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Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - Printable Version

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Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - Redrum - 07-03-2013

Great line, greater larger truth in the SBNation preview of K.al football.

"Tedford's Cal tenure is somewhat tragic in the ways that sports feel tragic but really aren't. "

An extensive look...worth a skim reading...at K.al's first season chances under Sonny Dykes.  But at the beginning, do read the part about how K.al blew it's BCS chances and the opportunity bus left town.

http://www.sbnation.com/2013/7/2/4479854/2013-california-football-schedule-roster-preview-sonny-dykes


Re: Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - CompSci87 - 07-03-2013

One random comment on that article: The author uses the stat "recovered N of M fumbles in the game" two or three times. This is a pretty goofy stat if I understand what he means correctly. It makes a big difference how many of those M fumbles were by your own team and how many were by your opponent.

For one thing, fumbling is bad in itself no matter who recovers. For another, I'm pretty sure that on average it's easier (less of an accomplishment) to recover a fumble by your own team than to recover an opponent's fumble -- for example, think about fumbled snaps, fumbled handoffs, fumbled kickoffs. In all those cases the defense is usually not close enough to the ball to have a good chance to recover it.

As an example, if your team fumbled 5 times, you recovered 1, and the other team didn't fumble at all, that is a lousy performance. If the other team fumbled 5 times, you recovered 1, and you didn't fumble at all, that is a decent performance. But in both cases that article would say "recovered only 1 of 5 fumbles in the game."

Re: Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - pincemob - 07-03-2013

I'll say tragedy.  They had some very bad luck and it sort of illustrates the fine line that often exists between success and failure.  The article explains well what happened in 2003, where at 10-1 they were left out of the BCS which at the time had two fewer teams than it does now.  It also happened in a brutal way where Mack Brown from Texas lobbied publicly and privately to voters who re-arranged their rankings at the last minute to get Texas in the Rose Bowl (double ouch!), prompting the NCAA to force coaches to disclose their votes.  Cal would rebound from all of that and go 10-3 in 2006 and then the 2007 season happened.  They had won what looked like their toughest games against Tennessee and on the road at Oregon (Dennis Dixon era) but their QB (Longshore) got hurt in the Oregon game.  They were #2 in the country but lost 6 of 8 with Kevin Riley playing QB, the first lost coming when he ran out the clock by mistake on the goal line going in for the win vs. OSU when they had a chance to be #1 because LSU had lost.  Tragic.

Imagine if our Orange Bowl team had instead been a Holiday Bowl team, and if the next year Andrew Luck got hurt when we were 6-0 forcing Josh Nunes into action.  Then picture Nunes running out the clock at the end of a game (mistakenly) and us losing our hope at a title because of it.  With the character and coaching our teams have had,  I doubt we would have spiraled like Cal did, but at the same time we would have missed the chance at the program- changing momentum which landed us these recent amazing recruiting classes.  The academic decay is the reason I can't feel too bad for them though. 

Re: Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - Kathy - 07-03-2013

I don't ever imagine Stanford playing like the weenies.
And I don't feel bad for Tedford's teams.

Re: Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - CowboyIndian - 07-03-2013

I think of Me-Sean and a few of those other dimwits and Shakespeare comes to mind:

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,.."

Re: Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - Bruce Wang - 07-04-2013

The California Bears are the Chicago Cubs of college football.  Garvin is right (I think he's the one who pointed this out).  The Play is their Billy Goat.  If we ever get bored of "59ers" we could start calling them the Kal Cubs.

Re: Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - terry - 07-04-2013

The Tedford years show that when you have the opportunity to do something great, you have to take advantage of it, because you may not get that opportunity again. Ca.l had some really good opportunities under Tedford, but didn't take advantage. They never made a BCS game. Their high-water marks were the 2004 season, when they went 10-2 with a loss in the Holiday Bowl, and the 2006 season, when they went 10-3 with a Pac-10 co-championship and a win in the Holiday Bowl. They never were able to break into the very top level. Ca.l was unfortunate because Tedford's best years came during U.S.C.'s dominant run. Ca.l never managed to break through U.S.C.'s stranglehold on the conference.

Stanford, on the other hand, took advantage of its opportunity. We made three straight BCS games, won an undisputed conference championship, and won the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl. No matter what happens in our future, we will have those great seasons. Stanford was in danger of the same thing that happened to Ca.l -- having the misfortune of being the second-best team behind a dominant champion, Oregon. But we were able to beat Oregon, win the conference, and win the Rose Bowl.  I'm glad we seized the moment while we had the chance.

Re: Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - terry - 07-04-2013

The author says that in 2004, a "single unlucky loss to U.S.C." kept Ca.l out of the BCS title game.

Was the loss "unlucky"? Well, Ca.l outgained U.S.C. by a lot -- 424 yards to 205 yards. So you could say Ca.l outplayed U.S.C. But I'm not sure the loss was "unlucky." Much of the damage was self-inflicted. On each of its first two offensive possessions, Ca.l went for it on 4th-and-1, once from its own 43 yard line and once from the U.S.C. 36 yard line. Both times, Ca.l fumbled and lost yardage. Both times, U.S.C. took advantage of the field position and scored. Overall, Ca.l went 0-for-3 on 4th down conversions, lost 3 fumbles, and missed a field goal. Is that unlucky? I'm not so sure.

Did the loss keep Ca.l out of the BCS title game? The teams that made the BCS title game that year were U.S.C. (12-0) and Oklahoma (12-0). Next in line was Auburn (12-0). With a win over U.S.C., would an 11-0 Ca.l team have made the championship game? Would the coaches have voted Ca.l above Auburn? I don't know, but I rather suspect not. Ca.l would, however, have made the Rose Bowl if not the championship game.

P.S. I noticed that the article said Ca.l had a record of 3-9 last year, but an "adjusted" record of 7-5. The idea of an "adjusted" record seems pretty silly to me. If there's one bottom-line statistic that really means something, it's the W/L record. The idea that Ca.l was bowl-eligible on an "adjusted" basis won't bring much consolation to the fans or to the ex-coach, I'm sure.

Re: Tragedy or comedy, which metaphor suffices for K.al? - washingtonismoney - 07-04-2013

(07-04-2013, 11:03 AM)terry link Wrote:P.S. I noticed that the article said Ca.l had a record of 3-9 last year, but an "adjusted" record of 7-5. The idea of an "adjusted" record seems pretty silly to me. If there's one bottom-line statistic that really means something, it's the W/L record.

He adjusts the record to what they would've had if they had played a perfectly average team with that particular week's performance. It's to reflect that, say, losing by 3 to N.D. is a lot different than losing by 3 to UW. What statistics/analytics people ultimately care about is performance over achievement, which is a valuable perspective. While players and fans care most about winning Rose Bowls and Pac-12 championships (or equivalent), the question of "how good is a particular team?" is much better answered with reference to performance over achievement.

(The classic example was, by the way, N.D. in 2012. Irish fans were able to delude themselves about the true capabilities of the team because of what the team achieved. Everyone else knew they'd suck because of how they'd performed. Guess who was right when the tide changed.)