Instant Analysis: Holiday Bowl

This time, the California Golden Bears came to San Diego and felt like playing football. That's the simple reason why Jeff Tedford and his team scored a redemptive victory against a one-dimensional Aggie outfit.

Two years ago, Cal came to the Holiday Bowl and sulked through a blowout loss to Texas Tech. After getting snubbed in the race for the Rose Bowl, the boys from Berkeley didn't have the will to compete against a Big XII South opponent. The only thing worse than missing out on a New Year's date in Pasadena was the humiliation of getting drubbed on national TV, which brought forth the derisive laughter of a nation that didn't get to see the best of a very good team. As the Golden Bears came back to San Diego two years later to take on Texas A&M, Jeff Tedford needed to write a decidedly different script. After getting smacked by USC in a de facto Pac-10 title game, the Bears needed to collect a signature win before the 2006 season ended.

Mission accomplished.

What makes this decisive triumph so redeeming--but perhaps a little bittersweet--for Cal is the fact that the Bears played the kind of physical ball--especially on defense--that many pundits and prognosticators thought they'd display before this season started. Cal was a trendy preseason pick to knock off USC in the Pac-10 because of a ferocious defense led by linebacker Desmond Bishop. This defense didn't show up in a sad-sack season-opener against Tennessee, and while solid for short stretches of the regular season, it couldn't lift the Cal program to a higher plateau. On Thursday night, however, every gold-shirted Berkeley bruiser dished out hellacious hits to A&M ballcarriers while blanketing Aggie receivers in pass coverage. As soon as Cal's offense carved out a multi-possession lead early in the third quarter, the Bears--led by their Bishop--played a very mean game of chess against Dennis Franchione's offense, which was plainly checkmated once the scoreboard forced the Aggies to throw on a majority of snaps. After sleepwalking on A&M's first drive (which produced a touchdown), Bear defenders brought a hard, heavy hammer to their Big XII South competitors, sticking Aggie running backs with notable ferocity and showing America that the Pac-10 actually has at least one good (and physical) team other than Pete Carroll's crew in L.A.

Cal's offense wasn't half-bad, either.

With a steady performance from quarterback Nate Longshore, workmanlike efforts from running backs Marshawn Lynch and Justin Forsett, and clutch playmaking from receiver DeSean Jackson, the Bears tallied more than 40 points against the same Aggie defense that limited the University of Texas to one touchdown a month ago in Austin. With balance, physicality and superior speed, Cal's offense managed to take control as the game wore on, shifting the scoreboard and painting the pass-challenged A&M offense into a corner. Desmond Bishop and Company took care of the rest, and Jeff Tedford finally gained the kind of win that had eluded him in the 2006 regular season. Now, the Bears--having earned a new measure of validation--can set their sights on 2007, a year in which the sons of Strawberry Canyon will try to topple the Trojan Empire of College Football. If Cal plays with the purpose, passion and pride displayed in a rout of a nine-win team from the Big XII, there's no limit to what the Bears could achieve next season.