Cal Football, Championship Windows, And The NFC Championship

Winning a championship in sports isoften about opportunity. Getting hot at the right time, favorable playoff match-ups, avoiding key injuries: all of these are at best mostly luck.

Sometimes, teams make their ownluck. The 49ers, by winning 13 games, secured a first-round bye and home fieldadvantage against the Saints, had done exactly this. The Giants’ victory overthe Packers ensured that home-field would extend another week.

Just a week later, however, theseason came to an abrupt end, in one of the the worst ways possible.Ironically, both Harbaughs fell victim to poor special teams plays that shouldhave been easily converted (or in the 49ers case, a play that should have goneoff without incident). The Giants have a good QB and a defense that hasimproved dramatically over the second half of the season. If New York beats NewEngland in two weeks, the 49ers can probably say that they were the 2nd-bestteam in the playoffs. This, of course, is small comfort to Niners fans, and inmany ways makes the loss worse.

But although the game Sunday was thehigh-water mark of the last decade of 49ers football, there’s little reason tothink that the team will not be successful in the future. Patrick Willis willbe dominant for years to come. NaVorro Bowman will be 24 at the start of nextseason, and of course Aldon Smith, although already a dominant pass-rusher, isonly a rookie. Chris Culliver will no doubt improve, and of course the 49ersplayed without Josh Morgan, and (fatefully) Ted Ginn.

In other words, the Niners will beback (if not in the NFC Championship, at least the playoffs as divisionwinners), and will probably be better than this year’s team. This doesn’t meanthat the loss doesn’t sting (it does, a lot), and Alex Smith might regress nextseason, but there seems to be hope at last.

For this football fan, at least, a49ers loss, even one as crushing as this, is not nearly as bad as some of theother losses Bay Area teams have suffered over the past few decades.

Football, is, and will probablyalways be, my favorite sport. Yet the Giants World Series win is my favoritemoment, even over Steve Young’s triumph over the Chargers or Montana and Rice’scrushing defeat of the Broncos. It’s not just because the win was historic, oreven that it was the first in my (and many people’s fathers’) lifetime. It wasbecause I felt (probably without merit) that this would be the last time inyears that the Giants would get that chance. If they couldn’t capitalize ontheir best chance since the nightmare of 2002, when would they?  In retrospect, this is why the Raiders’ lossin the Super Bowl was arguably worse than the Tuck Rule game, and the A’s lossin Game 3 of the 2001 ALDS was so painful. The A’s losses, at least, aremitigated by the fact that the team was so good in the late 80’s (although ofcourse the 1989 win was marred by the earthquake).

On the loss pain scale, nothing cancompare to the pain inflicted on Cal fans in various forms since the 2004season, precisely because they haven’t, for various reasons, reached theirultimate goal for longer than any other Bay Area team.

Winning 7 to 10 games every year wasunthinkable during the dark days of Holmoe, but current Cal fans see stagnationwhen Tedford’s teams have failed to win even decent bowl games in the past fewseasons. There is no doubt that the 2004 USC and 2006 Arizona games (as well asthe 2007 Oregon State game) have created lasting impressions on Cal fans whowatched them.

But Cal’s next window is opening.With two new assistant coaches, a refurbished stadium and the SAHPC, it wouldprobably take quite a poor season to blunt the momentum that the program isbuilding.

In some ways, it is good that theGiants won the championship without the polarizing Bonds, and were able tocelebrate with a quirky cast of mostly likeable characters. Tosh Lupoi’sdeparture has guaranteed that the incoming class of players are committed toTedford, the new coaches, and most importantly, the school itself. It iscertain that, even if the class largely falls apart, that Cal will net one oftheir biggest quarterback recruits in recent history, and will probably securetheir highest-rated WR since DeSean Jackson to pair with a growing stable ofexcellent defensive players.

Is Cal, like the 2009 and 2010 49ers,unexpectedly close to a very successful season? It’s impossible to say. Butlike as the 49ers and Giants have demonstrated, a strong defense can easily bethe foundation of a successful team. As long as Cal can keep winning (perhapsupping their win total to 8 or 9 games a season), the window will remain open.Great college players only stay 4 years at the most, but replacing doesn’trequire high draft picks, either. Cal the school will continue to sell itself,and the footballprogram can too if it can achieve consistently good results onthe field. If a 7-win season can net a good (potentially great) class, whatcould a good season with a marquee win or two bring?

Even the best players can fail inbig moments, and college players are even more susceptible than those in theNFL. The nature of the polls and BCS makes near-perfection mandatory andincreases fans’ expectations of the players, sometimes to unfair levels..   

 It is certain that when Cal does eventuallymake the Rose Bowl (whether it is 2015 or 2035), thousands of Bay Area fanswill be able to check off what will probably be one of the last items on theirsports bucket list. As Giants fans know, the longer the wait, the sweeter thevictory and the stronger the memories. And if, in fact, some of that Rose Bowlteam does indeed come from this class, it would be even sweeter.

When a future Cal player dropped acritical catch or threw an interception, fans would no longer have to worryabout whether or not it was the play that kept the Rose Bowl drought alive.Still, as the Holmoe years proved, Strawberry Canyon is still StrawberryCanyon, whether the team inside is Rose Bowl-bound or trying to avoid a winlessseason.