Daily Cal: On the Rise: Cal at No. 2 After USC Shocker

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BY Steven Dunst

No. 2 will have to do.  Although the Cal football team was close to rising to the top of the rankings after it appeared as though Florida would be able to stave off LSU, the Bears still capitalized on No. 2 USC’s shocking 24-23 loss to Stanford and jumped to second in both the Associated Press and USA Today polls.  Cal has not been ranked this highly since holding the top spot in 1951, when Harry Truman was President.  “It just makes us a little hungrier and that much more focused,” linebacker Worrell Williams said. “A lot of teams are getting knocked off.”  The Trojans showed no team is immune to a potential upset. The Cardinal snapped USC’s 35-game winning streak at home behind backup quarterback Tavita Pritchard, who had never completed a pass in his collegiate career before Saturday.  Stanford came into the game as 41-point underdogs with a coach who made headlines earlier in the season by saying the Trojans “may be the best team in the history of college football.”

But Pritchard converted on fourth-and-20 with under two minutes left before throwing a 10-yard touchdown pass to Mark Bradford on fourth-and-goal with under one minute remaining to give the Cardinal arguably its biggest win in school history.  “It was unbelievable,” quarterback Nate Longshore said. “I was sitting in my living room watching it and I just couldn’t believe it happened.”  It was the marquee win that first-year coach Jim Harbaugh was looking for, and it further validated the claim that the Pac-10 is much deeper this year than in recent years.  “There are no weeks off playing in this conference,” Bears coach Jeff Tedford said.  Longshore said he firmly believes that the Bears are deserving of their lofty ranking because of wins against then-No. 11 Oregon and then-No. 15 Tennessee.  Tedford, on the other hand, is not one to ever lobby for the Bears. His response to USC’s upset was predictably muted, as he held firm that rankings should have no bearing on Cal’s performance.

“I didn’t even know,” Tedford said when asked about the Bears’ jump to No. 2 in the polls. “I just asked someone what happened so I knew how to answer the question.”  Cal would have battled No. 3 Ohio State for the top spot in the rankings if the Gators had held on to a 10-point second-half lead against the Tigers.  “That would’ve been fun to say we’re No. 1, but it doesn’t really mean anything right now,” wideout Lavelle Hawkins said.  With the win, LSU tightened its grasp on the No. 1 ranking. And Longshore wasn't surprised to see that happen.  “Whoever has a live tiger at the game, they deserve to win every time,” he said.