| Who: California Golden Bears vs Texas Longhorns
Where: Qualcomm Stadium (San Diego, California) When: Wed, Dec 28th at 8:00 PM EST TV: ESPN |
California Golden Bears (7-5, 4-5 in Pac-12)
Most impressive victory: 34-10 vs Utah (Oct 22nd)
Worst loss: 31-14 at UCLA (Oct 29th)
Notable alumni: Nnamdi Asomugha, Les Claypool, Herm Edwards, Tony Gonzales, William Hung, DeSean Jackson, Kevin Johnson, Gregory Peck, Aaron Rodgers, Leigh Steinberg, Michele Tafoya
Jeff Tedford started his run at Cal with eight straight winning seasons including two double-digit win seasons. That all came to an end last season when the Golden Bears went 5-7 and finished 8th in the Pac-10. This year Cal showed some improvement, finishing 7-5 overall and 4-5 in the Pac-12 (a two game improvement in the win column and a one game improvement in conference play), but was very up and down.
Cal finished the season on a high note as they won 3 out of their last four and only fell to Stanford by 3 points. When you look at the statistics it tells the story of a very average team. Cal finished 7th in the Pac-12 in Scoring Offense (29.8 ppg), 4th in rushing offense (167 ypg), 7th in passing offense (251.5 ppg), 5th in Scoring Defense (24.4), 4th in rushing defense (130 ypg) and first in passing defense (209.1). Buffalo transfer QB Zach Maynard led the offense and he closed the season well. In his last three games he had his best three games in terms of completion percentage, threw 4 TDs vs 1 INT and had his highest QB rating of the year (in a loss against Stanford). Maynard’s half-brother, WR Keenan Allen, is the guy to watch when Cal has the ball. Allen caught 89 passes (roughly 40% of Cal’s receptions). RB Isi Sofele is another guy to keep an eye on as he finished the year with 1,270 yards rushing and finished five games with over 100 yards rushing.
Cal’s passing defense should match up well with Texas but I have concerns about their ability to stop the run against the Longhorns. Cal’s rushing defense stats are a little skewed as they had great games against Utah (13 yards rushing), Presbyterian (20 yards), Oregon State (31 yards), Fresno State (68 yards) and Washington State (69 yards). But when Cal played teams that run the ball effectively they didn’t fare as well. They got rolled by Oregon (365 yards rushing) and UCLA (294 yards).
Texas Longhorns (7-5, 4-5 in Big 12)
Most impressive victory: 52-20 vs Texas Tech (Nov 5th)
Worst loss: 48-24 at Baylor (Dec 3rd)
Notable alumni: Wes Anderson, Walter Cronkite, Earl Campbell, Farrah Fawcett, Tom Landry, Matthew McConaughey, Mary Lou Retton, Ricky Williams, Owen Wilson, Vince Young, Renee Zellweger
In 2010, Mack Brown had his first losing season since 1989. After 9 straight double-digit win seasons, the Longhorns went just 5-7. Texas fans probably felt pretty good after starting out 4-0 this season. Sure they just squeeked past BYU in the second game of the season but then they handled UCLA and Iowa State. Then came Oklahoma and the Sooners knocked them back to reality with a 55-17 drubbing. Back-to-back wins put Texas at 6-2 going into it’s last four games but the Longhorns would lose 3 of those four to back into a bowl game at just 7-5 and 4-5 in the Big 12.
Simply put, Texas just didn’t have the QB play to win the big games in the Big 12 this season. As a whole, their QB group finished with the second lowest QB rating in the conference and was the only QB group to throw more INTs than TDs. The one thing Texas did well on offense was run the football and they had a couple of games where they just overwhelmed their opponents. They ran for over 400 yards against both Kansas and Texas Tech and had 200+ yard games against Rice, UCLA, Oklahoma State and Baylor. Texas ran the ball this year every two out of three plays and don’t expect that to change in this game. One stat that jumps off the paper is that the Longhorns have 21 rushing TDs in wins and only 2 in losses.
| Twitter Follows For Holiday Bowl:
California Golden Bears Bearswithfangs: @bearswithfangs Golden Bear Lair: @GoldenBearLair Texas Longhorns Wescott Eberts: @GhostofBigRoy Bevo’s Corner: @BevosCorner
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The Pick
Kevin: The stories of this game will be how the Cal passing attack does against the Texas secondary and how the Texas running game does against Cal. Out of those four segments of the one I have to go with is the Texas running game. Freshmen Malcolm Brown and Joe Bergeron will be back for the bowl game and I think that will key the Longhorns to victory in this one.
Texas 28 Cal 17
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