Vocabulary Lessons

Disasterbation, n. The act of supporting Cal football.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious to a small child that this is the way to beat Cal this year: stack the box to stop the deadly Jahvid Best, overload on the pass rush, and force a quarterback in his first full season to make plays to receivers with a combined total of four catches and no starts when the season began.

Well, it worked like all hell, and as a result, Cal shat the bed in the Eastern time zone again. The fact that the team only flew into Maryland on Friday didn’t help either – despite their attempt to “acclimate” to EDT while still in Berkeley, there’s really no way you can stay in California and simulate DC-caliber heat and humidity.

At some point, someone is going to have to drill into Jeff Tedford’s head that he has to be flexible in how he does things, and that decisions made in August are not binding on an entire season. It cost Cal the Holiday Bowl in 2004, it cost them an over-.500 season in 2007, and it probably cost them the first half today.

However, Vanderbilt put together a nice little 38-21 game. After trading score for score in the first half, the ‘Dores slammed on Rice in the second half with a 17-0 performance to cap their third win of the season. Vandy gets most of their work done on the ground, with Jared Hawkins pounding up the middle and Chris Nickson a surprisingly effective runner from the QB spot who also completes the necessary passes. Put that together with a defense that tends to slam the door after halftime, and it’s hard not to see some serious possibilities ahead for this team – opponents like Duke or Kentucky can certainly be had and there’s no reason to think Ole Miss or Wake are by any means unbeatable. Hold tight, don’t drop winnable games, don’t do anything stupid, and maybe…?

Not a great day for the Pac-10 – UMN beating Arizona and BYU over UCLA by 59 isn’t going to help the “Pac-1” talk – but a worse day for the Big Ten, with Wisconsin down in Fresno grasping for the only major intersectional win of the day for the conference. Cal notwithstanding, I’m still not prepared to take the “Almost College Conference” tag off until I see something impressive, and losing to Little Middle isn’t the sort of thing that can be overcome with one win.

And you just know that you’re going to see that clip of Jahvid Best’s unfortunate intestinal reversal all over YouTube, Deadspin, and EDSBS for the rest of the year, if not the rest of his career. I’m sure he would tell you that was a lot better going down than it was coming up.

ETA: Here’s how obvious the problem was: even the Junks, mostly Maryland alums and all Maryland supporters, basically said that Tedford screwed the team by not flying in until the night before, and that a 3000 mile flight is no joke. When the guys who just gave you a preposterous upset are sympathetic to your plight, you know your coach F’d up.