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BYU’s rough night at AT&T Park a microcosm of the challenges facing the school as a big-time independent

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BYU-UW

By Morris Phillips

A step slow, a play short: it was a pattern that played out to BYU’s detriment throughout the Fight Hunger Bowl Friday night.   While the Cougars acquitted themselves well, riding the spirit and running of quarterback Taysom Hill, when it came time to make a critical play, the Cougars didn’t while Washington did.

In the first half alone, the Cougars amassed 297 yards in offense, but never led.  Four offensive trips inside the UW 30-yard line produced three field goals and one touchdown on the initial push.  In the second half, a big interception had BYU poised to get back in it, but an incomplete pass and a sack preceded Justin Sorenson’s 44-yard missed field goal.

ESPN commentator Dave Pasch called BYU’s offense in the first half that enjoyed huge advantage in plays and yardage “dominant.”  In truth, the Hill-led attack was relevant, but ultimately ineffective.

“That to me was two even matched teams,” an upbeat BYU coach Bronco Mendehall recounted.  “I thought we had time of possession.  I thought we had ball control, et cetera.  We weren’t able to put it into the end zone, maybe on a couple of occasions.”

“When we get down there, we have to execute at a really high level, and we didn’t do that.  We had a couple of penalties that really killed us.”

And special teams were clearly no help.  After the Cougars drove 88 yards in 12 plays—including a gutsy fourth down run and conversion out of punt formation at their own 20—to tie it, 7-7, Washington got a 100-yard kickoff return from ultra speedy John Ross that put BYU behind once again.  After the Cougars narrowed the gap to 14-13, Jessie Callier’s 47-yard kickoff return set up the Huskies for another touchdown.

The BYU offense that moved the ball so effectively in the first half, bogged down after halftime.  Hill’s favored slant route to receivers Cody Hoffman and Skyler Ridley was effectively taken away by the Huskies crowding the box.  While Hill continued to find running holes—he would amass a career-high 31 rush attempts—UW dared the athletic quarterback to throw, and more often than not, Hill couldn’t connect.

The Cougars offense that amassed all the yardage in the first half went without a major push into Washington territory after halftime.  Washington’s touchdown on the initial drive of the half effectively put the game away.

Even more humbling for BYU were the marquee individual matchups that left many of BYU stars humbled.  All-American linebacker Kyle Van Noy played well in his final game as a Cougar, but when UW back Bishop Sankey was in his sights at the 11-yard line in the second quarter, Van Noy was left grasping for air as Sankey sidestepped the Cougar and then raced into the end zone for a 21-13 Washington lead.

In the third quarter stand out linebacker Uani Unga was matched up with UW’s Austin Seferian-Jenkins near the goal line, but the massive 6’6”, 280-pound tight end had the clear size and reach advantage when quarterback Keith Price whizzed a pass to Seferian-Jenkins in the end zone that put UW up 28-16 and left Unga an arm’s length short.

Hoffman, an NFL prospect at wide receiver, made plays in the middle of field, hauling in 12 catches for 167 yards, but his turn as passer didn’t fare well.  Hoffman received a pitch and threw a short out to Hill, but Hoffman took a shot to the ribs as he threw and was limited for the entire second half.

In all, a tough night for the Cougars, but also a reminder of what challenges life as a big-time independent will entail.  BYU left the Mountain West conference after 2012 for greater television exposure and the opportunity to play a national schedule and better pursue an opportunity at an elusive national championship.

But while a hand-picked schedule may garner exposure, the Cougars will have to recruit the best players to compete at such a lofty level.  On Friday night, the best athletes on the field wore purple and gold. A humbling loss to a middle-of-the-pack Pac-12 team in Washington could not provide a better illustration of the Cougars’ conundrum: the Cougars need to win big to gain national acclaim, but those wins will clearly be more difficult to grasp outside the Mountain West and squarely on top of the national stage.

Morris Phillips on the NCAA: Former Raider Tuiasosopo to coach Hunger Bowl for Washington

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by Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–The Kraft Hunger Bowl is back and kick off is scheduled for Sat December 28th at AT&T Park between BYU and Washington University. Friday night I was in downtown S.F. and ran into the BYU advance crew. The Cougars don’t arrive in the City until Sunday. The Cougars former head coach Lavelle Edwards was in town on Friday night.

There’s a lot of excitment downtown it’s BYU’s first appearance in the Kraft Bowl and it’s Washington’s also. It should be a great football game. BYU is having a great season. The Cougars lost games during the regular season to Wisconsin and Notre Dame. BYU is a good football team and they run the football.

Washington runs the football just as well with their running back Bishop Sankey and the Huskies are 8-12 for the regular season in the Pac 12. Then there was the coaching change for Washington as Steve Sarkisian who left for USC is replaced by Chris Peterson. Sarkisian will not be involved in this game.

Peterson left Boise State to coach the Huskies and with the Hunger Bowl in the last couple years there have been coaching changes for this game. It will not affect the product on the field it should be an exciting game. Former Raider quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo the Huskies interim coach knows the system going into this bowl game. It’s all hands on deck with Sarkisian gone and the team has to rally around the new coach for this game.

The players have to be more attentive and the assistants have to assume the responsibilty it’s not going to affect them on the field. They’ve got plenty of time to prepare and they might be able to do well without Sarkisian for this game. What happened two years ago with Illinois they came into the bowl to play UCLA with their new coach and last year a coaching change happened when Boston College came town and they also had a new coach.

That’s just the kind of timing they have in football and particuarily with this bowl game coaches are taking new jobs at this time of the year and obviously athletic directors are not interested in having somebody around whose accepted a new job who can not even coach the last few games. They get the guy out and he doesn’t coach the final bowl games and they just move on.

It shouldn’t effect Washington at all with this change and again Peterson will take over at the beginning of next season and coach the Huskies 2014 season. Peterson maybe attending this game as an observer. He might be there as a consultant but Peterson left Boise State and it’s great for Washington he was an excellent coach while he was with the Buffaloes and made a couple of BCS appearences.

Morris Phillips is filling in for Michelle Richardson this week for NCAA commentary

Morris Phillips on the NCAA

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by Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–The Cal Bears are getting confidence with these non conference games wins like the one Saturday against the Fresno State Bull Dogs 67-56 in an 11 point victory and it’s an opportunity to gain confidence with a young basketball team which is great. The Bears have got new players that haven’t had expereince at the division one level and that’s why home games or pre conference games are so critical so that will help them.

The Bears didn’t see anybody of size this week and obviously when the conference games start they will be seeing bigger teams and taller players and the Bears will have to contend with those teams. At that point Cal will be the smaller team of the group. Especially they played Nevada and Fresno State on Saturday at Haas Pavilion and they saw a pair of undersize teams and that won’t be the case in the Pac 12.

The one thing that’s going on right now for the first time since 2006 the number one team in the country is from the Pac 12 Arizona who won against Michigan to secure that number one spot and the Pac 12 looks to be as balanced and competitive as it has been in years top to bottom and their already getting raves for being one of the strong leagues in the country.

Once again Cal is not in a conference schedule there is nothing compared to what they will see once the conference season starts. Just to run through the team, Arizona is number one, Oregon is ranked, Washington State looks to be much improved, Washington as like Cal a younger team trying to find it’s way.

Stanford is kind of interesting they just lost their point guard Aaron Bright for the season the Pac 12 is going to be a bear and every week it’s going to be tough ball games that are going to be very closely contested. Cal is going to be right there in the mix. They are younger and less experienced than some of the teams that they will face.

Morris Phillips covers Cal basketball and is filling in for Dr.Michelle Richardson this week for the NCAA commentary

49ers Report: Kaepernick could very well be as good as Montana someday

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by David Zizmor

 SANTA CLARA–We were just talking about how bad the NFC East is and no team better exemplifies that than the Washington squad their really bad and they displayed that last Monday night against the 49ers. It’s kind of surprising to think they made the playoffs last year and were kind of the toast of the league and Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III displayed his skills as he injured his knee in that playoff game last year against Seattle and it’s been a tough road ever since.

Washington is just not a very good team this season and Griffin is having a lot of trouble on offense he really has had trouble passing he doesn’t look right in fact if you look in the past game comments from 49ers linebacker Ahmad Brooks “we respect Robert Griffin he’s a good player he’s a warrior he also shouldn’t be out there, it’s just not right there’s something wrong he’s not healthy and he should take a break before he gets back out there” but you know what the 49ers don’t care.

The 49ers had two tough games against Carolina and New Orleans and the way they lost those two games was pretty tough they lost by a total of four points by one point to Carolina and three points to New Orleans and in that New Orleans game if you don’t like that penalty for the personal foul called on Brooks for the clothesline hit on Drew Brees late in the game when he fumbled you would think the 49ers had the game stolen from them.

They lost their two games in a very tough manner and everybody was claiming the sky was falling “the Niners stink, their going to miss the playoffs, Colin Kaeppernick he’s not as good as we thought he was” the offense needs to pick up the pace for sure but the defense has been playing great football and the Niners still are 7-4 right now this isn’t a team that hasn’t completely fallen out of the playoffs race. They had a couple of tough games and they were right in  those games if a couple of breaks go their way they could have got the win and everybody would be happy and nobody would be complaining and moaning.

Fans and media would be saying that the Niners would need to be doing a couple more things and “hey their winning so who cares” this is a good team and Kaepernick has not been quite as dynamic as he was last year but lets’ remember this is a guy who started only 20 football games in his young career and after 20 games former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana was still struggling a little bit in fact if you look at Montana’s statistics for his first 20 games their almost identical to Kaepernick’s it’s almost scary how close they are in terms of their numbers.

 

Kaepernick and Montana were in different eras their not one to one comparable but Kaepernick still has a lot of room to grow and you won’t be surprised and you’ll see him grow and become a much better quarterback as time passes the offensive line has struggled a bit this season that’s played a part in Kaepernick’s struggles and we all know the problems of the 49ers with their wide receivers being unhealthy.

As the receivers get healthy and they get more weapons on offense back in the fold you see Kaepernick get better, also the coaching staff needs adjusting their realizing there are some things they need to help Kaepernick with so their doing their best to make things a little easier for him. The most important thing is the wide receivers. Mario Manningham is getting better each week you saw him in this week’s game against Washington catching several slant passes.

Which you might remember back in the 80s and 90s under former head coaches of the 49ers Bill Walsh and George Siefert those were the bread and butter of the 49ers offense with receivers like Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Freddie Solomon, Dwight Clark, and many others were catching slants left and right. You couldn’t stop them it’s a great play and if you catch it and you get tackled you get seven yards and if you catch and you break a tackle you could go for a long one.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk radio

Cal hopes for redemption at Colorado

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By George Devine, Sr.

After a 62-28 loss to USC in this year’s last game at Berkeley, the Bears hope for their first Division I win of the season at Colorado, kicking off at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 16.

The Buffaloes lost their 14th straight Pac-12 game and are 0-6 in conference this year (3-6 overall), bringing up the rear in the South division as Cal (0-7, 1-9) is in the North division cellar.

The Colorado loss was to Washington, 59=70. Huskies are now 6-3/3-3 and bowl eligible. Leading the charge for the Buffs against Cal will be WR Paul Richardson and running backs Tony Jones and Christian Powell. On defense, ILB Addison Gillam will give the “Bear Raid” offense trouble, despite the chemistry achieved this year between Cal QB Jared Goff and wideout Kenny Lawler, a fellow freshman.

Following the game at Colorado, the Bears will go to Stanford for the annual Big Game, this year on Saturday, November 13 at a time TBD.

Warriors new arena in S.F. has good chance to get voted down

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by Ken Gimblin

SAN FRANCISCO–After the defeat of San Francisco propositions B and C it was a clear sign to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee that voters do not want to change to look of the waterfront at the Embarcadero at piers 30-32. Former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos was an advocate of keeping the waterfront just the way it is with no changes.

Props B and C would open the changes for development building new condos and later a proposition at piers 30-32 and the Embarcadero waterfront that would have lead to a new Warriors arena. Voters on Tuesday resoundingly voted no on the props voting down prop B by 62 percent and voting down prop C by 66.5 percent. It was reported that the defeat of the condos called 8 Washington condos was not necessarily bad news for Lee but it could translate how unpopular the Mayor’s idea for development for the waterfront is.

Agnos had allied groups opposing the measure by the San Francisco Sierra Club, San Francisco Tomorrow and members of San Francisco Waterfront Alliance, they were on hand at the No on Props B and C campaign headquarters saying they were in it to win it opposing the condo development, “voters sent the overwhelming message that they don’t want to destroy 50 years of work on the waterfront, under no circumstances will we accept an arena on the bay” said Agnos.

The Warriors intend to develop for a new proposed arena at the cost of $170 million, the sell was that the condos were going to help for affordable housing with construction costs at the tune of $11 million but the point of voters was either mistrust of the Mayor’s proposals or as Agnos said voters want to keep the waterfront looking just the way it is.

Agnos suggested that development for a new arena may work near Candlestick Point or near the San Francisco Cal Train station at Fourth and Townsend Streets. Neither location would appeal to the Warriors who are dead set on building at piers 30-32, “Art Agnos just won a game of ping pong and now he thinks he’s a Wimbledon champion” said Warriors spokesman Nathan Ballard for the Warriors S.F. arena project in commenting on props B and C going down to defeat.

Lee who attended the San Francisco Bulls home opener at the Cow Palace on Friday night did not comment on the loss of the propositions but it was learned through sources at the Bulls that Lee wants Bulls team president and co-owner Pat Curcio to work with him in campaigning together with the Warriors in the construction of a new arena with the Warriors. If all goes to plan it would give the waterfront arena an NHL or minor league regulation size ice rink and a new basketball arena.

Ken Gimblin covers the NBA for Sportstalk Radio

Cal just playing out the schedule to see if they can pick up a win

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by Michael Duca
BERKELEY–The only way you can win a football game is you keep the other teams from scoring more than you do and while it may seem to some have already suffered through watching the defense is only a concept. Defense is only something that requires high quality players who are able to compete with each other and it seems each week. Cal has not had that luxury.
They’ve had so many injuries, they’ve lost seven of their original starters, 11 projected players on defense, yeah it’s just going to be like this for the rest of the year. I would be surprised if they’re able to actually put another game in the victory column before this year ends which would mean that one could take the position that this might be the worst Cal football  season in memory. There only win would have come not against a BCS team.
Cal head coach Sonny Dykes knew that he was going to run the spread and he knew it was going to take certain kinds of players to run the spread it’s not that easy to convert a fairly standard pro set team to a spread offense because a spread is all about gaps, control much more than straight ahead blocking to open wide for a running game. While Cal has finished with a lot of pro quarterbacks if you take a look at the years you have former Cal coach Jeff Tedford whose well known to be a quarterback developer.
He had 1000 yard rushers every year Cal was a run oriented offense but passed off the run and with the spread to run off the pass and establish the pass the first thing you have to do it with is that line literally spreads that’s why it’s called that. It takes a different kind of player and a different skill set and you inherit players who are recruited for one system there’s likely not the best suited players for the other kind of system.Their not smart football players but it doesn’t mean their not good athletes which there are different skill sets involved.
Dykes knew in last Saturday’s game versus Washington that Cal quarterback Jared Goff is the future quarterback and he wants to make sure that he doesn’t get injured either physically which is not that big a risk in a blow out game because as the game goes on you want to finish healthy. Physiologically more important you want to maintain a quarterbacking concept which is being in an attack mode and Goff is a true freshman.
You have to be a little bit more careful, Dykes knows what he’s doing at quarterback.
Michael Duca covers Cal football for Sportstalk Radio

Cal allows to many big plays in 41-17 loss to Washington

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By Morris Phillips

The Cal Bears ran 89 offensive plays, amassed nearly 500 yards in total offense and committed just three penalties and one turnover on Saturday night.

But the Bears were blown out, dropping a 41-17 decision to Washington and falling to 1-7 on the season, in which they lost each time by at least two touchdowns.

How’s that?

While the Bears continue to post respectable offensive numbers, their defense has been simply offensive, allowing 643 yards to the Huskies, including UW running back Bishop Sankey’s 241 yards rushing.

Sankey’s 59-yard touchdown run capped a lopsided first half that ended with Cal trailing 24-7.   The Bears fell behind 17-0 in the first quarter when their offense pushed the snooze button and went three-and-out on four of their first six possessions.

“Right now, we’re just not executing well enough on either side of the ball that we need to beat a good football team,” Coach Sonny Dykes said.  “Washington is a very good football team.  We just have to go back to work.”

The Bears continue to deal with numerous injuries and defections, especially in the back seven of their defense, where the team allowed numerous big plays on Saturday.  Besides Sankey’s big touchdown run before the half, the Bears allowed UW quarterback Keith Price and Jaydon Mickens to hook up on touchdown passes of 68 and 47 yards, the second of which put the Huskies up 31-7 two minutes into the second half.

Washington came into Saturday’s game off three straight losses to the Pac-12 elite and with numerous injury concerns of their own.  The team also paid tribute to long time coach, Don James, who passed away this week due to complications with pancreatic cancer at the age of 80.  The emotion surrounding the loss of James appeared to propel the Huskies, especially in building their early lead.

Jared Goff got the start for Cal and completed 32 of 54 passes for 336 yards and one touchdown pass to Chris Harper. Goff played into the fourth quarter and third-stringer Austin Hinder finished up.   Goff put up decent numbers, but was sacked five times and couldn’t get the Bears in the end zone, especially critical after the Bears narrowed Washington’s lead to 10 early in the second quarter.

The Bears have dropped 11 straight games to FBS competition and haven’t beaten a Pac-12 opponent in over a year.  In addition, the Bears got bad news this week when reports surfaced regarding the team’s poor performance in the classroom.   While athletic director Sandy Barbour addressed the academic issues, taking the blame for the player’s deficiencies, Dykes had to answer for the team’s play on the field.

“We’re not about losing or moral victories, but our guys play hard.  We have really good kids with great character.  I’m proud of them from that standpoint.  We just have to get better,” Dykes said.

The Bears return to Berkeley next Saturday to face Arizona, who won 44-20 at Colorado on Saturday.

Weak scores on and off the field for Cal football

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Michelle Richardson on the NCAA by Morris Phillips

SEATTLE–It’s real sad news that Cal’s graduation rate is at number 72 out of the major colleges in the nation and the team is not winning and their supposed to win in the classroom that’s what the university is all about. That’s why universities in the Pac 12 conference which is an academic conference but not at the highest level unfortunately but near the highest level.

The football team is not performing well on the field and it hasn’t been a good first year for Cal head coach Sonny Dykes in his program and that’s some bad news. I don’t think the Bears are going to win this weekend either as they get ready to face the Huskies in Washington so they would fall to 1-7 on the season.

The academic news is disturbing because if guys can’t perform in the classroom they can’t get on the field, they can’t help the school. It’s surprising but I’m sure they’ll get it worked out while it’s depressing you have to assume the school is going to work it out with the group they have now with guys going to class.

Back in 2009 Cal had some of the worst graduation rates in the NCAA until former Cal head coach Jeff Tedford got his students to turn around their academic scores in the classroom and got the team to start winning. Tedford won a bunch of recruiting battles. He had successes with his students, with recruiting and getting them good test scores even though Tedford was heading out the door.

Tedford bears a great deal of responsibility of getting the program off the ground at that time but Dykes is the coach now and these are his kids and this is his team he needs to get on the football field and to coach his problem. Dykes is not going anywhere there’s so much money involved in getting Tedford out and paying the new coach there won’t be any changes.

Cal must clean their problem up, they have to internally, they have to get it fixed. It’s not what the university is all about. Once again Tedford is the origin of the problem but it is truly and squarely on Dykes at this point. Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour did not comment on the story only to say that she will look into the low academic situation of the graduation rates and “put systems in place that we believe will raise for under preforming teams.”

None of the players with graduating issues were recruited by Dykes and a majority of them were not on the Cal Men’s basketball team, “a top priority for this program since this staff was formed has always and will always be for our student-athletes to complete their undergraduate degree.” said Cal men’s basketball head coach Mike Montgomery.

Tedford said about the low graduation rate, “(it was) very concerning, it makes it seem like we weren’t dedicated to academics, no matter what anybody says that’s not true, people have good intentions but life goes in a different direction, they rarely come back. Looking back the lesson I learned was to have them graduate in four and half years.”

Morris Phillips is filling in for Michelle Richardson on NCAA commentary this week

Cal ran over again by Oregon State, falls to 1-6

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By Morris Phillips

With California football stuck in a rut deep enough to ruin consecutive seasons, the last opponent the Bears needed to see on Saturday night was Oregon State.   So when Sean Mannion looked like Sean Canfield and Brandin Cooks approximated Jacquizz Rodgers, you didn’t need to answer a quiz to know the Bears were cooked, falling 49-17 to the Beavers.

Mannion completed 35 of 45 for a whopping 481 yards while Cooks ran and caught to his heart’s content, finishing with 13 catches for 231 yards as Cal’s deficiencies in the secondary and linebacker corps compromised the entire Cal defense as OSU jumped to a 28-3 halftime lead.

“We didn’t play well, didn’t coach well,” a frustrated Coach Sonny Dykes said.  “I’d like to be able to say something happened other than what did.    You saw what happened, I don’t need to say much about it.”

The loss was Cal’s 11th consecutive over two seasons against Division I competition.  The losing streak now stands as the longest of any team in a BCS conference with the Bears last win coming against Washington State over a year ago.  And Cal hasn’t much success with OSU in any state, losing to the Beavers for the 12th time in their last 15 meetings.

Much of that streak coincides with Mike Riley’s arrival in Corvallis in 1997 and his quick-twitch passing game that has given Cal fits.   Just as Canfield and Yvenson Bernard were hard to contain in OSU monumental 2007 upset of No. 2 Cal, Mannion and Cooks were a lethal combination on Saturday.  While Mannion flawlessly executed the quick screens and occasional downfield strikes, Cooks did the rest, scoring twice—first on an end-around run and then on a 34-yard pass play– in OSU’s first half explosion.

“He is a heck of a football player,” Dykes said when asked what tactics Cal used to attempt to slow Cooks.  “That is what good players do, make plays when they have an opportunity to do so.  He did it over and over again.”

The Bears lost their lone experienced corner Stefan McClure for the season two weeks ago, and their youthful secondary paid dearly without him as the Beavers’ quicker playmakers had their way throughout.   The Bears got back corner Joel Willis and linebacker Jalen Jefferson but the result was a hodge podge of poor tackling, inability to engage and shed OSU blockers as the Beavers and Mannion made play after play.

With the Bears trailing 35-3 in the third quarter, Dykes replaced starting quarterback Jared Goff with Zach Kline, and the redshirt freshman from Danville provided a spark, leading the Bears on their only two touchdown drives of the night.  Kline finished 11 of 16 for 71 yards and the two scores while Goff was 21 of 31 for 220 yards.  Dykes said along with the lopsided numbers on the scoreboard, he felt that Goff was having trouble holding on to the football, similar to his three fumble performance at Oregon in the rain.

“I’m extremely upset with myself,” Goff said.  “I need to play better to give us a chance to win.”

Statistically, Cal didn’t display many warts between the 20’s, but once again bogged down in scoring range due to penalties and a Vincenzo D’Amato missed field goal attempt.   Primary playmakers Chris Harper, Richard Rodgers and Brendan Bigelow combined for 18 catches but none of three could put the ball in the end zone.   On the night, the Bears ran 77 offensive plays—below the 90 plays Dykes would prefer–and amassed 366 yards in offense.

The Bears (1-6, 0-4) visit the refurbished Husky Stadium in Seattle next Saturday in a meeting with Washington.  Oregon State—already winners of three Pac-12 road contests—returns to Corvallis for a showdown with Stanford.