This is a loss on the road to the ninth-ranked team in the country. Of course it would be tough. Commiserate a bit, then put it behind you.

I think you guys will be ok in the long run. Just keep the faith.

eff that

We can play well for a half, as we demonstrated tonight and at Washington. Unfortunately, we don't seem to be able to get our act together for an entire 60 minutes. It's especially telling how poorly we're playing in the second half. That's a sign of poor adjustments by the coaching staff at halftime. We're just getting out-coached, pure and simple.

Thanks. Cal fans are a funny bunch. 90% of the crowded predicted a loss of at least 10 or more. Then the game goes on and we're ahead 15-14 and there's complaining about the D and then Maynard. Then we get blown out by No. 9 in their house, it's Tedford loses another one - as if they expected us to win all along. This is exactly what some of you expected, so if you weren't calling for Tedford's head before the game, this game isn't Exhibit A for you to be calling for his head now. I just think it's a hard proposition to steal a win at Autzen against a great team, with the team we have now. We're not close to being there yet. That said, USC is not close to the team Oregon is so I say that game should be a good one at home next week.

Tedford needs to learn to control the emotion of his team. He's not a ra ra guy so he isn't going to get the team fired up with words...so he has to do it with actions. You can graft an emotion onto your team based on what kind of plays you call.

Taking a knee in the 4th quarter to go to overtime? That may or may not be the right decision...but it sends a message to your team.

Cal took a lot of risks on defense last year and the first half of this the game this year vs Oregon...and it fired up the defense and they executed very well...they got fired up and while they allowed some big plays, they also made big plays. The defense was fired up and having fun.

Going for it on fourth down shows faith in your team which makes them more confident which makes them execute better.

Fake plays (be it on kicks or offensive trickery) create momentum and infuse energy...even when they fail. Onside kicks are a HUGE motivational factor. You basically take your defense aside and say I have so much faith in you that I think you can stop them on a shorter field...so we're going for an onside kick to try and kickstart our offensive momentum. How huge would an onside kick to start the second half have been if we recovered it? If we didn't how big a loss is it? Worst case they did what they did. Best case you have a fired up defense who knows their coach had faith in them to get it going.

Next week is going to be a big one vs USC...it will be huge if Cal can figure out how to beat them this year. USC and Oregon State are huge games to me. I don't think we have reason to be scared of Oregon at home next year...we've shown we can contain them for 1.5 games. I don't think we have reason to be scared (yet) of a luck-less Stanford...but if we can't get over USC/Oregon State THIS year its going to be harder for us NEXT year.

~MrGPAC

Golden One;587294 said:

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We can play well for a half, as we demonstrated tonight and at Washington. Unfortunately, we don't seem to be able to get our act together for an entire 60 minutes. It's especially telling how poorly we're playing in the second half. That's a sign of poor adjustments by the coaching staff at halftime. We're just getting out-coached, pure and simple.

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So Oregon's superior talent and experience at the skill positions is a non-factor? It's just two evenly matched teams on a neutral field and a chess match between Chip and JT at the middle of the field?

Wait, we played both halves at UW -- we were 2 yards from a chance to tie them. UW didn't exactly light it up in the 2nd half either. That's called the run of play -- sometimes it's wide open. Sometimes it's nip and tuck.

KoreAmBear;587296 said:

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Thanks. Cal fans are a funny bunch. 90% of the crowded predicted a loss of at least 10 or more. Then the game goes on and we're ahead 15-14 and there's complaining about the D and then Maynard. Then we get blown out by No. 9 in their house, it's Tedford loses another one - as if they expected us to win all along. This is exactly what some of you expected, so if you weren't calling for Tedford's head before the game, this game isn't Exhibit A for you to be calling for his head now. I just think it's a hard proposition to steal a win at Autzen against a great team, with the team we have now. We're not close to being there yet. That said, USC is not close to the team Oregon is so I say that game should be a good one at home next week.

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This.

I figured if it went well we'd lose 35-24, and if it went poorly we'd lose 42-17. Well, it went more poorly. But not totally beyond the pale. All the "sky's falling" stuff in the midst of this loss is overdone. Remember gang, 6-6 team this year +bowl, with 7-5 if we're lucky. Nothing so far this season has made me deviate from that, including tonight.

We didn't beat the spread.

93BearInOregon;587344 said:

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I figured if it went well we'd lose 35-24, and if it went poorly we'd lose 42-17. Well, it went more poorly. But not totally beyond the pale. All the "sky's falling" stuff in the midst of this loss is overdone. Remember gang, 6-6 team this year +bowl, with 7-5 if we're lucky. Nothing so far this season has made me deviate from that, including tonight.

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yup.

Cal actually played pretty terrible in the second half vs Washington too...particularly Maynard (though at the time I credited a lot of that to the disruption in flow of the game caused by the injury).

What worries me the most is the redzone offense. Two games in a row its been exposed...I'd love to get the tight ends involved some more.

Wouldn't mind seeing refs call flagrant holding right at the point where a play is broken open too...guy running after guy with ball...suddenly starts falling backwards when momentum has him going forward...allowing the runner to cut around him to the edge...and no flag? All night?

~MrGPAC

KoreAmBear;587296 said:

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Thanks. Cal fans are a funny bunch. 90% of the crowded predicted a loss of at least 10 or more. Then the game goes on and we're ahead 15-14 and there's complaining about the D and then Maynard. Then we get blown out by No. 9 in their house, it's Tedford loses another one - as if they expected us to win all along. This is exactly what some of you expected, so if you weren't calling for Tedford's head before the game, this game isn't Exhibit A for you to be calling for his head now. I just think it's a hard proposition to steal a win at Autzen against a great team, with the team we have now. We're not close to being there yet. That said, USC is not close to the team Oregon is so I say that game should be a good one at home next week.

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You are way too reasonable KoreAm. And frankly, refreshing in light of what is generally posted here after Cal games. Thanks.

You guys are tripping if you are that upset about this game. A good, accurate QB gets us a lot close in this game with sustained drives and momentum. I'm not that disappointed, and think the future is still an upwards swing.

but our original predictions included a tedford meltdown. We expect meltdowns. It has never failed.

GB54;587353 said:

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We didn't beat the spread.

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Wow, we were in good shape ATS at halftime too.

I predicted a win (check Bearplay). But that's not what gets me mad.

What makes me mad is that we were in the game the first half and totally got rolled in the second. The 3Q was a replay of the last 9 mins from 2010. They just drive at will and we couldn't stop them.

It's not as disappointing as last week for obvious reasons but it hurts. Oooh baby it hurts!

You can't call them drives. You can call them two broken plays where the ducks clearly held, which went for 160 yards.

Oh well. SC will be fun.

freshfunk;587411 said:

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I predicted a win (check Bearplay). But that's not what gets me mad.

What makes me mad is that we were in the game the first half and totally got rolled in the second. The 3Q was a replay of the last 9 mins from 2010. They just drive at will and we couldn't stop them.

It's not as disappointing as last week for obvious reasons but it hurts. Oooh baby it hurts!

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The D looked flat and tired -- but not by the end of the third quarter, they looked like that coming out of the locker room. Did they have a meal or something at halftime?

emotionally tired. only LSU has done better against them and they are LSU, played em for an opener at home and got 4 TOs. Ran it 48 times and only needed 275 total O to put 42 points on the board. ORE still scored 27 in that game. evryone else rolled up in th 50s and 60s. We didnt do so badly, ZM was not his tough self today or it might hve been a bit closer, a bit. Front 7 clearly tired in the second half.