daily cal - saturday, november 13, 2010
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Full issue of Berkeley's Daily CalifornianTRANSCRIPT
Duck Hunt: Cal prepares for Oregon’s dizzying offensive attack. page 2
Lone RangeR: Kenwick Thompson has brought a Texas pipeline with him to Northern California. page 4
INSIDEGameDay CAL V. OREGON sAtuRdAy, NOVEmbER 13, 2010 gameday.dailycal.org
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Thrills Await When Oregon Offense Starts
Firing
jackwang
If you have tickets to today’s game against Oregon, consider yourself lucky; you’re in for a show.
To prepare yourself, look down at its sideline tomorrow. Here are a few things you’ll probably see.
Chip Kelly. Gatorade coolers. Benches. The Burger King.
Eh?You see, the Ducks don’t run their
offense the way anyone else in the country does. Therefore, the Ducks also don’t call their plays the way any-one else in the country does.
Instead of having quarterbacks try to look for hand signals or rely solely on small, hard-to-read wristbands, Oregon has someone raise up a large, poster board.
Divided into four sections, the plac-ards are covered with everything from a photo of a battleship to one of a fat bea-ver to the word “glycerine.” They all unite to indicate one of the team’s end-less list of lightning-quick maneuvers.
Faster playcalling, faster plays. That no one else will know what the hell anything means is just an added bonus.
Chip Kelly doesn’t get full credit for this. His team lifted the idea from teams such as Oklahoma State, who used six-part cards against the Ducks in the 2008 Holiday Bowl.
Similarly, there’s very little about the offense that’s original. These are plays that have been run by spread teams for years. Shotgun formations aren’t
High-Flying Offense Comes to Cal
Junior Marvin Jones caught four balls for 101 yards at Washington State last weekend.AnnA Vignet/File
Understandably, Cal football coach Jeff Tedford had nothing but nice things to say about No. 1 Oregon’s of-fense this week.
“They just have so many weapons,” Tedford said. “They make huge plays in the run game …
“I have great respect for (Jeremiah) Masoli — Masoli was a tough, hard runner — but (quarterback Darron) Thomas I think even brings more to that offense because he’s so elusive and so fast in the open field.”
One state north, Ducks coach Chip Kelly wasn’t quite as impressed with the Bears’ signal caller, Brock Man-sion.
“For the first time starting a college football game, I thought he did a de-cent job,” Kelly said.
At 4:30 p.m., at Memorial Stadium this Saturday, Mansion and the Bears will have a chance to show Kelly that they’re capable of something better than just decent.
But, at least on paper, that seems like it could be a nearly insurmount-able task.
Undefeated Oregon’s 54.7 points per game ranks first in the conference and first in the nation.
Their quick-strike, no-huddle of-fense, helmed by Thomas and kept rolling by standout running back LaMichael James, averages 567.2 total yards per game. They haven’t been held under 40 points yet this season.
They’ve scored often, and they’ve scored quickly. Twenty-nine of their 58 touchdown drives have taken five plays or fewer to complete. They’re outscor-ing the competition 87-7 in the fourth quarter alone.
Which begs the question: Can Cal, or anyone, stop them?
“We’re going to find out,” Tedford said. “The thing is, they average over 50 points a game. That would be a huge feat for us to do that. I think we need to keep the score low and keep the game close to be there to win the
by Katie DowdDaily Cal Staff Writer
game.”The Bears (5-4, 3-3 in the Pac-10)
have statistically the best defense in the Pac-10 and they haven’t given up more than 17 points at home all sea-son.
But the offense that gave them the most trouble was Nevada’s pistol. And if they thought the Wolf Pack had ath-letic options, they ain’t seen nothing yet.
Thomas can pass and run; he has 22 touchdown passes to six picks
and averages 44.4 yards rushing per game.
Seven players are averaging dou-ble-digit receiving yards, the most prominent being wide receiver Jeff Maehl. The senior easily leads the squad with 10 touchdown catches and averages 82.9 yards per game receiving.
In the backfield, James already has 1,331 yards on the ground this sea-son. The Heisman candidate is 420
>> preview: page 3 >> wang: page 3
CAL V. OREGONPREDiCtiONs
EDYEVELEV
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KAtiE DOWD
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Wang from Page 2
exactly rare in college football; after all, it’s one of the main knocks on quarterbacks trying to transition to the NFL.
It’s the dizzying speed that makes gives it the potential to be a game-changer for years to come. This is the no-huddle spread after chugging a can of Four Loko — then spitting it out in the face of time of possession.
A touch of brute strength doesn’t hurt either. A burly offensive line has paved gaping avenues for LaMichael James, who boasts enough muscle to bowl through Owen Marecic.
You may have read this elsewhere but the stat is so absurd, it bears repeating: 29 of 58 touchdowns have come in five plays or fewer.
Then again, so many of their stats are. Over 567 yards per game. An offense that runs plays 35 percent fast-er than normal teams. Almost one point per minute.
The scariest one? Five of their six leaders in all-purpose yards are either sophomores or freshmen.
I’m near the back of the line of those who fawn over Oregon. Jon Gruden, who won Super Bowl XXXVII as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, almost took a gig as an offensive coordinator just for the opportunity to learn it. (His wife was relieved he didn’t.)
So when the Cal defense starts to look helpless against the Ducks — and at some point in the game, it will — don’t despair. Just try and soak in the chance to watch the No. 1 team in the country.
It’s good for the Pac-10. For all of commissioner Larry Scott’s slick efforts to revamp the conference’s image, it is winning that’s finally steal-ing some of the shine from the SEC — where I’m told the best football ever is played.
And with the way Auburn seems to be on the verge of implosion, you’ll be watching a team that should be the first to break the South’s stranglehold on the national title.
When both the FBI and TMZ are breathing down your neck because of what your star quarterback may or may not have done, it hasn’t been a good week.
So for one day, don’t worry about your midterms or papers. (You’re prob-ably doing better than Cam Newton.)
Just sit back and enjoy.
Fawn over Oregon’s offense with Jack at [email protected].
yards away from become the program’s all-time leading rusher. He’s a sopho-more.
“I’m not sure if you can really slow them down,” senior linebacker Mike Mohamed said. “They really pride themselves on fast tempo. But what we can try to do is try to hang with them.”
That task also falls on Cal’s offense and much of that depends on how Mansion plays in just his second ca-reer start.
Last week in the Bears’ 20-13 win against bottom-dweller Washington State, Mansion went 14-of-24 for 171 yards. He’ll have to do a lot bet-ter if Cal hopes to keep pace with the Ducks (9-0, 6-0).
Mansion, for one, seems confident he can.
“There’s nothing daunting about it at all. It’s a great opportunity,” Man-sion said. “Everybody on this team is excited.
“We haven’t come out and practiced with this much enthusiasm since prob-ably the first week of fall camp, so I was really excited.”
The odds are not in their favor — quite literally. Las Vegas has Cal as the 20-point underdog going into the con-test which, some might say, is a gener-ous margin of defeat.
The Bears have played a No. 1-ranked team 11 times in their history.
They’ve never won.“We’re the only team playing the
number one team in the country this week,” Mohamed said. “This is basically our BCS game.
“It’s going to be awesome to just go out there and play them.”
preview: James Close To Breaking recordsfrom Page 2
Katie Dowd covers football. Contact her at [email protected].
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KENWiCK thOMPsON
KEViN DAFt
The sick feeling in the pit of Kevin Daft’s stomach derived partly from the
McDonald’s breakfast he had eaten and mostly from the interceptions he’d just thrown.
As UC Davis’ junior quarterback looked around the locker room at halftime, he felt his heart sink further.
“I just felt like I was going to let the whole team down,” Daft says.
All because his alarm hadn’t gone off.
“We missed the wake-up call,” Daft says. “We missed breakfast and everything. It was close to be-ing the most miserable day of my life. We got a call and everyone was already on the bus ready to go to the game.”
by Katie DowdDaily Cal Staff Writer
Kenwick Thompson’s recruit-ing career began 12 years ago at Birraporetti’s, an Italian res-
taurant in his native Houston. It was spring break and the Cal linebackers coach, then working at Texas South-ern University, finally had some much needed time off from the job.
Thompson spotted his target at a table, surrounded by a group of friends. He made his move.
“I just kind of said, ‘OK, that’s the
by Jack WangDaily Cal Staff WriterOn that day in 1997 — the first
game of the Division II playoffs — the UC Davis team bus made what was probably its first, and likely its last, pregame stop at McDonald’s. Daft and his roommates, the start-ing tailback and starting tight end, ran inside and ordered breakfast.
Awake more from shock than from real alertness, Daft scarfed down his meal on the way to Texas A&M-Kingsville. He went through the motions of warming up, but for a man who’s known for meticulous mind, it was a waking nightmare.
Jolted out of his routine, he couldn’t refocus. Daft threw three picks and the Aggies stumbled their way to a 9-9 tie at halftime. In the locker room, his head spinning, his coaches calmly re-
emphasized the game plan. He went back out, clean slate,
and threw four touchdowns in the final two quarters. They won, 37-33.
“I would never want to let any-one down,” he says.
He didn’t, and he still doesn’t.
When the Cal wide receivers talk about Daft, they wear
big smiles.“He’s got microscopes for his
eyes,” Marvin Jones says. “He can see if we cut a route a yard short or even a half yard short. Everything. Even if it’s not football. If there’s a mark on the board, he can’t stand it. He has to wipe it off.”
“We always get on him,” Jeremy Ross says. “As receivers, you have those moments where you’re like,
Kevin Daft, Kenwick Thompson and Jeff Genyk All Endured Very Different Experiences En Route to Cal.
>> daFt: page 6
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JEFF GENYK
one I want,’ and then I started recruit-ing,” he says. “I told her the advantag-es of coming to my program in com-pared to somebody else’s. We went on an official visit, took us a date.”
Wait a second — her?“My first recruiting job was my
wife, and then I went from there.”It’s fair to say that Thompson has
been doing this for quite a while. And as successful has his 10-year marriage with his wife Monica has been, the Bears might be more in love with him.
Cal hired Thompson away from San Jose State in 2007 to replace the retir-ing Bob Foster. In five years prior, the
Jeff Genyk was a businessman out of college.
A quarterback and punter at Bowling Green State, he went on to a career in materials management and international purchasing for the automotive and oil industries.
10 years later, Genyk was at the bottom rung of college football.
On the staff at Michigan’s Grand Rapids Community Col-lege, he worked with signal callers and tight ends.
For some, it may be a major downgrade. For Genyk, son of
a Michigan football captain and longtime coach, it was a
chance to enter the coaching ranks.
“I was really fascinated by the strategic part of the game,” Genyk says.
“I realized that I really wanted to have the opportunity to do
by Ed YevelevDaily Cal Staff Writer
something that I had a passion for.I had a great passion for sports and working with young people.”
Bryan Anger and Giorgio Tavec-chio received a light reading
assignment recently, and it wasn’t from a UC Berkeley professor.
It was from Genyk, now a special teams coach for the Cal football team.
He handed out a Sports Illus-trated article detailing the spike in explosive plays from NFL special teams. The message was not so subtle.
“You have to develop an environ-ment where special teams is a want-to and not a have-to,” Genyk says. “That happens by understanding the important aspect of those plays.”
Special teams are all too often a lose-lose proposition: The unit hardly ever gets noticed ... unless something goes wrong. In his first year at Berkeley, Genyk has been passionate about changing the culture of football’s most thankless aspect.
He has done plenty since his
arrival in January to emphasize how the entire squad is affected by special teams.
“The most significant aspect I enjoy is, you really develop repoire with all the players,” Genyk says. “Because virtually everyone on the team is involved in some shape or form with the special teams.”
At every meeting during spring practices, Genyk showed video of a bowl game that was impacted by a special teams play.
Other pressure simulations were more direct.
Genyk would arrange cones into a box, often along the end zone, and have his placekickers tee off. Every kickoff that landed inside the square meant one less team sprints. The same went for field goals at the end of practice.
“The whole team was watching, the coaches would bang on your helmet as you’re taking your steps, poking at you, yelling at you,” Tavecchio recalls. “You just got to execute your fundamentals, do
Kevin Daft, Kenwick Thompson and Jeff Genyk All Endured Very Different Experiences En Route to Cal.
program had totaled just one Texas recruit: Justin Forsett. Since then, the Bears have nabbed a full dozen — and the 2011 class isn’t even complete yet.
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>> tHOmpsOn: page 7
>> genyk: page 7
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‘I’m open. Throw me the ball.’ But he’s always like, ‘You know, he has to go through his reads, he has to do this, he has to do that.’
“When it comes down to those moments, he’s always taking the quarterback’s side. It’s pretty funny when we’re in there calling him a quarterback: ‘You’re a spy, man.’”
Head coaches and coordina-tors run the big show, but position coaches like Daft are often the play-ers’ deeper connection to the game. They’re the head of a close-knit family. And in the case of the wide receivers, they’re the head of a brash, outspoken, loud family.
Luckily, Daft joined that family already knowing how to be a leader.
As a junior, he set seven Division II playoff records as the quarterback for UC Davis. He entered his senior season poised to break program records in career passing yards, total offense and touchdowns. For the first time in years, NFL scouts were
coming to Davis. Fans came up to Daft on campus to shake his hand.
“Which is neat,” he says, “but I don’t really like that much attention.”
That spring, Daft was drafted by the Tennessee Titans. His rookie year, he stood on the sidelines for the Music City Miracle. The next year, he went to NFL Europe. When he came back to the States, he played for the Chargers, 49ers, Falcons and finally the Titans again.
In his final years playing, Daft used the offseason to volunteer with the UC Davis football team. When he retired for good, he left with a picture in his head of the coach he wanted to be.
“I played on a bunch of different teams and bounced around a little bit, so I was able to see different kinds of coaching styles,” he says. “When I got closer to the end of my career, I understood I would prob-ably coach. I learned more from the ones who weren’t good coaches than the ones who were.”
He learned that the bad ones were the ones who didn’t communicate, who kept a wall between themselves and their players. He started writing down tips for himself whenever he had a coaching idea. He slept for weeks at a time in the corner of a team meeting room in Memorial Stadium as the Bears’ offensive graduate assistant.
When he was named the wide receivers coach, his first step was to establish relationships. That wasn’t always easy with the personalities in the wide receiver corps.
“The players who challenge you in certain ways, I’ve learned a lot from them,” Daft says. “I’ve had guys who graduated the last couple years who are different types of people you have to deal with.
“You can get through to them in different ways by the way you ap-proach them or talk to them. I think that’s something I’ve learned.”
And they respected that. Going into the 2008 season, Daft inherited a group that had 13 career recep-tions. In 2009, they chalked up 120 catches. This year, he has two
big names in Jones and freshman Keenan Allen. Jones is averaging 16.1 yards per catch. In spite of being in and out with injuries this season, Allen leads the team with five touch-down catches.
“With this young swag that we have, he knows about it,” Jones says. “He’s not too far from us in terms of years and knowing the lingo and how we interact.
“When we’re on the field, we talk about football. When we’re alone with him, in his office, we talk about his life, our lives, beyond football. He’s that person you can always depend on.”
Memorial Stadium is empty except for a few wide receiv-
ers running in circles through the sunset light.
Behind them race two little girls, their giggles filling the warm, late sum-mer air. The end of fall camp is in sight and football is nigh. But before football — in a spare moment before the frenzy of the season — comes family.
Daft stands on the sideline with his wife, catching up on their days as they watch wide receiver Alex Lagemann
daft: Wide receivers Connected With Daftfrom Page 4
Katie Dowd covers football. Contact her at [email protected].
VictoriA chow/StAFF
duck down to give their daughters, Talia and Caroline, high fives.
“They’re giddy when they’re out here,” Daft says.
Jones, too, stops to say hello on his way up to the locker room. The girls love their tall, lanky playmates, the big boys who work with Daddy. They’re much loved too.
“I have a son, and my son and my girlfriend live up here with me,” Jones says. “They’re friends. My son hangs out with his kids all the time.”
The sun is setting, but Daft and his wife stay a little longer to let the girls run around. It’s good for everyone to remember that football isn’t everything. At the end of the day, there’s life.
“He’s been there through the thick and the thin,” Jones says. “Coming in here and playing as a true freshman, talking to him was my way out of all the stress. He has an impact on all our lives.”
Daft smiles as he watches his players spin around his daughters, his life and their lives intertwining.
7GAMEDAY Saturday, November 13, 2010The Daily Californian
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The important things in life there are ranked something like this: God, football, family, school, football. When high school fields are bathed in the soft light of Friday nights and teenagers kneel down to pray, the place isn’t a stadium anymore — it’s a church.
California has produced more NFL tal-ent — 211 players to Texas’ 181 — but the gridiron doesn’t grip Los Angeles or San Francisco with the same ferocity. There’s a reason the Pac-10 is still regarded as a fi-nesse conference, one that doesn’t play real, smash-mouth football.
To recruit Texans, you need a Texan.“Because of the fact he was from Houston,
a Texas dude, he would know where I’m coming from …” says linebacker Jarred Price, whom Thompson plucked out of Blinn College, where he’s recruited for 15 years. “If he was from anywhere else besides Texas, I think it would have been hard for him to kind of talk to me, to relate to me. It’s all about how you can relate to the recruiter.”
You can’t fake a lifetime’s worth of roots, the most valuable thing in Thompson’s recruiting cabinet. He spent his prep career at Houston’s Nimitz High, located in the same district as Klein Forest High. That’s where Thompson found safety Josh Hill and nose tackle Kendrick Payne, both two-star recruits who have now carved out part-time starting roles for Cal.
“I know the kind of football that’s played there,” Thompson says. “Throughout most of those schools, I know somebody. Most of the schools in Houston, if I don’t know some-
body there, I know somebody that knows somebody there.”
But connections are only a foot in the door. It’s up to Thompson to seal the
deal. The man has a way of talking to players — partially because, once upon a time, he too was pulled out of Texas to attend Arkan-sas’ Harding University.
He claims that school’s reputation pre-cedes itself, but once you stray too far from the Bay Area, people don’t always make the connection between “Cal” and “Berkeley.” Some credit has to go to Thompson.
To hear Price say it, Thompson has “a good mouthpiece on him.” He believes in what he’s selling, figuring out what it is that stands out most about his program, wherever he’s working. (One laptop presen-tation starts with “California Love,” then transitions into a montage of scenery and statistics. If 2Pac and the weather can’t get someone to come out here, nothing will.)
“I felt like I could trust in what he was saying,” Payne says. “I felt like he didn’t come in with a lot of BS.”
Thompson prepares for who he pursues. He tries to find out the kid’s motivation, because he’s not about to waste time on someone that’s not a good fit. He pops his go-to question: “Do you always want to be thought of as a football player?”
After that, the visit is practically a formality.“In my mind,” he says. “I really feel like if
I can get them on the plane, we got a good chance of getting them.”
what you’ve done thousands of times.”Indeed, Genyk’s biggest contribution has
been honing his specialists’ mental strength — helping them think of every motion as routine, regardless of their external environ-ment.
From physical presence and posture, to visualization techniques and mental check-lists, Genyk leaves no stone unturned.
“He’s very energetic,” Anger says. “There’s not many teams in NCAA football that have a special teams coach who knows what he’s talking about. Some people will tell you that you need to be mentally strong, but they don’t give you the tools to do it.”
Tavecchio jokes that Genyk “won’t stop at anything.” When it comes to his coach’s pur-suit of a football career, the kicker couldn’t have been more right.
Four years after arriving at Grand Rapids, Genyk broke through the Division I level as a defensive graduate assistant for North-western in 1994. From there, he became director of football operations and started moving up the program’s coaching ladder.
Calling him a jack of all trades would be an understatement.
Special teams. Linebackers. Running backs. Safeties. Genyk coached them all throughout his tenure with the Wildcats.
And during his 12 years on the staff, he never missed an opportunity to learn from college football’s brightest minds, including Gary Barnett, the late Randy Walker, and Kevin Wilson (now the offensive coordinator
thompson: Texas native Has Created Pipeline for Calfrom Page 5
Jack Wang covers football. Contact him at [email protected].
genyk: Coach Brings nearly Two Decades of experiencefrom Page 5 at Oklahoma).
“I did everything from making great cof-fee to calling the plays,” Genyk recalls. “I was one of the guys who try not to have anybody beat me to the office. I was just like a sponge, trying to learn as much as possible and being as hard a worker as I could.”
That hard work has been shown early dividends at Cal.
Heading into last week’s match-up against Washington State, the Bears ranked in the nation’s top 16 in both punting and punt returns. After finishing dead last in 2010, Tavecchio has added seven yards to his kick-off average to rank fourth in the conference this year.
Genyk’s decoration makes certain that everybody notices and keeps improving.
Walk into the locker room and you’ll see a giant points board, filled with names of every special teams member.
Anger earned points for his saving tackle on a punt return last Saturday.
Tavecchio receives some for every kick-off that clocks four seconds of hang time.
“It’s always the first thing you see, the special teams stuff,” Tavecchio says. “That just kind of ingrains in your mind how important this is to win games, to get that ‘W.’ It’s a way to try to incentivize focus on special teams.”
He’s already speaking Genyk’s language.
Ed Yevelev covers football. Contact him at [email protected].
VictoriA chow/StAFF
VictoriA chow/StAFF
Oregon’s dizzying offensive attack is not just unique because of its number of different threats, but its geographic diversety as well. As his astounding numbers indicate, the most feared of the out-of-staters is LaMichael James. The Texarkana, Tex., native has torched defenses all season and is driving Oregon’s multi-pronged offense. Like several of his teammates, notably Texans Darron Thomas and Josh Huff, James spurned nearby Southern schools to travel up to the Northwest. And how all of them have benefitted from the trip.
James and Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton are considered the two favorites for the Heisman Trophy at this point in the season. James is averaging over 166 yards per game for an offense that has scored no fewer than 42 points in four quarters. And don’t worry about fatigue, either. Oregon’s average scor-ing drive averages fewer than two minutes. Thomas replaced starting quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who took the Ducks to the 2010 Rose Bowl, and has been dwarfing the stats that Masoli registered last season. While Masoli has had an up-and-down season at Ole Miss because of a contentious expulsion, Thomas could quar-terback the Ducks to their first national championship game and third BCS game.
saturday, nOvemBer 13, 2010
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Bysi
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10 S
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10 Statistics
Points Per Game
Points Allowed Per Game
Passing Yards Per Game
Rushing Yards Per Game
54.7
17.7
261.8
305.4
30.0
21.3
194.4
164.7
A Look at Oregon• 29 of Oregon’s 58 touchdown drives this season have taken five plays or fewer.
• After Oregon State (1894), Cal is Oregon’s next oldest rival, beginning the series against one another in 1899.
• Oregon has outscored their opposition 87-7 in the fourth quarter this season.
• Head coach Chip Kelly is making his mark on Oregon’s record books. The second-year head coach was the first in Pac-10 history to win an outright conference title in his first sea-son at the helm and has the Ducks in position to make the National Championship this season.
• Oregon has scored no fewer than 42 points in a game this season and is off to a 9-0 start for the first time in 115 years.
• Of the Ducks’ top six players in all-purpose yards, four are sophomores and one is a freshman.
• Saturday’s meeting with top-ranked Oregon marks the 11th time in school history Cal has faced the nation’s No. 1 team. The Bears, who have never been ranked No. 1 them-selves in the modern era, have yet to record a victory over a top-ranked squad. Oregon’s visit to Memorial Stadium marks only the third time in school history Cal has hosted the nation’s best.
• Cal is a perfect 4-0 in Berkeley this season and has dominated opponents by a combined score of 189-34.
The Bears have home wins over UC Davis, Colorado, UCLA and Arizona State.
• Cal leads the all-time series with Oregon, 39-31-2. Prior to suffering a 42-3 blowout loss to the Ducks in Eugene in 2009 that snapped a three-game Cal win streak in the series, the
Bears had dominated the Ducks of late with four victories in the five games played
between the squads from 2004-08.
player to watch
player to watch
OregOnrOster
no. name Position Year1 Deveron Carr CB So1 mike Willie Wr Sr2 eddie elder S Jr2 Brandon Smith Wr gS3 omar Bolden CB Jr4 alden Darby CB fr4 aaron Pflugrad Wr Jr5 LeQuan Lewis CB Sr5 Kerry Taylor Wr Sr6 Shelly Lyons LB Jr7 Vontaze Burfict LB So7 Kyle middlebrooks Wr fr8 Brandon magee LB Jr8 gerrell robinson Wr Jr9 Clint floyd S Jr10 Keelan Johnson S So10 Samson Szakacsy CB Jr12 matthew Tucker S fr13 george Bell Wr Jr14 Steven Threet QB Jr17 Brock osweiler QB So17 gregory Smith De So18 oliver aaron LB Jr19 osahon Irabor CB fr20 Jonathan Clark S Jr21 Colin Parker LB Jr22 James morrison rB So22 austin Williams DB Jr23 Josh Jordan CB Jr24 max Tabach Sr S25 Deantre Lewis rB fr26 Cameron marshall rB So28 Thomas Weber PK Sr29 Shane mcCullen S fr30 Derrall anderson LB Jr31 anthony Jones LB fr32 Jamal miles Wr So34 James Brooks De Jr35 r.J. robinson rB So37 mike Callaghan fS Sr38 Trevor Hankins P Sr39 ryan Skorupka Te Sr41 Cameron Kastl LS So45 Trevor Kohl Te Jr46 Dean DeLeone De Sr47 gerald munns LB So50 Lawrence guy DL Jr52 garth gerhart oL Jr53 Brandon Johnson LB fr55 Chris De armas oL Jr55 Jamarr robinson De Sr57 Charles Beatty LB Jr57 Thomas ohmart LS Jr58 eldren Jones LB fr59 Jon Hargis oL gS61 Bo moos DL Jr62 evan finkenberg oL fr64 nick emanuele oL So67 Kody Koebensky oL fr68 Corey adams DT So68 Trent marsh oL Jr69 Dan Knapp oL Jr70 mike marcisz oL Jr71 Brice Schwab oL Jr72 andrew Sampson oL So73 aderious Simmons oL Jr77 adam Tello oL Jr78 Kyle Johnson oL So80 J.J. Holliday Wr fr82 Kevin ozier Wr fr83 randy Knust Wr fr84 Jarrid Bryant Wr fr85 max Smith Te fr86 T.J. Simpson Wr Jr87 Christopher Coyle Te fr88 Steven figueroa Te So89 Chike mbanfeo Wr fr90 William Sutton DT So91 Lee adams DL fr92 Jamaar Jarrett De Jr94 Parker flynn PK fr95 gannon Conway De Jr96 Toa Tuitea De So97 Junior onyeali De/LB fr98 Lee Williams P fr99 Joita Te'i DL fr
DE LE
CBCB MLBOLB OLB
DTDTREDE NT
CB CB
OLBOLB
ILB ILB
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allWR LT LG RG RT TE
QB
C
TB FB
WR
WR LT LG
C
RG RT TE
WRQB
RB RB
SSFS FS
TE:
STEVEN THREET LG:C:
WR:
RT:
CAMERON MARSHALLGARTH GERHART
RB:
AARON PFLUGRAD MATT HUSTADKERRY TAYLOR
TREVOR KOHLEVAN FINKENBERGDEANTRE LEWIS BRICE SCHWAB
RG:ZACH SCHLINK
QB:
RB:
LT:TE:
KEVIN RILEY LG:C:
WR:
RT:WILL KAPP
CHRIS GUARNERO
TB:
MARVIN JONES BRIAN SCHWENKEKEENAN ALLENANTHONY MILLERMITCHELL SCHWARTZSHANE VEREEN DONOVAN EDWARDS
RG:JUSTIN CHEADLE
QB:
FB:LT:
DE:
NT:olB:
CAMERON JORDAN CB:FS:
ILB:
CB:
KENDRICK PAYNE JOSH HILL
DE:
D.J. HOLT MARC ANTHONYMIKE MOHAMED
KEITH BROWNERMYCHAL KENDRICKSERNEST OWUSU DARIAN HAGAN
MLB:
OLB:DT:
VONTAZE BURFICT CB:
RE:
LE:
SS:SHELLY LYONS
BRANDON MAGEE
FS:JAMES BROOKS OMAR BOLDENLAWRENCE GUY
SAIA FALAHOLAGREG SMITH
KEELAN JOHNSONCLINT FLOYDSS:CHRIS CONTE
CB: LeQUAN LEWIS
DT:
CaLrOster
no. name Position Year1 marvin Jones Wr Jr1 Steve Williams DB fr2 marc anthony DB So2 Coleman edmond Wr Jr3 D.J. Holt LB Jr3 Jeremy ross Wr Sr4 Kaelin Clay Wr fr5 alex Lagemann Wr Jr5 michael Coley DB fr6 alex Logan DB fr7 D.J. Campbell DB Jr8 C.J. moncrease DB Jr9 Beau Sweeney QB So10 Brock mansion QB Jr11 michael Calvin Wr Jr11 Sean Cattouse DB Jr13 Jarred Price LB Sr13 Kevin riley QB Sr15 Bryant nnabuife DB Sr16 Vincenzo D'amato K So17 Chris Conte DB Sr17 Quinn Tedford Wr So18 mike mohamed LB Sr19 Bryan anger P Jr19 Jarrett Sparks Te So20 Isi Sofele rB So21 Keenan allen Wr fr22 ryan Davis LB Jr22 Will Kapp fB Jr23 Josh Hill DB So23 Dasarte Yarnway rB fr24 Trajuan Briggs TB fr24 Vachel Samuels DB fr25 Langston Jackson rB So26 Darian Hagan DB Sr28 Tyler York DB fr30 mychal Kendricks LB Jr31 Tyre ellison DB So31 John Tyndall fB Jr32 David aknin rB Jr33 Covaughn DeBoskie-Johnson rB So33 nick forbes LB fr34 J.P. Hurrell LB So34 Shane Vereen rB Jr37 robert mullins LB So39 Clark Porter LS/LB Jr40 giorgio Tavecchio K Jr40 aaron Tipoti DL So41 Jerome meadows LB Sr42 Steven fanua LB fr44 David Wilkerson LB fr45 Spencer Ladner Te So46 David Seawright K Jr47 Keith Browner LB Sr48 eric Stevens fB So50 matt rios LS So51 Kameron Krebs LB So52 Justin gates oL Jr53 Donovan edwards oL Sr54 Chris guarnero oL Sr55 michael Costanzo DL Sr56 Keni Kaufusi DL fr57 Brian Schwenke oL So58 Chris adcock oL fr59 ed Johnston oL fr61 Justin Cheadle oL Jr65 Dominic galas oL So68 mark Brazinski oL fr71 Sam Demartinis oL Jr72 mitchell Schwartz oL Jr73 richard fisher oL Sr75 matt Summers-gavin oL So77 Tyler rigsbee oL So80 anthony miller Te Jr81 ross Bostock Wr So84 Jacob Wark Te fr85 Ian albrecht Wr Jr87 Spencer Hagan Wr fr89 garry graffort Te Sr90 Solomona aigamaua Te Jr91 Deandre Coleman DL fr92 Trevor guyton DL Jr95 ernest owusu DL Jr96 Kendrick Payne DL So97 Cameron Jordan DL Sr99 Savai'i eselu Te Jr99 gabe King DL fr
Total Offense567.2 359.1
Total Defense329.0 299.6
SS
Earlier in the week, Brock Mansion stated that he thinks Cal has the athletes to keep up with Oregon. Sure, he has some very good receiving options, but the athleticism and perfor-mance of Shane Vereen could dictate the tempo of this game. Vereen has been Cal’s top offensive threat the whole season, and despite some struggles, has assembled fine numbers through nine games. The Ducks’s run defense has slowed down some excellent running backs, especially in the second
half, but Vereen could keep the Ducks’ offense on the sideline for longer if he can find seams and break
tackles. Head coach Jeff Tedford emphasized the
importance of keeping the score low because of Oregon’s ability to spread the field and tire out
the opposing defense. While Mansion will need to succesfully throw the ball to open lanes for Cal’s top option, it is safe to say that
any quick 3-and-outs that were so common against USC and Oregon State will doom the Bears early.
Cal’s best option of avoiding such a quick deficit is Vereen, though you can bet that
Oregon will be looking for the run early in the game. Vereen will need a top performance out of a struggling offensive line if the Bears want to pull the upset.
A Look at Cal