No Ducking History: Bears Must Re-Define Football Image

Jeremiah Masoli and Jordan Holmes stare back at you.

Eyes peering out from behind forest green facemasks.

Shoulders feathered, unis appropriately swooshed—both ready to play football on a field that disappears into the ether.

This is the 2009 Sports Illustrated College Football Preview’s cover—two Oregon Ducks (ranked No. 11) representing SI’s annual preseason Top-20 poll.

In the last 20 seasons, Oregon is one of just 10 schools in the country to have made at least 16 bowl appearances.

The Ducks have six bowl appearances since 2002, and are 56-32 over the past seven seasons...with more national attention paid to their 384 uniform combinations than their 2-4 bowl game record.

SI tabs them as one of three resurgent programs, and goes as far as to call them a “BCS spoiler and national contender.”

What they leave out is the fact that Oregon loses three starters and three back-ups on the offensive line, returns two overweight backs, won't have Mike Bellotti, and has 12 first-year starters.

Good luck.

Since 2002, and the arrival of Golden Bears head coach Jeff Tedford, the Cal football team is 59-30—with as many bowl appearances as Oregon (six), and more than twice as many wins (five) in them.

The Bears boast seven straight winning seasons, a shared Pac-10 Championship, and one very clear, and daunting, image problem.

The Bears are ranked No. 21 in the same SI special issue, and were left off of the front cover—which lists No. 1 Florida to No. 20 North Carolina.

They return eight starters on defense, including lockdown corner Syd’Quan Thompson, recently named to the Chuck Bednarik Award watch list.

They retain the nation’s leading returning rusher in Heisman hopeful Jahvid Best, return four-fifths of an offensive line that helped the Cal backfield to 2,421 rushing yards in 2008, and bring back one hell of a coach in Jeff Tedford.

But what has kept them out of the SI Top-20, and the Sporting News Top-20 (which lists Oregon at No. 7, Cal at No. 21), is the one piece of unsightly baggage they’d rather not return—over 100 years of Cal football ineptitude.

Jeff Tedford has racked up five bowl wins in his seven seasons in the Strawberry Canyon. Prior to his arrival, the Cal football program had won six bowl games since 1886.

Tedford’s seven-straight winning seasons come on the heels of eight straight without a winning record—including an embarrassing 1-11 effort the year prior to his arrival.

Cal has been ranked in the final AP poll on three separate occasions (2004-2006) since Tedford was named head coach in 2002. Prior to his arrival, the Bears had appeared in the final Top-25 just twice since 1952.

Jeff Tedford is likely two successful seasons away from becoming the winningest Cal coach of all-time. At 59 wins, Tedford is just eight wins behind Cal coaching legend Lynn “Pappy” Waldorf, and 15 behind the winningest coach in Cal history, Andy Smith, who went 74-16-7 from 1916-1925.

But in order to unload the Bears' century of shoddiness, and guarantee his team some SI-cover love, the Bears must give football fans program-defining memories.

More moments like 2003's triple-OT win against USC; more game-saving goal-line tackles in Eugene; more 71-yard double passes for touchdowns on the first play from scrimmage.

Through seven years, there have been as many memorable Cal slips as successes—the loss to Oregon State with a No. 2 national ranking on the line, the beat down in Knoxville, the Holiday Bowl flop against Texas Tech following a Rose Bowl snub.

For the Bears and Tedford to shed a history of poor perceptions it will take a signature win.

At Autzen in September...

Against Pete Carroll in October...

Or in Pasadena come January—in what would be Cal’s first Rose Bowl in 50 years.

Follow Grant Marek on Twitter: @Grant_Marek