Hughes wins Lott award

Star cornerback Daymeion Hughes has taken home the Lott Award.

California cornerback Daymeion Hughes received the Lott Trophy on Sunday, edging Quinn Pitcock of Ohio State and Paul Posluszny of Penn State for the award honoring on-field performance and personal character among defensive players.

This a great honor, and Hughes is definitely deserving after he was snubbed for the Thorpe Award (the award for the “best defensive back” in the nation). Who knows what happened with that. As ESPN’s Bruce Feldman said:

I vote for the Thorpe and I would’ve voted for Hughes as the winner, but he wasn’t in the three finalists we were asked to vote on a few days ago.

5-star safety Terry Mixon commits

This recruiting weekend was a busy one, as another of Cal’s 18 visiting recruits has committed to this class. Terry Mixon, a 5-star safety out of JC Grossmont in El Cajon (CA), made his verbal commitment over offers from Arizona State, Mississippi, Tennessee, Washington and more. Terry is the brother of cornerback Tim Mixon, who may return for a 6th year after suffering a season-ending injury during fall camp.

Edit for FAQ’s: Terry (6’2″/210) is bigger than Tim (5’10″/184), making him more suitable for big hits than pass coverage. He has eligibility to take 3 years to play 2. Also, Terry initially committed to Arizona State, but opened recruiting back up after their head coach Dirk Koetter was fired for Dennis Erickson.

4-star linebacker D.J. Holt commits

D.J. Holt, a 4-star prep out of Encino (CA), has committed to Cal. He’s listed as both a defensive end and linebacker but is slated to play middle linebacker; Rivals ranks him the #19 defensive end while Scout rates him the #13 strong-side linebacker in the country. Holt picked Cal over several other offers including Arizona State, Washington, and Fresno State, and he looks to be an excellent addition to the defense for this class.

Jackson, Hughes SI First Team All-Americans

Released earlier today, Sports Illustrated’s All American list includes Daymeion Hughes at DB and DeSean Jackson as a punt returner. Also being listed as honorable mentions are Marshawn Lynch at running back and DeSean Jackson again as a wide receiver.

Preliminary Holiday Bowl projections

Looks like Cal is slightly favored.

USA Today: “California”

The Holiday Bowl is almost always a good show, and this should be no different. Each team averages more than 400 yards of offense (two of 19 teams nationally to do so), and there will be plenty of chances for highlights from Cal RB Marshawn Lynch, Cal WR DeSean Jackson, Texas A&M QB Stephen McGee, Texas A&M RB Jorvorskie Lane … and more.

ESPN: “Bowl Predictions: Can You Beat The Schwab?”

One of the most interesting bowl games and both closed 1-2 in final three games. Slight edge to Jeff Tedford’s team. Schwab’s Pick: 27-20, Cal.

FOX Sports: “Ranking the bowl games”

10. The Pac-10 is overdue for a good Holiday Bowl performance having lost four of the last five, while Cal will try to erase memories of the last time it played in San Diego losing to Texas Tech 45-31 in 2004. The Golden Bears get a ton of hype with not many big wins to back it up, while Texas A&M is gunning for its first 10-win season since 1998 and prove that the Dennis Franchione era is truly headed in the right direction.

Stars of the show:
1. Marshawn Lynch, RB, California
2. DeSean Jackson, WR, California
3. Jorvorskie Lane, RB, Texas A&M

Initial prediction: California 34 … Texas A&M 31

Regents vote 7-0 for High Performance S/Athlete Center

Earlier today, the UC Regents voted to certify an Environmental Impact Report in favor of the planned High Performance Student-Athlete Center. The unanimous decision is great news for the football program, as the construction of the center was an important clause of Coach Jeff Tedford‘s contract and will play a big part in recruiting.

If I understand things correctly, construction of the center will begin in the near future, regardless of City of Berkeley lawsuits or hippie tree-sitters, barring a court injunction.

Stanford head coach Harris fired

Today, Stanford head coach Walt Harris was fired by the university.

Harris’ team was devastated by injuries this season and finished with the most losses in school history and the worst record since an 0-10 mark in 1960.

The Cardinal have struggled mightily since Tyrone Willingham left for Notre Dame following the 2001 season. They have not had a winning season in five years under Buddy Teevens and Harris.

Maybe they will hire a coach to pull their program out of the gutter. However, it will be a hard sell to anyone who wants to win.

Schneider named Pac-10 player of the week

Placekicker Tom Schneider has been named Pac-10 player of the week on special teams for his performance on Saturday:

Schneider, a junior from Walnut Creek, Calif., was good on four-of-five field goal attempts and two PATs to account for 14 points in California’s 26-17 win against Stanford. Schneider tied a school record for longest field goal made when he connected from 55 yards and also was good from 25, 40 and 30 yards. It marks the second player of the week honor for Schneider this season.

Also nominated were DeSean Jackson (offense) and Zach Follett (defense).

Big Game streak continues, Cal co-champion of Pac-10

Cal’s performance in the Big Game resulted in an outcome nowhere near the match-up’s spread. However, the Bears continued the Big Game winning streak under Coach Jeff Tedford, extending it to 5 games. I’ll take a 23-17 win, but I hope the team gets things going for the Holiday Bowl.

In other news, UCLA upset USC 13-9, making USC and Cal tied for first place in the Pac-10. USC gets the Rose Bowl, but we both get the title. Thus, Cal is a 2006 Co-Champion of the Pac-10! This development is bittersweet, though: without a loss to Arizona, Cal would surely be on its way to the Rose Bowl.

Today, Stanford

The Big Game will be a showcase of Cal’s great talent this season, but also an opportunity to appreciate many of the seniors on the squad. If the game follows the blowout trend of the past 4 years, we will likely be able to see many seniors on the depth chart come out to play by the second half of the game.

In addition, this may very well be Marshawn Lynch‘s last home game as a Bear. We would love to see him return and possibly capture the Rose Bowl next year, but with first-round NFL draft projections and a limited shelf life of physical running backs, it may make sense for Lynch to go out and provide for his family.

Stanford football has been so pitiful that I have almost come to feel bad for them. However, one must remember the 7 straight years of defeat before the arrival of Coach Jeff Tedford, their student section chants of “Cal’s Our B****”, and other nasty memories of this bitter rivalry.

To close up, here is a recent article from the Stanford Review, thanks to RBBID:

Berkeley coach Jeff Tedford is consistently producing top-25 football teams with Heisman candidates. We find ourselves in ESPN’s Bottom 10 rankings. These two facts mean that we won’t be beating Cal in football for the foreseeable future, which begs the question: should we continue to care about Cal? They have a much larger student body and lower academic standards for athletes. One Cal newspaper even declared that we were unfit to be rivals.

We’re happy to take our rivalry elsewhere. Cal clearly lucked-out having us a rival; if they would prefer UC Davis, well, they can have them. We always knew that we could do better than Cal.

The task now is to find a new rival, one much more like our fine school (meaning a private school), a school that we can fairly compete against, and beat on occasion, and sometimes badly. There are a few options. We could adopt Duke as a rival; their football team is as hapless as ours. Northwestern’s is almost as bad.

Pathetic. Mind-bogglingly pompous. No mercy today, Tedford.