JEFF TEDFORD WAS plenty upset, and for good reason. His team had just allowed UCLA to run a fake punt; to gain 38 yards on the play; to set itself up for the touchdown that would lead to the go-ahead touchdown (and another touchdown after that); and, ultimately, to score a 47-40 come-from-behind victory that is still making its way through the digestive system of Cal's players and coaches. Of course, Tedford didn't know fully the magnitude of the misery that fake punt would bring him and his team in the immediate wake of the moment itself. But he knew this -- he saw the play coming, he made sure his punt return team knew the play was coming, and the play had worked anyway. He was wondering how this could have happened, the same way -- four days after the fact -- that you are probably still wondering how such a thing could have happened. As he wondered, a member of the officiating crew trotted past. "Coach," the official said, "did you know you only had 10 men on the field for that fake punt?" This is a story about the wacky things that can happen during a football game. It's a story about the perils of having a young team. It's a story that teaches us that no matter how spectacularly retentive you might be, there are things you simply can't foresee.
Such as:
"As our punt return team was going onto the field," Tedford recalled Tuesday afternoon, "one of our senior leaders was coming off, yelling at the people on the sideline to get back. One of our young players thought (the senior) was yelling at him, so ... " So the young player got back on the sideline. But the senior leader wasn't yelling at anyone in particular. He was yelling at everyone. It happens about 50 times during a football game. Players who aren't in the game creep closer and closer to the field to get a better view of the action. Officials warn them, over and over, to get back so the sideline will be clear. The players step back. Ten seconds later, they're crowding the field again. This is what the senior leader was yelling about. But in the chaos of the sideline -- a small city, really, inhabited by several dozen players, a battalion of assistant coaches, trainers, equipment managers, miles of electrical cord, balls of wadded-up tape -- the message was misunderstood. So 10 players ran onto the field. And the 11th ... "You can just picture yourself," Tedford said, admittedly more composed than he had been Saturday night, "a young guy, never having been in that kind of situation, to hear one of your senior leaders yelling to get back, not wanting to do something wrong."
The result, of course, was wrong to the third power. "Either (UCLA) was going to go for it (on fourth down), or fake," Tedford said. "(The young player) was supposed to be on that edge. Right there." Incredible, right? This arguably cost Cal the game. Naturally you're thinking, can't someone bring some kind of order to the sideline so this kind of thing doesn't happen? Here's the kicker -- Tedford has thought of that. You can't believe the organization. There's an actual staging area, where members of a unit gather before they go onto the field. "We call it the launch pad," Tedford said. Right. The launch pad. That's where players are counted and coached. If a player doesn't show up because of injury or attention deficit, he can be replaced or summoned. Special instruction -- for example, "Expect a fake" -- can be given.
The punt return team gathered on the launch pad before the fateful fake punt. "If they don't make it," they were told as UCLA lined up for its third-down play, "go." UCLA didn't make it. Neither did Cal's 11th man. Now your forehead hurts where you just slapped it with the palm of your hand. And you're wondering, why can't someone make sure the players stand where they're supposed to stand? That would eliminate some of the confusion, right? Dig this: Cal has someone like that. "We have a Get Back coach," Tedford said. "That's his job." So what we have here is attention to detail, everyone doing their job, and a killer misunderstanding happening anyway.
"A fluky thing," Tedford said Tuesday, looking like he might be on the verge of beginning to consider possibly letting go of that moment at some point in the near future. "But someone still should have noticed," he said. "Someone on the sideline, or in the booth. Call a timeout." Maybe what Cal really needs right now is a Get Over It coach.
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