By Eric Gilmore
Psst! Want to hear a secret? The Cal Bears are bowl eligible. Really. They notched their sixth win -- the magic number for bowl eligibility -- two weeks ago, beating Washington State 42-38. If you haven't heard much -- or anything -- about Cal's postseason reservation, you're not alone. After beating WSU, Cal coach Jeff Tedford didn't mention a word about bowls to the news media. Neither did his players. For that matter, no one from the media raised the topic with Tedford. In this week's Cal football news release, the fact that the Bears are bowl eligible is mentioned in a blurb on page 5, long after all the key facts and figures concerning today's road game against the Oregon Ducks, ranked No. 13 in the USA Today coaches' poll. And to think, it was only two seasons ago that the Bears snapped a six-year bowl drought, stamping their postseason ticket with a 28-16 victory over Stanford and celebrating as if they had won a national championship. Now, Cal becoming bowl eligible barely qualifies as news. It's dog bites man, not man bites dog, the way it used to be. "Sure, six (wins) is bowl eligible, but at the same time, winning six games in a season here now is unacceptable," Cal senior defensive end Tosh Lupoi said. "A whole new legacy has been built where basically every team is going to attempt to do better than the last team, at least. "We come in with a goal every season to contend at a national level, attempt to win the Pac-10 and attempt to be undefeated. Goals are set real high here, and when you're at six victories or seven, it's not considered a great feat anymore." It's still hard to wrap your mind around how much and how quickly times have changed for the Bears. It's as if you blinked and they went from being a 1-10 laughingstock in Tom Holmoe's final season to a national power, headed for their third straight bowl game -- site yet to be determined -- under Tedford. In a sense, it's sad that the Bears find so little joy in what used to be considered a huge accomplishment. It's as if they've lost their innocence. But hey, that's life in college football's big time. The goals are higher. The pressure's greater. And the definition of a successful season is so different.
Lupoi is right. Simply winning six games and going to a minor bowl game no longer is acceptable at Cal. Yes, the Bears are 6-2. But their season ultimately will be judged by how they fare during a daunting stretch run. First up, 7-1 Oregon today at Autzen Stadium, where the Bears haven't won since 1987. Next week, the Bears return home to face No. 1-ranked USC, the two-time defending national champion. The Trojans are 8-0 this year and are riding a 30-game winning streak.
Then the Bears travel to face 4-3 Stanford, no longer looking like the lightweight that lost to UC Davis, in the Big Game. "We have the three toughest games of our season coming up," Cal linebacker Ryan Foltz said. "I don't think that we want to feel any sense of relaxation or relief being bowl eligible because now we have the biggest challenge of our season. "It's kind of in the back of your mind, 'Great, we're going to play in the postseason.' But that's not really good enough for this team. We really have higher goals and we'd really like to win out." Entering today's game, the Bears are No. 21 in the USA Today poll and No. 23 in the BCS rankings. If the Bears win out, there's no telling how high they'll climb in the polls and the BCS rankings. "The more games we win, the better bowl game we go to," Cal free safety Harrison Smith said. "We're just going to keep trying to win, putting games together week after week." Beating Oregon at Autzen won't be easy, although Cal caught a break when Oregon senior quarterback Kellen Clemens suffered a season-ending broken ankle two weeks ago against Arizona. Sophomore quarterback Dennis Dixon will make his first start for the Ducks today. Yet even with Clemens out, Cal still faces the elements -- rain, naturally, is expected -- and the raucous Autzen crowd. "We're just excited for the challenge," Lupoi said. "They're got a great home-field (advantage), a lot of noise. "Every single one of these games are like bowl weeks. It's very easy to get up for these games." Three weeks from now, we'll see where the Bears are headed for their real bowl game and how excited they'll be.
No comments:
Post a Comment