Cal Bears Football

Cal has become a breeding ground for star running backs. Now if they can just find a quarterback worthy of the big stage.

Jeff Tedford was anointed a quarterback guru only to see the proud Cal Golden Bears falter many times from shoddy quarterback play. They finally have a sizable presence under center with a huge arm in Zach Maynard. 

Cal has had their shot at glory before. It all came crashing down with a blunder to end all blunders from former Cal starter Kevin Riley. The video is rife with cringe-worthy mistakes. 

The Holiday Bowl is nowhere near as pressure-filled as that fateful day that could have seen the Bears take the No. 1 spot in the nation. However, it will go a long way to determine if Cal finally has the quarterback they have been promised for years. 

Maynard has indeed shown flashes of being a mobile quarterback that can launch the ball with precision. There have also been some forgettable games that will have Cal fans thinking more Justin Vedder than Aaron Rodgers. 

It's hard not to like Cal's chances to upset as Texas shuffles their own quarterbacks and the Golden Bears settle in with a young man who has thrown for 2,802 yards and 17 touchdowns. 

We can't forget the 11 interceptions and the ability for Maynard to turn ugly at the snap of a finger. Cal fans will no doubt point to a horrendous game against UCLA that saw their QB toss four picks in a rout. 

Cal is no football powerhouse, but they have been on the cusp pf greatness a few times in their storied history. If they are going to make a bid for the Rose Bowl or greater ventures in the next couple seasons, it will happen behind the efforts of a promising Zach Maynard. 

How he does under the lights of the Holiday Bowl will answer whether he is the right man for the job or just another quarterback that Jeff Tedford fails to ever see blossom. 

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The Holiday Bowl is almost upon us. With the injury reports more or less complete, the practices done and the game plans set, the California Golden Bears and Texas Longhorns have now relocated to San Diego for their epic showdown.

Epic? The Holiday Bowl? Correct.

This isn't some BCS bowl given to the highest bidder with the biggest fanbase.

This is a test between two rising teams looking to break into the college football elite once more. This is a grudge match for a politicking Rose Bowl slight from 2004. This is a battle between two teams that pound the ball on the ground and make gutsy strikes through the air.

One team has more experience (Cal), and the other has youthful talent (Texas). One team will be looking to cap off a momentous end to their season after winning three of four and coming within three of tying up the nationally-ranked Stanford Cardinal. The other will be desperate (and hungry) to prove they deserve their ranking (24th) despite tanking three of their last four games.

Both teams play like badgers on defense (no, I don't mean Wisconsin, I mean real badgers: stubborn, mean and relentless).

How will this play out? Here are some bold predictions:

1. California will strike for two touchdowns in the first five minutes.

Justification

Cal has a powerful QB-WR tandem in brothers Zach Maynard and Keenan Allen. Texas' secondary has had trouble with great wide receivers, and Allen ranks 12th in the nation in reception yards despite Cal turning to their running game in the last third of the season.

Maynard has improved to a 70 percent completion rate. Coach Tedford will look to exploit Texas' weaker pass defense and look for some long pass strikes early (Allen's longest reception is 90 yards). 

2. Texas RB Malcolm Brown and Cal RB Isi Sofele will combine for 400-plus yards on the ground.

Justification

Both teams rely on their running game to win, and both Brown and Sofele are 1,000-yard runners (Brown would be over 1,000 in rushing yards if not for injuries). No matter how good the defense, these two are talented enough to find their way across the line of scrimmage and into some open field.

3. Texas's Case McCoy will be sacked three times and finish with two touchdowns, 159 passing yards and two interceptions, including a pick-six in the final quarter.

Justification

Cal's defense is ranked seventh nationally in sacks per game (over two). The Texas QB is young, playing in his first bowl game and threw four interceptions against the terrible Baylor defense.

No matter how good Texas' OL is, bad decisions and one of the strongest defenses Texas will face this season will do in the Longhorns. 

4. Cal's Zach Maynard will be sacked twice and finish with three touchdowns, 210 passing yards and zero interceptions.

Justification

Texas' defense is the best that Cal will face, no doubts. But Cal is strong and won't be beaten too badly. And with Tedford looking to exploit the WR mismatches, expect Maynard to do more passing than he did in the rest of November. Also expect him to continue to improve his completion rate.

5. Cal Bears will win 34-24.

Justification

All of the above, but mainly because Jeff Tedford can and will get creative with his offense, whereas Mack Brown will be limited with his offensive options and have to rely (too much) on his defense. 

The California Golden Bears and the Texas Longhorns will be at Qualcomm Stadium on Wednesday, Dec. 28, to square-off in the Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl in San Diego. This Pac-12 /Big 12 clash is slated to get underway at 8 p.m. (EST) and the game will be broadcast nationally on ESPN.

California earned its ticket to this bowl with an overall record of 7-5 both straight-up and against the spread that included victories in three of its last four games of the regular season. The Bears' only loss during this stretch was a hard-fought 31-28 setback to then-No.9 Stanford as 17-point road underdogs.

The Bears come into this matchup with a balanced offense that averaged 251.5 yards per game passing and 167.2 yards on the ground. Zach Maynard threw for 2,802 yards this season, but he completed only 57 percent of his passes for an average of 7.53 yards per catch.

Isi Sofele did the bulk of the damage, running the ball with 1,270 yards on 232 carries. He averaged 5.5 yards per run and led the team with nine touchdowns.

Texas came into this season with much higher aspirations than a pre-New Year’s Day bowl game, but a 1-3 record down the stretch dropped it to 7-5 SU on the year (6-6 ATS) and to sixth place in the Big 12 with a 4-5 SU record in conference play.

The Longhorns offense relied heavily on a running game that finished the season ranked 19th in the nation with an average of 210.4 yards per game. They had four players with more than 300 yards rushing, led by Malcolm Brown’s 707 yards. He missed the last game of the season with turf toe, but is listed as probable for this game.

Running back Joe Bergeron is also listed as probable with a tweaked hamstring.

Both teams' defenses have developed a bend-but-do-not-break mentality this season with the Golden Bears giving up an average of 24.4 points per game and the Longhorns giving up 23.3, so both offenses should be able to put some points on the board.

2011 Holiday Bowl Odds

Texas opened as a 3.5-point favorite for this game, according to college football odds, but the line has slid a bit in Cal’s favor and currently has the Longhorns as three-point favorites for this contest.

The total line opened at 48 points and has dropped a half-point to 47.5.

Holiday Bowl Betting Trends

The Golden Bears are 3-8 ATS in their last 11 games played in December, but 4-1 ATS in their last five games against the Big 12.

The total has gone "over" in six of their last seven bowl games and in five of their last six games played at a neutral site.

The Longhorns are 4-9 ATS in their last 13 nonconference games and 3-8 ATS in their last 11 bowl games.

The total has stayed "under" in their last four neutral-site games, but has gone "over" in seven of their last 10 bowl games.

2011 Holiday Bowl Predictions: Cal vs. Texas Betting Picks

There are no past head-to-head trends between these two teams, but some individual ones suggest that the "over" could actually be the best play in this matchup.

As far as playing a side, stick with Texas to win and cover the three points as it is still the better all-around team and far more battle-tested than the Golden Bears.

The Pick: Texas 31, California 27

Doc Moseman is the owner of Doc's Sports football picks Web site.

Since the bowl matchups were announced on December 4, sports pundits have been busy crafting compelling storylines for this year’s games. 

Among the narratives, the Fiesta Bowl's been labeled a gun-slinging showdown between the NFL’s certain No. 1 pick, Andrew Luck of Stanford, and the NCAA’s prehistoric equivalent, 28-year old Brandon Weeden of Oklahoma State. 

The Rose Bowl's been hyped as the convergence of Pac-12 athleticism against the ground-and-pound of the Big 10, and the National Championship Game offers the intrigue of Alabama coach Nick Saban vying for the title against his former team.  But perhaps no bowl matchup features more genuine acrimony than the California vs. Texas, Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl. 

Why the bad blood?  Following Texas’ 26-13 victory over Texas A&M in the 2004 season’s final week, Longhorns coach Mack Brown publicly lobbied for his team’s inclusion in the Rose Bowl.  With an identical record, and despite having trailed Cal in the BCS rankings for several weeks, Texas got its wish, denying Cal its first trip the the Rose since 1959. 

As a fourth-generation Cal grad and senior at the time, I watched the announcement in disbelief.  What had been our undoing?  Were we being punished for not thoroughly drubbing Southern Miss in the final game or was Brown’s meddlesome behavior to blame?

The frustration that builds from your team’s greatest success occurring more than 50 years ago can be formidable, and Mack Brown’s eleventh-hour stumping triggered an all-too-familiar disappointment. 

It reminded Cal fans of their history’s cyclical nature: That with every taste of success and hint of expectation, a larger dose of frustration had always been dealt. 

After enjoying brief success in the early ‘90s, and following a 10-2 season and Citrus Bowl victory, Coach Bruce Snyder left for Arizona State and passed his headset to alleged offensive guru Keith Gilbertson.  “Gilby” promptly sent the program into a nosedive, totaling just 11 conference wins in 32 tries. 

Then, after one season as head coach and following the optimism of Cal’s first bowl game in four seasons, Steve Mariucci left to head the 49ers, but not before he could appoint Tom Holmoe to replace him.  Through some perverse cosmic force, Holmoe clung to his job for five stomach-churning years without ever winning more than three conference games in a season.

Such was the backdrop for Cal’s 2004 reaction.  Witnessing Brown’s effort to coerce votes and sway public opinion was incensing, and reeked of hypocrisy.  How could the same man who annually declares that his most important job is developing upstanding citizens undercut notions of fair play and purity of sport?  

But Brown’s pre-selection stumping wasn’t all that rankled Cal fans.  Upon receiving the bid, he about-faced and further infuriated "Old Blues" with offers of his folksy sympathy.  “As happy as we are today,” said Brown, “I really feel sorry for Cal.  Cal is a great football team.  The system doesn’t work and we understand that.” 

Translation, Brown manipulated the system then had the audacity to criticize it, and whether deniability was an effort to cloak his misbehavior or he simply failed to see the contradiction, Cal fans reacted to his maneuverings with similar indignation. 

Now, 7 years later, and with a head-to-head matchup looming, Cal fans are in no mood for contrition on the part of Texas.  But while retribution is unquestionably on our minds, it is not the game's only storyline.

In Jeff Tedford’s 10 years at the helm he has compiled a 70-47 record.  Compare that to the previous decade’s 42-71 profile and it’s easy to see why optimism abounds.  The Bears have won five bowl games against the likes of Virginia Tech, Miami and Texas A&M.  They’ve won seven of the last nine Big Games and suffered just one losing season. 

Simultaneously, Cal has produced some of the NFL’s most exciting talent, notably Aaron Rodgers, Desean Jackson, Marshawn Lynch, Nnamdi Asomugha and Jahvid Best. 

And while the product on the field has galvanized Cal fans, the effect off it has been equally transformative. 

The most telling evidence has been the renovation of Memorial Stadium and the construction of the Student-Athlete High Performance Center.  Spanning more than 142,000 square feet, the SAHPC training facility has been on Tedford’s agenda since his appointment, and alumni answered the bell by donating more than 100 million dollars towards it. 

Alumni have responded in other ways too.  Cal’s athletic department sold just 16,000 season tickets in 2002 compared to 41,000 in 2007, a figure that’s sure to rise when Memorial reopens next year.

With kickoff less than two weeks away, there’s no denying that revenge makes for a sexier tagline than a program’s methodical maturation.  Yes, Cal fans continue to chafe at the mention of Mack Brown and no, we haven’t forgotten 2004.  But to suggest that revenge is all that occupies our minds is too narrow a judgment. 

The optimism Coach Tedford has returned to the program is too celebrated and too conspicuous for any murky sense of retribution to weigh us down.  Seven years later and with new state-of-the art facilities, a winning resume, a history of producing NFL talent and the potential for Cal’s best recruiting class yet, a win over Texas could portend the ascension of Bears Football once more, this time into the nation’s elite.  

At the start of November, the California Golden Bears and Texas Longhorns appeared headed in opposite directions. Cal had lost four of its last five game, finishing with a humiliating defeat Oct. 29th to UCLA. Texas had bounced back from back-to-back defeats at the hands of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State to drub Kansas 43-0.

And then November happened. The Bears flipped a switch after the UCLA debacle to win three of their last four games, losing only narrowly to ninth-ranked Stanford. Texas started out strong by crushing Texas Tech before fading in the stretch to win only one of its last four games.

What changed for these teams?

First, Texas suffered injuries to its star running backs, Malcolm Brown and Joe Bergeron, derailing the rushing game and forcing Texas to rely more on its youthful, interception-prone quarterback duo of David Ash and Case McCoy. 

Second, Cal took off running.

Here's a quick look at Cal's offensive passing and rushing numbers for their last four games:

vs. Washington State: 123 yards passing; 288 yards rushing

vs. Oregon State: 128 yds passing; 296 yds rushing

vs. Stanford: 280 yds passing; 81 yds rushing

vs. Arizona State: 237 yds passing; 247 yds rushing

Totals: 768 yds passing; 912 yds rushing

To put those numbers in perspective, Cal's 2011 season finished with 3,018 yards passing and 2,006 yards rushing. Almost half of Cal's rushing yards came in the final third of their season.

After the Oregon State win, Cal coach Jeff Tedford said, "When you can run the football effectively like we did today, the game is very different...When you run the ball, it makes the flow of the game much better."

No need to tell that to Texas. Before the running back injuries, the Longhorns leaned on the run for their wins, and consequently, rank 19th nationally in rushing. And at the end of their season, they faced four teams (Baylor, Texas A&M, Kansas State and Missouri) also ranked in the top 25 in rushing who demonstrated that fact.

So California and Texas both rely heavily on the rushing game. They had better be good at defending it. 

Texas seems to defend the rush well. During its dive, it held each of those rush-crazy teams below their average (including holding Kansas State to 38 yards rushing, far below its 193.7 season average). Still, it gave up seven rushing touchdowns in those four games, and those touchdowns proved the difference in losing three out of four.

Cal allows only 130 rushing yards per game and 1.33 rushing touchdowns per game, and the Pac-12 is as much, if not more so, rush-oriented than the Big 12. It held Stanford (another top-25 rushing team) below its season average but gave up big yards rushing to ASU (a subpar rushing team) and got blown out by Oregon's rushing.

Obviously, Texas is nowhere near the quality of Oregon's rushing attack, but the ASU gains are worrisome despite holding Stanford down. Baylor was the only team to allow Texas more yardage in that four-game stretch. It could afford to with Robert Griffin III leading a potent offense. Cal's defense is the Great Wall of China to Baylor's garden fence, but Texas will have most of its injured talent back on December 28th. 

Things are far different than they were for these teams at the start of November, and now, both are headed in the same direction—San Diego. It will be interesting to see which comes out ahead. Cal has a talented receiving corps that can leave gaps for their running game. Texas has a strong offensive line used to punching holes for their rushers.

Whoever pounds through, you can bet this game will be full of movement and excitement.