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		Offense wants Longshore; Defense wants Reilly By Michael Duca August 18, 2008

	BERKELEY--Sportstalk's Jeremy Kahn will probably not be involved in the opener between the Michigan State Wolverines and Cal Bears at Cal on August 30th. As you all know Jeremy is a graduate of Cal State Northridge but likes to remind everyone that his roots are the size of that enormous Birch tree grove that are in Michigan. And yet somehow J Kahn is third most active Stanford apologist, so don't look for J Kahn doing a whole lot with the Michigan State-Cal game but what will happen is this is a game a little bit like the Tennessee game that's going to set the tone this season for both of these teams. This should be a game pretty much among equals and the fact that Michigan State has to travel and play in a somewhat hostile environment that should give Cal a little bit of an edge at least on paper. Of course they don't play the games on paper and they don't even play the games on astro turf they play the games on real grass. What it comes down to there is really and truly is it's going to come down to their ability to stop the run. The Bears have switched to a three-four defense and in the Bears case they have a lot of line backers and not so many guys who can give the pass rush the edge so the Bears want to change the look up front. What’s really going to have to happen with a three-four defense is an outstanding nose guard and the Bears may not have that this year with their ability to stop the run is going to be absolutely critical. It was the Bears downfall in games like Oregon State last year and say what you will about the quarterbacks controversies or wide receivers who quit on their team or about injuries, whatever the bottom line is the inability to stop the run in that Oregon State game basically. Quarterback controversy update: If your looking for a change here in this space you won't find it. If you talk to members of the offense at Cal they all want to see Nate Longshore as the starting quarterback. If you talk to members of the defense at Cal they almost to a man would like to see Kevin Reilly as the starting quarterback. You might say the wide receivers should know who they want and the running backs too. On the other hand the defenders probably know whose tougher to defend against. How Cal shapes up opening the season: The Bears have a lot of question marks the Bears will relying on a very, very young receiving corp. Assuming that he can remain running back healthy Javid Best continues the tradition of a 1000 yard rushers. He's an extremely exciting player and he's going to be one of those guys who brings fans to their feet very frequently. Best has DeSean Jackson kind of moves and breakaway ability but he's going to get a lot more touches because you can hand the ball to him rather than throw it to him. At the same time football depends more on defense than anything else and this is a team that is going to live and die with it's success. It remains to be seen how well they can do that. The pre season polls are pretty accurate and Cal is probably the fourth best team in the Pac Ten and they probably won't have too much trouble getting a lot of the folks to go the bowl game that they will wind up in because it'll be played over in San Francisco. Michael Duca covers Cal football and will be doing preview analysis and Morris Phillips will be doing game day coverage for Sportstalk Radio.