GREG BEACHAM
BERKELEY, Calif. - Three days after California stumbled and struggled through its season-opening loss to Tennessee, coach Jeff Tedford still hadn't slept soundly. The Golden Bears' offensive guru sometimes catches only a few winks each night on a little mattress in his office - and that's when things are going well. Tedford isn't used to being embarrassed, and that's why he was wide awake Tuesday morning when the garbage truck came by at 4 a.m. "That's about as bad as I could imagine it going," Tedford said before the Bears began a week of practice leading to their home opener against Minnesota. "I can't ever remember being down like that since we've been here. That was pretty much a nightmare."
His star running back isn't taking it quite as hard - and like most of his teammates, Marshawn Lynch believes the Bears shouldn't lose any sleep over a handful of bad plays that snowballed into a 35-18 loss in front of the most discombobulating crowd they've ever experienced. "Nah, I'm solid," Lynch said, wearing thick black sunglasses and a backpack filled with schoolbooks. "We had that first game to see what's going on and work the kinks out. It's just too bad we had to open up against Tennessee."
California plummeted from No. 9 - its highest preseason ranking in 54 years - to No. 22 in Tuesday's poll, easily taking the largest opening-week dive. Yet the Bears also took the biggest opening-week risk, traveling cross-country to a deafening SEC stadium to try out a new offense against a hungry, motivated opponent. Though Tedford might be filled with internal panic, he's resisting any urge to overhaul his scheme after it managed 336 yards - just 64 on the ground, and most after the Volunteers were headed for a blowout win. Tedford said Nate Longshore will start at quarterback for the second straight week despite being mostly ineffective against Tennessee's speedy defense. Joe Ayoob, who led both of Cal's late scoring drives, will come off the bench again, with both quarterbacks expected to play against Minnesota.
Tedford also won't abandon the elements of the spread offense that were incorporated into this season's game plan by new offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar. Tedford ceded most play-calling duties to Dunbar this season, personally choosing only a handful of plays against Tennessee. "Actually, there was very little spread stuff that was used," Tedford said. "We're not going to harp on the dropped balls that we had. The guys will go out there and practice hard this week." Longshore, who said he doesn't care about starting, echoed Lynch's unflappable confidence in a Cal offense stacked with playmakers. The Bears didn't make many plays in Knoxville, but Saturday's game is a chance to recover in friendly - and quieter - Memorial Stadium.
"We're all confident, and we understand that games like this are going to happen," Longshore said. "We're going to have a target on our backs wherever we go. We have high expectations, and we're still trying to live up to them." While the offense struggled on every possession until the game was out of reach, Cal's defense feels cautiously confident about its performance despite Tennessee's 514 total yards. Linebacker Desmond Bishop, who specializes in working his teammates into a frenzy before games, believes Cal's missed tackles were a product of an even more frenzied environment. "What hurts me personally the most is that they say the SEC is supposed to be the big dog, and they're not," Bishop said. "The speed was the same. If you miss a tackle one-on-one and he's got a free 30 yards to run, you're going to lose to a high school team."
So Tedford and his coaches will stick with the plans they made throughout the offseason, even after not much worked at Tennessee. The Bears still believe in themselves - even if some of them aren't sleeping quite as soundly. "There's a knot in my stomach, and the only way to get it out is to get out there again," Tedford said.
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