Dave Albee
AS BOTH TEAMS warmed up on the field before saturday's game at Memorial Stadium, USC coach Pete Carroll left his team's side of the turf and walked across midfield and down the sideline to sneak a peek at Cal's offense. Standing on the 40-yard line, Carroll watched closely as beleaguered Bears quarterback Joe Ayoob attempted an intermediate-range sideline pass to star freshman wideout DeSean Jackson. There obviously was no defense or any apparent sign of pressure since it was before the game, therefore Jackson was wide open. Ayoob badly overthrew him in a simple practice pass. Carroll, on the lookout about 10 yards away from the incompletion, walked back to his side of the field. "I thought, 'Maybe we've got a shot today if he's throwing like that'," Carroll said later. "I went 'Holy (shoot)!' He did it all day long." Thus the trials and tribulations and Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh-like throws of Ayoob continue. The erratic junior QB out of Lucas Valley threw four interceptions, tieing him with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for the most failed pass attempts this week.
Ayoob completed 9-of-19 passes, including four in a row at one point. However, his longest pass completion in the game was a 1-yard toss to fullback Chris Manderino, who turned it into a 27-yard gain. In the end, Ayoob was removed from the contest in favor of Steve Levy, who was a fullback last season. Lord, have mercy. "As much as you want to be supportive and you want to coach and you want to give people a chance, it hurts you to see a person go through that," Cal coach Jeff Tedford politely said of Ayoob. This performance may have hurt Ayoob the deepest this season. He grew up in Southern California and his cousins are USC fans. One of them, Matt Willig, starred for the Trojans and played for the 49ers. In addition, the USC-Cal game was played before a sellout crowd, Keith Jackson, Dan Fouts and ABC. Ayoob, for his part, made it bust-see TV. "I can't remember having a game, or for that matter, a season like this," Ayoob said. Publicly, Ayoob's coach and teammates are standing behind him. He's a good kid with a good heart and the fact he sat and answered every reporter's question after the game until there were none left tells you a lot about his character. His teammates appear to like him as a person. If they're unsure of him as a passer, they're not telling. "The guys are really positive. They have confidence in me," Ayoob said. "I just need to get that confidence back in myself." Playing against the No. 1 ranked team in America and two-time defending national champion hardly rates as a sure-fire confidence builder. The Bears tried to play to their strength and away from their perceived weakness by running the ball on 16 of their first 19 plays in the game to control the clock. The other three plays were Ayoob passes. The first one was intercepted when Jackson ran the wrong pass route. The second one was completed as Ayoob fell to the ground under pressure. The third one was under pressure and nearly intercepted.
"He did struggle and we were able to take advantage of it. It helped us stay in control of the game," said Carroll, who grew up in Greenbrae. "He wasn't the same guy we've seen on film earlier in the season, for whatever reason. I don't know if he's banged up or what." It would be more reasonable to assume Ayoob is messed up. He's frustrated. He's flustered. His confidence is shaken. Even if it's not entirely his fault, he's being booed with every errant throw, which never happened to him at Terra Linda High School or City College of San Francisco. "There were never enough people (at games) to boo," Ayoob quipped. "The hardest part is your home fans booing you. That comes with the territory when you're playing quarterback. They either love you or they're going to hate you. You've just got to roll with it." Tedford has been willing to roll with it, too. But after yesterday's game, the Cal coach left open the possibility that Levy might start the Big Game against Stanford this Saturday. Tedford also indicated that Nate Longshore, injured in the first game of the season, might be available to play for the Bears in a potential bowl game next month. Ayoob, meanwhile, may have run out of mulligans. He needs to deliver the goods consistently, not the more than occasional bad throws. The Bears offense made only one trip into the red zone yesterday with Ayoob as their quarterback. They had a first-and-goal at the USC eight-yard line and, trailing 28-3, could have made the score somewhat respectable by scoring a touchdown.
On second down, Ayoob tried running and was leveled by Trojans defensive end Lawrence Jackson. On third down, Ayoob scrambled left but, with no one opened, tried to reverse his field and was sacked linebacker Rey Maulaluga.
On fourth down, Ayoob underthrew a pass into the end zone that was intercepted. Tedford was yelling at him when he came off the field. Of Ayoob's four interceptions, that was the least excusable.
"I've got to do a better job of trying to do something where we get his fundamentals squared away," Tedford said. "It's a tough position to play and we've always been very efficient at that position. So I'll take some blame, too, for obviously not doing enough to have him prepared. We'll work on it together." They're running out of time. Too many people are running out of patience.
No comments:
Post a Comment