a. Lynch Mob – The poster boy for
the word “underrated” is star Cal RB Marshawn Lynch. Here’s a guy that
ran for over 1,200 yards in only ten games last year, missing a pair of
games due to injury. Although RB Justin Forsett filled in admirably
while Lynch was out, when Lynch returned, the Cal offense went to
another level, even with the struggles they had at QB. However, Lynch
is fully healthy and that’s not good news for the Vols. Stopping Lynch
has two distinct facets. The first one has to do with the interior of
the Tennessee defense, in particular defensive tackle Justin Harrell.
The Tennessee run stopper is a monster on the inside and how well he can
occupy the middle of the Cal offensive line will go a long in
determining how effectively the Vol run defense slows him down. Lynch
wants to hit seams downhill and wants to get his shoulders square to the
line of scrimmage right away. Harrell’s ability to lock up the middle
forces Lynch to have to bounce to the outside, giving the secondary time
to arrive at the ball. That brings in the second aspect of stopping
Lynch – the Vols had better bring some serious hat when they come to
tackle Lynch. For a guy with explosive speed and burst, he shakes off
defensive backs and linebackers who don’t wrap up like swatting
mosquitoes. On the surface, tackling doesn’t sound much like a key to
any game, but it actually is the key to every game, especially on a
beast like Lynch. Tennessee won’t win this battle against Lynch and the
Cal running game if Harrell doesn’t rule the middle and the Vols don’t
tackle especially well in this matchup.
b. “Okay, who’s my…?” – Remember the movie
the Waterboy, in the Bourbon Bowl when the kicker goes looking for the
weak link to attack in the onside kick situation? Well, those might not
be verbatim the words coming out of Tennessee QB Erik Ainge’s mouth, but
the mission is still the same. Who’s wearing the target for Cal’s
defense? It won’t be first team All-Pac-10 CB Tim Mixon, but it will be
the men replacing him – Randy Bundy and Syd’Quan Thompson. Mixon tore
his ACL in practice last week and is on the shelf for the rest of the
season and with fellow All-Pac-10 corner Daymeion Hughes manning down
the other side, the spotlight is easily found on Mixon’s replacements.
Now, the flip side of the argument is whether Ainge and the passing
game, under the guidance of new, and former, offensive coordinator David
Cutcliffe, can take advantage of Mixon’s absence. If Cutcliffe has done
nothing but work on Ainge’s confidence and decision making, he should
improve by leaps and bounds this season. But, it’s situations like this
where Ainge just has to take what Cal is giving to him. Cal DC Bob
Gregory can hide that duo of corners for only so long, so Ainge has to
keep chipping away at that side of the field and force Gregory to do
something, anything to counteract for the inexperience on the field at
that position. Expect Cutcliffe to use multi-receiver sets combined
with some motion to pull coverage and strength away from
Bundy/Thompson’s side of the field , attempting to catch one of them in
single coverage against one of the Vol’s physical receivers – Bret
Smith, Robert Meachem and Jayson Swain. If Gregory wants to keep a
safety tight to that side, Ainge will have what he wants all day long on
the other side.
c. A Rook, a pawn and a Bishop – Since Jeff
Tedford became the head coach at Cal, most of the attention has been on
the QB, the offense, the offensive line. But, the defense in Berkeley
this year could be the foundation for this team, but that will only
happen with strong play by middle linebacker Desmond Bishop. The 6’2”,
242 pound rock hard hitter is not a guy that has garnered much acclaim
playing on the Left Coast, but he’s as good a B gap to B gap player as
there is in the Pac-10. He does have the advantage of playing behind
All-American DT Brandon Mebane, but Bishop has thrived in his role as
run stopper extraordinaire. Last year, he had 89 tackles last season
and should be over 100 this season. His challenge this week comes in
stopping another underrated, young star RB Arian Foster, a fellow
Californian. Similar to Lynch, Foster has power and burst and will
break tackles easily if you hit him with a chicken wing. Bishop can’t
get tied up in the wash behind Mebane and has to play downhill as he
scrapes to the football. Foster doesn’t cutback much – he’s a one cut
runner who doesn’t dance looking for seams, he’ll just create his own.
That being said, Bishop has one job on Saturday and if he performs that
job, Foster should be held under 75 yards.
Conclusion – Cal QB Nate Longshore will be the
starter and Tedford expects him to at least make it through the first
game, as opposed to getting knocked out early as he did last season.
Longshore’s receivers, namely DeSean Jackson, who’ll be a star very soon
if he isn’t already, will see a great deal of single coverage with Lynch
carrying the football 25 to 30 times. If the Cal signal caller can
exploit that coverage with Jackson deep downfield, this Cal offense
might be the best in the Pac-10. They won’t need to be that good right
out of the chute, but the balance might be too much for Tennessee to
handle.
Cal – 26 vs. Tennessee - 24