure about that - outsiders can be more objective and all the SC guys seem to think that Riley was just awful (I guess judging by their games against him in 2009 and 2010, one could probably conclude that - I realize he had much better games). I think we did a lot of "saw the video and on retrospect he wasn't so bad and it was others who didn't help him out." There's some value in that but real time feeling also has value to me -- he's making his decisions in real time, not in slow mo on film. We all knew that he couldn't hit the 5 yard screen passes to running backs in real time. This is fundamental to keeping drives alive.

KoreAmBear;496013 said:

---

I'm not sure about that - outsiders can be more objective and all the SC guys seem to think that Riley was just awful (I guess judging by their games against him in 2009 and 2010, one could probably conclude that - I realize he had much better games).

---

The part you put in parenthesis is my point. I doubt 1BigTroy even saw a game where Mansion started. Furthermore, USC fans in particular love blaming all their woes on the QB -- see Exhibit 1: John David Booty, Exhibit 2: Aaron Corp, Exhibit 3: Matt Barkley. The same myopia applies when they see Cal, and Cal the past 3 seasons has been a very different team than USC.

Quote:

---

I think we did a lot of "saw the video and on retrospect he wasn't so bad and it was others who didn't help him out." There's some value in that but real time feeling also has value to me -- he's making his decisions in real time, not in slow mo on film. We all knew that he couldn't hit the 5 yard screen passes to running backs in real time. This is fundamental to keeping drives alive.

---

The quote I was responding to was that anyone would be better than Riley. I'm not saying Riley was Aaron Rodgers -- I'm saying he was mediocre. Missing 5 yard screens is pretty awful, but then again Riley put together some great drives and scrambles throughout his career. It was up and down, and because of this I don't think it's at all accurate to say that anyone else would be better. I had thought this until I saw Mansion under center.

And finally, I'm not Tedford. I don't spend hours in the film room breaking down our games over the weekend. My conclusions are from watching games in real time, and I still say Riley was overall mediocre. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, on occasion great, and often frustrating.

BearEatsTacos;496014 said:

---

The part you put in parenthesis is my point. I doubt 1BigTroy even saw a game where Mansion started. Furthermore, USC fans in particular love blaming all their woes on the QB -- see Exhibit 1: John David Booty, Exhibit 2: Aaron Corp, Exhibit 3: Matt Barkley. The same myopia applies when they see Cal, and Cal the past 3 seasons has been a very different team than USC.



The quote I was responding to was that anyone would be better than Riley. I'm not saying Riley was Aaron Rodgers -- I'm saying he was mediocre. Missing 5 yard screens is pretty awful, but then again Riley put together some great drives and scrambles throughout his career. It was up and down, and because of this I don't think it's at all accurate to say that anyone else would be better. I had thought this until I saw Mansion under center.

And finally, I'm not Tedford. I don't spend hours in the film room breaking down our games over the weekend. My conclusions are from watching games in real time, and I still say Riley was overall mediocre. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, on occasion great, and often frustrating.

---

Yep good assessment. Please someone, anyone - save us from this QB misery.

sweeney is out, if he wants to play he will have to transfer. Mansion, Bridgford and Maynard are our guys. Hinder needs to gain about 20-30 lbs. Sweeney can't throw and Wertenberger just isn't talented enough. Bridgford has the most accuracy, Maynard has the legs and Mansion has the Arm strength.

The RB situation looks like it will be up in the air till Fall, if Bigelow is 100% healthy then he needs to be our guy.

interesting question as to what the pool is like coming out of HS-are the Cal recruits too much of square pegs into round holes?
You could have taken a shot at Tedford and blamed the slow development on him and the staff, so thanks for not taking the easy way out...

wifeisafurd;496005 said:

---

Maynard hasn't been on a football field for a year and half and deserves some slack. Brigford has been injured, so he also needs the reps. Hinder is underexperienced and underweight, and JT said he wasn't ready physically. Mansion should look the best at this point. Let's see where everyone is at the end of the month. Things may look more interesting.

---

Way to reasonable wiaf!!

C'mon it's time to get your rant on!

How did I, or anyone else, throw Hinder under the bus? Hinder is still a project - he is too thin, arm strangth an issue, he played in a minor hs league and he has just started his college career - who said anything about him never going to do anything?
Aigauma (sp) is a fifth year senior and Sweeney is far advanced in his time at Cal and neither has shown anything. Sweeney was not even the best qb on his hs team (the kid at WSU did better the next hs year and has started at WSU). It is time to thin the herd.
Hinder is an entirely different matter. He will take time, the others have already proven their lack of value.

Yeah, I love selective memories and revisiting decisions without context.

CAL6371;496062 said:

---

Hinder is still a project - he is too thin, arm strength an issue, he played in a minor hs league and he has just started his college career

---

He sounds like 90% of the hs QBs, who play at small colleges or community colleges or not at all. If he is too physically weak to compete with our questionable set of QB candidates, why was he recruited and given a scholarship in the first place? What did JT see in him that made him think that Hinder could start in the P10? I fail to see any hope in him ever being competitive especially with new QB recruits being added each year.

tenplay;496098 said:

---

He sounds like 90% of the hs QBs, who play at small colleges or community colleges or not at all. If he is too physically weak to compete with our questionable set of QB candidates, why was he recruited and given a scholarship in the first place? What did JT see in him that made him think that Hinder could start in the P10? I fail to see any hope in him ever being competitive especially with new QB recruits being added each year.

---

I blame the recruiting services we subscribe to.

OzoneTheCat;496125 said:

---

I blame the recruiting services we subscribe to.

---

Yep. We should switch to the gold standard -- Willie Lyles.

1BigTroyFan;496081 said:

---

Not bad with a 140.7 rating. I'm supprised.

---

Riley's rating is stronger than expected because he really was good at avoiding interceptions. That skews things a little bit, because he did have his share of fumbles, and he often made throws so bad that no one could have caught them anyway (so no INTs, but not exactly good throws either).

On the other hand, not throwing picks is also worth something. On the balance, I'd also say that Riley was about an average Pac-10 quarterback for his career. As such, it's not at all certain that Cal's next QB will be better than him.

tenplay;496098 said:

---

What did JT see in him that made him think that Hinder could start in the P10?

---

Presumably the same thing that Alabama, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Colorado State, Florida State, Kansas, Kansas State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Standford, and UCLA all saw when they offered him.

Quote:

---

I fail to see any hope in him ever being competitive especially with new QB recruits being added each year.

---

This comment is laughably absurd. Congratulations.

LafayetteBear;496138 said:

---

It's a pretty safe bet in my opinion. Not only because the next QB is likely to be decent in his own right, but because JT will be calling the plays again, and (more importantly) the next QB will be surrounded by better blockers and receivers.

---

That's my thinking as well, but ultimately when you are replacing an average player, there's always a decent chance that the replacement will be worse than him.

drunkoski;496148 said:

---

assuming these were all legit ironclad offers is laughably absurd.

---

Assuming you know more than Rivals and Scout is far more absurd. For good or for ill, we go off of what they record, and that's what both of them say.

I have always felt that Hinder is likely to take a few years to grow into his frame. I am not going to say I am 100% sure he will be star, but I am not worried in the slightest that he isn't ready to beat out Mansion, Bridgford, and Maynard after one semester on campus.

drunkoski;495702 said:

---

we gave him a scholorship to help him become a coach?

---

Look at it this way: If he ever becomes as good a coach as his grandfather, let's hope he coaches at Cal.

My guess is you were at the 1995 game where Jim Sweeney's Bulldogs scored two TDs in the last eight minutes to upset Gilby's Bears. Sweeney was a very good coach. Beau got the scolly because JT felt he owed Jim. I don't begrudge JT that move at all, or Beau either.