By John Boyle
Seattle Times staff reporter
After kicking off his quarterbacking career at California with an 0-for-10 performance last Saturday, Joe Ayoob's phone rang. It was sophomore receiver Robert Jordan, telling him to keep his head up. "I'm going to be with you," Jordan told him. "Joe, I know you're going through some things, but whatever you throw up for me I'm going to get for you. We're going to need you now, keep your head up let's go. Let's keep it moving." Whether it was the support of teammates, the advice of his coaches or just getting a chance to settle into his new starting role, Ayoob certainly looked comfortable picking apart Washington's secondary in Cal's 56-17 victory yesterday at Husky Stadium.
After starting the game with an interception and two incomplete passes, Ayoob hit Jordan for an 11-yard gain, ending an 0-for-13 streak to start the season. It was the first of six consecutive completions in what turned out to be a monster first half. The junior-college transfer completed 13 of 20 passes for 227 yards and four touchdowns in the half, and finished the game 17 of 27 for 271 yards. "After that first completion got the monkey off my back, I felt like I was just playing football," Ayoob said. "You know, that first one is always on your mind. I got the first one and kind of joked around with the guys, like, 'Geez, finally.' When I incompleted my first three passes, I just said, 'You know what? I'm going to throw 30 more times, so I might as well get ready for the next one.' "I got calls from a lot of guys last week saying, 'We know you're better than that. That's just a one-time thing. We know you're better and you can come out next week and show everybody.' The whole week, the whole team was encouraging. That helped me a lot." And when Jordan told Ayoob that he'd be there for him in that phone call last week, he wasn't kidding. Jordan caught 11 passes for 192 yards and three touchdowns, all career bests. He ended the first half with 159 yards and three touchdowns on eight receptions.
"There's nothing I can say about that performance," said Cal running back Marshawn Lynch, who is Jordan's cousin. "What he did wasn't surprising to me because I know he can do it and I know he will do it. Every time he touches the ball he's capable of scoring or doing something great. It runs in the family." After losing starting quarterback Nate Longshore to a broken ankle last week, many expected the 16th-ranked Bears to use a more conservative offense to take the pressure off Ayoob. Instead, Cal coach Jeff Tedford let Ayoob throw deep on the game's first play, and never pulled back on the reins until the game was all but decided in the second half. "Going into the game we said we're just going to let it rip," said Tedford. "He has the ability to play; it's just a matter of he's new in our offense and things like that. We came into this game and everyone was saying we need to get him a short pass to get his confidence up. We said, forget that, we're going deep. "He was not apprehensive at all. He was not looking for some safe game to get his confidence back — he was looking to win a football game." Tedford joked that he wasn't worried about Ayoob's 0-for-3 start with an interception.
"No, it's been worse than that," he said. "It's been 0 for 10, so we were OK."
No comments:
Post a Comment