Dave Albee
BERKELEY
Any minion with an opinion about the state of Cal football right now has probably concluded that there is no way on Oski's green earth that the Bears will beat top-ranked and two-time defending national champion USC this Saturday with Joe Ayoob at quarterback. The fact is the Trojans are so obscenely loaded with A-list talent on offense that Cal couldn't beat them with Joe Ayoob, Joe Namath or Joe Montana at quarterback. USC has won 31 consecutive games and leads the nation in total offense, pass efficiency and scoring after netting 50 or more points in the last three games. How can anyone reasonably expect Ayoob - or any quarterback on this planet - to match that? It's like the Smiths and Jones trying to keep pace with the Earnhardts. Ayoob's predecessor, Aaron Rodgers, was damn near perfect passing last year - 29-of-34 for 267 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions - and the Bears still couldn't beat the Trojans. Hence, what chance does the wildly inconsistent Ayoob have to upset a team that more than a few people believe might be the best college football team ever?
A fighting chance.
"(Ayoob has) had to do so much so early (in his Division I career) it's just been hard. It's a difficult position in sports to play and I think he's doing a really good job," USC coach Pete Carroll said. "He's battling. I'm sure he'll improve tremendously between this year and next year." Carroll, a former Redwood High star, came to the defense of Ayoob, a former Terra Linda High standout, yesterday and the USC coach used his own top-notch quarterback as an example. Matt Leinart is a Heisman Trophy winner who currently leads the nation in pass efficiency, but a few autumns passed before he proved himself to Troy's tough critics. "It took him into his third year here," Carroll said. "He didn't do anything his first year. He didn't do anything his second year. In the spring of his redshirt sophomore year, he didn't do much then either. It wasn't until we played in our opener against Auburn (last year) that he really show he was in command taking it over.
"That's a long haul. We respected that process. It takes a long time for these guys É It just takes time for them to eliminate the mistakes and the gray areas where they can play faster. It's too much to ask a guy to do this job in anybody's offense. "Aaron Rodgers didn't start right away. He had to work his way into it. Unfortunately for Joe, he didn't get the chance to do that. He had to jump right in and go right after junior college." If you recall, Cal coach Jeff Tedford considered Rodgers a rare breed. Tedford was openly and repeatedly amazed that Rodgers progressed so quickly. Rodgers was the exception rather than the rule in Tedford's system. Ayoob is more an average Joe in the normal development of a college quarterback. "There's big, fast people chasing you. There's complication. There's a lot to handle at that position," Tedford said. "Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. All the things that go into it, it's not an easy position to play. There's a lot that you're controlling. É It's hard to master that position really early. For a junior college quarterback, it is a crash course." Even with an extraordinary game from Ayoob on Saturday, Cal probably can't keep up with the fast-breaking Trojans. USC hasn't lost a game since the Bears upset them 34-31 in Berkeley in triple overtime on Sept. 27, 2003. Leinart threw a single-game, career-high three interceptions in that contest, but Carroll figured his whole team was out of sync from the start.
The Trojans broke their pre-game routine by mistakenly arriving at Memorial Stadium 45 minutes early. "We just sat around," Carroll said. "I found myself standing on top of the stadium looking at Marin County. I'm waving at home and that kind of crazy stuff. I was just killing time. We kind of lost our edge. "It's not the nicest (visitors) locker room in the world (at Cal) and so everybody's leaning on each other. I felt like we kind of lost our focus there. One of the rare times that's happened to us." Perhaps the only way the Trojans think they might lose this Saturday is if their team busses get lost or hijacked on Telegraph Avenue. Bears fans would be wise to let USC be ushered to the stadium sooner than expected to mess up their game-day body clocks. Notre Dame tried growing its grass higher to slow down the Trojans earlier this year. Cal ought to part traffic to get the Trojans to hurry up and wait as they did two years ago. "We didn't play well that day," Carroll said. "We turned the ball over and did all kinds of things (wrong). É These games are hard now. They're really hard. If we do the things that teams do when they lose, we'll get beat." The Bears will try to control the tempo of the game and time of possession with their running attack on offense to keep USC's vaulted offense off the field as much as possible. But, at some point, Ayoob, who is presently ranked 74th in the nation in pass efficiency, will need to show the potential that Carroll sees in him. "He's a really talented athlete. He's got a very good arm. He can run the ball and make you pay the price if he gets out (of the pocket)," the USC coach said. "He's just missing in his consistency from being a great player." Leading his team to a mighty upset of a great team could change all of that for Ayoob.
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