If you don't like football, don't read this post.

For those of you that missed the Insight Bowl, it was one of the greatest football games ever played by the team from the University of California at Berkeley, also known around these parts as Cal. Cal had its first bowl victory in some time by defeating Virginia Tech in a good old shootout, 52 - 49. The winning points were put on the board by our not-so-clutch-glad-he's-a-senior kicker when he made the best kick of his life from 35 yards out.

Here's my expert analysis of the game:

Offense
The offense was awesome. Most football games I watch, there's at least a few play call where I think 'What the crap $%#@$!!' but not in this game. Coach Tedford's play calling was great. Anytime you put up 52 points, the offense is doing a lot of things right. Big props to all the recievers, especially Chase Lyman who stepped up to cover for the injuried Geoff McArthur. Aaron Rodgers made great reads and amazing throws. We didn't run a lot, but the way Rodgers was playing, we didn't have to. It was almost like my EA NCAA College Football 2004 game.

Defense
Not so good, but they did enough. The defense was responsible for 42 of the 49 points allowed. At least in the second half, Cal finally made some stops on 3rd down. We blitzed way too much and never got to the QB, allowing all those bombs downfield to single covered recievers. The first guy never tackled VT stud RB Kevin Jones. Like I said, made just enough plays in the second half to keep momentum for our team. Nothing is more important than Big Brother Mo in college football.

Special teams
Better than Virginia Tech, ha ha ha. In addition to making the game-winning FG, Tyler Fredickson also converted all 7 PAT's. Any Cal fan should know never to take that extra point for granted. VT's kickers were just sad. They had to bring in the backup kicker because the starter sucked so much. Then the backup messed up too, ha ha. They missed 3 FG's and kicked 3 kickoffs out of bounds. As Madden would say, 'How you kick a kickoff out of bounds just baffles me,' and it happened 3 times!! Cal did allow a punt to be returned for a score late in the game, but the ensuing kickoff was one of the three that went out of bounds, giving us great field position for the game winning drive. To win because of the other team's kicking unit is a nice change.


Additional football note: I got this book from Jason. It's a textbook for football plays. I'm studying so I can get a job on my favorite ESPN show, NFL Matchup. If only organic chemistry were so fun to learn.