Bowl Preview: Emerald Bowl

Emerald Bowl
AT&T Park, San Francisco
California vs. Miami, Fla.
Date: Dec. 27
Time: 8 p.m.
TV: ESPN
Line: Cal -8

About Miami: Watch Miami run. Fast, Miami, fast! Watch Miami stretch. Stretch, Miami, stretch! Watch Miami warm up. Run, Miami, Run! Watch Miami play football. Oooh. Never mind, Miami. Go home, Miami, go home.

Intangibles:
The Rock: +5
Michael Irvin: -6
Glenn Sharp pass interference in 2002: +50
Bernie Kosar wearing #20: +4

About Cal: Good running back. Rest of the team. Eh. Does it make Jeff Tedford a good coach that he has hardly any talent and has a good team or does it make him a poor coach that he doesn’t have any talent?

Intangibles:
Berkeley: +3
Oakland: -4
USC “challenger” in Pac 10: -6
Jeff Tedford QB genius: -5

Impact Player: Miami QB Jacory Harris gets his first shot at running the show as Robert Marve won’t be there for the Canes.

Bowl slogan: “Cramming two mediocre football teams into a baseball field ill-suited for football since 2002!”

Little known fact: Miami defensive coordinator is Bill Young. That SOB. One word, Bill – Biakabutuka.

Watchability (1-5): 4

The Pick: Cal 31, Miami 21

Early Games

What the??
- Cal's 35-27 loss to Maryland once again shows that it's very difficult for West teams to go East. The Terps had been awful the first two weeks and dominated this game until a late Cal run. Of course, they can also thank Jeff Tedford for a terrible decision. After scoring to make it a 15-point game with 7 minutes left, Tedford opted for the onside kick. Maryland recovered and scored less than a minute later. Cal still rallied but ran out of time.

- The Iowa-Iowa State game should be discontinued due to ugliness. (I mean ugly football, not ugly fan bases.)

- What?!?!? South Carolina plays during the day?!?!

- While other OSU fans get mad at Kirk Herbstreit for being what they consider a traitor and all other fans get mad at Herbie for being an OSU homer, I get mad for another reason. This is Herbie's offensive analysis of every game: "They must throw the ball to open up the running game."
Every. single. game. he says this. Or, if things are going well for a team, it's because they passed to set up the run. Sometimes listening to Herbstreit's analysis is like reading "Football for Dummies."

- Somehow, and I'm not sure how, being in a Big Ten market I get stuck with the Penn State-Syracuse massacre instead of Purdue-Oregon.

- Javon Ringer of MSU is a damn good running back. But they still have massive QB problems.