Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:48 pm EDT
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California 35, Minnesota 21. It would be an insult to continue insisting Jahvid Best is an "under-the-radar" Heisman candidate, since his name can barely come up without someone asking how he'll stack up against the the holy trinity of clean-cut, aw-shucks quarterbacks. Everybody loves the guy for what he is -- the premiere home-run threat in the country -- but in this relatively pass-happy age, Best plays the wrong position for the wrong team, which only the right performance in the right game (against USC on Oct. 3) can overcome in terms of hardware.
But his school-record-tying five touchdown runs today -- two in the first half of the first quarter and two more after Minnesota rallied to tie at 21-21 in the fourth -- on 150 total yards only confirmed his status as the one skill player in whose hands you want the ball more than anyone else's, under pretty much any circumstances. Best ran the gamut today, first on spectacular runs (two 25-plus-yard touchdowns, the first of which should be quickly posterized on highlight reels; see above), as a receiver and decoy who can line up all over the field and finally as a workhorse who ran eight times -- all for short gains -- with a pair of touchdowns on the Bears' icing drives in the fourth. In terms of awards, that may not get him very far; it wasn't even as dominating a performance as I predicted for him this morning.
In fact, Cal fans may have left feeling better about Kevin Riley's solid, mistake-free afternoon at quarterback, the 'X-factor' when it comes to their higher Pac-10 and national ambitions. For Best, most of the afternoon was more like just another day at the office, the implications of which hopefully weren't lost on the rare national audience.
Dr. Saturday is a college football blog edited by Matt Hinton. Email him tips and feedback.

Posted Feb 3 2010
RivalsMinute: Bama wins the title
Posted Feb 3 2010
Posted Feb 3 2010
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knucklevision
24. Posted by knucklevision Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:05 am EDT
jahvid's the B-O-M-B! i just hope he stays healthy... and remember the numbers he put up last year were despite a midseason elbow dislocation, but i guess he was healthy by the time he ran for 300 yds in just 2 1/2 in the final regular season game against UW...
as a Cal fan, i have to say i was impressed with minnesota's receiver- decker, he's a baller. tip o' the hat.
NEXT!!!
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I'll say here exactly what I said after last year's stunning loss at Oregon State: USC can't keep getting passes for games like this. Three Four years in a row it's dropped out of the top two or three in the polls with a shocking, inexcusable loss to a vastly inferior outfit, with the exact same set of problems: Inconsistency at quarterback, a sketchy, makeshift running game and no go-to playmakers anywhere on an offense ostensibly overflowing with them.
Unlike last year, however, I'm no longer willing to concede that one-loss SC is certain to rebound and wind up running roughshod over the rest of the Pac-10, anyway. This bunch had a laundry list of obvious issues coming in, especially at quarterback, and it's not going to solve them by getting Matt Barkley back next week from his sore shoulder. These are not fluky problems: The Trojans are not good right now on offense; they're disconcertingly young on defense; and they're banged up everywhere.
Most distressingly, the killer instinct that's been so apparent for years in big games was completely absent again today when the spotlight was off: The Trojans moved the ball just fine, especially on the ground, but failed to score at all on four separate drives that crossed the Husky 35-yard line and had to settle for field goals on two others. For the second week in a row, the offense mounted one (1) sustained touchdown drive. Only this one was against the reigning laughingstock of the West Coast, not a perennial top-10 power, and Washington was able to take command with momentum in its grasp in a way Ohio State almost refused to.
So the Huskies, clearly, are a very, very different team under former SC offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian than under Tyrone Willingham, w
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however, the outcome when usc visits cal this season will depend on who wins the bidding war for the crooked pac 10 refs and tech reviewers.
in the washington game, the sports bookies won the bidding war for the crooked refs because there was such a ton of money to be made both for the bookies at their houses and for anyone who chose washington.
by the time the cal game comes along, the sports bookies may no find the potential profits enticing enough to put in any bid at all and the usc alums may just win the ref bidding war and the cal game.
oregon has been known to buy pac 10 refs and tech reviewers.
after all, look at the game which caused the very public war between the pac 1o and big 12 conferences.
pac 10 commissioner hansen and jim muldoon, the pac 10 conference official then in charge of pac 10 football officiating had to apologize in writing, admit that dishonest calls changed the outcome of that 2006 oregon/oklahoma game, and swear that they would severely punish everry pac 1o ref and tech reviewer involved in that game.
the head ref at that 2006 game was dave cutaia. he is now the pac 10 conference official in charge of football reffing and reports directly to muldoon at the pac 10, not to new pac 10 commissioner larry scott, who seems like an honest fellow.
we, along with every honest school in the pac 10, including cal, are watching larry scott very closely. we already know about muldoon and cutaia and their crooked reffing and tech reviewing business at the pac 10 conference.
GO CAL BEARS AND BEST!!!
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