Cal’s got either controversy or problem at quarterback

<p>BERKELEY</p><p>I am not a Nate Longshore fan. I admit that.</p><p>It’s nothing personal because he seems like a nice young man, polite, cheerful, upbeat. He is an undergraduate the University of California can be proud of. But I don’t like him as a quarterback.</p><p>He is too programmed, too much like a machine, has no intuition or feel or imagination for quarterbacking. He is Kerry Collins instead of Steve Young and that means he does well when everything is perfect, when things go right and he can line up a receiver and throw with no one making his life miserable by chasing him out of the pocket. He is a serviceable college quarterback, although his coach Jeff Tedford has not believed in him.</p><p>On Saturday, Longshore got his first start of the season, the job previously having gone to Kevin Riley because, although Tedford said they were equal, Riley allegedly made more plays with his legs. Which means, unlike Longshore, he can run faster than a refrigerator. That was the company line at the beginning of the season. But despite a 3-1 record, Riley got benched for Saturday’s Arizona State game — Cal 24, ASU 14 — because, and here’s more company line, he was getting off to slow starts. On the radio, they were saying Riley has not been as accurate as the Bears need.</p><p>All that led to the Resurrection of Longshore. Although he did not make anyone swoon and he certainly didn’t redefine quarterbacking for the 21st century, he played a neat, efficient game.</p><p>With him, you constantly think, “Oh, he’s going to throw an interception.” Or, “Oh, what bonehead mistake that was.”</p><p>He really didn’t do any of that except, of course, for the one interception he threw, a ball right to a defender, which is his trademark. But that was his only slip. He threw for three touchdowns and sometimes he escaped pressure and completed passes and that was good to see.</p><p>So, it was strange when Tedford did not wax poetic about him after the game. When one reporter asked, “How did Nate do?” you expected Tedford to gush or at least give his guy a boost. But this is what Tedford said:</p><p>“Nate played fine. He threw three touchdown passes. I thought he managed the offense pretty well overall. He could have made a couple of other throws but for the most part I thought he did a pretty good job.”</p><p>What does “pretty good” mean? It doesn’t mean excellent or very good. It’s something less than good. If you were assigning letter grades, I believe pretty good is “C” or at best “C-plus.”</p><p>So, Tedford gave his starting quarterback, his winning starting quarterback, some kind of “C.” He limited Longshore to six passes in the second half. Not exactly a vote of confidence.</p><p>Someone asked Tedford if Longshore will start the next game.</p><p>“Probably,” Tedford said. “We’ll talk about it. Probably.”</p><p>No part of that answer was a ringing endorsement and that parting “probably” was what you call lukewarm.</p><p>After that, one reporter asked if Cal has a quarterback controversy on its hands, and Tedford seemed to rock in his seat.</p><p>“You guys create the controversy,” he shot back.</p><p>He wasn’t exactly answering the question and he was being defensive and blaming the media for something or other.</p><p>“I don’t create the controversy,” he said.</p><p>Well, at the risk of seeming controversial and at the risk of being one of “you guys,” let me say when a coach yanks one quarterback and replaces him with another but refuses to really praise the second guy or even say he’ll start the next game, you begin to think quarterback controversy.</p><p>Of course after that, Tedford said he’d watch the tape. I wish after just one game just one coach would refrain from saying he’ll watch the tape. And after he watches the tape, he’s “not guaranteeing that Nate will start.”</p><p>Then Tedford made the key statement, call it the thematic statement of the day.</p><p>“It may take both those guys for us to get where we need to go, so I don’t want to create a controversy. Both those guys support each other. They’re completely fine. There is no animosity there.”</p><p>In other words, it takes two to tango.</p><p>Longshore walked out of the locker room shortly afterward and said there is no controversy and he’s a team player and it’s good to have competition at every position and the ultimate goal is for the team to win and he supports that.</p><p>I’m not saying he’s been brainwashed. I’m saying he said all the right things. And I believe him. On the team there is no QB controversy. But it’s still strange; strange that after five games Tedford still is playing two quarterbacks. You might conclude neither is good enough to be the starter.</p><p>I bet that’s what Tedford thinks.</p><p>For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.</p>