By Dan Stark, STAFF WRITER
BERKELEY — Cal football fans looking for a silver lining following Saturday's stunning 35-18 loss at Tennessee should note that in 1958 — the season in which the Golden Bears last made the Rose Bowl — Cal also lost its opener. Beyond that, finding positives after the demolition was not an easy task. Even for coach Jeff Tedford. "I thought the effort was good for the most part," Tedford said. "I was really pleased how guys kept playing very, very hard, because it would have been easy to get very discouraged." The Bears fell behind 35-0 in the middle of the third quarter before quarterback Joe Ayoob came on in relief of starter Nate Longshore and led three Cal scoring drives, albeit against the Volunteers' second string.
After last season's uneven performance, did Ayoob do enough to warrant consideration as the starter for the Bears' home opener against Minnesota on Saturday? "We'll have that discussion tonight and tomorrow, and take a look at what our game plan's going to be and that type of thing," Tedford said. Tedford was quick to absolve Longshore of most of the blame for the sputtering offense in the first half. "We just weren't clicking on all cylinders," he said. "If we got protection, sometimes we'd have a dropped pass. ... Then when we got guys running open, maybe we'd have a protection breakdown." That led to a lot of punts. Despite a raucous crowd of 106,009, first-year starter Andrew Larson averaged 41.6 yards on seven kicks and forced five fair catches. "That was a positive for him," Tedford said. "For his first game out, to take that type of situation and do it like he did was great to see."
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