By Ann Killion
Mercury News
The professor is hard at work at Cal. By the time his course is complete, the pupils will have learned all they can, and odds are they'll find a very lucrative job in their profession.
The class? Quarterbacking 101. The classroom is Memorial Stadium, the professor is Jeff Tedford and the students are Nate Longshore and Joe Ayoob.
You could probably get odds in Las Vegas that Longshore or Ayoob will become a first-round NFL draft choice -- such is Tedford's touch with young quarterbacks. But, for now, neither has taken a snap in a Division I game, and both have an awful lot to learn.
``You think you have a good grasp of football, then you come here,'' Ayoob said Thursday. ``I didn't know it was going to be so complicated.''
There are high expectations around Cal this year. Coming off a 10-2 season, the Golden Bears have sold more season tickets than ever. Sophomore running back Marshawn Lynch will be mentioned in the Heisman Trophy conversation. The USC game in November is already a virtual sellout.
But the big question mark is at quarterback, where there are two novices vying for the job vacated by Aaron Rodgers. It would be an area of great concern, if it weren't Tedford doing the coaching.
Tedford, of course, has worked magic with quarterbacks, turning six into first-round draft picks. But he has never had such novices at Cal before.
``Last year we had expectations with experience,'' Tedford said Thursday. ``This year we have expectations with youth.''
Cal lost a lot of experience from last season's team, but the biggest loss was Rodgers, who left school early and became -- of course -- a first-round draft pick of the Green Bay Packers. Tedford's system requires a smart, athletic leader at quarterback, and he hasn't decided whether Ayoob or Longshore will get the job.
Ayoob is a junior college transfer, from San Francisco City. Longshore might right now have the edge because, while redshirting as a freshman last season, he absorbed much of Tedford's teaching.
Ayoob arrived in the spring, crammed the whole offense into a four-week session, then tried to show Tedford how much he knew.
``It was overwhelming,'' he said.
And it looked that way. But Tedford doesn't hold Ayoob's spring performance against him.
``He was paralyzed mentally,'' Tedford said. ``But so far I'm pleased with his retention. It usually takes about a year and a half to really get it.''
The Bears don't have a year and a half. They have just over two weeks until their opener against Sacramento State, three weeks until the Pacific-10 Conference opener at Washington. The inexperience at quarterback will be offset by the solid offensive line, which returns four starters, and by the quarterback's ability to hand off the ball to the phenomenal Lynch, who averaged 8.8 yards per carry as a freshman.
The two quarterbacks are with Tedford constantly. He sits in their meetings, offering critiques. He watches film with them. He scrutinizes them in practice. If one of them cocks his head wrong on a release, he hears about it.
``He's very hands-on,'' Ayoob said. ``He watches us all the time.''
Tedford wants to make sure that they absorb his system so when they step to the line in the chaos of a full stadium on a Saturday afternoon, they make all the right decisions.
``It's very mental, it's very challenging,'' Tedford said. ``The guy who wins the position is not going to be the guy who throws the prettiest pass. It'll be the guy who runs the team the best. We can't have a lot of mental mistakes.''
So for the next two weeks, the quarterbacks are in the hardest course they may ever take at Cal.
But the rewards of being taught by Professor Tedford could be a very high-paying job in the NFL. The odds are pretty favorable.
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