Ray Ratto
The upside of Cal playing Maryland to start its 2009 season is that the Golden Bears would not be slandered for loading the early schedule with empty calories the way some of their loftier-rated colleagues did. The downside was that the Terps could expose some of the Golden Bears' shortcomings even in defeat, because a) Cal has them and b) Maryland won't be close to the toughest team the Bears must play this year.
Thus, the highlight of Cal's 52-13 opening-game victory over the Terrapins at the slowly modernizing Memorial Stadium was the way that the Golden Bears resisted the urge to let running back Jahvid Best carry the heavy end of the rolltop desk and turned a potentially annoying game into a comfortable triumph.
And, frankly, comfortable triumphs are pretty well demanded of Top 15-caliber teams in September. It takes weeks, even months, for teams with national aspirations to overcome an uninspiring opener, which is why the bulk of Saturday's Top 25 games were predictably lopsided, and bordering on the gratuitously cruel.
From Florida (62-3 over Charleston Southern), Texas (59-20 over Louisiana-Monroe) and USC (56-3 over San Jose State) down through Nebraska (49-3 over Florida Atlantic), Notre Dame (35-0 over Nevada), North Carolina (40-6 over The Citadel) and Kansas (49-3 over Northern Colorado), the bulk of the day called for high-profile beat-downs.
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