San Jose Mercury: Cal's early Pac-10 game poses some problems

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Jonathan Okanes

Cal's game Saturday at Washington State will be the earliest the Bears have commenced Pacific-10 Conference play since 1993, when they defeated UCLA in the season opener. Cal would prefer to know a little more about itself before starting conference competition, but the Bears will have to proceed with the knowledge they have for the matchup at Martin Stadium.  "This really matters," Cal All-America center Alex Mack said. "This is for the Rose Bowl, the Pac-10 championship. It's conference play. At least it's not the first game. It's important and big, but it will also keep us focused." A handful of other conference games are being played early this season. Stanford played Oregon State and Oregon took on Washington in openers last weekend. Stanford plays at Arizona State on Saturday. Ideally, teams play all of their non-conference games before beginning Pac-10 play. But television opportunities and scheduling conflicts sometimes force teams to move up conference games. Cal Coach Jeff Tedford isn't a big fan of playing a conference game so early, especially on the road. He said because of the 64-player roster limit for Pac-10 road games, the coaching staff has had to speed up personnel evaluation in certain areas this fall. "You like to play your non-conference games first and then get to conference play," Tedford said. "You like to be able to figure out who's exactly going to play for you in special teams, and get some game experience for guys before you have to get into conference play. That's a challenge this week to cut down to 64 for the road. You're still evaluating some situations on special teams and so on and so forth."

This will only be a taste of Pac-10 play for the Bears. They follow Saturday with two more non-conference games before resuming the conference schedule Oct. 4 against Arizona State. Not only are the Bears starting Pac-10 competition early, they also are facing an opponent with a new coaching staff that has implemented a no-huddle, spread offense. Tedford said the Bears have watched film of Eastern Washington, Washington State Coach Paul Wulff's previous stop, but don't have a lot to go on for the conference opener. "You just don't know what to expect," Tedford said. "We've obviously seen tape of Eastern Washington from last year to try to get a gauge on who they are. But their personnel is a little bit different at Washington State. There are a lot of unknowns playing a conference game so early, especially against somebody you don't have a lot of history with. That makes it more difficult to play a conference game that early when it's a new coach." The MRI exam on punter Bryan Anger's sprained knee came back negative, Tedford said. Anger is expected to be ready by Saturday.