It's Time For Kevin Riley To Step Up For The Bears

The fortunes of Cal's 2010 football season ride on Senior QB, Kevin Riley.  Head Coach Jeff Tedford has named Riley the starting QB, as we approach Cal's first game on Sept. 4 against UC Davis.  Riley's tenure as a Cal QB has been filled with some tremendous games and some stinkers.  Unfortunately, the stinkers typically have occured against top Pac-10 opponents, such as USC and Oregon.  Riley has been a model of inconsistency throughout his career. 

As the most experienced QB in the Pac-10, it is up to Riley to lead a young & largely inexperienced Bear offense.  Riley must play with confidence & solid execution for the Bears to be an upper echelon Pac-10 team.  In 2009, Riley completed only 54.7% of his passes, throwing for 18 TD's, with 8 interceptions.  To Riley's defense, there were many games where his receivers routinely dropped several passes.  However, Riley also made far too many throws that were way off target, giving his receivers no chance to make a play.  Another glaring problem is the sacks.  Riley took 30 sacks last year, which is far too many.  There were 3 main problems which led to the high sack total.  First was an injury plagued offensive line, the second was poor play calling that forced Riley to wait too long for his receivers to break open & the third issue was that Riley did not feel pressure well & simply held the ball too long.

The Cal offense in 2010 has the potential to be good. However, they are very thin in most areas & can ill afford any of their starters going down with injury. Shane Vereen is a top flight RB, but behind him are unproven backs with very little college experience.  Jr. Marvin Jones & Sr. Jeremy Ross lead the receiving corps.  Outside of these two, the other receivers are young and unproven.  The WR with the most upside is Freshman Keenan Allen, who could be a major contributor this year.  One positive coming out of the 2009 injury plagued year on the O-Line is that many underclassmen got significant playing time & should now be ready to come together & be a strong point of this offense.  The bottom line, however, is that there needs to be a leader to step forward & guide the Cal offense.  Kevin Riley must be that guy & he also must stay healthy for the team to have any success this season.  If Riley plays well & develops into the kind of player Tedford is counting on, then Cal could be a contender in the Pac-10.  If Riley does not show the kind of improvement needed from him this year, Cal is destined to be a second tier team in the league.