Cal v. Washington - Cal reverts to old ways; Huskies hammer Bears

I'm not going to write a long blog post right now, even though I'm angry enough to chew nails or at least chew-out Cal's offensive and defensive coordinators Andy Ludwig and Bob Gregory respectively. Cal's 42 to 10 loss to Washington was avoidable.

For those of you reading my take for the first time, I'm a Cal Alum. For those of you returning to read my text, Bear or Husky, strap yourself in for a ride. I'm pissed.

OK, some of you, like tenplay's wife over at the BearInsider Forum, may be happy Cal lost because as he wrote:

She wants to go to SD, LV or SF instead. She wants to go to a fun place with shopping, good food and entertainment for the holidays. I wonder if anyone else has a partner who is wishing the same result. I can see her point since she is a very luke-warm fb fan.

But I'm not lukewarm. Cal had two weeks to prepare for Washington and an entire season to get rid of the habit of forcing the ball downfield rather than engineering a precision short passing attack and on defense learn to blitz aggressively and frequently.

But no; that didn't happen. Talk about a Thanksgiving turkey of a game plan.

And it leads to the same old song on offense: sacks. Five sacks courtesy of Washington Saturday night. I'm sure Ludwig is concerned with Cal QB Kevin Riley's health, so he should prove it by designing a game plan that doesn't leave Riley as a sitting duck in the pass pocket.

What's that?  The Ducks are going to the Rose Bowl?  Very funny. 

How many times do I and other Cal Alumns have to repeat this song? It's old now. We're tired of it! Tired of seeing Cal not consistently make the adjustments we ask for. And totally exhausted from seeing our defense riddled and picked apart because we gave passers like the Huskies' Jake Locker time to fake handoffs to running backs and throw.

I'd love a chalk talk with Coach Gregory to learn why he tries to insert a percentage defensive strategy in places where its more appropriate to take away one aspect of what an offense does? I'd also like to know why it seems the Golden Bears are reluctant to alter their game plan when a contest calls for it. There's an old saying in coaching: the "sudden change" is ours.

But what Coach Gregory must understand is it's the job of the defense to cause the "sudden change" - the turnover that changes the direction of the ball game. You can't hope that happens; you have to make it happen and that is where aggressive defense is important.

Ok. I'm done. For now.

Emerald Bowl in San Francisco? From what I understand, that's Stanford's slot now because USC lost to Arizona. And the Sun Bowl looks like it belongs to Oregon State.  Just where we're going is anyone's guess. 

But what hurts is Cal lost a chance to be in a three-way tie with Oregon State and Stanford behind Oregon. Now we're down there....with USC.

Even when USC's at their worst Cal just can't seem to over take them. Or for that matter beat them, or defeat a team, the Huskies, guided by the Trojans' former offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian.

Geez.