With less than two weeks before Cal's football season begins, there is still no clear cut starter for the most important position on the team, quarterback. Since Aaron Rodgers moved on to back up legendary quarterback Brett Favre, the Cal program is still looking for a guy to step in and fill the big shoes he left behind. Nate Longshore was supposed to be that guy, but in 2007 he wasn't able to be the consistent leader that the Cal program needed. After starting off the season with five straight wins and looking like he was poised to be Cal's next top NFL draft pick, he got hurt. Now he's fighting for his job and his NFL future.
An interesting stat for Cal's 2007 campaign is that the Bears were 7-1 in games where their quarterback threw 1 interception or less. After the fifth game of the season last year, Longshore couldn't keep the ball out of the opponents hands enough to keep the Bears in the top 25 rankings, causing Tedford to give the ball to Kevin Riley in the Armed Forces Bowl. In the first five games, the Bears were 5-0 and Longshore had only thrown two interceptions for the season. After coming back from injury, he threw 11 picks in his next six starts. It's no mystery why the entire team underperformed after losing the heartbreaker against Oregon State, but your quarterback is supposed to lead the team OUT of the doldrums, not into them.
Kevin Riley started that game against Oregon State, and he played well towards the end of the game. Unfortunately, he made the rookie mistake of not stopping the clock when he had the chance and instead opting to run a play that ended in bounds without any timeouts remaining. Riley would later return at the Armed Forces Bowl and lead the team to victory over upstart Air Force, which is why there is question as to who will be the Cal QB this season. According to reports, Riley struggled early in camp, but is now starting to make a stronger push to start this season. Longshore has continued to look like he can be the QB that Cal needs. Coach Tedford has already said that he won't pick a starter until the week of the first game, but even then he might rotate both of them like he has with quarterbacks in the past.
Tedford felt like the quarterback play was only part of the problem. He's ceded offensive play calling duties to offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti and made sure that the entire coaching staff learned a little about leadership as well. For that, he had each coach present a full report on a chapter from, "Talent is Never Enough," a book by John Maxwell. "You can't rely on talent. ... There is a fine line between a 10-win season and a seven-win season. We need to focus on all the details in order to win those games," said Tedford when discussing the book and the lack of leadership from the 2007 season. Cal's best player, Alex Mack, thinks that there was another reason for the dropoff in production after game five. "A lot of our troubles focused on our lack of focus. We got away from paying attention to the little things, not looking at what it took to work together." Hopefully, whoever wins the starting spot at QB will have that focus to go along with the leadership. The program can't afford to have another subpar season if they intend to catch the likes of USC.
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