The Top 10 Posts of 2008

Well, it’s been a fairly successful year for Cal football and for BWF. Starting a Cal blog in the off season is always challenging, but made for greater focus and attention to articles. I noticed the quality declined heavily when there was a plethora of news to cover during the actual season, but I’m sure I’ll be reduced to inane and obsessive levels of analysis once again when the top story of the week is what Bob Gregory is having for lunch.

Thanks for reading again, and I’ve got some high hopes for BearswithFangs in 2009. More on that for another time. For now, I thought I’d recap the top stories of 2008 according to user traffic and popularity.

10. How Good are the Cal Linebackers?


Back in August, Danzig produced some excellent videos featuring our linebackers’ talents. I thought I’d write something up to go with the videos, like gourmet cheese with a fine wine, pizza and ranch, jalapenos and nachos—you know that sort of thing. In the write up, I asked the question of how deserving our linebackers were of the plethora of preseason hype they were receiving, a legitimate question considering the issues Cal had on defense back in 2007. I took a look at reasons to be scared as well as excited about Cal’s linebackers this year. Needless to say, we all know how our linebackers turned out.

Note: The videos are down, but you can find any of Danzig’s great videos all over the web. Check out one of his channels here.

9. #2 Offseason Story – Nate Longshore and Kevin Riley
The biggest story during the Cal offseason (other than the whole hilarity that was the Kevin Hart recruiting debacle) was who was going to be taking the field on opening day as the starting quarterback. In one corner was the experienced but often maligned incumbent Nate Longshore, and the inexperienced but fan favorite Kevin Riley. Everyone waited for a fierce Spring competition, but the biggest story about this QB controversy (sorry, I know you hate that word Tedford), was how uncontroversial it was…that is until the season actually hit and the team would play musical QB chairs.

8. Maryland Helmet Stickers and Play of the Game
Of all the game recaps this year, strangely enough, the Maryland game appears to have generated the most interest. Maybe it was because nothing gets college football fans on the web more than a frustrating loss. Or maybe it was because fans were wracking their brains to find out who deserved a helmet sticker after a game in which Cal trailed 28-6 going into the fourth quarter. Or maybe it was because of comparative highlights between the shot Jahvid Best took and the one his idol Reggie Bush took in the NFL.

7. NFL Draft Recap Other Cal Players
So apparently no one really cared that Desean Jackson slid from being the first wide receiver taken to being a second round afterthought for the Philadelphia Eagles. What they did care about though, was finding out that Mike Gibson had been taken in the 5th round. Booyahkahsha!


6. Pac-10 Needs Cal to Win on Saturday
In a guest post for the SF Examiner Blog, I listed all the reasons why it was critical for Cal to beat Arizona not only for their own record and goals, but for the conference. At the time, most of the Pac-10 was a murky mess, and it was critical for a Pac-10 team other than USC to rise out from the crowd. In the end, the Bears dropped one in the dessert, and Oregon (who would later lose to Cal) would go on to be that team, finishing in the Top 10 of the Final Polls.


5. New Nyan Boateng Highlight Video
People love them some Boateng. Back in May I posted a highlight video of Cal transfer receiver Nyan Boateng in spring ball, and readers feasted until the video was subsequently removed. My guess is that the Cal athletic department caught wind of the video, and realized it was likely leaked considering the angles at which the practice was filmed. Or Tedford didn’t want the rest of the conference to realize just how badly the secondary was getting burned on some of those plays. Eesh.

4. Desean Jackson NCAA Football 09 PS2 Cover


EA went with a multiple cover approach to this year’s installment in the NCAA Football series, and Cal’s numba one stunna wasted no time breaking through to mainstream attention. DJAX became the first Cal player to grace the cover of a videogame and helped promote the game by whipping fellow cover star Owen Schmidt’s ass in a demo game.

3. Jahvid Best vs. Joe McKnight – Battle of the #1 Number 4s
I had a lot of fun putting this together. In 2007, both USC and Cal recruited a handful of the nation’s top high school runningbacks, two of whom would end up getting playing time as true freshmen for their respective teams. Joe McKnight for the Trojans and Jahvid Best for the Bears. I took a look at how their freshman campaigns went, and what we could expect from the two for the upcoming year. Best might be running away with this one though…

2. New Cal Uniforms
If there’s one thing I’ve come to learn since starting a Cal football blog, is that Cal fans are very much intrigued with anything related to uniforms. When EA released some video footage from their upcoming “NCAA 09,” yours truly took the liberty of snagging a few snapshots of what were some very visibly different looking uniforms. Cal would eventually unveil the new unis that appeared to be Cal’s take on the San Diego Chargers. The worst iteration of these unis would show up in the Maryland game. White on Yellow. Blech.


1. NCAA Football Cover Curse

So this may not have been the best post I’ve done, but it was easily the most read. A quick link on Sports Illustrated, and BAM everyone’s clamoring to see if there is indeed a curse to gracing the cover of the NCAA videogame, as there is with the Madden series. No consensus, but I still thought it was a fun read. We’ll see what happens to DJAX.