De La Puente shines in starting role

As the 6th-ranked Bears get ready to face the 11th-ranked Ducks on Saturday afternoon, one of the keys will be for Cal's offensive line to maintain the dominance that it's shown all season. One of the key members of the line is guard Brian De La Puente, who along with tackle Mike Gibson, has been part of the left side of the line that's helped clear huge holes for the Golden Bear running attack.

After seeing duty at on the right side last year, De La Puente has taken over at the left guard position for Erik Robertson and has been part of unit that's not just doing well run blocking but has also allowed just three sacks out of 123 total pass attempts.

For him, the most cherished part of playing with the offensive line isn't watching the opponent defensive line breath heavy in the fourth quarter, it isn't looking back at quarterback Nate Longshore at the end of the game admiring his clean jersey, and it isn't hearing the cannon over Memorial Stadium go off after each today.

It's actually much simpler.

"The best thing for us is the chance to get better every week," said De La Puente. "It's for us to eliminate our errors, and play to our potential."

While the team's 4-0 start and #6 national ranking would have most players feeling pretty good about themselves, the pace of the college season and the challenge that's always waiting ahead doesn't give them much chance to savor victories.

"On Saturday, we enjoy the win, then on Sunday we watch the film, learn and from it," said De La Puente. "Last year, the offensive coordinator (Mike Dunbar) said that once we finished watching the film, we had to flush that game from our system."

Thoughts of the Oregon game started early on Sunday, and the seriousness of this game was demonstrated by the extremely loud crowd noises that have been piped in this week, along with Thursday's closed practice.

"It's Oregon week, it's a quick process for us to learn from our errors.   It's a short week, so we had to prepare quickly" said De La Puente, referring to the fact that the team had to travel on Friday, which altered the preparation routine that the team had gone through with three of its first four games at home. "Once we came in on Sunday, everything was on Oregon, and time to start thinking about the opponent."

While he hasn't noticed anything significantly different about this week's practice in the run-up to the game, he also knows that this isn't just another game on the schedule.

"It's big because of the crossover," said De La Puente.  "Coach Tedford came from there and there's a lot of connections between the two programs. Oregon's a great team and it's a great challenge that we're looking forward to."

With the trip to Oregon and the anticipated crowd noise in Autzen Stadium, he understands that it's important for the offensive line to cut down on the spate of penalties that it's had during recent weeks. The six penalties that the offense had against Louisiana Tech was unusually high, but even the three that it had against Arizona wasn't acceptable.

"We're focused on it.  It's been emphasized to us and when we go to the huddle, it's in our head," said De La Puente. "It's been a point of emphasis. We can't lose yards on penalties."

De La Puente has played a big part in an offensive line that has been dominant in the fourth quarter. Against a Tennessee team that was supposed to be physical, the Bear offense gained 171 yards in the fourth quarter, 92 on the ground. Against Colorado State, the offense gained 123 yards in the fourth quarter, with 111 on the ground.

Add that to the 116 yards in the fourth quarter against Louisiana Tech, with 72 yards on the ground along with the 111 fourth quarter yards against Arizona, 90 yards on the ground, and that adds up to a 130 yard average in the fourth quarter, with more than 90 coming on the ground.

One of the most enjoyable aspects for any offensive lineman must be when after battling an opponent for a couple of hours, they've worn down the opposition.

"We have the attitude that we want to run the ball, but we understand that the offense needs balance," said De La Puente. "We like getting after people, and we like it when the pressure is on us.  It goes to our strength. We've practiced a lot together, we've got great camraderie and it all goes to helping create a dominating performance."

A measure of confidence is the sense that  if a team is able to execute properly that it doesn't matter what the opposition does, and at times a team will have results like it's dominating effort down the stretch against Tennessee.

"It wasn't about them and it wasn't about the hype," said De La Puente. " It was about us.  We have high expectations for every game, and we expect to be able to finish the game."

De La Puente is one of team's better success stories.  After earning first-team all-leage honors while as a senior at San Clemente High, he redshirted in 2003 after suffering an injury, and didn't see any action in 2004.  In 2005, he saw playing time in games against Illinois, Washington State, and Stanford.

He had his breakthrough season in 2006, where he played in 10 games, including three starts at right guard where he shared time with Noris Malele, totallng 14.5 knockdown blocks and 8.5 pancake blocks.

This season, De La Puente, along with Mike Gibson, who played right tackle last year, have been moved to the left side of the line.

He credits offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Jim Michalczik's eye for detail for his gradual improvement.

"I  had some injury problems early on with set me back," said De La Puente. " A lot of my growth all comes from Coach M. Small things like being an inch lower with my pad level or keeping my hands an inch more inside. It's working on all the smaller things that essentially makes you dominant."

More consistent playing time has also been big key for him.

"Last year I split time with Norris (Malele) which made it harder to get into rhythm" said De La Puente, who's majoring in legal studies with a minor in city and regional planning and is setting his sights for a career in real estate. "This year, we've been able to keep the same unit together, which helps our rhythm and helps our overall cohesiveness when we each know what the guy next to us is going to do."

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