Who gets the game ball?

Jefferson?

Hate to be cliched about this, but it's gotta be Goff

Jefferson because he sealed it with two plays but Goff was great.

Jefferson forced them into a FG on the 2nd to last drive with the pass break up and then the two big final plays. He also played well all game.

Game ball to Jalen.

jalen jefferson with the crucial sack that set up his game winning int ..... goff will get his though no doubt about it

My vote goes to Sonny Dykes. Despite all of the criticism, he brought a team to Evanston that played hard, with confidence and a passion to be better than last year. Plus, the creativity in the first half with Rubenzer clearly threw NW on their heels.

Goff was near perfect. Couple crucial drops and that PI were not on him.

TheSouseFamily;842349731 said:

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Plus, the creativity in the first half with Rubenzer clearly threw NW on their heels.

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This is why my vote goes to T. Franklin (unless the QB-by-committee decision was Dyke's call).

txwharfrat;842349726 said:

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Jefferson forced them into a FG on the 2nd to last drive with the pass break up and then the two big final plays. He also played well all game.

Game ball to Jalen.

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Well, if you give the game ball to Jefferson, Michael Barton gets some of the laces for tipping the interception.

yes barton's tip aided INT

Dozier had a solid game. Piaf made some good plays too.

I think Kaufman is heads and shoulders above Buh. I'm hoping we see solid progression on D.

TheSouseFamily;842349711 said:

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Who gets the game ball?

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Jalen made the 3 best defensive plays of the game: pass defense to prevent a TD, big sack in the 4th, and game sealing INT.

The whole team.

AK and SD!
Jalen and Goff!!

Not even a vote for droski for his agent provocateur work against NU?

Offensive quarter of the ball to Goff, very cool throughout the game;

Defensive 3/4's to Jalen for big plays when needed.

Nasal Mucus Goldenbear;842349739 said:

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This is why my vote goes to T. Franklin (unless the QB-by-committee decision was Dyke's call).

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The game was won in the first half. That burst of offense and the momentum from the 1st half was what did it. The D did enough to hold on as the offense faltered in 2H and Jefferson was obviously the biggest factor in that. But this game was won early on. And I give SD, TFS, Goff, Rubenzer, etc all the credit for hitting the start hard. Things looked a little discombobulated at times in the first half but it was still efficient.

like many awards, depends on what you want game ball to be for and what incentives you value. If it is for the most valuable player, then Jefferson. He had the most highlight plays that directly contributed to the win. Goff had a great game and had a huge contribution to the win - it was not an out of character game for him but did show continued improvement from last year. For example, I think he made a nice fake, or progressive read, on the long touchdown where he looked like he was going to throw the screen, and then looked down field and hit the streaking receiver. I think last year he would have thrown the screen when he saw it was open.

OL was very average Pac-12 line, BUT that's an enormous improvement from last year. So if you have a student he gets mostly Fs one year, then really studies hard over the summer and comes back with a C+ on the first exam, do you give him the game ball as positive reinforcement to build confidence and encourage him to keep working hard and improve, or do you focus on the fact that he is still an average student.

Rubenezer was absolutely amazing, given that he was a true frosh in the first game of the year. Very mature and confident, and his play in the first quarter was crucial to our first couple of drives. Yes the pick was a bad decision and probably showed some lack of experience, but it probably didnt hurt us much in hindsight. He could get game ball for being so much better than could reasonably be expected, and did exactly what he was asked to do. Now that the cat is out of the bag, TF has to find a better way to use him then just a wildcat running virtually every time. I also agree that we should not try to have a true 2 QB system with roughly equal reps. As long as the OL can keep Goff from getting hammered, he should get the vast majority of the snaps and continue to refine his game. of course he is a true sophomore and could be really special if protected and allowed to develop. Also, you have to play to your personnel, and we have a dominant set of WRs, a very good QB and Sonny and TF are best skilled in the Air Raid. Do we need to develop a running game to succeed in the P-12, absolutely! but it should be the change of pace to keep defenses honest and off-balance. I dont think the wildcat will be very effective with a line that probably won't be dominating run blockers.

Defense also was vastly improved but ultimately still gave up 24 pts to probably a mediocre offense with no deep threats and not much of a north-south run game. NW picked apart the pass defense pretty efficiently during their scoring run. We benefited by some drops and of course a few great plays at the end. Still distressing that we bent quite a bit after the big lead even if we ultimately did not break. Kaufman could be awarded for game ball too for huge improvement. I hope and expect he will continue to get week to week improvements over the year to meet the challenge of better P-12 teams.

Gotta remember Rubenzer came in on the last drive after we had passed 4 and 3 times with no clock attrition on the previous two drives and we had just run twice with little yardage gain, but some clock tick off. NU was about to get the ball back when we were 3rd and 10 or 11, and Rubenzer came in with the whole house thinking he was going to run again and if stopped we would punt, with clock for NU. Instead he fires a first down pass to the sideline. Beautiful for a guy who threw a bad decision INT in the first half.

TheSouseFamily;842349711 said:

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Who gets the game ball?

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Mb gets my game ball. Despite being scoffed at by many on this board, he stood by his prediction that this was a different team this year.

While it's yet to be seen how much we've improved, we are definitely better. Nice call mb. Way to stick to your guns.

IrishCalBears;842349839 said:

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Now that the cat is out of the bag, TF has to find a better way to use him then just a wildcat running virtually every time. I also agree that we should not try to have a true 2 QB system with roughly equal reps. As long as the OL can keep Goff from getting hammered, he should get the vast majority of the snaps and continue to refine his game. of course he is a true sophomore and could be really special if protected and allowed to develop. Also, you have to play to your personnel, and we have a dominant set of WRs, a very good QB and Sonny and TF are best skilled in the Air Raid. Do we need to develop a running game to succeed in the P-12, absolutely! but it should be the change of pace to keep defenses honest and off-balance. I dont think the wildcat will be very effective with a line that probably won't be dominating run blockers.

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I slightly disagree b/c there are drives, as the announcers stated, where run-dominated playcalls are needed to eat up time. RBZ, surprisingly, more than doubled the run output of each of our talented RBs. He might be the best rusher for this offense & personnel (especially during those type of drives and in the red zone). And he might be able to juke and twist and will his way to 1st downs beyond the capability of our RBs given current OL development. Several of his runs were the crucial difference betweeen a punt/FG and a TD. Things might change in the coming weeks, but I see a more central role for the youngster.

GB54;842349721 said:

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Jefferson because he sealed it with two plays but Goff was great.

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Jalen's sack: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11439393

Jalen's INT: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11439404

Clutch, back-to-back, game-sealing, beautiful.

Jefferson saved our bacon, sealed the deal and saved Cal from a collapse that could have been mind blowing and confidence crushing.

Nasal Mucus Goldenbear;842349998 said:

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Jalen's sack: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11439393

Jalen's INT: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11439404

Clutch, back-to-back, game-sealing, beautiful.

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Jalen played awesome but that interception came off a tip by Barton (#8). Watch a replay with slow-mo and you'll see it. I think Barton should be getting a lot of credit for the turnover as it landed in Jalen's hands after the tip.

freshfunk;842350014 said:

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Jalen played awesome but that interception came off a tip by Barton (#8). Watch a replay with slow-mo and you'll see it. I think Barton should be getting a lot of credit for the turnover as it landed in Jalen's hands after the tip.

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Barton made quite the effort to tip that ball, no doubt. Last year, Bear D would have retipped the tipped pass right back to the originally intended receiver.

DLSbear;842349780 said:

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AK and SD!
Jalen and Goff!!

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Agree ... and a 5th ball to go in Ted's locker.
Through the players, Ted was there for a great victory.

freshfunk;842350014 said:

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Jalen played awesome but that interception came off a tip by Barton (#8). Watch a replay with slow-mo and you'll see it. I think Barton should be getting a lot of credit for the turnover as it landed in Jalen's hands after the tip.

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Good point. It was a team LB effort, and how long has it been since that could be said.
Kudos to Barton also.

I voted for droski, because driving traffic to message boards is the most important thing.

Was I smokin something.........am I still smokin something? Did I read someplace that Jalen was in on 16 tackles? My vote for game ball.

Also love the homage to Zack Follet with the Pain Train whistle pull after the sack

Ball goes to Sonny. He's been under fire since the fourth game last year. I'm thrilled for him. If the game had been lost after the 31-7 start? Can't even think about that. After last year walking out of Stanford stadium, today is bright and sunny with perfect Cal blue skies.

1979bear;842350266 said:

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Ball goes to Sonny. He's been under fire since the fourth game last year. I'm thrilled for him. If the game had been lost after the 31-7 start? Can't even think about that. After last year walking out of Stanford stadium, today is bright and sunny with perfect Cal blue skies.

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I voted for Jefferson but Sonny deserves props. He did take flack for a year and he knew this was a very important game from a psychological perspective. Lose and it could have been confidence and soul crushing. If anything, SD gets the "monkey off the back" ball.

+1
Go Bears!

beelzebear;842350268 said:

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I voted for Jefferson but Sonny deserves props. He did take flack for a year and he knew this was a very important game from a psychological perspective. Lose and it could have been confidence and soul crushing. If anything, SD gets the "monkey off the back" ball.

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