Contra Costa Times: Cal's offensive line focused on blocking out troubles

By Jonathan Okanes

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One of Alex Mack's goals was to have Cal's offensive line not allow a sack for the entire season. These days, it seems like an accomplishment when the Bears go a whole quarter without letting the opposition get to the quarterback.  Cal's injury-ravaged line is struggling, and its performance will be key in the 111th Big Game at Memorial Stadium on Saturday. The Bears are playing without three projected starters from the beginning of the season, and it's catching up to them. After allowing just seven sacks during their first five games, the Bears have given up 19 in the past five. That's almost one per quarter, which won't cut it against a Stanford defensive front that is tied for the Pac-10 lead in sacks with 33.

"It's going to be a really good challenge to see how much work we can do this week and see how much better we can get," said Mack, the All-America center who is one of only two original starters left on the line. "Stanford is a really good team. We'll come out this week with a lot of motivation to get better and really play the best game we can. We're really taking this seriously and really looking at ourselves in the mirror and seeing where we need to fix things."  When Mack made his preseason proclamation about sacks, you could tell he was partly joking. But only partly. The Bears went into the season with one of the best-regarded offensive lines in the Pac-10. But projected left tackle Mike Tepper has missed the entire season recovering from pectoral muscle surgery, left guard Chris Guarnero lasted only three games because of a toe injury, and right tackle Chet Teofilo went down in Week 7 with an ankle injury that required surgery. Right guard Noris Malele also missed most of three games with a sprained ankle. In their stead, the Bears have redshirt freshman Mitchell Schwartz at left tackle, walk-on sophomore Mark Boskovich at left guard and sophomore Donovan Edwards at right tackle. Edwards is a transfer from Diablo Valley College who didn't join the team until right before fall camp. "It's always tough when you have some injuries," Mack said. "You want your best guys on the field. You want to have the best team you can. It's been a pretty good challenge. It's difficult. We've been really trying to get better every week."

The Bears allowed five sacks in a 34-21 loss at Oregon State last week and four to USC the week before that. The question is how much better Cal's offensive line can get in one week, because it will have to improve against the Cardinal's potent pass rush.  Head coach Jeff Tedford and offensive line coach Jim Michalczik both said the Bears can do some things schematically to make things a little easier on the line. Otherwise, it's simply up to Cal's players to focus on technique and fundamentals in an effort to improve.

"You're dealing with young guys," Michalczik said. "You take things for granted when you have veteran guys. There's not too many freshmen playing out there in this conference. Obviously, we have to get better individually. The good thing is they're competitive guys, they want to win and they want to do things the right way. They're just going to get better and better." The Bears also are lacking depth along the line. Schwartz is part of Cal's heralded offensive line recruiting class of 2007, but two of the other players from that group — Todd Huber (knee) and Sam DeMartinis (shoulder) — are out with injuries.  Michalczik refuses to consider how things could be different if his line were completely healthy. Lack of pass protection arguably was the Bears' biggest pitfall in their last two losses, defeats that knocked them out of the conference race. "You never know," he said. "If I had everybody back from last year, I'd be in really good shape."