Patience the Answer for Cal Quarterbacks

Ayoob to Stay Under Center Despite Shaky Start, Longshore Heals on Sidelines

By STEVEN DUNST

Daily Cal Staff Writer

Thursday, September 8, 2005

While many Cal fans and coaches thought the best way to handle quarterback Joe Ayoob’s 0-for-10 performance was to try to remain optimistic or put a positive spin on it, Ayoob’s father, Joe, thought that some biting humor was the best way to go about it.  Drained after his disappointing inaugural performance, Ayoob finally escaped the press and turned to his supportive dad.  “I went to throw my warm-up jacket on the chair and I missed and my dad goes, ‘0 for eleven,’” Ayoob said.

Talk about good ol’ fatherly love.  Bears coach Jeff Tedford, however, took a different approach to get through to Ayoob, his highly touted junior college recruit who was supposed to come in and become his next stud gunslinger.   Tedford offered no excuses for Ayoob’s performance at the postgame press conference.  However, the coach seemed to change his tune Monday at practice, solidifying Ayoob’s spot at the helm for the Bears in perhaps an attempt to instill some confidence in the struggling quarterback.  “Patience is our key here with the quarterback situation,” Tedford said at a press conference Tuesday. “There are going to be some mistakes, but we’re going to work through it.”  Tedford went on to stress that the Cal faithful needs to temper its expectations for the inexperienced signal-caller.

“It is a huge learning curve.” Tedford said. “We have become very spoiled here with expectations with Kyle (Boller) and Aaron (Rodgers) throwing a bunch of BBs all around the field. It doesn’t happen overnight.”  Even NFL first-round pick Rodgers had an abysmal game of his own, going only 9-for-34 against Oregon State in a 35-21 loss in 2003.  When asked what he said to Ayoob after Saturday’s game, Tedford said “We had almost the same talk I had with Aaron after the Oregon State game ... Joe’s gonna be our guy, not like the last game where he was going to start the second half.”   • As a confident high school senior, quarterback Nate Longshore picked Cal not only because of quarterback guru Tedford, but also because of its outstanding academics.   “What if I break my leg or something? I still gotta be able to make money,” Longshore told The Daily Californian on October 23, 2003, citing the Haas School of Business as one of the school’s biggest draws.

Unfortunately for Longshore, the injury he spoke of has come. The redshirt freshman has proven himself to be not only a solid quarterback—he went 8-for-11 for 131 yards and a touchdown Saturday—but a modern-day prophet to boot after breaking his left fibula midway through the second quarter against Sacramento State.  Longshore is scheduled to return to football in 12 weeks. He should return to the playing field at full strength and contend for the starting gig next season.

The day after Longshore’s injury likely ended the starting quarterback’s season, he was in the operating room, wasting no time in undergoing surgery to repair his broken fibula.  The day after that, Longshore was back at Memorial Stadium at Cal’s practice, exactly as he would have been if healthy.  In an ironic twist, the place where the injury occurred—on the football field surrounded by his teammates—is where he said he finds the most solace.  “I have nothing else to do,” Longshore said. “This is my life—football. This is my family out here.”   Through all the turmoil and anguish, Longshore’s spirits have remained high. “I accomplished two of my goals in life this weekend,” he said. “I got to play in a college football game and I got to have surgery.”  The surgery, however, would have likely made lesser men cringe.  The surgeon inserted a pin to hold together the fibula and tibia so that the ligaments can have a chance to heal, Longshore said.  All of his ligaments were torn, so they needed to be sewn back together, he said. Despite freshman DeSean Jackson’s electrifying 49-yard punt return for a touchdown, Tedford said that junior Tim Mixon will remain the starting punt returner against Washington. “Timmy is a lot more experienced, obviously,” Tedford said.