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Bear Bites: Bears Eager to Prove Herbstreit Wrong, Prepare for Falcons
• ESPN commentator Kirk Herbstreit said Tuesday on SportsCenter that of all the non-BCS bowl games, the most likely blowout would be Air Force over the Cal football team in the Armed Forces Bowl on Dec. 31.
Needless to say, that didn’t sit well with some Bears players. Defensive end Rulon Davis had a few words to say about Herbstreit’s prediction.
“I just want to prove Kirk Herbstreit wrong. I don’t want him to think we’re a bunch of punks because we’re not, and if Air Force thinks that’s what they’re dealing with, I’m going to make sure that’s not going to happen,” Davis said. “They’re definitely not going to make a punk out of me.
“He keeps calling us out, saying we’re weak, we’re flat and we play with no heart—basically that we’re punks. We have to go prove to the rest of the United States that that’s not what we’re about.”
Davis, who has been in and out of the lineup because of injury this season, but said he is finally 100 percent and in “spring ball shape,” clearly has other plans about the outcome of the bowl game.
“I don’t know anything about their defense, I don’t know anything about their special teams, but I do know their offense and I’m confident that we’re going to defeat it,” he said. “They’re an option team, that’s what they do. They’re going to run the option—we’re going to defeat that. They’ve got the dive—we’re going to defeat that. And that’s it.”
• As the Bears gear up for their tilt against the Falcons, coach Jeff Tedford and players alike said Tuesday that practices have been spirited and energetic.
Part of the reason is that instead of playing the scout team in practice, the offense and defense have been facing off, with players challenging each other and having fun. Wideout Lavelle Hawkins has even shown up to practice a couple times wearing the jerseys of some of the seniors on the team, including Justin Forsett.
“Just trying to show some love,” Hawkins said. “I got a couple carries (that day).”
Tedford also said he has used the opportunity of post-season practices to give some of the younger players a chance to get some reps.
“We’ve had very good practices, very upbeat practices,” Tedford said. “We had a chance to practice against one another, get a lot of the young guys in—that’s always a great thing to do. The attitudes have been very good, the energy level good.”
Still, don’t expect too much of a change in the lineup come game time on New Year’s Eve.
“The guys who have been playing will continue to play,” Tedford said. “There are certain areas where we’re going to try to keep people fresh, of course, throughout the game, but not a wholesale change to put different people in the game.”
There will be a few changes from the regular season, however. Defensive tackle Matt Malele had knee surgery following the Big Game and will not be playing against the Falcons. Redshirt freshman Derrick Hill will likely get the starting nod in Malele's stead, as he has been playing with the first team in practice.
• Junior wide receiver DeSean Jackson, who missed the Big Game after suffering a thigh contusion against Washington on Nov. 17, said Tuesday he is now fully recovered and will be playing in the Armed Forces Bowl.
“I’m feeling 100 percent right now. I was able to come back like a week after the Stanford game,” he said. “It was good for me to get some rest and stay off my quad for a little bit. It was just hard for me to do the things I wanted to do as a player on the field. It was definitely tough to sit out (the Big Game). It was longer than I expected to be out.”
As for the widespread speculation that DeSean Jackson is leaving for the NFL after this season, the wide receiver said he is not thinking too much about it just yet.
“I just want to wait until the season is over with though and deal with all of that myself,” he said. “There’s too much I have to deal with here at Cal, with the seniors and my injury. So it would be overwhelming for me to fully look at the NFL right now.”
While DeSean Jackson refused to say that the bowl game may be his last with the Bears, he didn’t deny paying attention to the NFL draft and his own status.
“Oh definitely, I’m paying attention to the draft,” he said. “A lot of people call me and let me know my status and things like that.
“I know a lot of people in the NFL like my game and people talk to me and keep me updated about the draft. It’s just a good feeling.”
As of Tuesday, DeSean Jackson said he hadn’t finalized his decision, and that he would have to discuss it with his parents and with Tedford first.
• Senior safety Thomas DeCoud remembers Cal’s last game against Air Force in 2004, which resulted in a 56-14 blowout victory for the Bears.
Under first-year coach Troy Calhoun, the Falcons, who have traditionally run the option scheme as their primary weapon, have made some adjustments since.
“In ’04, they were strictly an option team, but now they’ve incorporated more passing sets. They actually have a passing game on third down instead of straight option football, so they’ve opened up their playbook with their new coaching staff,” DeCoud said. “We’ve definitely been taking that into account.”
Tedford said the discipline with which Air Force executes its offense has posed a challenge for the Bears in practice.
“With the option they’ve run for a long, long time, now they’re very multiple,” Tedford said. “Not only do they run the option, they can throw a lot of formations at you. So it’s just hard to simulate the type of option that they run with the speed and precision with which they do it.”
The Falcons will also present Cal with something new: facing a 3-4 defense instead of the usual 4-3.
“They’re a group that plays an odd defense,” Tedford said.
“They do a lot of things out of it which you don’t see on a weekly basis that’s a little bit different. Special teams-wise they do some things here and there you don’t see, like with the punt team, how they spread out. There are just some unconventional things you have to prepare for.”
But DeCoud still thinks that the memory of having played Air Force in 2004 may come in handy—at least for him, due to what he remembers of senior quarterback Shaun Carney.
“He was a freshman when we played them in ’04, so just knowing how he plays, what kind of player he is and being able to have seen him before will help us out,” DeCoud said.
Cal seems to be more concerned about stopping running back Chad Hall, who has bulldozed his way to 1,414 yards and 14 touchdowns this season.
“He’s their whole offense,” DeCoud said. “I remember watching film—he got the ball in his hands the first six plays of the game. He’s definiteliy going to touch the ball a lot. We’ve just got to limit his touches and stop what he does with the ball when he gets it.”
• The players had their last practice Friday before heading home for Christmas break, from which they will return on Dec. 27. Quarterback Nate Longshore, however, is not planning on staying away from the game that long. He’ll likely be joining younger brother Ben, who led Canyon High to a win over powerhouse De La Salle High in the 2006 CIF Division-I state championship and is now playing for Utah State, in some friendly family football games.
“Hopefully (my teammates) will find something to do to keep them active,” he said. “I know we have some Christmas football games going down at the house at New Year’s—I’ll have to get in on some of those.”
But at home, Longshore won’t be tossing any touchdown passes.
“I usually specialize in middle linebacker,” he said. “They don’t let me play quarterback. They don’t have so much fun when that happens.”
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