Cal back in ESPN Power 16 rankings at #9

Cal has returned to ESPN’s Power 16, storming their rankings at #9. They write: “Remember the Bears? They’re back in the Power 16 after doing to the Ducks what the Vols did to them in Week 1.”

Cal re-enters AP Top 10, #11 in Coaches

Cal’s impressive performance yesterday has moved the team to #10 in the Associated Press poll and #11 in the Coaches poll.

Tennessee also had a big win over then-#10 Georgia, and they have moved up to #8/9 in the polls. This is great for the Bears’ strength of schedule (factored into BCS standings) and makes the season-opening loss look better for Cal.

Cal moves up in national rankings

Week 6 Rankings have been released, and Cal has moved up in both polls. In the AP, Cal has passed Florida State, TCU, Iowa, and Virginia Tech to move up from 20th to 16th. The USA Today poll has Cal moving from 20th up to 17th, passing TCU, Iowa, and Virginia Tech. Despite moving up in rank and gaining a considerable amount of votes, Cal has yet to recover a significant amount of votes, as the only one of those 4 teams to have won yesterday was Florida State. With Oregon moving up to #11 in both polls this week, next weekend’s matchup in Memorial Stadium should be quite a showdown, and could be a great opportunity for Cal to regain some national attention and improve their ranking.

Bears rout Arizona State, inch up in polls

Yesterday, Cal obliterated then-ranked Arizona State, sending them home with a painful loss and blasting them out of the top 25.

ESPN: No. 22 Arizona State had some questions entering its Pac-10 opener. The answers weren’t good. No. 21 Cal blasted the Sun Devils 49-21 in Berkeley

Associated Press: California walked all over the Sun Devils in a 49-21 victory Saturday, and [Daymeion] Hughes’ pivotal pick capped a 42-point first half that showed the No. 21 Golden Bears have made significant strides in the last three weeks.

Bear Insider: Speed kills. Absolute speed kills absolutely. With apologies to Nicolo Machiavelli, nothing could sum up Saturday’s 49-21 Cal victory better or more concisely. The #21-ranked Golden Bears allowed ASU to rip off a 12-play, 74 yard touchdown drive to open the football game.

Scout.com: Arizona State had one of the top-ranked defenses heading into last Saturday’s showdown with Cal. The Sun Devils got sun burned by four Nate Longshore touchdown passes in an impressive 49-21 statement win for the Bears. Had smoking-hot Cal scheduled Tennessee in late September, rather than on the opening weekend, we all might be labeling the Bears a dangerous darkhorse contender for a national championship.

Contra Costa Times: The highly regarded Cal team that everyone expected to debut on Sept. 2 at Tennessee showed up Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

The Golden Bears, who were ranked No. 9 in the preseason polls, opened their Pac 10 season with a 49-21 win over No. 22 Arizona State, which simply had no answer for the Bears’ bevy of playmakers. No. 21 Cal (3-1, 1-0) scored in explosive fashion, racing to a 42-14 lead by intermission. Six players scored Cal’s seven touchdowns.

Sports Network: Nate Longshore tossed four first-half touchdown passes to lead 21st-ranked California to a 49-21 thumping of No.22 Arizona State in the Pac 10 opener for both teams at Memorial Stadium. Longshore completed 18-of-26 passes for 270 yards with an interception, and Marshawn Lynch rushed 17 times for 124 yards. Lynch also caught a touchdown and DeSean Jackson hauled in four passes for 67 yards and a score, while also returning a punt 80 yards for a touchdown for the Golden Bears (3-1, 1-0 Pac 10), who have now won their last three games following a season-opening loss to Tennessee.

Coach Jeff Tedford: We had a lot of speed on the field and our playmakers really stepped up well on offense and defense. I thought special teams did a nice job. I thought Andrew Larson did an excellent job of punting with really great hang-time to allow us to cover his punts. I think in all three phases of the game we played fairly solid but we’re still not where we need to be. We need to be able to put four quarters together and we haven’t done that yet this year. I thought our offensive line did a nice job. Coach Gregory did a nice job. He did a nice job of mixing his calls up and making adjustments.

ASU Coach Dirk Koetter: We talked to the team about when you’re on the road against a good team with a loud crowd, whenever that onslaught comes, you’ve got to be able to answer it, and we just couldn’t answer it. What Cal did to us today is exactly what happened to them at Tennessee, it’s exactly the same thing. That’s the difficulty of playing on the road – not just playing on the road, but playing against a good football team.

After the pressure starts to build from their blitzes, even the most routine plays become difficult.

Cal’s very talented. All of those wide receivers, three tailbacks, the corner [Hughes] is outstanding. They’re by far the most athletic team we’ve played – by far.

Despite this huge in-conference throttling of a top 25 team, the polls again showed Cal little respect. In the AP poll, Cal moved up one spot to #20. The Coaches’ poll left Cal at #20, like last week. In both votes, Clemson leapfrogged Cal due to their win over ACC bottom dweller North Carolina. Regardless, pundits are turning their eyes back to Cal with this win and recognizing the big-time potential for the season.

As an aside, in addition to the plethora of highlights from the Bears, there was one brutal lowlight from ASU. Cornerback Justin Tryon laid DeSean Jackson out with a dangerous and vicious cheapshot during a punt return, receiving only a personal foul flag. In my opinion, he should have been ejected or at least benched by his coaches. Fellow bloggers at Sturdy Golden Blog and Bear Territory agree as well, and you can take a look to see what they think.

AP poll recalculated, Cal #21 again

A balloting error has been fixed, modifying the rankings in the AP poll slightly. Among the changes are Cal at #21 instead of #22, leaving them at the same spot they were at last week and Arizona State one spot behind them.

Thus, in the end Cal did not drop in the rankings this week; it retained the #21 spot in the AP poll and moved up one spot to #20 in the Coaches poll.

Cal defeats Portland State, drops in AP poll

The Bears defeated Portland State 42-16 Saturday. The game was over by the first half, and Coach Jeff Tedford subsequently removed most starters. This allowed almost every backup player to get off the bench in the last two quarters and gain valuable gametime experience.

Despite the solid win, the AP dropped Cal to #22. However, the Coaches poll has Cal up one spot at #20. ESPN’s Lee Corso also mentioned he maintains that Cal could be the team that beats USC on College Gameday.

Next week, we face Arizona State at home (#20 in AP, #18 in Coaches) so a win should finally have us make a significant move upward in the polls.

Cal improves to #21 in AP/Coaches polls

With Saturday’s win over Minnesota, Cal has improved 1 spot in the AP poll and 2 spots in the Coaches poll to end up at #21 in both.

Something to note: TCU, ranked lower than Cal last week, leapfrogged Cal to #20 with a win over Division I-AA UC Davis. So, pollsters have again rewarded a team for a win in a creampuff out-of-conference game, and give little respect to Cal burying a legitimate Big 10 team. This just shows that the Bears still have to prove themselves each game to claw its way back into the top 10.

Cal now ranked #22/23 in AP/Coaches polls

Despite Saturday’s disappointing loss, Cal is now ranked #22 in the Associated Press poll, and #23 in the USA Today Coaches poll from #9 and #12, respectively. This drop is drastic, but remaining in the top 25 gives Cal hope to improve in ranking with each win.

As an aside, Tennessee improved from #23 in both polls to #11 in AP and #17 in the Coaches poll. The two teams more or less switched spots in the polls.

Here’s a fairly interesting article about Cal’s rank in the polls expressing some skepticism about the big drop.

SI writers unanimous: Cal BCS-bound

Today, SI.com‘s four college football writers released their BCS predictions. Cal was listed in each of their respective lists, either in the Rose or Fiesta bowls. Take a look.

ESPN’s Corso picks Cal for national championship

ESPN College Gameday‘s Lee Corso picked Cal to be the national champion during their TV broadcast over the weekend, predicting a win by Cal over West Virginia in the BCS championship game. While the other analysts were not in agreement with his statement, it was a great nod of respect from a well-known name in college football. Corso also said that even if Cal were to lose to Tennessee, the team should “blow through the next eleven games”. Good stuff.