Nate Longshore's Career Decimated By Injuries

Nate Longshore came in for Cal his freshman year looking with high expectations. He was named the starter and looked good going 8-for-11 for 131 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception and a long of 44 yards in his first game and that was just before half time against Sacramento State. Longshore was hit late after a throw and broke his fibula which required surgery.

His Sophomore year he played in every game and the Bears went 10-3 overall while 7-2 in the Pac-10. The Bears went to the Holiday Bowl with a healthy Nate Longshore leading the way. He threw for over 3000 yards had 24 touchdowns to 13 interceptions a long of 62 yards and was sacked only 12 times. Longshore was able to spread the ball around he had 4 teammates with over 30 catches.

Desean Jackson lead the team with 59 catches for 1060 yards and 9 touchdowns. Lavelle Hawkins the second leading receiver had 46 catches for 705 yards and 5 touchdowns. Robert Jordan had 46 catches for 571 yards and 4 touchdowns. Marshawn Lynch had 34 catches 328 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Speaking of Lynch, the running game that year was impressive. Lynch running for 1356 yards rushing 11 touchdowns with a 6.1 yards per carry. His backup Justin Forsett went for 626 yards 4 touchdowns with a 5.3 yards per carry. In total the Bears running game went for 1982 yards 15 touchdowns and 5.7 yards per carry. On a sidenote this was Lynch's senior year and he played on two severely sprained ankles and still went for way over 1000 yards.

Nate Longshore's Junior year was filled with promise after his Sophomore year and he didn't disappoint. The Bears started out 5-0 and were ranked No. 2 and almost made it to being the No. 1 team in the country.

Then the season just went down the crapper.

Nate Longshore suffered an injured ankle against Oregon—on what was almost a late hit.

He was diagnosed with a high ankle sprain and later on it was confirmed that there were chipped bones in his ankle. Longshore tried playing on the ankle and suffered miserable in the fourth quarter of games. He did miss the Oregon State game where the Bears suffered their first loss of the season.

Part of it was the inexperience of Kevin Riley who was not used to being in a late game situation like that. He tried making a play at the end of the game when he should have just thrown the ball away. Tedford did admit to the mistake.

Back came Nate Longshore after that game. Where he began to ultimately struggle due to the injury. Most Bears fans knew there was something wrong with Longshore. He wasn't able to step into throws, and made too many mistakes in the fourth quarter. The capper was his first game back against UCLA when the Bears were driving to take a lead late in the game when Longshore threw the game ending interception to Alterraun Verner for a 76-yard touchdown.

That is when the season sank for the Bears. Costly turnovers became the norm for the Bears. They barely beat Washington State. Lost to Washington for the first time in 6 years. Lost to Stanford. They did end up winning their bowl game even after falling well behind and Kevin Riley came in to lead the Bears to the victory.

Longshore and Riley were involved in a battle this year for the starting position. It originally went to Riley and he was rather ineffective in the first few games. That brought back Longshore who played well against Arizona State. Then struggled against Arizona, though not all of it was his fault. He made some good throws but there were key drops by the Bears receivers.

After the Arizona game Riley was put back into start against UCLA. The defense came through for Cal with a pair of interception returns. Riley did a decent job and kept on starting.

Riley started the game against Oregon but was knocked out after a concussion towards the end of the first quarter. Nate Longshore stepped up with a huge touchdown pass to Nyan Boateng towards the end of the second quarter after a turnover by Oregon. It was a rather sloppy game due to the weather conditions.

Longshore got the start against USC. He had a couple of key drops as well by receivers and again was replaced by Riley. Riley didn't do much either. Now the problem is lack of consistency. Tedford needs to make a decision on who's going to start and just say that's it. This is my starter for the rest of the year if there's an injury then put the other back in.

There's been a lot of criticism of Longshore by Bears fans. Some of it is deserved and some of it should be directed at Jeff Teford for allowing Longshore to play with his injury. Longshore proves that he is tough but I believe that part of his issues now are the results of him playing of that injury.

Due to his injury situation and the costly turnovers have effected him mentally. Physically he's probably as healthy as he ever has been since the injury against Oregon. It's whether he can actually get enough confidence in himself and his receivers who've been proned to dropping passes this year.

Last year he wouldn't have that problem he had 3 extremely talented receivers in Lavelle Hawkins, Robert Jordan, and of course Desean Jackson. The Bears no longer have a go to receiver they can go to in tough situations and it has cost the Bears tremendously this year. Verran Turner has come on recently but he's also had some key drops.

The icing on the cake on the inexperience of the wideouts for the Bears. I believe it was Jeremy Ross who was not back far enough and was called for being downfield because he wasn't covered up at the line of scrimmage, due to this penalty it negated a touchdown pass by Kevin Riley to Shane Vareen that would have tied the game up.