These are monuments to great football journalism. I can't just imagine the work to prepare these video clips and such. My reaction to these posts is always doom. They can run? They can block? They can throw? We are Doomed! But we can do those things too. And your main point about how battle hardened Cal is from the superior Pac12 is important. Like I said yesterday, bowl games are more often games of who wants it more. We will see on Saturday. I hope it stops raining in Shreveport before game time. What the hell Shreveport????? Why host a bowl game if I have to leave rainy PNW to go get rain for the bowl game.
Texas Tech alumni/fan here...liked your article and found a lot of your insight aligned with much of what "we" Tech fans were seeing this year. One point to consider with QB Morten is that he has been playing injured for most of the year as well. He is still not 100%, but supposedly close.
Even though, writing an in depth article on TTU team maybe nice and the research needed to write the article by the author . This isn't a game of the ages where the average fan needs all this information. This isn't a bowl game where people will be talking about decades from now. Yes, it is great that Cal has fought and got themselves to a bowl game and made a success of their season. This isn't a revenge game from a game that was played almost 20 years ago. The players on both teams were barely around when that game was played. I bet barely 5 percent of the nation will be watching this game outside of Texas and Northern California with this game starting 915pm EST which is going against the NFL with the Broncos vs.Lions. Yes, I do hope the Bears win and have a winning season. But, with players leaving on both sides with the transfer portal the announcers will be give us all perspectives needed to know the other team . I believe it would have been better if these were 2 separate articles. One about the game and the other on the history of how the 2004 season ended for CAL.
In case you were wondering, the readers of this site aren't average fans. We are enthusiastic Cal fans that have nothing better to do than come read and comment on these articles everyday.
While I appreciate the kind words, I don't need your money -- I write these articles to share my passion for Cal football with the other diehards out there. I am just happy to see when people engage with my articles.
still blows my mind that we were #4 in the country, with only a last minute loss to #1, on the road, and ended up in the f'ing Holiday Bowl. Could only happen to Cal.
We were so mad we sold T-shirts in protest (and to fund our trip to San Diego and offsetting our now-worthless Rose Bowl tickets). Still saw some in the wild when we played Texas.
I was in NYC visiting a friend over winter break in 2004. He worked as a bartender during swing shift. He departed for work and I decided to take a train to ESPN zone to watch the game. Once there, I ran into two Cal alumni also watching and we watched/commiserated together. The next day, same routine, my friend goes to work, I hop on the train to go explore NYC, but not sure where. Lo and behold, the Cal alumni I met from the night before are on my train! They were headed to Little Italy for dinner, I joined, them and we never spoke again. The 2004 Holiday Bowl will always be associated with this serendipitous encounter.
Typically insightful, thoroughly researched and extremely fair commentary. On the Mack Brown thing, it came down to personality types. Tedford wasn’t/isn’t a glad-handler politicker. Mack Brown sure was/is. College football long ago abandoned the honor system, if it ever had it. Mack did his thing and the media swallowed it like hungry guppies. I can’t really blame him for that. At the end of the game when he took the keyed up kicker by the helmet and whispered, “Sure wish I had the chance to win a Rose Bowl”, relaxing the kid for a successful three, it very much humanized Brown to me.
I don't blame Brown for lobbying for his team - I think its part of the job and Tedford should have done the same.
What nobody remembers is that Mack Brown's brother Watson was head coach at UAB and a voting member of the coach's poll which affected the selection. And Watson reportedly tanked his rating of Cal at the end of the year to help Texas move ahead of us. I don't know if it was proven but if true it was hideously corrupt. And if true, there's no doubt that Mack was involved.
Fun fact: Watson has more losses than any coach in NCAA history.
I don't know if anyone has heard but Tedford will not be coaching in the Fresno State bowl game because of personal health issues which seem to have returned sadly.
Oh boy, how exciting! A meaningless bowl game in Shreveport on a Saturday night against a ho-hum team! Just think, boys and girls; if we win, Wilcox will have upped his won-loss record to 37-42! And it’s only taken him 6 years to accomplish that feat! Thank you, Cal administration, for rubber-stamping our football mediocrity!
I had to watch this clip over and over that week, given that everyone other Pac-12 game, ESPN, etc., all cut over to show this ending to the game. And each time, the holds on both #7 Brian Hightower and #87 Jack Edries were clear as day: https://i.imgur.com/vbAPJlv.png
Hightower's pads are being yanked in the wrong direction. Edries is being bear-hugged from behind. No flag. I get that--in a vacuum--refs don't want to throw flags that affect the end of the game. But this is USC we're talking about, who get every questionable flag ever, and the refs earlier that game decided to change the rule of football and have a "do-over" of the end of the 2nd quarter AFTER halftime. It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in football.
Still haven't given up finding what is a documentary of the Mack Brown year leading up and including Texas beating USC in the Rose Bowl, I believe in 2004.
These are monuments to great football journalism. I can't just imagine the work to prepare these video clips and such. My reaction to these posts is always doom. They can run? They can block? They can throw? We are Doomed! But we can do those things too. And your main point about how battle hardened Cal is from the superior Pac12 is important. Like I said yesterday, bowl games are more often games of who wants it more. We will see on Saturday. I hope it stops raining in Shreveport before game time. What the hell Shreveport????? Why host a bowl game if I have to leave rainy PNW to go get rain for the bowl game.
This was an amazing article, a great piece of analysis. I have a much better and deeper handle on Texas Tech. Getting fired up for this game!
Texas Tech alumni/fan here...liked your article and found a lot of your insight aligned with much of what "we" Tech fans were seeing this year. One point to consider with QB Morten is that he has been playing injured for most of the year as well. He is still not 100%, but supposedly close.
Feeling pretty confident with our chances. We ended the season on a 3 game win streak. TTU did not.
Go Bears! A winning season is in the line.
I'll take our cannon over Raider Red's shotgun any day.
But, Sofi is closer to Westwood than the Rose Bowl.
The LA Coliseum is closer to Westwood than the Rose Bowl. And the Rose Bowl is closer to USC than it is to UCLA.
Even though, writing an in depth article on TTU team maybe nice and the research needed to write the article by the author . This isn't a game of the ages where the average fan needs all this information. This isn't a bowl game where people will be talking about decades from now. Yes, it is great that Cal has fought and got themselves to a bowl game and made a success of their season. This isn't a revenge game from a game that was played almost 20 years ago. The players on both teams were barely around when that game was played. I bet barely 5 percent of the nation will be watching this game outside of Texas and Northern California with this game starting 915pm EST which is going against the NFL with the Broncos vs.Lions. Yes, I do hope the Bears win and have a winning season. But, with players leaving on both sides with the transfer portal the announcers will be give us all perspectives needed to know the other team . I believe it would have been better if these were 2 separate articles. One about the game and the other on the history of how the 2004 season ended for CAL.
In case you were wondering, the readers of this site aren't average fans. We are enthusiastic Cal fans that have nothing better to do than come read and comment on these articles everyday.
Hi Bob,
While I appreciate the kind words, I don't need your money -- I write these articles to share my passion for Cal football with the other diehards out there. I am just happy to see when people engage with my articles.
glad to see you do it for Cal. Would hate to have you enter the portal for a better NIL deal at UCLA
They couldn't afford me. :)
Donate that $1000 to Cal NIL
still blows my mind that we were #4 in the country, with only a last minute loss to #1, on the road, and ended up in the f'ing Holiday Bowl. Could only happen to Cal.
To think we were equivalent of making the 4 team College Football Playoffs worthy, that's amazing how good we were back then. But the doom...
We were so mad we sold T-shirts in protest (and to fund our trip to San Diego and offsetting our now-worthless Rose Bowl tickets). Still saw some in the wild when we played Texas.
I was in NYC visiting a friend over winter break in 2004. He worked as a bartender during swing shift. He departed for work and I decided to take a train to ESPN zone to watch the game. Once there, I ran into two Cal alumni also watching and we watched/commiserated together. The next day, same routine, my friend goes to work, I hop on the train to go explore NYC, but not sure where. Lo and behold, the Cal alumni I met from the night before are on my train! They were headed to Little Italy for dinner, I joined, them and we never spoke again. The 2004 Holiday Bowl will always be associated with this serendipitous encounter.
Typically insightful, thoroughly researched and extremely fair commentary. On the Mack Brown thing, it came down to personality types. Tedford wasn’t/isn’t a glad-handler politicker. Mack Brown sure was/is. College football long ago abandoned the honor system, if it ever had it. Mack did his thing and the media swallowed it like hungry guppies. I can’t really blame him for that. At the end of the game when he took the keyed up kicker by the helmet and whispered, “Sure wish I had the chance to win a Rose Bowl”, relaxing the kid for a successful three, it very much humanized Brown to me.
I don't blame Brown for lobbying for his team - I think its part of the job and Tedford should have done the same.
What nobody remembers is that Mack Brown's brother Watson was head coach at UAB and a voting member of the coach's poll which affected the selection. And Watson reportedly tanked his rating of Cal at the end of the year to help Texas move ahead of us. I don't know if it was proven but if true it was hideously corrupt. And if true, there's no doubt that Mack was involved.
Fun fact: Watson has more losses than any coach in NCAA history.
I don't know if anyone has heard but Tedford will not be coaching in the Fresno State bowl game because of personal health issues which seem to have returned sadly.
I was saving your previews for gameday because I want to have them fresh in my mind. Outstanding work, as usual.
Oh boy, how exciting! A meaningless bowl game in Shreveport on a Saturday night against a ho-hum team! Just think, boys and girls; if we win, Wilcox will have upped his won-loss record to 37-42! And it’s only taken him 6 years to accomplish that feat! Thank you, Cal administration, for rubber-stamping our football mediocrity!
lol did u guys hear we’re playing the beavs next year
This is going to be an interesting game, as neither team seems to respect the other as a 6-6 team haha
Here is the clip from the end of the Cal-USC game, which I will leave in video format: https://i.imgur.com/K1wnKv6.mp4
I had to watch this clip over and over that week, given that everyone other Pac-12 game, ESPN, etc., all cut over to show this ending to the game. And each time, the holds on both #7 Brian Hightower and #87 Jack Edries were clear as day: https://i.imgur.com/vbAPJlv.png
Hightower's pads are being yanked in the wrong direction. Edries is being bear-hugged from behind. No flag. I get that--in a vacuum--refs don't want to throw flags that affect the end of the game. But this is USC we're talking about, who get every questionable flag ever, and the refs earlier that game decided to change the rule of football and have a "do-over" of the end of the 2nd quarter AFTER halftime. It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in football.
Still haven't given up finding what is a documentary of the Mack Brown year leading up and including Texas beating USC in the Rose Bowl, I believe in 2004.
It was the 05 season and the 06 Rose Bowl.
Is this the documentary?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1tUZ8OE0GMI