Please give The Backup Punter a little leeway. After coming down
with a fever over the weekend, my head is pounding on a level
somewhere between Steve Young following an Aeneus Williams
corner-blitz and Trent Green after a cut-block on a 300-pound
lineman.
Please give The Backup Punter a little leeway. After coming down with a fever over the weekend, my head is pounding on a level somewhere between Steve Young following an Aeneus Williams corner-blitz and Trent Green after a cut-block on a 300-pound lineman.
Before we get to concussed and convalescent quarterbacks though, lets figure out why Cal isn’t the No. 1 team in college football right now.
Like most people watching the Bears play Oregon State Saturday night, the final play of the game left me with an evolution of emotions. My first reaction was shock that the team threw the game away (or to be more precise, didn’t throw the ball away). Then my feelings turned to disgust as I tried to imagine how Cal’s quarterback Kevin Riley could be so stupid to forget that he needed to get rid of the ball if no one was open. (Instead, he decided to scramble and drag out the play when time and field position dictated a quick incomplete pass to stop the clock and kick the game-tying field goal for overtime.) By the time I saw Riley being consoled by teammates on the sideline though, I felt sick to my stomach for the poor kid. He made a mistake that cost his team a chance to be No.1 in the nation, but he was a backup who had never dealt with so much pressure.
The question that needs to be asked is: Should coach Jeff Tedford have just kicked the field goal instead of going for one last shot at the end zone?
If the Beavers had gotten good pressure and sacked Riley in the first place, time most likely would have expired and Tedford would be the goat rather than the kid. However, the coach wasn’t taking any of the blame when he said, “A lot of times you second guess yourself, but I don’t second guess this one. We just didn’t make the play.”
Tedford later said, “We didn’t lose the game because of that play … There were a lot of plays.”
True, the team didn’t lose the game on that play. Instead, the team blew any chance it had to tie the game on that play. And for a coach not to second guess himself on that call, well, that will probably lead to more blown games.
Lazarus returns!
Vinny Testaverde shook off the formaldehyde and put together an incredible game on Sunday to beat the Arizona Cardinals 25-10.
He completed 20 of 33 passes for 206 yards and by throwing a 65-yard bomb to Steve Smith, Testaverde was able to extend his streak to 21 straight seasons with a touchdown pass. He is the third oldest quarterback to start a game behind the legends that are Steve DeBerg and Warren Moon.
For a little perspective, Testaverde has thrown touchdowns for a longer period of time in the NFL than Houston Texans’ defensive lineman Amobi Okoye has been alive. At 20 years and just over four months, Okoye is probably too young to even know who “Big Vinny” is.
As for Testaverde, you know you’ve been around a while when your rookie contract was written in stone.
Josh Koehn is the sports editor for the Gilroy Dispatch. He can be reached at (408) 842-1694 or at jkoehn@
svnewspapers.com
