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.

Holiday Bowl opponent: Texas A&M

It’s official: Cal will face Texas A&M in the Holiday Bowl.

Due to some apparent bowl politics, the Bears will end up facing the #4 team in the Big 12 conference (instead of the #3 as intended). However, the Aggies are better than their record may appear: they are coming off a win over defending national champion Texas and are a nationally ranked team.

Now that the bowl situation is settled… time to set our sights back on beating the 29 point spread on Stanford and making some Big Game records.

Cal to play in the Holiday Bowl

Earlier today, Cal accepted an invitation to play in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl. This is the team’s fourth straight bowl game appearance, a feat never before accomplished in Cal’s history. The Holiday Bowl kicks off on Thursday, December 28th at 5pm in Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. While it is yet to be known who the Bears will face, the opposing team will be from the Big 12 conference, most likely No. 22 Texas A&M.

Lynch, Hughes Pac-10 Players of the Year

With only three total Pac-10 games left to be played out, the Pac-10 awards and all-conference teams have already been announced. Marshawn Lynch has been named the offensive player of the year, while Daymeion Hughes has been named the Pat Tillman Defensive Player of the Year:

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR MARSHAWN LYNCH, TB, CALIFORNIA: Lynch, a junior from Oakland, Calif., leads the Pac-10 in rushing and all-purpose yards and is co-leader with teammate DeSean Jackson in touchdowns scored. A unanimous All-Pac-10 selection, Lynch has rushed for 1,178 yards and nine touchdowns, becoming just the second player in California history to post two 1,000-yard rushing seasons. He has posted a school-record 16 100-yard rushing games. His averages of 6.3 yards per carry and 107.1 yards per game both lead the Pac-10. In addition, Lynch has 286 yards and four touchdowns receiving and 101 yards in kickoff returns to give him 1,565 all-purpose yards, an average of 142.3 yards per game. Lynch is just the third California player to be selected Pac-10 offensive player of the year and the first since quarterback Mike Pawlawski in 1991.

PAT TILLMAN DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR DAYMIEON HUGHES, CB, CALIFORNIA: Hughes, a senior from Los Angeles, Calif., leads the Pac-10 in interceptions by a large margin with eight, which ties him for second in the nation in picks. Included are two returned for touchdowns. A unanimous All-Pac-10 selection by the league’s coaches, Hughes has 15 career interceptions, second all-time on the Cal list. Hughes also leads the Pac-10 in passes defended with 19 and ranks second on the Cal squad with 62 tackles. Hughes becomes just the second California player to be selected Pac-10 defensive player of the year, following cornerback Deltha O’Neal in 1998.

Also making the First Team list are WR/PR DeSean Jackson, OL Alex Mack, DL Brandon Mebane, and LB Desmond Bishop. TE Craig Stevens, OL Mike Gibson, DL Nu’u Tafisi, P Andrew Larson, and ST Byron Storer were named to the All-Pac-10 Conference Second Team. Honorable Mentions also included OT Andrew Cameron, OLB Zack Follett, WR Lavelle Hawkins, WR Robert Jordan, QB Nate Longshore, OLB Mickey Pimentel, and OG Erik Robertson.

Recruiting update

Cal has two new commits in the 2007 recruiting class, a punter and a defensive back.

Bryan Anger, a punter out of Camarillo (CA), is the #2-ranked kicker in the nation rated by Rivals and #5 by Scout. He’s a big athlete at 6’4″ with a lot of potential, and he’s already averaging 42-yard punts and getting more than 5 second hang-time on some kicks. He’s also an excellent student with a 3.9 GPA. The team has benefited greatly from JUCO transfer Andrew Larson but he will only have one more season, so this is a great get for the Bears.

DJ Campbell, a defensive back out of Las Vegas (NV), is another solid add to the class. He’s a talented recruit rated 3 stars by Rivals.