San Jose Mercury: Cal football: Longshore update, Tedford comments and updated rankings info

Jon Wilner

Here is the link.

The highlights, with Tedford’s comments:

* Quarterback Nate Longshore is hobbling on his sprained ankle but should be ready for Oregon State next week. “He’s sore and swollen. He won’t do much this week… But Nate doesn’t rely too much on his mobility. He should be OK.”

* Linebacker Zack Follett (neck) is expected to be ready for OSU, as well. “He probably could have (played) this week, but we didn’t want to risk it.”

* Defensive end Rulon Davis (foot) is questionable. “We don’t know how that’s going to go.”

* Kicker Tom Schneider is questionable. “He kicked a couple yesterday, but they were only 25 yards.”

* Safety Robert Peele (ankle) will probably be out 2-3 weeks. (It’s a high sprain.)

* Tedford on the sigfnificance of the Oregon win, which helped push Cal to No. 3 in the rankings, its highest placement in more than half a century: “For this team it’s significant. We’re so banged up. Because of the effort these guys are giving … to find a way to win — that’s why it’s significant.”

* On the field goal that wasn’t: “I tried to find a different camera angle. The one they showed on TV, it sure looked good.  “But sometimes the camera angles are deceiving. You’ve got to think the guy standing under the goalpost, How could he miss that? But stranger things have happened.”

Any comment, coach Stoops?  “The explanation we got,” Tedford continued, “was that it went directly over the top and it’s got to be inside.”

* Tedford’s goals for the bye week: get healthy, get the backups plenty of reps to bolster depth, and get healthy.  Specifically, he wants to create depth at fullback, defensive line, wide receiver (Sam DeSa) and in the secondary. Of injured starting fullback Will Ta’ufo’ou (knee), Tedford said: “Hopefully he’ll be ready for Oregon State.”

* How does Tedford plan to spend his gameless Saturday? Watching games? Hanging out with his family? “We’re going to talk about that in an hour,'’ he said of a pending staff meeting. “If I need to be out recruiting, I’ll be out recruiting.”