When the 2003 college football season ended, California was arguably one of
the hottest teams in the country. In winning five of its last six games, the Bears
displayed a devastating offense. With most of the offense returning, including
All-American candidates Aaron Rodgers and Geoff McArthur, optimism for 2004 is high around
Memorial Stadium.
With that in mind, Cyberbears decided to ask two of its long-time
contributors to engage in a debate about a Top 10 preseason ranking for Cal is justified.
Both contributors had a word limit to work with and each contributor had the opportunity
to read the other's comments before crafting a rebuttal. The identity of both writers will
be kept anonymous until both arguments have been published. Readers are encouraged to guess the
identity of both authors on the message boards.
The first installment - why Cal is worthy of a Top 10 ranking will be
published today. The second installment will be published later this week.
Pro: Cal Deserves a Top-10 Ranking
Opinions on the 2004 California football team are all over the map. Some
prognosticators have placed the Bears as high as ninth in their preseason Top 25. The
question is whether they deserve to be ranked that high or whether they are just an
attractive new pick after the exciting last second victory over Virginia Tech in the 2003
Insight Bowl.
Here are some reasons why Cal deserves a Top 10 ranking:
Head coach Jeff Tedford is one of the most acclaimed QB developers in
either the college or pro ranks. He developed Kyle Boller, a gifted but undeveloped
quarterback in his first three years, into an NFL quarterback after just one spring and
one season under his tutelage. He developed current quarterback Aaron Rodgers, a JC
quarterback who was not even on the radar of most Division I football schools, into a 2004
preseason Heisman Trophy candidate after just one season. But one thing he hasn’t had
since he’s been at California is a quarterback with one year of experience in his
system. As good as his first year quarterbacks have been, Rodgers should be even better
with a year under his belt in Tedford’s system.
As good as Rodgers is, a passing attack also needs receivers that the
opponent has to respect. The Bears return three senior receivers in 2004 including both
starters. Geoff McArthur (a preseason first-team All America candidate) and Jonathan Makonnen are established two year starters and Chase Lyman opened some eyes with a great
performance at the Insight Bowl. Add a group of talented redshirt freshman speedsters and
teams will be hard pressed to match up with California in obvious passing situations,
particularly against three-receiver sets.
In 2002, California had a plus 18-turnover margin to spur a defensive
resurgence that helped turn the team around in Tedford’s first season. One of the
strengths of that team was a strong defensive secondary led by NFL first round draft pick
Nnamdi Asomugha, seniors Jameel Powell and Bert Watts, and freshman Donnie McCleskey. Last
year’s team had to integrate true freshmen Tim Mixon and Daymeion Hughes, converted
safety Harrison Smith at the corners and find a new safety to replace Watts. The 2004
secondary will rival the talent level of that secondary with McCleskey returning for his
junior year coming off a first team All-Pac 10 year, Mixon (who is recovering from an
injury that cut last season short), Hughes, and acclaimed redshirt freshman Thomas DeCoud.
With returning seniors Ryan Gutierrez and Matt Giordano, Cal has a secondary that is as
experienced and probably more talented than the 2002 secondary.
Another good harbinger of a defensive resurgence next year is that despite
poor rankings in other defensive categories, Cal was first in the conference in red zone
defense last year. And that’s not first in the conference against only conference
foes. That’s first in the conference including non-conference games against Big-12
champion #13 Kansas State and #21 Utah. With the offensive talent Cal is returning this
year, the defense doesn’t need to dominate; it just needs to keep the score low
enough for the offense to win.
With all due respect to Insight Bowl hero Tyler Frederickson, Cal shot
itself in the foot in several games last year with its kicking game. Cal was ninth in
punting and tenth in field goal percentage in the Pac 10. It’s always risky to
project the performance of kickers, no matter how heralded, but incoming kicker David Lonie (who probably will win the punting job) will definitely improve the performance of
the punting unit. Between Lonie and returning kickers Lucas Everett, Anthony Binswanger,
and Tom Schneider, Cal’s kicking will be better.
Half the battle of being a Top 10 team is just getting a high ranking to
begin with. The other battle is to avoid losing, as the polls don’t punish teams for
style points if they are already established in the polls. Fortunately for Cal, this
appears to be a down year for most of the conference. Washington and UCLA both have had
considerable talent losses and are handicapped by poor coaching. Arizona figures to be
better with improved head coaching, but is probably at least a year away from being more
than an upset threat against California at home. Even USC, which is as loaded in talent as
any team in the country, lost four players to the NFL and may not be as dominant as in
2003. The most challenging teams Cal will face this year are Oregon State and USC on the
road, with Oregon a threat to upset California at home.
An inspection of California under Tedford shows that Cal has only suffered
one loss to a clearly inferior team in Tedford’s two years (a 52-41 loss to Arizona
at home in 2002), regardless of whether they faced that team at home or on the road. In
2004, California figures to be clearly better than Air Force, New Mexico State, UCLA,
Arizona, Arizona State, Washington, and Stanford. If California holds to form and avoids
the upset against those seven teams, they need only split against the teams that are
either likely to be superior or about at Cal’s level (USC, Southern Mississippi and
Oregon State on the road, Oregon at home) to finish 9-2.
There are several pitfalls Cal will have to overcome in their quest to have
their best football season since 1991. They will have to avoid serious injuries
(particularly to star quarterback Aaron Rodgers), they will have to address talent losses
in the offensive line, and they will have to find a way to put pressure on the opposing
quarterback. But given what they have accomplished so far, the future looks bright indeed
for Cal to have a special season in 2004.
Rebuttal to Pro Argument by David Dempster
The case that Cal deserves a Top 10 pre-season ranking in 2004 is built on
an extrapolation of where Cal was during the dismal 2001 season and where they ended up as
the Golden Bears ended the 2003 campaign with a thrilling Insight Bowl victory over
Virginia Tech.
There is much reason for optimism in the 2004 season and the argument for
Cal performing at a high level may yet turn out to be correct. But it will take more than
expectations boosted by a radical turnaround in performance since 2001 to warrant a
pre-season Top 10 ranking.
Jeff Tedford is an acclaimed developer of quarterbacks, possibly unrivaled
in Division I-A now. Aaron Rodgers has shown skills that have Cal fans making comparisons
with Steve Bartkowski, Joe Roth, and Mike Pawlawski. But with the exception of Pawlawski,
none of those quarterbacks led a Top 10 team while at Cal.
There have been receivers at Cal to go with those quarterbacks, notably
Steve Rivera, Wesley Walker, and Sean Dawkins. But only Dawkins played on a Top 10 team.
The defensive secondary of 2002 which contributed greatly to an incredible
reversal of fortune in turnover margin (going from -17 to +18, a difference of +35) was
also beaten for 20 touchdowns while intercepting 15 passes, yielding a passing efficiency
rating of 131.0 to Cal's opponents. That Cal's 2004 defensive secondary would be as good
is no great feat. This past year Cal yielded a passing efficiency rating to opponents of
nearly the same number (130.5) and gave up 25 touchdowns while intercepting 14 passes in
2003. The defensive secondary's performance doesn't warrant a Top 10 pre-season ranking in
2004.
While Cal was yielding the smallest percentage of red zone scoring
opportunities in the Pac-10, Cal also yielded the 2nd most trips into the red zone (50),
exceeded only by Arizona at 54. This shows that while Cal stiffened in the Red Zone, they
weren't very good about keeping opponents out of it.
Cal yielded 44 opponent touchdowns in 2003, 26 of those coming from plays
started in the Red Zone. That means Cal yielded 18 touchdowns of at least 21 yards to
opponents in 2003, a rate of about 1.28 non-Red Zone touchdowns per game. A Top 10 team
should gives up less than one non-Red Zone touchdown per game (USC gave up 8 non-Red Zone
touchdowns all last year, for a rate of about 0.62 big play touchdowns per game).
With all due respect to Tyler Frederickson, special teams performed near
the bottom of the conference in 2003 in both punting and placekicking. One can hope for
better things in 2004 with a new punter and a new place-kicker, but those questions will
be unanswered until September 4, 2004 at the earliest. This is not an area to instill
confidence in a Top 10 pre-season ranking, and much less the basis upon which to award
one.
If being ranked in the pre-season Top 10 is key to staying there, then what
can we say about Texas, Kansas State, Auburn, Virginia Tech, and Pittsburgh's failure to
stay in the Top 10 in 2003? Not much, apparently. Texas (3 losses) finished 11th or 12th,
and Kansas State (4 losses) 13th or 14th depending on the poll, while Auburn, Virginia
Tech, and Pittsburgh (all with 5 losses) finished unranked. That's five of the eleven
schools that appeared in either the ESPN/USA Today or AP Pre-season Top 10 not finishing
in either poll's Top 10 at the end of the season, hardly a guarantee of holding on to a
Top 10 spot.
Cal has played better under Tedford than it has since the 1991 season.
There are numerous schools in the Pac-10 conference that we can assume will be clearly
inferior to Cal in the 2004 campaign. However, while we may assume any number of schools
to be inferior in 2004, it doesn't change the results of 2003: six losses. That's at least
three losses too many to be a pre-season Top 10 team; more realistically, it is four
losses too many.
This is not to say that Cal can't or won't earn a Top 10 final ranking in
2004. It is to say that 2003 results and 2004 spring football is not reason enough to hand
this squad a pre-season Top10 ranking. They haven't earned it yet.
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