Wrapping up Cal-Arizona
For the second consecutive trip to Tucson, the Bears let a 10-point halftime lead slip away in the second frame to see Arizona celebrate a victory. Cal coaches and players obviously weren't the least happy after the contest, which was evident by their postgame quotes.
Head coach Jeff Tedford
On difficulties slowing the Arizona offense:
Well they were pretty balanced. I mean they had some big runs. They controlled the line of scrimmage, at least off the edge. You know off tackle they did a nice job of blocking it and the backs really good, he'd hit a crease and he'd run hard and so you have to give them a lot of credit.
On Arizona running backs:
Usually Griggs is the guy. I don't know what was wrong with Grigsby tonight but the other guy did just fine obviously. He's a good player.
On why Arizona was able to have big plays:
They had some good schemes. They hit us a couple times. They hit us with a tight-end. We didn't adjust right to some motion and then the next time we adjusted they hit the other guy going down the crease and Syd took a gamble and went for the ball and the guy caught it, Mike Thomas caught it, and it went for a touchdown. So you have to give them credit, the executed well and we didn't.
On how Cal offense played:
Not very good. We're not consistent enough again on 3rd down. You know our 3rd down percentage is terrible and we're obviously going to have to go back and look and see what's going on. Are we putting the kids in a position to be successful? You know but it comes down to making plays as well. We didn't make enough plays today.
On Arizona's 2nd half adjustments:
They did bring more pressure. They did a good job of mixing it up. The brought pressure, they laid off, they did a lot of different things. They had a good mix.
On 2nd half pressure on offense to score:
I don't know that there's any pressure, no, I don't think that. You need to produce but, you know, nobody was pressing or panicking or anything like that, no. I mean at some point in the game, we got score some points here because they'd scored and we hadn't and we needed to put some points on the board and we were just never able to do it.
On why he made the switch to Riley:
Because we bogged down a bit. I felt like we needed a spark in there. I'm not putting this loss on Nate by any means. He did some good things in the game but we were a little bit stagnant offensively a couple series there where we bogged down and we had the pick for the touchdown and I felt like we needed to get something going and I though maybe Kevin could do that for us.
On whether Longshore lost his confidence:
No, I don't think he lost any confidence. It was just a culmination of things, a few drives in a row. We've got to catch the ball better. We had some dropped passes. You know, it's not one guy, there are a lot of things. It's a team effort. You win as a team and you lose as a team. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this in all phases of the game.
On how Riley played:
He did OK. He's under different circumstance there. You know where they're laying back and they're doing that, but he did alright.
On Jahvid's injury:
Jahvid, I don't know that he re-injured himself but he was sore. I know how tough he is and I asked him if he was hurting and shook his head yes. So I didn't want to put him in a position anymore.
On whether Jahvid's injury was the reason there were fewer runs late in the game:
No. I mean were mixing it up a little bit. We were having some success throwing the football. You've got to mix it up. They had the box stacked, they had a lot of guys in there and so you know we had some stuff to throw the football and made some plays in the passing game, but we just didn't convert on 3rd down.
On Verran Tucker:
I thought Tucker contributed nicely. And got his feet wet in there. I just see him really becoming more a part of what's going on.
On Tucker's added role:
I though Tucker was coming along every week. I think I've said it in practice that he was going to have more of a role, to play more of a role in this game and he did. Now he's becoming comfortable with the offense and he's a talented guy so we will just keep involving him more and more.
On Giorgio Tavecchio:
He did fine. I mean a few field-goals. He tried a 50 yarder and had plenty of leg for it was just off to the left, off to the right a little bit. But for the most part I thought he did OK for his first time kicking field-goals.
Defensive coordinator Bob Gregory
On overall performance:
First of all, I think (Arizona) did a great job. I think our guys played really hard. It came down to making a play. We had a guy right there on the big long pass to the tight end and just couldn't get the bal out. We were close. We just couldn't make the plays and they made the plays today. They did a nice job.
On tackling difficulties:
Well, I first have to credit their back. Their back did a nice job. We teach our guys to open field tackle around the legs and we were there and he kept slipping us and sure we didn't tackle as well as we have been and we need to get better. We haven't seen much of him. He did a nice job. Grigsby has been the guy. But I think since he turned the ball over they took him out. But that kid did a nice job.
On team effort:
I think our guys played really hard. They played their fannies off. I've got to make sure I do a good job of putting our guys in a position, that's the only thing you want to do as a coach, to put your guys in a position to succeed. We played hard enough to win. I'm real proud of our guys. We just got to come up with plays and make sure that we're matched up right across the board.
Quarterback Kevin Riley
On why he was brought into play:
I think he's just trying to get a spark because we didn't have much going on the 2nd half, and I think he was just trying to get everyone to jump and get going. I just didn't get into the zone. We had our chances. I think near the end I started to just trying to, I saw some tall, I saw some match ups, so I just tried to throw a couple jump balls when there was like 1:30 left. I was just trying to get in the zone and it just didn't happen.
On whether he was surprised to play:
It was a surprise. I mean I was ready to play. I prepare every week like I'm going to be ready in case Nate gets hurt or something like this happens. I wasn't completely surprised when he told me to get ready. You know so I just tried to get everyone going, it just didn't work out.
On the difficulty of coming in mid-game:
You don't really think about it like that. You just try to get the team in a position to score. Yeah you come out there a little, you haven't thrown a ball all day, but you know what you're supposed to do so you just got to go out there and executes and on a lot of plays it didn't happen.
On play-calling differences between Riley and Longshore:
You can't really judge this game. I went in there when we needed to throw the ball. It was a little bit like Maryland in the 4th quarter. I think they were hoping to get me to score quick. I think that's what they were looking for. We needed to score fast and I thought I could give us a little jump.
On throwing ball past line of scrimmage:
I knew that because we had no timeouts left so I saw that was going to be like a 6 yard gain. I knew I was close or over. And I knew a penalty would stop the clock. It's only a 2 yard loss. We would have lost 30 seconds more if I kept on running. That's the main reason.
On whether he learned that rule from the 2007 Oregon State game:
I think so. You know the situation, you have no timeouts. You know you can't have the clock be running like that. So I just threw it, got the penalty and got everyone ready to go.
Wide receiver Verran Tucker
On his touchdown catch:
I had to come in and work back out. Somewhere I got pushed out of bounds and worked back out and (Longshore) found me in the back of the end zone near the backside pylon. You know it was a good throw and a good catch. I got forced out of bounds and the referees were discussing it that it was a force out so I was eligible to still catch the touchdown pass.
On having a breakout game:
Through the bye week and this week coming up I've been having a really good practice and the coaches have been putting me in certain situations and giving me the ball. I just came out here with the mindset to just go out there and give it my all.
On 2nd half offensive struggles:
We weren't doing some of the things we were doing in the first half to get the lead. We kind of got away from our game plan. It's just the whole team. It wasn't the defense or the offense, we just had come together as a unit and just try to put points on the board and we didn't get it done tonight.
On two long passes that didn't get to the end zone:
I think it was kind of my fault, I should have kept my legs pumping. I didn't know how close or how far the defender was on me. I was just making sure I looked the ball in and catching it first and then thinking about running. You know we always as receivers think score. It was kind of hard but eventually I got a touchdown today so I pretty happy with how the game went for me.
On the team being disappointed:
We're disappointed in ourselves. Some of the things we did during the game were kind of our fault, not so much what Arizona was doing. But you know we can't sit here and dwell on this loss. We got a game next Saturday. So we're going to put this behind us after tomorrow when we watch film to get better and be looking forward to next Saturday.