DISQUS

Two greatest words in the legal lexicon: "Case complete." My professional opinion on the matter: Justice is a dish best served AWESOME!

Far be it from me to claim to be inside Longshore's head, but I think it's safe to assume that winning back the starting QB job at Cal is the most important thing in the world to him.

I agree the play appears to be designed such that Hawkins would pick Verner out of the play and that clearly didn't happen. Watching the replay a few times (not recommended) it's clear to me that Desean ran a very bad route. By the time he makes his cut, Hawkins and his coverage are four yards downfield and Verner doesn't have any trouble getting around them. But that's not the only problem. I'm not one for the excessive trashing of Longshore, but he didn't just stare Desean down on this play. He also underthrew the ball and put it behind the receiver. Had he put the ball high and between Desean and the sideline, Verner wouldn't have been able to jump in front of it. I'm not saying Verner couldn't still make a play on the ball, but it surely wouldn't have been intercepted.

A portable radio sounds like a good idea. My fixation on my blackberry during the reception nearly got me dumped by my date (it was her best friend's wedding). You can imagine my confusion when the gametracker suddenly jumped without explanation from Cal 1st and 10 from the 12 with 14 seconds to go to "F OSU 31, Cal 28." Never again dammit!

a2Bear06, you raise an interesting question. I viewed the State Championship purely in terms of sweeping the other schools. But it would be interesting to look into the correlation between the Rose Bowl and who wins the round robin between the Cali schools. I'm sure the many Washington and Oregon Rose Bowl teams weaken any perceptible patterns, but maybe that just speaks to your question about tie-breakers. Overal conference record is an obvious possiblity for tiebreaker. But my guess is that record against Washington and Oregon is probably an even more probative tiebreaker for determining Rose Bowl viability.

That works fine with THA1 in the lineup (fortunately the game thinks he comes back in 2008). But in 2009, the key is to get the ball to Best with at least 2 feet of running room. Then juke, juke, spin, juke, hurdle, juke.

Oh, then I guess we should just run a single wing with James Montgomery in the half back position.

Yes, Stanfurd's pathetic football prowess the last few years has taken some of the shine off the rivalry. But you younger Blues need to remember that Stanfurd will not be pathetic forever. Stanfurd went to the 2000 Rose Bowl. Stanfurd beat us seven straight times, including all the years I was in college (and I'm not that old!). Stanfurd just beat U$C. And I guarantee you that if we ever, Tedford forgive, lose to Stanfurd again, it will be the worst day of your sports fandom life.

Cal fans should never, under any circumstances, find themselves pulling for Stanfurd. If they put us in the Rose Bowl or nat'l title game, so be it, but that is no justification for rooting for them against U$C or anyone else. There will be times when we are good, bad, great or horrible. But the one constant will be Stanfurd and the Big Game. Our hatred of them is the bedrock of our football identity. It all starts with that.

All of these were rough, though none of them compare to any single pre-Tedford loss to the 'furd. The loses to 'SC were consequential, but we left the 2004 matchup with more respect then we entered with, and we were just outplayed down the stretch in 2006. The pain of losing to the Cats was only fully realized after the events of the next two weeks. And the Holiday Bowl debacle was almost fiting after the Rose Bowl snub. So I pick Tennessee as the worst because the blowout took so much wind out of what we had accomplished over the preceeding years, and then the taint hung with us all last year.