[Redrum]

Trolling for Schadenfreude on the sites of an opponent you haven\'t just beaten isn\'t nearly as satisfying as it is for one that you have.   Half the fun of trolling Trojanland last week was seeing them clinging to their arrogance despite the facts.   But the Trojan arrogance is historically based.   Kal fans\' arrogance is fantasy-based.  But I went trolling anyway.

1.   The refs screwed \'em.   The game would have been won if the refs had tossed Tedford out of the game after the the first play.

2.   Kevin Riley was reviled,  but you could tell the Kal posters just didn\'t have their hearts in it.   By now everyone knows what Riley is.  You get the vibe that ragging on him would be bouncing the rubble at this point.

3.   Everything was about Tedford.  Trendspotting on autopilot.  Tedford pain was all.   Even posts about Riley were posts about Tedford.   It was Tedford kept playing Riley when it was obvious he\'d never be the QB to win consistently.    Post after post,  thread after thread.   Longest  thread was whether Teford should be canned immediately.

* "Thank him for what he did, and move on. This isn\'t fun anymore."and
* "At current rate, we\'ll hit Holmoe-level soon"and
* "...on-field results are similar to the Kapp years but for some reason the team is less fun to watch."

--Lots of comments about how Teford the Offense/QB genius has become this guy so out of touch with what it takes to win actual football games.  Doesn\'t design the offense for the personnel he has,  but for some aesthetic of offensive excellence.  The general summary:  he calls plays inappropriate for the tactical field situation the team is in.

--But it goes beyond playcalling.   There was speculation that Tedford had "lost" the team.  Many, many posters and even some game attendees commented that the game was lost when before it began and it was obvious after the first few plays.   No intensity. Discombobulated.  No fire.

* "If we had gotten a couple of unlucky pick sixes, fumble returns for touchdowns, and USC was the #1 ranked team in the country, I could understand that.  But the fact of the matter is, we stopped trying. Our defense couldn\'t tackle. Riley couldn\'t throw a pass to save his life. Our coaches did nothing to address the situation. Against the worst USC team we\'ll see in a long while."

Lots of theories:

--The What-Have-They-Done-With-The-Real-Jeff-Tedford? Theory.

* "He may have been the best coach we\'ve had, but he certainly isn\'t anything like he was when he came here. His innovative mind is gone, his play-calling is predictable and his loyalty to a QB who is clearly in over his head is just too much to handle."

The He Wasn\'t-Ever-All-That Theory

*"Over time the other Pac-10 teams replaced coaches and while each has taken a few years to get his team on track, they eventually have righted their teams and once they do most of them easily dominate Tedford.
*"look at his record against coaches. He usually wins the first 2-3 games against any coach, but then starts loosing mroe than he wins. His record against Riley at OSU is negative, and soon it will be negative against most of the remaining coaches except perhaps Wulff "
* "The only time we were successful against SC since 1979 was when they had a coach that utterly sucked--Hackett or Larry Smith. Sorry folks, in football SC is, on the whole, a solid notch above our Bears. "
* "Tedford is a below average coach. he looked like a great coach back in 2003 mostly because the coaches for the rest of the Pac-10 were horrible. Not even just "below average\' They stank it up. Tedford coulc be below average and still look good because he might have been a minnow, but a minnow looks like a giant against plankton."
* "Since Aaron Rodgers (whose arrival at Cal was nothing less than a fluke) we\'ve had substandard quarterbacking at Cal. Worse, as many others have noted, it appears our QBs regress under our coach\'s tutelage"
* "Tedford is Ben Braun. He reached his ceiling, and now he just keeps banging his head against his own upper limit."   Ouch.

And, since the implosion of Tedford seems a foregone conclusion,  some speculated when the decline began.   2004, 2005,2007 ?   They knew it all along.  One guy had the answer

* "Frankly, all of Tedford\'s teams, which would be 2005 and beyond, when all his (Tedford\'s)recruits were firmly in place, have underperformed relative to their talent level." And that triggered the most unlikely of events:  Bruce Snyder nostalgia

Several posters noted that on 4th-and-1 (actually 4th-and- inches), on the USC 45,  down 21-0,  Tedford flunked the fire-in-the-belly test by punting.  One poster observed that if you show you don\'t think you can make inches when you need them, you have forfeited the game.

[Redrum]

Trolling for Schadenfreude on the sites of an opponent you haven\'t just beaten isn\'t nearly as satisfying as it is for one that you have.   Half the fun of trolling Trojanland last week was seeing them clinging to their arrogance despite the facts.   But the Trojan arrogance is historically based.   Kal fans\' arrogance is fantasy-based.  But I went trolling anyway.

1.   The refs screwed \'em.   The game would have been won if the refs had tossed Tedford out of the game after the the first play.

2.   Kevin Riley was reviled,  but you could tell the Kal posters just didn\'t have their hearts in it.   By now everyone knows what Riley is.  You get the vibe that ragging on him would be bouncing the rubble at this point.

3.   Everything was about Tedford.  Trendspotting on autopilot.  Tedford pain was all.   Even posts about Riley were posts about Tedford.   It was Tedford kept playing Riley when it was obvious he\'d never be the QB to win consistently.    Post after post,  thread after thread.   Longest  thread was whether Teford should be canned immediately.

* "Thank him for what he did, and move on. This isn\'t fun anymore."and
* "At current rate, we\'ll hit Holmoe-level soon"and
* "...on-field results are similar to the Kapp years but for some reason the team is less fun to watch."

--Lots of comments about how Teford the Offense/QB genius has become this guy so out of touch with what it takes to win actual football games.  Doesn\'t design the offense for the personnel he has,  but for some aesthetic of offensive excellence.  The general summary:  he calls plays inappropriate for the tactical field situation the team is in.

--But it goes beyond playcalling.   There was speculation that Tedford had "lost" the team.  Many, many posters and even some game attendees commented that the game was lost when before it began and it was obvious after the first few plays.   No intensity. Discombobulated.  No fire.

* "If we had gotten a couple of unlucky pick sixes, fumble returns for touchdowns, and USC was the #1 ranked team in the country, I could understand that.  But the fact of the matter is, we stopped trying. Our defense couldn\'t tackle. Riley couldn\'t throw a pass to save his life. Our coaches did nothing to address the situation. Against the worst USC team we\'ll see in a long while."

Lots of theories:

--The What-Have-They-Done-With-The-Real-Jeff-Tedford? Theory.

* "He may have been the best coach we\'ve had, but he certainly isn\'t anything like he was when he came here. His innovative mind is gone, his play-calling is predictable and his loyalty to a QB who is clearly in over his head is just too much to handle."

The He Wasn\'t-Ever-All-That Theory

*"Over time the other Pac-10 teams replaced coaches and while each has taken a few years to get his team on track, they eventually have righted their teams and once they do most of them easily dominate Tedford.
*"look at his record against coaches. He usually wins the first 2-3 games against any coach, but then starts loosing mroe than he wins. His record against Riley at OSU is negative, and soon it will be negative against most of the remaining coaches except perhaps Wulff "
* "The only time we were successful against SC since 1979 was when they had a coach that utterly sucked--Hackett or Larry Smith. Sorry folks, in football SC is, on the whole, a solid notch above our Bears. "
* "Tedford is a below average coach. he looked like a great coach back in 2003 mostly because the coaches for the rest of the Pac-10 were horrible. Not even just "below average\' They stank it up. Tedford coulc be below average and still look good because he might have been a minnow, but a minnow looks like a giant against plankton."
* "Since Aaron Rodgers (whose arrival at Cal was nothing less than a fluke) we\'ve had substandard quarterbacking at Cal. Worse, as many others have noted, it appears our QBs regress under our coach\'s tutelage"
* "Tedford is Ben Braun. He reached his ceiling, and now he just keeps banging his head against his own upper limit."   Ouch.

And, since the implosion of Tedford seems a foregone conclusion,  some speculated when the decline began.   2004, 2005,2007 ?   They knew it all along.  One guy had the answer

* "Frankly, all of Tedford\'s teams, which would be 2005 and beyond, when all his (Tedford\'s)recruits were firmly in place, have underperformed relative to their talent level." And that triggered the most unlikely of events:  Bruce Snyder nostalgia

Several posters noted that on 4th-and-1 (actually 4th-and- inches), on the USC 45,  down 21-0,  Tedford flunked the fire-in-the-belly test by punting.  One poster observed that if you show you don\'t think you can make inches when you need them, you have forfeited the game.