*Anybody else hate Jim Harbaugh ?*

please note my sarcasm.

it can’t possibly be the lack of adjustments made by the coaching staff so it must be the players. man i’m happy to have Chip Kelly.

Cal is… talented?

Yeah. When we were up by like 35-40 (aka A LOT), Canfield went in. It was his first game back from shoulder surgery, so they wanted to see his arm. We ran a play action and Adeniji (another back up, mind up) streaked up the sideline and Canfield hit him for a TD. It was a LONG TD, and I think that’s what people were most upset about. But still, big effing deal. Can’t stop a team’s backups, that’s your own problem.

I’m going to respectfully disagree (surprise!). I don’t think his recruiting has anything to do with our early losses. If you look at our losses this year (except for USC, which really, we should have won), we went completely against our gameplan. Quizz had a combined 38 carries against Cincy and Arizona. He had 37 carries against USC alone last year. We tried to pass the ball too much, throwing from shot gun on first down, and ended up digging ourselves a hole. Last year against Stanford, same thing. Moevao threw the ball 50 times, which is no where near our usual offense.

As for the Penn State blowout, Cal showed that even a good team with great recruits can go into a place like Penn St (Tennessee) and be shell shocked to the point where you don’t know what you’re doing out there.

I just don’t think recruiting has anything to do with the early losses, but I’d be interested to hear your thinking on it.

First of all, I don’t think Terrell Pryor is that kind of player. He was just looking past his college career.

Second, yes, star ratings are influenced by who pursuits them, but it is a two way street. It is an imperfect system, without a doubt. However, it’s been proven that it is the best system out there, and it would be foolish to throw the system away. USC, Notre Dame, Florida, they aren’t going after some kid because rivals give them 5 stars. They are going after them because they are one of the most knowingly talented players .

The biggest factor that weighs into how many stars an athlete has is their high school production.

I’ll try and find the Doc Saturday link where he’s shown that you need to have the recruits to have the success that USC, Florida, Alabama, and Texas have had.

Look at a team such as Iowa, they have classes that are mediocre in terms of “star” power. However they recruit the perfect 2/3 star guys for their system. Good coaching can more than compensate for lack of big name power.

I really don’t agree with this. It’s fun to say, and it’s fun to be like, look at us lunch pail folks, whoopidy doo!

But there’s also a reason that USC, Texas, Florida, Ohio State, etc. are the teams that are competing for a national title year in and year out. Other teams sniff at it from time to time, but don’t get there.

To compete at the highest level, you need to not only recruit the best players in the nation, but work your ass off every single week. To me, it looks like that’s what Chip Kelly is doing. I haven’t seen such a hard working team in a long time, and it’s talented as well. Not to the level of USC, but still, the most talented we’ve ever seen at Oregon.

I think part of it is that Craig Robinson is dreaming big. He just pulled in a basketball player from the Bronx. He goes after big recruits. By and large, Mike Riley does not, and he doesn’t have any good young recruiters on his staff. It’s about his attitude, and he just doesn’t have that charisma that other big “recruiting” coaches have.

Penn State, comes to mind. But what they lack as a city (2 1/2 hours away from ANYTHING), they make up for in stadium size, campus size, facilities, coaching, etc. Let’s face it, Corvallis/Oregon St doesn’t have much of what Penn State has

And Norman, OK is about the size of Eugene, I believe.

Reference for those that aren’t aware of this old joke.

Who else has been wondering about the debut of the carbon fiber helmets!? Wtf!