DISQUS

Bears Necessity: Tedford Tournament of Champions: Cal 2005 vs. Cal 2006

  • bearswithfangs · 1 year ago
    It's still hard for me to imagine an 8-4 Cal Bears squad BARELY losing to the at times dominant 10-3 team.
  • Avinash · 1 year ago
    That 2006 team wasn't really dominant. Other than that Oregon game, much of their wins were spent beating up on inferior competition. Remember how much Longshore struggled after the Oregon game that year too (we nearly lost the Washington game, and he was barely heard from those last three games); even though he wasn't in the doghouse quite like Ayoob, he wasn't exactly Mr. Consistent either.

    Also our defense was definitely better in 2005 than 2006, especially with . Other than the Maurice Jones-Drew debacle, we kept Reggie Bush in check, knocked out Dennis Dixon, shut out Arizona, etc. etc. We could have gone 11-1 if Ayoob didn't throw so many picks and the running backs weren't fumbleprone.

    That 2006 team was a classic bend-don't-break defense; they'd give up 20 points, but our offense would lay out 40. Against USC they finally broke, and I'd say our 2005 defense was only a few degrees worse than those '06 Trojans.
  • bearswithfangs · 1 year ago
    I'll agree with you that as a unit, the '05 squad definitely had a better defense. Though with Hughes, Bishop, and Mebane, it's hard to deny the star level talent we had at each unit of the defense.

    And I'll again agree that Longshore struggled mightily from the Washington game on (with the exception of a spectacular UCLA game), as did the rest of the team.

    As a whole, I say "at-times" dominant, simply because I saw what the '06 squad could do when they put it all together.

    You have a valid point that we dominated inferior competition, but I also saw what we were able to do against legitimate Top 25 caliber teams (when we played them) such as Texas A&M and Oregon (before their slide).

    It is hard to deny that we began clicking on all cylinders after the debacle of the Tenn, when we rattled off eight straight wins.

    In the end, I suppose I retract my earlier statement. I CAN see how a team who almost lost to Washington and Stanford AT home, and inexcusably lost to Arizona, could lose to an 8-4 '05 Bears Squad. You got me 'Nash.
  • Avinash · 1 year ago
    I think this series was a pretty good reflection. The 2006 team brought their A-game to Games 1 and 2, their F-game to Game 3, their C-game to Game 4, their B-game to Games 5, 6 and 7. That was about right for that Golden Bear team.