The Cougars have been in this position before. They had high hopes entering a game against a powerhouse, they got destroyed, they tried to gather themselves in a winnable game the next week and got blown out.
This was a big game. They had to show that the Stanford game wasn't going to derail the season. They had to show that the road conference win at USC wasn't a fluke. And, most of all, they had to show that they can jump really high in coordination and collide with each other in midair. They did all those things and more.
Unfortunately for me, I was working. I was in the Kibbie Dome in order to see Fresno State schlac the Idaho Vandals. I'll update you on my mental state throughout the game as this article continues.
Without any further adieu, here it is: All the GIF from Saturday's win over Cal in (mostly) chronological order:
Remember the Idaho game a couple of weeks ago? Remember the first play for the offense where Halliday missed a wide open receiver?
Well, it kind of happened again. After getting a turnover deep in their territory, Connor Halliday had an open man down the far sideline and missed him. Sure, he didn't have the 20 yards of separation he had against Idaho, but he had plenty of separation to take it to the house had there been a good throw.
A couple plays later, Halliday hits Gabe Marks down the sideline, who makes an absolutely ridiculous catch.
To finish the drive, another receiver makes another great catch. Here's Vince Mayle taking it to the house to make it 7-0.
Let's take a closer look and see just how close Mayle was to dropping this football.
I'm a big fan of Conan O'Brien. His shows now are great, but his "Late Night" shows I watched growing up were even better. The zaniness and randomness of his humor was just amazing. Why does this anecdote belong in the recap? Because Cal scored a safety against WSU.
That safety reminded me one of one of my favorite Conan bits of all time which happens to be a parody of the Men Without Hats song "The Safety Dance". Don't like the seemingly unconnected nature of that video and a football safety? TOO BAD. This is my weekly GIF recap article. Why don't you just make your own, Mr. Negative?
Anyway, let's get back on track with a Cal player who thought he was a gymnast and was penalized for diving into the endzone a good 40 yards after he knew the play was blown dead.
He didn't even stick the landing. The Russian judge gives it a 3.
Pro tip for the Cal defense: You should probably block Junior Guata in future situations.
In this GIF, Marcus Mason scores a 68-yard touchdown by running a whole lot more than 68 yards.
That led us to half time in Berkeley. At this point in the game, I was pretty miserable. The game in Moscow was already a huge blowout in the 1st quarter, the TV production I was working on was having some pretty major technical issues and I just really wanted to be at home watching the Cougs. The score was 28-0, but it wasn't even that close.
Meanwhile, back in Berkeley...
"I am a bunny wabbit" - Connor Halliday
"I am a professional wrestler performing an elbow drop!" - Vince Mayle
"I would very much like you to not hug me please. Now is not the time for that kind of foolishness" - Isiah Myers.
"I don't want you to run this football so I am going to hit you very hard" - Deone Bucannon
"I would very much like to go home right now, please" - Jeff Collier
On a serious note, congrats to Teondray Caldwell on his first touchdown of the year.
However, Caldwell's touchdown leads me to what has become very prevalent, you might say it's an outbreak, an epidemic or maybe even an epizootic, on this Cougar football team: chest bumps. Here's Caldwell following his TD:
After Vince Mayle's second TD...
...There were more chest bumps.
Then, following the Daquawn Brown interception in the fourth quarter...
...There were even more (also, an embarrassing missed high-five type thing with Cooper).
This isn't a new thing with Cougar football. The chest bumps have been around the program for years. Who doesn't remember this classic from a couple of years ago? Or this one from practice last year? Or this one from seemingly the same practice from last year?
Listen, I don't care what you do after touchdowns, as long as you score touchdowns. Just be careful. I think chest bumps can be dangerous and may result in injury. Here's one from a couple of weeks ago:
I didn't have time to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that coach died as a result of that bump. Please, Cougs... Please practice safe chest bumps.
That will do it for the game. As for me, I had to sit through the rest of the Idaho game. It ended 61-14, and it wasn't even that close. Fresno State dominated every facet of the game. It was long, and it wasn't helped by Paul Petrino. When Idaho got the ball back with 30 seconds left, he ran a two minute drill offense, getting out of bounds on every pass. When his QB was sacked with 5 seconds to go, he let the clock run down to 1 second before using a timeout in order to run one more play from his own 25 yard line (he was sacked again). Troll on Petrino. Troll on...
On top of the production issues, the lack of sleep, the band sitting right in front of me, the seemingly endless length of the game and the overall trollishness of Paul Petrino I had to deal with the nightmares that this guys gave me:
*Shiver*