Wednesday, September 16, 2009

SF Examiner: When would you clear the bench? Is Tedford waiting too long?

Rob Calogne

Far be it for me to second-guess the best football coach that Cal has had in the last 50 years, but if there was one thing that I would do differently over Jeff Tedford, I'd pull my starters sooner.  When I say that, I mean ALL of them at the same time.  I just don't have the guts that Tedford has.  If I were on the sidelines, I'd be biting my nails like Scooby Doo in hiding from one of the various ghosts he's so unfortunate to chase.  I'd be petrified that I was leaving my star quarterback in one play too many.

During the Maryland game, I wasn't shocked that with a 31-6 halftime lead, Jahvid Best and Kevin Riley came onto the field.  The way I've always seen it is, if you can build up that type of a lead in one half of play, you can easily lose it in another full half.  I also wasn't too surprised that with a 38-6 lead and 13:37 left in the third quarter, both Best and Riley were still on the field.  With the score at 45-6 with 9:22 left in the third, I was surprised that the starting defense was out there.  I began to second-guess Tedford's decision to leave the first team in and then Maryland scored.  With the Terp's 39-yard touchdown run, making the score 45-13 with 7:29 left in the third, I momentarily stopped questioning that decision.  Best was long gone after Cal scored their 45th point, but Riley remained until the score was 52-13 and Cal got the ball back with only 11:26 left in the game.

Link to rest of article.

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