BERKELEY, Calif. - The countdown hits 20,160 minutes on Saturday at 5 p.m. when Cal and UCLA meet at Memorial Stadium. Or 336 hours. Or, if you like even smaller numbers, 14 days.
That's how long Cal has to prepare for its Nov. 18 Pac-10 showdown against USC in Los Angeles, when a trip to the Rose Bowl will likely be on the line. There's no question that beating UCLA on Saturday night and Arizona next week in Tucson are Nos. 1 and 1-A on Cal's to-do list before facing USC. What's next on the list? Here's my choice: Get the passing game back on track. Do it now. Quarterback Nate Longshore has gone back-to-back games, against Washington State and Washington, without throwing a touchdown pass. Cal was still good enough to beat the Cougars 21-3 and Huskies 31-24, although they needed overtime against Washington. But the odds of Cal beating USC sans a single TD pass are longer than coach Jeff Tedford's work days. To beat USC, the Bears offense will need to be balanced and explosive, the way it was earlier this season. "We've been a little slow on offense the last couple weeks," Longshore said Tuesday. "Hopefully this bye week will give us some energy. "Our defense has been huge.They're picking up the slack for us."
For a five-game stretch after Cal's season-opening loss to Tennessee, Longshore and the Bears' passing game carried much of the load. Longshore threw 17 touchdown passes during that stretch. He torched Minnesota, Arizona State and Oregon State for four scoring throws and Oregon for three. He won Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Week honors twice. "There were a couple games there that we were throwing four touchdowns a game, and so everybody thinks you've got to do that every week," Tedford said. "Well, it's not going to happen like that every week. There's going to be some tough times where you've got to run the football and take what they're giving you." WSU flooded the secondary with defenders and all but begged Cal to run. The Bears obliged, rushing for 177 yards and three touchdowns. Longshore, meanwhile, completed 17 of 31 passes for 176 yards with two interceptions on a day he admittedly was under the weather. Against Washington, Cal rushed for 195 yards and three scores. Longshore completed 21 of 36 passes for 291 yards but zero touchdowns. What's going on? Tedford said it's largely a matter of Cal hurting itself, of too many dropped passes or off-target throws. "It's execution," Tedford said, adding that there is no need for a major "investigation" of Cal's passing game. Cal wide receiver Lavelle Hawkins said there's plenty of blame to go around on offense.
"I just think it was on us," Hawkins said. "We kind of had some mental breakdowns on a lot of plays that should have been big plays. "I'm glad we have a defense like we have. Without them, we'd have been in trouble. We just have to fix the little things." It could be that opposing defenses are getting a better scouting book on Longshore, his receivers_particularly the speedy DeSean Jackson_and Cal's passing attack in general now that they have so much game film to study. Jackson caught 29 passes for 522 yards and eight touchdowns in Cal's first six games. In the past two games, drawing considerable attention, he caught seven passes for 100 yards and no scores. "Definitely as the season goes on, the other team has more film," Longshore said. "Maybe they pick up more tendencies." Tedford and the Bears spent part of their bye week scouting themselves. That's what football teams do to make sure they're not becoming too predictable. Facing UCLA could be just what the Bears need in order to get their passing game untracked. WSU's Alex Brink passed for 405 yards and three touchdowns last week in a 37-15 win over UCLA. He completed 79 percent of his passes. Notre Dame's Brady Quinn threw for 304 yards and two scores against UCLA the week before.
The Bruins defense has allowed 14 touchdown passes, more than every other Pac-10 team except Arizona State (16). It ranks sixth against the pass. UCLA's run defense, meanwhile, ranks first in the conference. You can bet that UCLA has studied videotapes of Cal's games against and WSU and Washington, searching for ways to throttle Longshore. "As the season wears on, there's no question people scheme you and do things like that," Tedford said. "But looking at the defenses, they pretty much do what they do. They do their things." If UCLA does its thing on defense, Cal had better respond with a big game passing the ball. Maybe even a few touchdown passes. The clock's ticking.
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