While I think all the pieces are in place for Cal to run the table, win the Pac-10 and if they stay undefeated, have a shot at the BCS, not to mention put their running back up for the Heisman - it all comes down to whether Tedford can keep his crew together.

Tedford is a great coach, but he gets sloppy the closer they get to the top.

Oregon right now and they gave up the TD and 2-pt conversion early. USC next week.

Cal trailing the ducks 25-3... rugged first half.

As much as I have been pulling for Cal this year (except for last week ), living in the Bay, I had a feeling this might happen. They played well enough to win last week against MN, but they didn't really impress like a top-five or even top-ten team should. That said, there are a lot of factors to consider... MN did play really well in what was their first big game in the new stadium. Not to mention, playing at Oregon isn't exactly easy... I'm actually surprised Cal was favored, or at least favored by an entire TD. I picked Oregon to cover at the top of my college "confidence" pool this week.

Not that I don't like Cal or think they can't go far this year... Like I said, I've been pulling for them, and think they have a VERY good shot at making some noise in the Pac-10 this year. I just think everybody (nationally) jumped on the bandwagon a little bit too quickly, considering they hadn't really played anybody yet.

Who knows, though, they may bounce back and still have a shot at the Rose Bowl... Obviously, next week is huge for them, in terms of defining what this season is all about. I still like their chances against USC in Berkeley... the Bears are just one of those teams that is CLOSE to being what we could call an elite team, but the main thing holding them back is not being able to win big games on the road. They finish @Stanford and @Washington, so they've obviously got some more tough road tests later in the season, to prove that they're geting closer to taking that next step.

Boy... at some point, you have to wonder if a loss this bad will have a devastating effect on next week's game, as well. I said I liked their chances next week, but you've got to think that, sooner or later, the players will start to question if they're good enough to compete with the Trojans. It would be one thing if they looked somewhat competitive today, and just got beat badly because of a couple of big mistakes, but they're being made to look pretty silly by Oregon right now. Hopefully, they can recover from this, because I DO think they can still make some noise (assuming they can put today behind them).

Has a team ranked that high ever been so soundly thrashed by an unranked opponent before?

I guess in all the years college football polls have been around something close must have happened but I sure don't remember it.

Oregon laid an egg in Boise and got out of the gates slowly but this team is a top 15 team and will be ranked from here on out

Autzen is one of the toughest places to win at - but Cal was a hugh disappointment.

It will be interesting to see how they rebound vs USC

"Autzen is one of the toughest places to win at" is something you might say after a highly ranked team gets knocked off, I'll grant you that... but by 40 pts... and you're supposed to be #6 in the country? I don't care how good Oregon is. That's ridiculous.

In defense of Cal you only need to go back a couple of years to see how a team can rebound from such a ridiculous loss. Granted LSU (#2) was a much higher ranked team than Oregon, however Cal's 40 point loss reminds me somewhat of Virginia Tech's (#9) 48-7 loss in Tiger Stadium. Not saying Cal will respond the same as Virginia Tech, however the Hokies went on to win 10 out of their next 11 games to actually earn consideration for the BCS NC game and did play in the BCS Orange Bowl.

Good news for Cal is the chance for early redemption comes this weekend.

That's not a really good comparison as the ACC was absolutely putrid that season (as if it's gotten much better, but that's another story). They were never taken seriously again the rest of the season and if they got any consideration at all for the NC game, all someone had to say was "48-7" and that pretty much trumped anything.

The day the voters forgive a 40 pt loss and allow such a team to play for all the marbles is the day this whole thing will finally blow up.

You just need to go back to last year. Because Texas Tech was so badly beaten by OU, people argued to remove them from the equation in terms of the 3 way tie and hand the Big 12 South to Texas. The irony, of course, was that they were essentially trying to penalize OU for beating them so badly. Had OU simply won by 10 or something like that, then people would have still regarded Tech as a viable team and the three way tie thing wouldn't have been such a hard sell.

Not saying it was serious consideration, but there was some. And what hurt Tech in their argument was that the team who beat them by 40 was also one of the teams being considered.

I get your point here but there is one gigantic hole that you mentioned yourself. I was slamming Cal for having been dismantled by an unranked team. Va Tech got beat by the #2 team in the country. Not just apples to oranges but more like apples to cabbage.

Get you point as well, but you do know Oregon was ranked in the preseason and are ranked today. So maybe more like apples to tomatoes

They're only ranked again because they beat the "# 6 team in the country" so I'll give you apples to tomatoes but only if we're talking golden delicious because I'm not willing to get so close as to have them be the same color.