The Bear Will Not Quit

Vacation

2011-09-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

On sabbatical until further notice. Go Bears.

Big Game preview

2010-11-19T13:29:00.001-08:00

I would really rather this game to be about the players. Really, I would. But it is literally impossible not to be distracted by, even consumed with, the ridiculousness of Jim Harbaugh going into the Big Game. His absurdness, his hyperbole, his abnormally large head - he obfuscates all. He is like a huge dirigible bobbing around obnoxiously, eclipsing everything important about this game.

Let's start with the gratuitous pole-smoking about Cal's defense at the presser. To be sure, Cal fans are no stranger to poor-mouthing by their coaches now that Montgomery coaches at Cal. I mean, let's be real here, Monty loves to obliterate his own team at the press conference. He'll talk his team down so badly that by the time he's done with his comments, you get the feeling he's worked himself into yanking scholarships.

But Harbs takes it to another level. Honestly, I don't think I've ever heard a college coach say he was "preparing for an NFL defense" in reference to an opponent. I'd get it if it were a joke about playing a crooked program that pays players (he's actually a big enough prick to say something like that if he were playing, say, some of those old Miami teams). But nope, Harbs was actually talking about how good Cal's defense looked, and comparing them to an NFL defense. No joke, no sarcasm, no qualifiers. Just straight talk from the televangelist of college coaches.

And that's really the point about Harbaugh - his exaggerations are hilarious, awkward, and frankly embarrassing all at the same time, because he actually says this outlandish stuff in the realist mood, as an assertion of fact.

But there’s another thing I’ve noticed about him. He always looks like he’s about one or two clicks away from either bursting out laughing, or alternatively, reaching across the table and tearing a reporter’s eyes out. There’s something frighteningly controlled about the guy.

I could go on with other examples – his flowery man-love superlatives about Marecic and Luck, his use the term “strong-man” as an adjective...and there we are behind the dirigible again. Like I said last year, you guys can keep that clown down on the farm as long as you like.

As for the game, to me the it comes down to one group of matchups: the Cal defensive front vs. the Stanford OL. This is the unit that really makes Stanford tick. Yes Luck is a great QB, but the Stanford OL gives him the short yardage 2d and 3rd downs by run blocking well, the time to throw, and the confidence when he gets in the red zone. This group has been impressive for two years now. Cal was able to match the Stanford OL last year, and in the end, it put pressure on Luck to make plays at critical points in the game.

The question is whether Cal can repeat. If they can, I think they win, especially at home. If you can't run the ball on the road and steady the ship, it's hard to win. And as much visibility as Mohamed and Conte got last week, the DL really dismantled the Ore attack from the inside out, leaving Cal’s speed guys to clean up the mess. Cal has the horses to do the same to Stanford, but I think they need to use 4 DL at least some of the time to be more stout up the middle, with Jordan in a hybrid role.

One last observation. I think Luck is a pretty good passer. Not Brent Musberger salivation-good, just pretty good. But he’s a really underrated runner. Aside from not giving him too much time, if there’s one thing about him that should scare this defense into putting a spy on him, it’s his running ability. If you send the blitz and he gets away, he will use his legs to chew up a huge black hole of yards vacated by the blitz.

The video below of him vs. SC seems like a typical performance. Some pretty good passes, but some great rollouts, bootlegs, and scrambles. A little preview of what to expect tomorrow.

Oregon recap

2010-11-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

If Charles Dickens were a Cal fan, he'd say it was a great game and an awful game. Even the haters had to come away from this game with a modicum of relief, if not optimism. Cal did all the things most people thought they wouldn't, and couldn't - they stopped the big play, they gave Mansion time to throw, they ran the ball with some consistency, and most importantly, they showed grit. They made the #1 team in the country look ordinary, not with trick plays, smoke and mirrors, or luck, but just good old fashioned hickory ass-whipping.

But they also colossally choked on the biggest stage, and those chokes were the difference in the outcome. Even the most delusional leg tinglers have to be in agony replaying the gaffes that cost this team what would have perhaps been the signature win of the Tedford era, if not the last couple decades since the Play. From the fumble, to the drops, to the missed FG, to the emasculating 9 minute drive to close it out, this game had some raw, un-hideable ugliness to it.

With that, some observations:

DEFENSE

Finally, Pendergast did two things I have been waiting for:

(1) scheme around this group's speed, and
(2) drop the nonperforming 4th OLB spot.

It's still a player's game, and Pendergast finally found the right personnel group and highlighted their skill set well. He stayed with a 5th DB and got 8 fast players on the field behind the DL, turned them loose in man, and eliminated the read element. And while it is insane that it took this long to get the poor 4th OLB spot off the field, better late than never. Cal doesn't have a legit OLB opposite Kendricks who can stop the run, and it killed them in the losses this year against teams that attacked the edge. Let's hope we don't see it vs. Stanford, or it will be a blood-letting.

It also cannot be overstated the importance of having Mohamed healthy again for the first time since really the beginning of the season. He and Conte were everywhere and it made a difference. Mohamed was a shell of himself vs. Nevada, SC and OSU and got totally swallowed up in the wash in those games.

The DL also made the rest of the defense look good, by doing nothing more than being bigger, faster and stronger, and playing unafraid. Oregon's blocking schemes are about getting the defensive front moving and spread out, to create huge lanes and mismatches. When the DL smacks the OL around, it neutralizes the whole "space" element of Kelly's offense. Not too revolutionary, but still requires talent up front, which Cal happens to have. Again, coaches are important, but talent wins the day in the key matchups.

Finally, they played with heart. I still think this group is a bit flighty, but when they suck it up and lock in, they are impressive to watch. Glad that one showed up this weekend.

I actually attribute a lot of the flat play in the losses to how the early part of the game goes, particularly how the offense responds early. This defense clearly feeds off the performance of both offenses early in the game. While that is no excuse for a defense to fold early, Cal wouldn't be the first team to have that problem.

Which brings me to the offense...

OFFENSE

Tedford better address the stench and rot coming from the offense this offseason with antiseptic and napalm, because it needs to be cleaned out and reborn. First off, the drops are no longer a fluke. They are a fixture of this offense, regardless of who's doing the throwing and who's doing the catching. And they have been for three years now. While clearly, there is a lack of natural receiver talent in terms of hands, there is also an undeniably consistent lack of the same skill across the corps, which indicates poor skills coaching. Daft needs a hard look.

Second, during the entire second half, the ball should have been alternating Vereen, Allen, Ross, with as little intermediary touching as possible, over and over again. I cannot understand how Allen and Ross had so few touches. Those guys are playmakers, but they need to get into the flow of the game. Ross' best plays in particular come after he's had a few touches. Ludwig made some great play calls that were blown up by poor execution, but he undoubtedly left yards and points on the field by leaving his playmakers in dry dock at the critical moments of the game.

TAVECCHIO

I said before the SC game that because Tavecchio was not reliable, Tedford should tell the team all week they plan on going for it in the red zone. That would give everyone confidence that they had 4 downs to get their 10, and just needed to chip away slowly. As it turned out, that was never an issue vs. SC.

But it was on Saturday. I don't blame Tavecchio for this loss, for several reasons. First off, the most costly mistakes of this game, bar none, were Vereen's fumble and Hill's blown coverage on Maehl the very next play. Two total breakdowns that turned the scoreboard around.

Second, Tedford and Ludwig KNEW Tavecchio was not reliable. Yes it was a chip shot, and yes he should have made it, but he hasn't been making kicks. At some point, it's no longer a high percentage play. It's a crapshoot. And once it's a crapshoot, why go for 3 only? Go for 6, either by going for it, or by faking the FG. This game was the perfect game to fake a FG.

Finally, this game should never have come down to the kicker. Cal had so many chances to complete passes and rip off big gains, only to badly blow an assignment. I guess my point is this - having a kicker with the shanks is about like having no kicker at all. So stop using him, and tell the offense to operate as if they are going to have to get 6 if they want points. It's amazing what genuine need will do for motivation.

OFFENSIVE LINE

It's hard to believe a single guard makes a difference, but Summers Gavin does. Schwenke is an upgrade over Cheadle on the right side, and Summers Gavin is an upgrade over Schwenke on the left. Plus, now Guarnero's poor blocking is book-ended by good blocking. I get that MSG needed to get healthy, but it is ridiculous it took this long to put him in at guard. But again, better late than never. I expect him to do some damage this weekend.

The OL deserves a tip of the cap. They put on a couple impressive drives running the football. And it is amazing this group only gave up one sack. Next year, with Galas at C, Rigsbee at LT, and Schwartz at RT (his natural position), plus MSG and Schwenke, this OL should actually be pretty good.

I guess my final thought is this. I never thought Oregon was as unstoppable as their stats have indicated. While I love what Chip Kelly has done to exploit some inefficiencies in the college game, I am not enamored with that offense. Option offenses always get stopped eventually. Good for the Ducks for getting their business handled, but for me, this game was ultimately about a team that is no more talented than Cal coming to Memorial and stealing a win, which really should not have happened. And it happened because the Cal offense - its head coach's supposed forte - wet itself on national TV.

This is all by way of saying what I said before: Tedford needs to take the offense back, train up his QBs the old way, and demand perfection from the group. Or else he needs to find an offensive guru and let him install his own system.

That's all for now. I'll try to get some thoughts about Stanford up later in the week.

OSU Thoughts

2010-11-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

Again, not a lot of time this week, so I'll keep it short.

1. This team, particularly the defense, is mentally weak. And they were last year too.

I watched USC scrap and claw against Ore this weekend, even after Oregon broke their back with big play after big play. And I saw the Cal defense play that way vs. Arizona this year.

In contrast, that same Cal defense curled fetal and played scared less than halfway into the first quarter of the USC and OSU games this year, and the USC and Ore games last year.

When this defense gets popped in the mouth early, they wilt too easily, and they don't recover until the game is out of reach.

I keep saying that it is about leaders on the team, and it is to a large extent. I see no one on the field or sidelines firing anyone up. I see no James Betheas out there with this group.

But that's also a personal pride thing, down to each player, and I don't see that from all the players. I see it from a few, but not from most of them. I see guys not fighting through blocks, standing flat-footed, playing scared, guessing tentatively -- all signs they've given up, even if only a little. To me that is just sad. Why are you playing this game, that you sacrifice so much to play, if you are going to go out there and mail it in?

2. Tedford needs to re-insert himself into the offense, or scrap it (next season) and go with a new one. Tedford’s offenses used to perform with laser precision, few mistakes, and guys were putting a hat on a hat on every play. And when it was run that way, it worked well. In contrast, versus OSU, there were unblocked defenders everywhere, the OL was missing blocks and committing penalties (Marshall needs a serious look by Tedford), and play after play was executed without heart or confidence.

Tedford was right to try and delegate back in 2008. But the experiment has obviously failed. I am not a huge Ludwig fan, but I think he is a serviceable assistant OC if Tedford's offense stays in place. Same for Cignetti.

Otherwise, Tedford needs to pick a different offense and let someone else run with it. Because while both Cignetti and Ludwig are/were decent game planners and play callers, the offenses have slipped significantly in on-field precision and performance since 2008 started, something that never used to be a problem. That suggests his offense does not function adequately when someone else is running it.

3. Panda-Gas is not impressing. I still think this group is mentally weak (remember they looked just about this bad under Gregory last year), but there are still some schematic things that look off about this defense, especially at LB, that suggest Pendergast is not putting these players in the best spots. I think Pendergast needs to figure out this defense’s identity and go with it. Either pressure all game and take your chances, or go with 2 DL and keep everything in front of you. Because he seems to choose wrong when he switches up game plans week to week.

Personally, I don’t think this defensive personnel group has the instincts to play read-and-react. They need to be pressuring all game long, and the corners and safeties need to know that they are going to be tested. The team has speed on defense, and Pendergast needs to use it. What's the worst that can happen -- we get down 42-0 at half? At least they’ll go out swinging.

And at some point, allowing a game to get out of reach in the first quarter multiple times, is a reflection of the DC.

4. It's time to bench some starters, even some "untouchables." When guys don't show up or play like chipmunks more than just occasionally, even after getting blown out repeatedly and embarrassed on film, the only way to light a fire under them is to bench them. And it's time to bench some guys.

And again, what's the worst that can happen if you play the backups?

With that, my changes this week are:

Rigsbee at LT, Schwartz to RT.
Galas at center.
MSG at RG.
Mullins at ILB (with Mohamed rotating).
Wilkerson at OLB (replacing Price/Browner permanently)
Hagan as nickel on every third down, dropping either a LB or DL off.

It's march or die in the desert.

OSU quick preview

2010-10-29T16:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry, gotta keep it short this week. First, re ASU, I’ll just say this. Cal played great, but how many people expected a home loss to ASU before the season started? Let’s be real here. The whipping looked great, and the team deserves a lot of credit for coming out fired up, especially the defense. But they should have won that game, period.

Which is what frustrates me about Oregon State the past three years. Cal should be beating this team. I am more sick of losing to OSU than any other team. I am sick of the “no team (other than USC and OSU) has beaten Cal at home for six years” statistic, or whatever it is.

I get that they are well coached. But when Cal has beaten them, they have whipped them, and when OSU has won, it has been mostly ugly on both sides. Cal should be beating this team more often than not, not the other way around. And the team and the coaches have to be feeling the same way.

Interestingly, it seems like every year Cal loses to Oregon State, Cal has some kind of injury issue that it is dealing with, and Oregon State catches them at just the right time. For once, the tables finally appear to be turned. Oregon State is a little banged up, and Cal is pretty healthy.

Whether Cal can take advantage is another story, especially given the fact that Riley has had two weeks to prepare and typically outcoaches Tedford’s staff every year anyway, and the forecast is calling for rain. But I still think it is refreshing to finally go into the OSU game without wondering how a backup is going to perform at a key position.

For me, this game is all about the Cal defense. Force third and long, prevent long conversions, and turn up the pressure on a young QB and take away his one advantage, which is a big arm. If Cal does that, and doesn’t level the playing field with special teams gaffes and turnovers, they should win. I even think this in spite of what we can all assume will be an ugly day offensively for Cal against Banker’s defense, unless they are somehow able to beat OSU’s corners deep, which has only happened twice in 7 years.

But most of all, beyond the win, I just want to see Oregon St. looked flustered against Cal for once. Cal destroyed them in 2004 and 2006, and it is borderline ridiculous that Cal has lost to these guys three years in a row. Yes, the personnel are different, but Cal should be beating these guys more than 2 out of 7 times. Let’s hope they sack up and end the streak.

Thoughts on USC

2010-10-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

I have to say, as bad as that loss was - and that was the worst loss Cal has suffered under Tedford's watch - the collective emotional aftermath for Cal nation has progressed like a decomposing corpse in the inverse, from solid waste into the effervescence of hilarity. A sublimation from the agonizing to the absurd. Somewhere in the ether, Camus is biting his bottom lip and fighting back tears of adoration.

Look, the game was the worst thing I have seen in a Cal uniform in a long, long time. Easily Tedford's biggest gaffe as a head coach. From the game plan, to the game management, to the execution, to (worst of all) the lack of fire, this was the football equivalent of Brundle-Fly fusing with telepod. And after showing such promise liquefying Stathis' limbs and looking like he was going to close the deal just moments before -- you know, like beating UCLA (wait, was that actually promising? was anything this season actually all that much to get excited about?) -- it just makes the failure all the more epic.

But it's still just a bad loss. Say it ten times fast: "It's just a bad loss. It's just a bad loss." And yes, there have been a few more than anyone would like the past few years. And yes, Tedford's conference record has been middling the past three years. Let's all say it together: the program's on-field record has been middle-of-the-conference since 2007, and that is not acceptable.

But even at all that, we are still simply talking about a team looking horrifically awful in a game, and with some admittedly disturbing frequency the past few years.

Is that acceptable. No, absolutely, positively, not. Is it cause for binge drinking, a cold shower, some self therapy that it's ok to forget about football for 48 hours? Yes. Is it even cause for suggesting that Tedford's seat is getting warm. Yes.

But is it cause for seppuku, for tearing up season tickets, for coveting douche bags like Harbaugh? If your answer is anything other than an unmitigated "No," please watch the following:

With all that, I will say this: what happened Saturday is not going to be fixed by watching tape, practicing harder, or hiring different position coaches alone. Something has to change, something big enough that it needs to wait until after the season is over. This team lacked too many things in too many phases of the game for some minor tweaking to be sufficient.

Without going off on a tangent about what those things are, because there is so much football left to be played still this season, right now, I'll just say this: I think at a minimum, the entire offensive scheme and/or recruiting philosophy may need a serious look. It's not that the offense is to blame chiefly - Cal's defense is probably more to blame in many of its blowouts - but in college, there is far more room to overcome personnel deficiencies through offensive scheme than there is on defense.

In its raw form, with the right personnel, Tedford's offense is very effective. But like any offense, without the right personnel, it struggles. And over time, teams figure out how to defend it. When those two things converge, like they have since Longshore's ankle collapsed, it ain't pretty. Further, the latter tends to exacerbate the former. The more familiar teams get with your offense, the more talent you need to stay ahead of them.

What is becoming apparent is that Tedford is struggling to find the right players (and assistants) to make the system hum the way it's supposed to, starting with the QB. And while it would be easy to say he is not doing an adequate job of adapting the system to the players he has (which he is not), I must confess, I am not sure you can do that with this offense once you cross a certain threshold of number of ill-suited players (and assistants) for your system. I don't think you can dumb this offense down, or frankenstein it with prosthetic appendages, and still maintain an advantage over the opponent. I could waste pages explaining why, and I may in a later post, but bottom line, this offense needs to be what it is and spread its wings, or cease to be.

I am not ready to throw in the towel and say the right personnel groupings are not out there somewhere within reach. But right now, they're not on the field, and they're not in the starting lineup. Some of them are, but not all of them. Food for thought.

Back to the game we just watched. Some things I noticed:

1. Lack of Focus. Like most of Tedford's lopsided losses, the team was simply not ready to match the other team's intensity and focus in the first half, and it cost them the game. USC combined an intensity that the Cal players clearly were not expecting, with a very good game plan and execution, some of which Cal was also clearly not expecting. The latter I can excuse, because frankly, USC did some things that were downright impressive schematically on both sides of the ball. The former is inexcusable.

Of all the things I saw Saturday, the only one that really befuddled me was how mentally unprepared this team looked. They were unprepared to match USC's intensity, unprepared to make plays when their number was called, and unprepared to pick themselves up when they got down a few scores and stop the snowball. I am still at a loss to understand that. Playing SC in the coliseum is the apex of Pac 10 football, arguably all of college football. How do you come out flat and uninspired?

I said last year after the Washington game that the Washington loss strongly suggested to me that the team lacked the right kind of leaders. The juniors and seniors on this team who have played SC two or three times, and been to the coliseum before, needed to set the tone for the team all week. Instead, a lot of the team's elder statesmen looked the most out of synch. I won't name names, but watch the tape. Cal will never beat SC with that kind of leadership void, period.

So first and foremost, coming out flat is on the players, particularly the team leaders, but also every starter. You don't need your coach to hold your hand and get you up for a game all week long. Please. This is what you practice, lift, condition, and play for all your life, from pop warner to college game day. The chance to bring the lumber against the best players. And for most of the players, it will be the highest level of competition they ever encounter on a football field the rest of their lives. If you can't get the fire burning when you put on your helmet and take the field against USC, then it's time to pick another extracurricular activity in college.

However, I also think the lack of mental preparedness falls on the coaches. For the third year in a row, the team just looked flat out of the gate and then tight and uncomfortable the rest of the way. Yes, a lot of that is talent disparity which breeds lack of confidence (which I'll get to later). But at some point, the pattern is indicative of the constant, and while some of the players have changed, the results have not.

At a minimum, something is not right with this coaching staff in the area of mental preparation, and hasn't been for three years. I can't put my finger on it, but I think Tedford knows it. That is why, I suspect, he is trying all of these techniques to change up the team's mental focus. His teams are so well-coached and disciplined in so many respects, but at times it is like they are not expecting the other team to actually try and disrupt what they are doing, almost as if they cavalierly expect the schemes to work like they do on the chalkboard.

While I think Tedford recognizes this, he and his staff need to do something else to address it, because whatever they are doing is not working. One thing I'd suggest is more positional competition during the season. If a guy is going to play like a chipmunk out there, I don't care if he's all conference or a three-year starter. He ain't playing like it, so why treat him like he is? Let him watch his backup do his job.

For example, let Marvin Jones sit out the rest of the game after dropping two balls, especially after dropping the one at Arizona. Bench Mitchell Schwartz if he gets pimp slapped by an injured pass rusher. At least for a few series, maybe a quarter or two. Then let them think about how that felt all next week and see if they don't come out a bit more jacked up for the next opponent.

2. Defensive ineptitude. As bad as the offense was, and it was horrible, the defense pretty much put the game out of reach. To give up 28 points in just over one quarter with almost no resistance -- that is the equivalent of taking pretty much 75% of the offensive game plan you worked on all week and setting fire to it.

By early in the second quarter, the offense was relegated to being pass heavy, against a defense that is salivating to come after the QB. That's bad any time, but against probably the most athletic defense in the country, along with Florida and Alabama, on the road no less, it is the death knell. Cal probably lost this game the moment the players took the field, but between the sidelines, Cal lost this game on defense in the first quarter and a half. They managed to keep USC out of the endzone on just one drive in the first half. That is a joke.

It was a combination of bad scheme, bad execution, and a talented QB playing with ridiculous confidence. I thought Cal brought too little pressure, and tried to play a physically superior offense straight up, both up front and in the secondary. Cal doesn't have the players for that, which people seem to forget. What they have is speed and they did not use it.

As for execution, though the secondary had its awful moments, and the DL too, the linebackers just got punked all day. USC ran at Keith Browner time and again, and every time, he got sucked into the wash. Mohamed was a shadow of himself, clearly not healed 100% and whiffing on reads (probably because of the injury). DJ Holt was better than Mohamed, but he too got gobbled up way too often by OL and FBs. Kendricks was the only one who played decent, although USC rarely ran to his side, by design I am sure.

Finally, Barkley was nails. The guy had all day to throw, receivers whom he trusted, and made some tremendous passes that most QBs could not make. It is not an excuse, but it certainly eliminated a lot of the secondary's margin for error.

Which is precisely why the defensive game plan was so ill-suited for this opponent. Cal should have flooded against the run and blitzed the heck of Barkley early, to compensate for Cal's athletic disadvantage (you're kidding yourself if you think USC has somehow fallen to Cal's level athletically). Instead, Panda-gas channeled Bob Gregory and let Barkley file his nails and have a career day back there.

3. Offensive line ineptitude. The offensive line looked like deer in headlights, and that is on the coaches, particularly Marshall. How they could look so ill-prepared to counter SC's pressure is mind-boggling. SC got a sack with a three man rush in one of the first series - and it was a quick one, not Riley holding the ball too long. In the first series, the OL should not look that flat. How does that happen?

While I think the defense put the game out of reach, the OL sunk the offense. This unit has been embarrassed by USC for three years running now. At some point, something has got to change. I do think if there was ever a time to get Galas and MSG in there as starters for a full game, now is the time. I am not saying who needs to sit, but those two need to be playing. Cal needed some bulldogs in there, not a bunch of bunnies.

They also need more talent. I keep saying it, but Cal is never going to win the conference or beat SC without some all conference players on the OL and at QB. And Cal hasn't had that for a while.

4. Offensive offense. While the defense gave the game away, the fact that Cal was so pathetically unable to manufacture so much as a drive for much of the first half, is sad. It's like nails on a chalkboard watching an offense lurch like that. Yes, SC was daring Cal to throw, and yes the dropped balls were killers that if caught might have opened up the run, but as I've said before, you have to be able to run against 8 man fronts if you want to win this conference.

While the passing game is bad, offense still starts with the run. Cal's run game is broken, and has been since Dunbar took over. A lot of it is OL personnel, but at some point, you have to acknowledge that you don't have the horses to run what you want to run. Yes, at times, this year, the offense has generated some rushing momentum, but it still cannot run for short yardage and cannot run against loaded fronts. And passing the ball is not the answer. That is not enough of a counter unless your passing game, including protection, is elite, which Cal's is not, and which is harder to come by.

Cal needs to find a run game that can manufacture yardage against unbalanced defenses. Some things to consider: adding some option element, going with more no-huddle, actually using the wildcat to both fool people and speed up the rush - combining misdirection with a quick read, and using more overloaded goal line-type sets. All of the above allow less athletic teams to move the ball on the ground. Something has to change, because the slow developing power runs and zone runs are not cutting it against the better defenses anymore.

Though Cal should never give up 21 points in the first quarter, it can't go into games with the notion that if the defense gives up a few big plays, the offense is incapable of slowing things down and chewing up some yardage.

5. Drops. Dropped balls just confirm that this team lacks focus. It's not skill, and it's not practice. It's all upstairs. Good receivers want the ball in big games, and don't care if they take a hit. They need to be throwing to Keenan Allen 8-10 times a game, mostly short and medium range, like OSU has done with James Rodgers. He is the only receiver that looks like he wants the ball when it's coming out hot.

6. Playing the reserves. Regarding the lack of substitutions, I'll just say this. I think you play your first teamers coming out of the locker room, but if you're still down four TDs in the fourth quarter, then you put in your reserves. In games like that, the locker room talk at half-time is about getting some respect, not laying down, and executing the game plan you came in there with. You have to let the starters take the field and try to realize that, or it's just empty talk.

But then, once the fourth quarter rolls around, I think you have to get your backups valuable road experience against good athletes like SC has. Tedford almost seemed like he did not want even to give the slightest semblance of a concession that his team had lost, similar to when he called the timeouts at the end of the game in 2008, even though it was well out of reach. While I get the never-surrender mentality, especially because losing to SC clearly eats at him, at some point, you need to remember that playing reserves in a blowout is more productive for the team than showing the players that you will never give up, like Cool Hand Luke flailing helplessly at Dragline after the fight was over.

7. USC is still USC. I said before the game that it's a player's game, but if all else is equal, the team with the mental edge wins. And if that edge is big enough, even a less talented team can win. We see that all the time when SC goes out and loses to teams like Washington.

But if an athletically superior team takes the field, at home, and plays with its hair on fire, it will win almost every time. And that is what happened Saturday. And based on what I saw, no matter what Cal did, I don't think they had much of a chance. I did not think that going in, but seeing how jacked USC was, I have a hard time seeing Cal get the W in that game.

Cal is not in the same class as USC talent-wise, and has never been. Ask yourself how many Cal players would start or see significant playing time for USC right now: Allen, Jordan, maybe Coleman, and maybe Vereen (at CB if at all, certainly not RB).

As for citing to SC losing to Washington and Stanford, both of whom have inferior athletes, I don't put too much stock in that as meaning that Cal should beat USC too. I watched those games. SC looked much better, and much more fired up, against Cal from the very first snap than they did in either of those two games. If SC played like that against Stanford and Washington, it is hard to imagine them losing either of those games.

This is not to diminish the puss way Cal lost, or all of the things that looked very wrong about this team on Saturday. But I think people need to remember that this Cal team still has a ways to go to overcome a few years of weak recruiting at many positions.

As a final thought, I'll just say that this team is better than they played Saturday. They ran into as motivated a USC team as I've seen in a while (Kiffin is a dildo, but gotta hand it to him getting his guys up for this game). And they took every bad mistake you can make and combined them into one game, in all three phases. They will not face a defense like that the rest of the way, and they will not face a QB like that the rest of the way.

What they will continue to face is their own mercurial inability to lock in and suck it up each week, like they're playing the game of their life. That will be this team's and the coaches' biggest challenge the rest of this year: finding the players who can play with laserlike focus every week, and riding those guys to wins.

USC Preview

2010-10-14T10:07:00.001-07:00

Now that Pete Carroll is gone, there will be no more Tedford-Carroll matchups. For a couple seasons, this was the premier matchup in the conference. Before moving on to this week's game, let's take a little trip down memory lane and pay tribute:

2002 - Kareem Kelly's phantom catch, "No, please, after you, Mr. McCullough"
2003 - "@#*% LA. Let's take their @#*%'n hearts."
2004 - 29-35 (82.9%), 267 yds, 1 TD, 1st and Goal from the 9...
2005 - 9-19, 98 yards, 0 TD, 4 INT
2006 - Patrick Turner's phantom catch, Steve Smith robs Hughes blind, USC boosters...I mean the refs...take away a fumble recovery and a 70-yard run by Lynch
2007 - 102 kickoff return yards, "No, please, after you, Mr. Washington," Longshore hooks up with Terrell Thomas
2008 - ineligible man downfield, 27 yards rushing, 138 yards passing, 0 TDs
2009 - Riley hooks up with Mays, and Bob Ueckers a wide open Vereen on fake substitution play, 0 TDs

It's Shawshank Redemption, Tedford style.

[Cue Morgan Freeman voice]

"Losses to Pete Carroll are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized."

"Sh*t. I could never get like that."

"Oh yeah? Say that when you been here as long as Tedford has."

Coach Tedford, Carroll's gone. Now's your chance to be Red, not Brooks. Andy's waiting for you on a beach down in Mexico. The only thing standing in your way is this this guy:

I'll take that matchup, personally. Not saying Cal is going to win, because we all know that with SC's athletes, and the coliseum gremlins, winning down there is going to be a bitch. But on paper, this coaching matchup goes to Tedford and Pendergast.

I actually think the coaching matchup is being a bit underrated here. Not so much x's and o's, but more about attitude, focus, and confidence. Like I always say, it's a player's game. The players making plays when it counts is what wins games. But where both teams have good athletes, and both are well-coached and prepared, coaching can make a difference in terms of mentality, and that can be enough for the win on any game day.

For the most part, Carroll had the edge over Tedford in this regard. I always thought Tedford and his staff had better game plans vs. Carroll. But in the end, Carroll's players always seemed poised to make the big plays late in the game, and Tedford's players always seemed to misstep when it counted. I do think SC's depth and better athletes across the board, especially at QB, probably made as much of a difference as anything else.

But despite that discrepancy, Cal was still always right there (for which Tedford gets a lot of credit, for the record). And yet, every year, when the game was right there for the taking, somehow, Carroll's players always came up roses, and Tedford's came up short. I chalk that up to mindset.

But I think those days are over now. I always felt Tedford was sort of in Belotti's head a bit after having been on the same staff, but being a bit sharper offensive strategist than Belotti (which Belotti knew). In a different way, I could see the same sort of thing with Kiffin. Kiffin basically carried Tedford's clipboard when he coached at Fresno State. And while little Lane has certainly made his own way (for better or worse), psychologically, I have to think Tedford still feels like he's forgotten more football than Kiffin's ever known.

That kind of thing rubs off on players. They see it in body language, in the coaching staff's tone of voice all week in meetings, in the way they carry themselves during practice. Tedford and his team had that calm confidence against USC in 2002 through 2004, and it showed on the field. After that, Carroll's teams seemed looser, and Tedford's seemed tighter. I'll never forget a close-up in Cal's offensive huddle in 2008, and almost to a man, every Cal player's eyes were Clockwork Orange-wide open. The team looked rattled and uncomfortable, a far cry from the business-like demeanor of the 2004 team.

In contrast, I expect a pretty confident team to take the field this Saturday. And while I think SC is going to be fired up, I think they are going to be tight. There is no question that team knows it is on a thin precipice. Everyone wants to believe the sanctions don't matter, and losing Carroll doesn't matter. And as long as they're winning, they can go on believing it. But lose three in a row and the dynasty is officially over. I can't imagine that isn't going to cause some tightness at some point in the game if it's close.

As for the x's and o's, nothing really different than every year. It's two pro-style teams trying to establish the run, limit mistakes, and get after the passer. USC has always managed to make plays on both sides of the ball when it counted, and more recently get pressure on the passer and shut down Cal's run game. Same game plan this week.

The past two years, Cal has exposed USC's secondary, but has been unable to capitalize on open receivers, usually due to poor passes or drops. This too, about which much ink has been spilled, will again be a factor this week. Monte has no problem leaving man coverage, maybe 1 safety extremely deep, and giving up a gaping hole in the middle of the field. The key is getting the ball in the air before the receiver gets there. Riley waits too long, which is why he gets his receivers decapitated against SC.

But unlike a lot of folks, I think Cal will be able to run on these guys. Cal has really started to get comfortable with the zone scheme and Vereen is getting a good feel for finding cutback lanes. This is a good scheme to counter SC's speed on defense because it will get defenders out of their gaps, get the ball in Vereen's hands more quickly, and create space for Vereen.

I also think many are making a bit too much about the necessity of passing the ball. Yes you have to stay balanced, but a running team only needs to pass the ball enough to keep the defense honest. With all the screens and quick passes Ludwig has been calling, there is no reason Riley has to win this game with his arm. He just has to make USC pay when the WRs beat the coverage, something he has not been able to do against them.

Cal additionally has to face the fact that Tavecchio may not be as reliable as they'd like. Not sure if it's just a fluke or a bad case of the shanks. But you can't go into the Coliseum unsure about your kicking game. In response, if I'm Tedford, I tell my team this week that we expect TDs in the redzone this week, and we plan to go for it on fourth down inside the 20, not because we don't trust Tavechhio, but because we think we can run it down their throats.

That means every player knows that inside the 20, they have four chances to punch it in. Even if they kick occasionally, that will loosen up the playcalling, take the heat off Riley, and let everyone know it's not about amazing play calling or perfectly choreographed reverses or trick plays - just three yard gain, after three yard gain, after three yard gain.

And that brings me back to mentality. This team needs to regain its toughness. Cal has the athletes and the game plan to beat SC. They just need the stones to go along with it and they'll win. Beating SC in 2003, and then taking them to the brink in 2004, is really what put Tedford and Cal on the map. And they did it by kicking them in the teeth, and combining it with smooth execution. This game is a golden opportunity to get back on the horse and give SC a gentle shove off the edge of the cliff they've been standing on ever since they hired Kiffin.

UCLA Preview

2010-10-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

Pistol

From what I saw against Nevada, it appeared to me that Pendergast was trying to both vary, and disguise, the defensive assignments. Against a more advanced option attack, particularly one with an experienced QB, this is a good way to keep the offensive coordinator and QB guessing a bit. Otherwise, once they figure out how you're defending, they'll do two things to beat you: (1) attack your weakest player(s), and (2) change up the reads. Paul Johnson probably does this better than anyone.

Taking this approach is certainly consistent with Pendergast's statements about forcing the offense's hand and not just sitting back and reacting. And there is something to be said for not just going into a game and waiting to see what the offense does and try to be perfect at reacting to it.

The problem with this approach is that it increases the possibility of individual players blowing their assignments. This is exacerbated by (1) it's the first time you've faced the offense, (2) you have a short week to prepare, (3) your players aren't fluent in the defensive scheme yet, and (4) you lack the necessary speed or instinct at certain positions.

So what do I expect to see this week? First, I would expect to see guys being a bit less quick to bite on fakes. Recall I mentioned before the Nevada game that one of the best defensive keys to read when defending Nevada’s (or any) option are the pulling linemen, as they very often take you to the ball, or at the very least, they rarely take you away from it. Reading your keys is critical against any misdirection offense, because if you watch the ball, the backs, and the QB, you are going to get run. Not always (and you have to watch for counters), but almost always, the linemen will tell you where the play is going.

I have a feeling the defense got an earful about this before the Nevada game. But you can yell at guys all you want. Until they actually get burned doing the precise thing you tell them not to do – in this case, watching the wrong thing -- a lot of times, it’s not going to sink in. I suspect they now get it.

Second, I would expect the ILBs and safeties to be better about flowing in a more evenly distributed manner, as a unit, toward the ball, rather than individual players running around like crazy chickens chasing ghosts. UCLA is not nearly as deceptive as Nevada, so I don’t expect plays where two safeties and 2 ILBs get sucked into one tiny quadrant of the field and leave an ocean for the RB or QB to do pirouettes in. But I also think these players, who are really the ones tasked with the hardest reads, will do a better job of spacing after more time practicing against this offense.

Third, I expect (and truly, I hope) to see some punitive hits on Prince. This guy is already nursing injuries, and while he’s a pretty tough kid, he’s not going to continue to keep the ball (nor will the coaches let him) if he’s getting the business every time he keeps it. Pendergast definitely seems like a force-their-hand type of coach. This is an excellent way to do that, and I’d expect we’ll see that.

Lastly, I still think this defense is going to place a premium on stopping the inside run. I know everyone had a conniption watching Browner and Price blindly tackle the RB vs. Nevada. But if you don’t stop the dive play against the option, you’re playing right into the offense’s hand. The option is designed to open up the inside run, by eventually getting people out of their gaps. Teams with weaker OL and RBs use it because they cannot overpower defenses up the middle, but they still want to run up the middle.

If you watch backs in the prolific option offenses, their big runs still come up the middle, often late in games, as do their back breaking short yardage runs. Franklin and Coleman gutted Washington State up the middle. James killed Stanford up the middle. Taua did it to Cal. Look for Pendergast to focus on sealing that off and spilling the plays to the alleys, where his safeties and ILBs can use the sideline to corner the runners.

Slow-Developing Run Plays

I’ve complained before about how slowly Cal's run plays have been developing, and I am starting to see a pattern that may explain it. Riley at times looks like he’s running in cement as he runs back to give the handoff after taking the snap under center. He needs to be quicker out of the snap. This is actually one of the reasons teams like the pistol – it gets the run started more quickly without letting on where the ball is going. But the loping, methodical steps Riley takes as he gets the ball to Vereen is just a killer. It makes it tremendously easier for the LBs and safeties to get a jump on the runner. I definitely think this is why we see so many runs where guys are just waiting for Vereen as he hits the LOS.

I understand that with some power runs, you need to wait a 1 or 2 count to allow the pulling lineman to get there, and to let the hole open up. But this offense has got to mix in some faster developing plays where the RB is moving vertically earlier. Some zone plays can work like this, so hopefully we’ll see it.

Closing Thoughts

I think people remember last year’s game with rose colored glasses. Despite an insane first half offensively by Cal, UCLA was still driving to make it a game in the fourth quarter when Kendricks picked the ball off to seal it. UCLA’s offense was chipping away and had really put Cal on ice in the second half. Cal frankly milked a lead for much of that game, and got a lift from Best’s long run and Kendricks’ INT, and UCLA consistent inability to get TDs in the redzone.

This year, UCLA’s offense is better than it was last year, Cal’s offense appears the same, or perhaps a tad worse. Even if their defense is the same, I expect them to be a more difficult opponent than people are giving them credit for.

I also think this is going to be a violent, physical game. UCLA is confident after three good wins, and wants some payback for last year. Cal is ticked off after losing to Arizona, and wants to show they can stop the pistol. A lot of the players on these two teams are familiar with each other, and this is always a grudge match. I think you will see a very motivated UCLA team.

In the end, Cal’s two advantages are home field and the big play. I expect Ludwig to attack CB Hester and UCLA’s aggressive secondary, and try to loosen up their run defense with some vertical plays. If UCLA gets down, their run-heavy pistol will not work.

But if Cal can’t strike with the big play, which is a distinct possibility, and this game gets close, it will be anyone’s game, because I am not sure Cal can grind it out against UCLA.

I’d say Cal has a 10-20% chance of getting up big and running away with it, but more likely this is a close game until the fourth quarter. I still give Cal the slight edge at home, with a good RB, a senior QB, and a senior ILB. But my money’s on this being a nail-biter.

Mouthwash

2010-09-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

Just something quick to cover up that picture of the Stoops brothers dry humping the air, as I'll have more game thoughts later.

The irony of ironies in sports is that the worst losses are in the games where you left it all out on the field, even though you have so much less to be ashamed of as a team then when you get smoked. You should feel 10 times worse after getting embarrassed, but typically, as a team, those always seem to be easier to shrug off as aberrant.

I didn't give the team much of a chance, and figured their best hope was an AZ letdown or some big plays to neutralize home field advantage. And I don't think that was an unreasonable outlook. Instead they surprised me, and neutralized home field advantage the old fashioned way - with defense and running the football. That is what I have been looking for from Tedford's teams for years. The 2004 and 2005 teams showed flashes of it (not coincidentally, Tedford's best OLs and defenses).

The team did not play a perfect game. And obviously the result was an all timer on the list of stingers. But if that's the brand of football this team plans to put on the field every week this season, you won't hear me complain.

Yes, I've enjoyed the big-play oriented offense of the past five years. And that brand of football has been instrumental in putting Cal on the map in many respects. Who knows how much buzz this program would even have without the highlight reel plays, and big draft days, of guys like Lynch, Best and Jackson.

But I've always felt this program has been just a tad more finesse than I'd like since Dunbar got here. Yes Gregory's contain defense and the weak special teams had a lot to do with that. But the offense too seemed ill-suited to tight, physical games where they needed to be able to run the ball. The last four games against SC come to mind.

But the way they were grinding out yards in the fourth quarter on offense, and stifling Arizona on defense, showed me something different. It remains to be seen if this team can replicate that against USC and Oregon St, its two primary nemeses when it comes to having to grind rather than get the big play. But for the first time in a while, this team looks like might be tough enough to do that. If it is, it will be a welcome change from going into games hoping the team's superstars can come up with enough big plays to win, only to be disappointed when those players get shut down.

One last thought for now. As much as a good coach can change the fortunes of a college football program, as we've seen with guys like Carroll and Meyer, it's still a player's game. Great coaches set the table, but the players close the deal. In the NCG, Lendale White and the OL didn't close the deal on 4th and short for pretty much the first time all season. Then Vince Young did. All kinds of coaching moves could have altered that outcome, but no matter what, it will always come down to players making plays or not.

This is not necessarily to defend the Cal coaches' game plans, as I don't believe there is such thing as a perfect game plan or play call. In many instances, you call the number of your best player or dial up your bread and butter. And if it doesn't work, you take comfort that you played the odds. In other instances, you go to Vinnie Strang or John Paxson, the guy they're least expecting, and if it doesn't work, you tell yourself you were trying to break tendencies and make something happen.

But whatever you do, you're still basically throwing a paper airplane, reasonably sure of what should happen, but unable to actually control what does happen. Tavecchio missed. Jones missed. Criner didn't. Play it 10 times, the opposite probably happens more often than not.

Is that enough to make those calls (or any others in the game) the "right" call?

Tuscon under the Lights

2010-09-23T21:27:00.000-07:00

The truth is the only thing that has separated these two teams since 2005 has pretty much been homefield advantage. Both have had pretty similar athletes, with Arizona having a few more on defense, and Cal a few more on offense. Cal's had the better offensive coaching, Arizona the better defensive coaching. Until now.

Now, for the first time Stoops has one more slight edge over Cal: QB. Simply put, Nick Foles saved Mike Stoops' job and probably kept Arizona from toiling away in the middle of the conference the next few years. Exhibit A: Matt Scott's performance at Iowa last year. Arizona fans - that was your future without Foles.

Yes Arizona has talent all over the place. But just ask Cal fans what a middling QB can do to an otherwise talented team.

And for me, if anything tips the scales toward Arizona this weekend, it's Foles. They're at home, which is usually just barely enough. But now they have a potential all-conference QB on top of it. Do I think he's an all-timer? No, but he runs the offense extremely well, he can make all the throws, and most importantly, he's steady. That is more than I can say for Kevin Riley, for example.

When Cal Has the Ball

First off, there isn't a lot to say about what to expect. These teams know each other pretty well. It's going to be about execution and not getting rattled. With that, onto some game thoughts.

I don't see Cal grinding out the run against this front. If Cal is going to have success on the ground, it is going to be like it has for the past few years against Arizona -- a big plate of brick wall seasoned with some big plays when Arizona gets too aggressive. I wouldn't be surprised if Vereen breaks off a few big ones. His legs look 100%, he seems to have his vision back, and Arizona is going to be bringing the heat. But those runs will be few and far between I think.

So, pucker up, because the offense this week will rise and fall on how well Riley delivers the ball through the air. The good news is Allen is healthy, so we should see the return of the high percentage plays designed to get him the ball in space, which should free up Jones some and Vereen some on the edges. Cal's skill players have always managed to have decent games against Arizona.

The bad news is that these passes are not going to be gravy. Cal is going to need them to supplement the run with a heavy dose of these short throws on first and second down to avoid getting into long yardage. Because of all the teams on the schedule, Arizona is probably the worst team to get into long yardage situations against, along with Oregon.

The other good news is Tedford and Ludwig know this, and unlike my thoughts on Pendergast, I have confidence that Tedford and Ludwig have seen this before, will game plan appropriately for this pressure and be ready with ways to counter it. Plus, Riley is actually pretty good when he sees blitz or knows the pressure's coming. His problem is when blocking breaks down on a longer developing play, and the play starts going awry.

The other thing Cal is going to need to do is get Miller and Stevens involved in the passing game. There will be opportunities to find these guys if Ludwig is willing to take them out of pass protection and get them into the seams.

When Arizona Has the Ball

Bob Gregory never really figured out the Leach offense. Cal's defensive success and failure has turned on how it's dealt with the run game of Arizona. Stoops has stubbornly stuck with the run since he brought in the Tech offense, seeking to avoid the three and outs and lack of balance that always plagued Mike Leach against quicker defenses.

And while I generally agree with Stoops' philosophy here, his dedication to the run has probably been the only reason the Cal defense has been able to hang with this offense (that and a guy named Willie Tuitama who managed to keep Cal in a few games). When Cal has beaten UofA, they've contained the run. When they've lost, they haven't (at least at key points in the game).

Everyone is interested in how Pendergast will defend this offense. The closest analog in the NFL, in terms of what Pendergast has schemed against, is the West Coast Offense, which he would have faced when playing Seattle, and before that, when he faced San Francisco when he was on the Cowboys staff in the 90s.

As we all know, the key to stopping the Leach/Dykes short passing attack is (1) tackle well and limit yards after catch and make them dink and dunk their way down the field, (2) disguise coverages since Foles definitely reads pre-snap, and (3) don't jump routes early.

All of this seems consistent with what I've seen from Pendergast and this defense. Yes, they're aggressive up front, but they've shown good tackling, and discipline on pass coverage in the secondary. What we haven't seen yet is much coverage disguising, simply because it hasn't really been needed thus far. But given Pendergast's NFL defenses, I suspect that is in the works.

And then of course, Cal has to keep the run in check. They did well with that last year, but got absolutely shredded in Tuscon two years ago. Arizona has struggled a bit this year running the ball, but they haven't really needed to rely on it much. But if Cal can make Arizona more one-dimensional like last year, it may neutralize the effectiveness of Foles' quick throws.

The last key to defending this offense is turnovers. Grigsby has shown a propensity to cough it up, and Cal is going to need every big play it can get Saturday.

Special Teams

I suspect the kicking game is going to be big here, and Tavecchio will be called upon to make some probably critical FGs. Cal has had trouble punching it in on the goal line against AZ and other tough run defenses, so they may need to settle for FGs. That makes this Tavecchio's first big test.

Field position is also going to be critical because of how quickly Arizona can score. While Foles has shown he can lead long drives, the more passes that (or any) offense throws, the more likely a mistake will occur. In that regard, combined with Arizona's return threat in Cobb, this will also be the first look at Genyk's coverage schemes under fire.

If you can't tell by now, I am skeptical about this game, just like I was in 2008. This is a tough place to play, that offense is feeling it right now, and without Mohamed or a versatile OLB on one side, Arizona has the potential to run this defense ragged chasing down dinks and dunks. I also have serious doubts about Cal's ability to keep the offense on the field with this OL.

Cal's two hopes lie in catching the Cats in a letdown after Iowa, and getting some big plays to take away home field advantage and give the defense a chance to bring pressure. Both things could very well happen.

But if I am betting on this game, it feels like a 30% chance of a runaway AZ win, and 70% chance AZ wins in a nailbiter.

Nevada rewind

2010-09-21T22:38:00.000-07:00

1. Let's start with everyone's favorite topic, the defense. I think we can all agree the OLBs were pinching and crashing, so I won't rehash that (though for the record, I don't necessarily have a problem with that in itself).

And I think everyone who watches Cal football and his brother has offered an opinion in the last four days on why this was happening, on whether it was the "right" approach, and on who was doing his job and who was getting abused. So again, I'll try not to rehash, except to say that just about everyone on the field was missing assignments and getting faked out at one point or another. When that happens, it goes well beyond scheme or one single thing.

That said, let's get a few other things out of the way:

(a) I think this game was largely a failure defensively, and one of the worst, if not the worst, performance by a Cal defense since Tedford came on board.

(b) I think that if Kaepernick passed the ball like he did last year, Cal forces at least two more punts, and we're talking about a different game--maybe not a win, but at the very least, doubtful the same runaway score. I am not sure anyone thought he'd throw that well.

(c) I think the short week, the gimmick offense, the Mohamed injury only one week prior, and the lack of depth at ILB water down any major conclusions I can draw about how well Pendergast and this defense will perform this year. I am not giving him a pass by any means (see (a) above), but I am not ready to say he's a bad coach yet, although he did coach a putrid game.

(d) As of right now, and this may change, I prefer Pendergast's approach to Gregory's, despite this game.

2. What I find more interesting than dissecting the defensive tactics and on-field mistakes, is what the overall strategy tells me about Pendergast, the message he's sending his defense, and what he thinks he's got personnel-wise on this defense. To me, it looked like he was putting a great deal of faith in the instincts and athleticism of his defense, particularly the safeties and ILBs. It seemed like most of the players on defense were actually supposed to be trying to use their speed and instincts, play downhill, and disrupt, not so much contain, read and react.

I didn't sense there was a lot of, "Be very, very careful not to get burned here, or don't guess wrong here," all week long leading to practice. Some will say maybe there should have been. Maybe so. Those folks can certainly say "scoreboard" and admittedly there isn't much to say in retort.

But I thought it showed confidence in the players, and some looseness, which I think has been missing on this defense the past several years. And to me, that's a breath of fresh air. Obviously, the plan had some warts. And the injuries and the offense did not help, to say the least. But I guess what I am saying is, there is something to be said for telling your players to let it rip a little.

I think the jury's still out on Pendergast and this year's defensive unit, especially with some big tests looming, and what I still consider to be a very shaky secondary. But for now, I like the mindset I am seeing from this group, and that starts with the coach.

3. The OL (including TE and FB) is not impressing...again. This team continues to be able to run up big rushing numbers, but is unable to get the hard yards when it needs to. The two biggest concerns are third down and short, and goal line. In both instances, this group simply cannot get it done right now.

Those are the hallmarks of championship offensive lines, not yards per carry, or breaking off big ones, or producing the now tiresome 1000 yard rusher milestone. It's whether you can tell the other team as you walk up to the line, "Coming right at you," and then get the two or three yards anyway. I'm slowly creeping toward giving up on this as a possibility for Tedford's teams, as we're going on five years since the 2005 team had this kind of ability, and I see nothing indicating we have the horses or the coaching style for it.

Vereen singlehandedly converted on third and short at least twice where the blocking was atrocious. One one play Guarnero literally got run backwards like a tacking dummy, and Vereen managed somehow to extend and scrap for the extra couple yards all on his own, with a guy practically hanging off him. Similarly, the settling for a FG in the red zone was just weak. Cal should have been able to run over this team up front when it needed to.

From what I am seeing, a lot of the problem lies in the technique. The OL are coming off the ball quickly, which is an improvement over last year. But they're laying into their blocks high, and they seem like they're trying to manhandle guys instead of driving them with their legs. That's fine if you're running quick dives where you just need to get in a guy's face or turn him. But with the amount of time Cal's run plays take to develop (a complaint I'll get to in a minute), the blocking technique has to improve.

4. I am sick of watching RBs take a 2- or 3-Mississipi count to get back to the LOS after the ball is snapped, while safeties and linebackers take their sweet time flooding the box until the whole defense is waiting there for the runner. Cal does not have a 230 pound tailback and the Steelers' offensive line. Quicken the power and inside zone plays, and save the slow stuff for stretch plays and cutbacks. You can be outnumbered if the play is quicker, but not if it takes forever to develop. Otherwise, we're going to be seeing a lot of Sofele and Vereen getting hit at the LOS.

5. Riley is Riley. Hasn't changed much, probably won't. Enough said.

6. Keenan Allen already leaves a good sized hole in the playbook when he's out. All the quick screens, fly sweeps, drags, and other design plays for him really complement the rest of Ludwig's plays. Who knows if the outcome might have been different, but anything to take the pressure off Riley and the run game is a good thing at this point. Looking forward to having him back.

7. I am not ready to burn Conte at the stake yet. No one looked good trying to read Kaepernick last week, so let's not draw to much from that. I have always felt he's a natural safety. He covers a lot of ground in a hurry, and gets up to full speed quickly. I wish he were a bit more of a punishing tackler, but sometimes that causes safeties to bite too hard on play action, a problem Cattouse has. Let's see how Conte does vs. a true passing attack this week.

8. The TE and FB blocking has been abysmal. A weakness of the pro-style offense is that it requires TEs and FBs who can do it all well, which are hard to find, and it's hard to keep them healthy. That's another reason teams go to the read option - instead of a fullback, you just use the QB's read to deal with the guy the FB would have blocked.

9. Did I not say Riley needs to learn to slide last week? The guy took a monster shot vs. Nevada because he led with his head. If the coaches don't think defenses are going to be headhunting for him, they're naive. With Sweeney waiting in the wings, Riley needs to stay healthy.

9. So far, I am good with Ludwig's play calling and game plans. The botched passes to Allen and Sofele alone were great calls, and were 14 points Riley left on the field. And Ludwig does seem to be mixing up the rushing styles and formations to keep defenses off balance, and compensate some for the fact that this OL can't run student body left against anyone.

Between the design plays to Allen, the use of Vereen as a receiver, the design QB runs, the TE routes, and the screen game, Ludwig has brought a lot of variety and balance to the offense to complement the run game.

The Art of Scheduling

2010-09-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

I'll have a breakdown of what I saw last night later on, most of which is x and o stuff, personnel, and such. For now, I want to address the more fundamental issue of scheduling and what these types of games have exposed about this program under Tedford. Make no mistake, I am not blaming the loss on scheduling. But clearly Cal under Tedford cannot handle these types of non-conference games and Tedford needs to recognize that. If he can't, Barbour needs to check him and step in, because these losses are momentum killers for a program trying to establish itself nationally.

So two things there: (1) why shouldn't Cal schedule these games, and (2) what kind of non-conference games should Cal schedule?

1. Why Cal shouldn't schedule these kinds of non-conference games.

First off, for whatever reason, Tedford can't seem to get his players ready for these non-conference games where Cal is favored. By "ready," sometimes it's lack of focus and motivation. Sometimes it's crappy game plans that put them in terrible position during games, leaving them shocked when what they're doing isn't working against a perceived lesser opponent. Sometimes it's lack of proper adjustments when it becomes clear the team has underestimated or poorly planned for an opponent and things are going badly. Sometimes, it's a combination. Whatever it is, Tedford and his staff seem to really step on their dicks in these non-conference games.

And don't get me wrong: it's not that his teams are taking other teams lightly. If anything, they are over-stating how good the other team is. Rather, it's that they aren't coming in with the right mindset and preparation. It seems like it's always something different specifically, but it's always the same general thing.

Letting Da'Rell Scott run wild vs. MD.
Letting Robert Meachem run wild vs. Tenn.
Letting Kaepernick run wild vs. Nev.
Throwing pick six vs. Nev.
Letting Decker have a career day vs. Minn.
Not matching the other team's intensity in one or more phases.
Being unable to run the ball on the road...ever.
The list goes on and on.

Second, and this is really not Tedford's fault, teams always seem geeked up to play Cal. Cal always seems to be ranked and hyped, and always favored in these non-conference games. Opposing players and coaches always seem to quoted as saying Cal is a benchmark game for them. And for whatever reason, these teams always seem to be coming off something disappointing and trying to prove that they're back. MD coming off the MTSU loss. Tenn coming off the disappointing end of the prior season. Nevada trying to break the streak of losing to BCS teams.

But even though this is not Tedford's fault, he needs to realize this, and either figure out how to overcome being the target, the way coaches like Carroll are able to (which is really difficult to do, and frankly he's shown he can't do it); or, more reasonably, Cal needs to call a spade a spade and stop scheduling these effing games. By "these games," I'll explain in a minute.

Third, and people need to accept this, Cal does not have the talent across the board to overcome the two aforementioned issues. I've said for years that until Cal gets an all-conference caliber QB and dominating OL (or finds another offense that can churn out the hard yards), they can forget about winning the conference. And again, while recruiting success is on Tedford, this is less a complaint about lack of talent, and more about recognizing your limitations.

Cal is a decently talented, athletic team. But they lack elite players at critical positions, namely the positions that are critical components of almost every play: QB, OL, LB. And they have for some time. The one "brick and mortar" area in which they excel talent-wise is DL. WR, corner, safety, TE, and even RB, are not enough, because those players can be taken out of plays, and are so reliant on other things happening. It is easier to neutralize Jahvid Best or Keenan Allen than a dominant OL or a great QB. OL and QB are involved critically in every play. So are LBs.

These are the players you lean on when you walk into a trap game, when you need to throw cold water on a hot opponent. And Cal doesn't have them. Again, Tedford and Barbour need to recognize this and schedule accordingly.

2. What kinds of games should Cal schedule (and not schedule)?

Marquis, historically top-15 programs, or cupcakes. Period. No A- teams, no B+ teams, no B- teams. A teams and C teams, nothing in between. No Fresno States, no Marylands, no Northwesterns, no Texas Techs, no Kentuckys, no North Carolina States, no Georgia Techs, no Kansases, no West Virginias, no BYUs, no Nevadas, no Utahs. You get the idea.

Two asterisks: Boise and TCU are currently A teams, and are top-15 teams. But I don't care what everyone says, there is still very little mileage out of beating them, versus a stigma, however minor, from losing to them. And I still believe they hold a strange mental advantage over non-conference opponents. Everyone still looks shocked and frustrated when these teams beat them.

Cal should be scheduling the following only:

Big 10: Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State
Big 12: Oklahoma, Texas
SEC: Florida, LSU, Alabama, Georgia
Independent: Notre Dame
ACC: None
Big East: None
Mid-Majors: historically bottom half of conference. Examples: UNLV, Utah State, San Jose State, North Texas, etc.
1-AA: historically not in FCS playoffs.

Why these teams and not others?

First, wins sell recruits. They are hard enough to come by in conference, and Cal is good for at least 2-3 conference losses a year. 9-3 or 10-2 sounds a lot better than 8-4. Recruits don't care that you didn't play anyone, as long as you win.

On the other hand, if they see you lose on national TV to anyone other than a marquis program, you highly risk losing that recruit.

Second, if Cal happens to finish second in conference one year, the only slim chance they have of going to a BCS bowl is to be 10-2. If you're second in conference, you've probably got two conference losses the way the parity is right now. You can't afford a third non-conference loss if the goal is a high BCS ranking.

Third, the hit from losing on national TV to Nevada or Maryland is far greater proportionately than the bump from beating them on national TV. No one is going to say Cal is "for real" if they win these games. But they will write them off in heartbeat if they lose like this.

Fourth, if you're going to go in with a higher risk of loss, let it be where you're the underdog, where you'll get good exposure, and where you'll actually get some mileage out of playing well even in defeat. This means teams like Alabama, Florida, Ohio State. Look how much mileage Tedford has gotten out of the 2004 SC game. Seriously, the credibility Tedford earned from that game still hasn't completely rubbed off six years later. And he lost.

Fifth, and finally, wins, even over Sally Ann teams, build confidence. Confidence is so important, and when you get some, you have to capitalize on it. What you want is for that confidence to be an asset, not a liability. If you're playing someone you don't know how to prepare for the next week, or are not familiar with, it can be dangerous to feel confident from wins over weak teams, because it may cause you to underestimate your next opponent. But if you're playing Oregon State next week, then you know your opponent, so you know how to keep your head in check. In that case, it's good to have some confidence.

Plus, a record is a record. And wins are always better than losses. It's always better from a confidence standpoint to be 3-0 against weak teams than 2-1. Ask any Cal player if they'd trade that loss for a win over Citadel right now, and they'd tell you they would.

The bottom line is this. Cal has gone national in recruiting. They've raised their profile the last 8 years. And for some reason, Cal only needs to blow people out and win some games, and they get a bump in rankings. If they want to cash in on this and keep raising their profile, and getting more elite recruits so they can get to that elusive Rose Bowl or BCS game, wetting themselves on national TV early in the season is not the way to do it.

Watch the guards

2010-09-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

Following up on my game preview below, one additional key to defending Nevada's run game that I noticed when watching their old games is that when guards (and sometimes TEs and FBs/H-backs) pull, they very often take you to where the ball is going. This defensive key is nothing new, to be sure. But remarkably, you still see college defenses, particularly LBs, not using it as a key, and consequently being befuddled by all the deceptive ball faking used in these option, misdirection offenses.

It's like the magician at the party who goes around taking people's watches off their wrists while he talks to them, even though they know he's going to try it. He distracts their eyes and their senses away from what they should be watching, and pulls it right out from under their nose.

If you watch the QB and the backfield on these triple option plays, you're going to be a step slow and get faked out of your shoes. Heck, how many times have we seen the TV cameramen jerk the camera back when they realize they bit on a playfake? On the other hand, if the defenders follow their keys, which include pulling guards (and other things that you can see on film), it does two things. First, it gets them moving immediately at the snap. That not only creates disruption and moving targets for the blockers, but if the key is correct, it floods the intended hole and reroutes the ball carrier or screws up the QB's read.

Second, even if they can't see the ball, and even if they're occasionally wrong, it gets the defense moving at the speed of the offense. Against any offense, but particularly this kind, you can't be waiting until the snap, freezing, and then trying to react. If your head and eyes are moving on defense, then your feet are already a step behind.

There are two caveats to this defensive key (which is why you always have more than 1 key going into a game if the coaches are doing their jobs). First, some teams do use a misdirection element in pulling guards and TEs. You don't see it as much in the college game, but it's out there. I doubt we'll see much of this from Nevada, but if they do it, it could really test the defense.

The other caveat is that pulling doesn't tell you as much if the play includes the option for the QB to go backside. It is a more useful key where the play side, the holes, and even the ball carrier, are pre-determined. If it's a true option, and the play can go to either side, the pulling players may actually draw defenders away if the QB keeps and goes backside. That said, I didn't see a lot of this from Nevada either. But it's also something to watch for.

Colorado Review - Nevada Preview

2010-09-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

Colorado Observations

Colorado - the Dan "Dumpster Fire" Hawkins era continues.

1. Run game. I have some concerns, but until the Arizona game, I am not sure what conclusions we can draw. I saw multiple factors conspiring to stifle the run game a bit. Some seem like they can be fixed; some concern me more.

First, Vereen clearly is not 100%. By no means is this to say that if he were, the run game would have gone over 250 Saturday. But there were creases that he appeared never to even see on Saturday. It's not so much that he lacks vision - we all know he's got that (although not quite the vision Best had). Rather, when you don't have the burst to blast through creases as they open, you don't even look around the corner for them. There were a few times where Vereen just plain missed daylight.

Assuming he shakes off the cobwebs and gets his legs into midseason form, I'd expect some of those runs to get to the second level in a few weeks. That said, you have to love the guy's ability to grind out yards creatively, spinning, scrambling, and stumbling for extra yards, even where he's not 100%. In that regard, he's more versatile than a pure speed back like Best.

Second, while I thought the OL actually opened some big holes on a number of occasions, which the RBs didn't always capitalize on, some of the failed plays were just whiffs on blocks. Whiffs concern me less than guys getting overpowered consistently, being unable to move their man consistently. In particular, I saw whiffs by the TE and FB. While Miller shouldn't be having these problems (and if I'm Genyk, I am barking in his ear all week about it), Ladner, Wark and Stevens are young, and will get better.

Third, as has become a virtual staple of opposing defensive game plans since mid-2007, Colorado was bringing an 8th and sometimes 9th man into the box. This is not an excuse, as I have said before: if you can't grind out positive yardage against 8 and even 9-man fronts from time to time, you don't deserve to win the conference. You have to do it, and good teams can. Cal 2004 through the 2007 Oregon game did it. This group does look like it is going to struggle to blow people off the ball and overpower crowded fronts. This is going to rear its head from time to time this season.

However, Ludwig does seems to be leaning harder on Riley's arm and the short pass to substitute for the run game a bit, and loosen up the defensive front. And whereas those shorter passes have in the past looked a little predictable and simplistic, the past two games have shown some nice variation, and precision. We'll see when Cal plays a bit quicker defenses, but Riley was able to connect with Jones and Allen with relative ease against two future NFL corners.

I think this OL is never going to bulldoze tired teams in the second half and cruise to victory like Tedford's teams used to. But I am not ready to write this running game off just yet.

2. Which brings me to the return of the 2-WR sets. While this has always been in the arsenal, Ludwig seems to be going to it more than we've seen since Dunbar came, either with two TEs or a TE and FB. This looks much more like vintage Tedford. We saw a good deal of it Saturday. While I generally like this setup if you have two legit WRs who can block, catch, and stretch defenses (which we appear to, finally), this is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it tends to crowd the box on run plays by bringing more defenders down. On the other hand, it also usually means better pass protection. I also think it opens up more deception and mismatches with TEs, FBs and RBs in the passing game. And, while it sets up nicely for short yardage running which can signal run, if you use it all the time, it becomes a much more unpredictable set.

It will be interesting to see if Ludwig sticks with this, and what he does with it, but personally, I like seeing more of it.

3. Riley needs to learn to slide. The guy had two reckless runs vs. Colorado where he led with his head as he fell, both of which were eerily similar to the play in which he was concussed vs. Oregon in 2008. If the QB draw is going to be part of the game plan (which it should be), he needs to learn how to finish the play properly. If he goes down, I think we can all agree it is likely going to be a long season.

Nevada Preview

Time to stifle the pistol.

1. Browner and Price are going to be attacked early and often. At least, that is what I would do if I were Nevada. While both guys have good abilities in certain respects, neither really has the closing speed to play the edge in the read-option offense. The way you shut down a read-option offense with a mobile QB is speed on the edge (along with discipline). If your guys on the edge cannot cut off the corners, there is nothing altering the runner's steep angle downfield. That can mean at least 4-6 yards a carry if they attack the edge. While Kendricks on the other side, with his speed, is perfect for defending this offense, Browner and Price concern me a bit more.

2. To disrupt or react? This is the age-old question against option offenses. If you have ridiculous speed on defense, you can get away with pressure and disruption because your players have make-up speed. If you don't, you have to be more disciplined and conservative. But if I am Pendergast, I disrupt this weekend. Here is why.

The "option" component of Nevada's run game is typically predicated on the QB reading a particular player and then deciding whether to hand off or keep. Usually, but not always, the player being "read" is left unblocked. To decide how to be sure the right player is left unblocked, the OL has to sort "count backwards," as it were, from that player and figure out who blocks whom as to the remaining defenders.

But if they do their "counting" and figure out who's got whom, and then all of a sudden the defense scrambles the egg and slants, stunts, zone blitzes, or does whatever, it screws up their assignments, and their timing. This can be dangerous, but again, if you've got speed, this can really give the QB and OL a headache.

This is especially true because once an option QB starts to lose confidence in his OL, he will start hesitating, making the wrong read, moving a step slow, mishandling the mesh with the RB, etc. Option is so much about feel, vibe and rhythm. And as much as running QBs like to run, they don't like grinding out yards up the middle, with guys hanging off of them. They like getting into the open field untouched.

What makes the read-option so deadly is when a QB knows exactly what he wants to do, he gets to daylight in the blink of an eye, the defense starts getting gassed and desperate, and the QB gets confident. In contrast, if the QB can't get into this rhythm, or if he thinks he's going to get contact early, he will become tentative and make bad decisions. See Masoli v. Cal 2008, Boise St. 2009.

I hope Pendergast attacks the OL and Kaepernick, because I think it can work. This is a good offense, but it is a rhythm offense, not a win ugly, grind-it-out offense. And frankly, as prolific a run game as this offense generates, until they prove they can make you pay through the air, I think the scheme is getting a little too much credit. The citing to gaudy yardage is growing a bit tiresome. How many years have the service academies led the nation in rushing? Yet those teams rarely beat any major BCS schools. Unless you have balance, these option rushing attacks only take you so far.

3. I am more concerned about broken plays than design QB runs. The scariest thing for a defense when it comes to mobile QBs is broken plays, not design runs. At least for good defenses. You can lock down everyone in coverage and beat the OL and hurry the QB. Normally, that's a victory. But if that QB tucks and runs, and there's no one around for 10 yards, a mobile QB can kill you.

For this reason, I would definitely dedicate one spy to Kaepernick at all times until he burns you through the air. Not a revolutionary idea, but it certainly would remove the risk of wasting otherwise airtight coverage and good pass rush. And until Nevada proves it can beat teams through the air, Cal should gamble that it can cover the pass with one less defender in the back 8.

4. Corners have to shed blocks and not get used in the open field. This is another area where a defense can outmuscle an option attack. Physical play at the corners shedding blocks and making tackles or forcing play back inside will cut off the edge runs that Nevada feasts off of. Big test for the corners this week.

5. Watch the TE. I think this Cal defense is going to be vulnerable to TEs all season. And while Nevada is a not a huge vertical threat, the TE is the perfect weapon for read-option teams because of the quickness of the passes and seams TEs attack. This is an area I expect Cal will give up some yards.

6. No need to take shots deep early on offense. If guys are open great. But this is not a team you want to be going three and out against. They don't care if you score. They expect to trade TDs with you. What kills an offense like Nevada's is having to sit on the sidelines while you eat clock. I sense more dink and dunk coming from Ludwig this year. This is the perfect game to do that. Move the sticks. Get chunk yardage.

The other collateral benefit to this approach is that Nevada may have some talent on defense among its starters, but it lacks defensive depth. And eventually, the starters are going to wear down if they are on the field for long drives. That is when Cal can look for the bigger play. I think those opportunities will be there late in the game.

In terms of a prediction, I can't shake the feeling the Cal defense is going to handle its business. Even Gregory fared decently well against option-based rushing attacks (last year's Oregon game was really more about blowing it against a good passing attack that busted the game open early). Although Kaepernick has a whip for an arm, I don't think the offense as a whole is there yet with the passing game. And unless they can make Cal pay through the air on first and second down, Cal is going to have an extra man keying on the run, which should give them the advantage.

And offensively, while I think Nevada will probably have some success against Cal's rushing attack, I think Ludwig is going to stick with the short pass and have success there. Yes this game can be a trap, but Cal should win by at least two scores.

Bush Heisman

2010-09-14T16:58:00.001-07:00

Apparently, Reggie is going to surrender his Heisman. Link.

And I think that is really the only right thing to do. After all, isn't it beyond a doubt that Reggie is the only Heisman winner who was ever caught, sorry I mean, was ever guilty of, breaking the rules? I think we can all agree no past Heisman winners ever took any illegal benefits or skated on some academic requirements. Reggie was the first and the only one, and thus it is only fitting that he should be the first, and the only one, to have to surrender his trophy. I see no problem with this. Do you?

Some Nevada film

2010-09-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

For an early look at Nevada, here are some clips from last year's games against Missouri, Notre Dame, and Boise St. Missouri beat them in Reno 31-21, Notre Dame beat them in South Bend 35-0, Boise beat them in Boise 44-33. Other notable Nevada scores from 2009: lost to Colorado St. in Fort Collins 35-20 and lost to SMU in the Hawaii Bowl 45-10. This season, they whipped a very bad Colorado State team 51-6 team in a rematch at home, and beat Eastern Washington (who was breaking in a new QB) 49-24 at home.

Obviously, what you will see from the Missouri clips (pro-Nevada film) is a QB who is very dangerous if he gets a full head of steam with the ball in his hands, and backs and OL that get to their spots very quickly and decisively. The offense deceives the defense, gets it out of position, and forces quick decisions. It takes discipline and speed to beat this offense, especially on the edges.

What you will see from the pro-Notre Dame clips is what can frustrate them when they have the ball. Note that ND's TDs were all pretty well thrown balls, with good coverage.

Then there's the pro-Boise videos, which show how an offense carved Nevada up. But note that Boise still gave up 33 to Nevada at home.

Some Colorado post-game thoughts, and more Nevada thoughts to come.

Colorado Quick Preview

2010-09-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

Not much time for a preview this week, so I'll get right to it. This game is about the Cal defense. The offense certainly still has a lot to prove, notably at OL and WR. But this is not USC's defense Cal is facing, it's early, Cal is healthy, and it has a senior QB. Cal is going to get its points and its yards, at least enough to win the game if the defense doesn't give it away.

In contrast, Colorado under Hawkins has been miserable offensively. They've had athletes, but the coaching, the discipline, the schemes, and the QB play have been awful. They are flying a bit high right now after looking pretty good offensively last week, with some new faces who have a lot of athleticism. And if the defense gives them life early, make no mistake, Colorado has the horses to get something going.

But they are still a vulnerable team offensively, even more so on the road. They've got a lame duck coach, an offensive system that can't possibly have made believers out of the players the past four years, a QB in his first season as a starter, and they are a mistake and penalty prone team. All it will take is some stagnating drives and blown up plays to bring them back to earth and allow doubt and frustration to start creeping in.

They're Million Dollar Baby and the Cal defense is Clint Eastwood. Just gently dab their dry lips, whisper sweet nothings in their ear, slowly slip the syringe into their IV and say goodnight.

As for their offensive scheme, I know Tedford downplayed the amount of concepts Kiesau imported from the Cal system when he went to Colorado, but from what I saw in clips I've watched, I'd say there is more than occasional overlap. They ran a number of things that remind me of the basic Tedford staples, both in the run blocking schemes and route combinations. And we all know how key (1) the run game and (2) sophisticated, poised QB play are in Tedford's offense. It is not a gimmick offense.

From what I've seen, Colorado's run game can be shut down. With Hansen being a "first option or run" QB, Cal needs to key on the run and make Hansen beat them. Not a revolutionary concept for sure, but I think perhaps too much is being made of Colorado's WR speed and Hansen's mobility. If the run game grinds to a halt, and Colorado gets in long yardage, the pressure packages and Cal's speed will do their thing. That is what I will be watching for - taking Colorado out of their short and medium yardage packages early, and forcing their hand.

And with Cal's athletes on defense, to me, this is all about attitude, not scheme. If they come into the game ready to smother the life out of Colorado's offense, and come at them in waves, the defense will control the game. If they come in with a "read and react," "contain" mentality, it's anyone's ballgame. I will be curious to see what mindset Pendergast has instilled them with.

I still don't know what to expect from this defense, but if I had to predict, I think they'll give up a few big pass plays, but will generally make the Colorado offense look ugly, and that will be the deciding factor in Cal's favor.

Colorado first look

2010-09-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking, Colorado has been a dumpster fire of a program since Hawkins took over (and even before that). The consensus seems to be that this year might be a bit different due to the addition of some WR transfers with legit speed, and a year more experience across the two-deeps. Combined with a scrappy defense, all signs point to an uptick over last season.

I will try to get a preview up, but for now, here's some video of their win last week over Colorado State, who has owned Colorado in recent years.

Brief UC Davis Observations

2010-09-07T20:44:00.000-07:00

1. The Aggies. I came away impressed. Not with their athleticism - that was about what I expected, and they really were no match for Cal physically. But they were very disciplined, composed, well coached, and well-conditioned. When CaL was on offense, Davis was really only outfoxed badly on one play - the first TD to Vereen. That is a very tough play to defend, both because of the pump fake off the screen look, and because of the route combination downfield. As we all recall - painfully - SC was totally befuddled on a variation of that play in 2008, so no shame in getting beat on that one.

Facing Cal's defense, UC Davis picked up the pressure pretty well. In fairness, Cal wasn't mixing it up that much, but they were bringing pressure from a variety of placeS, on a variety of down-distance combos, and with a lot of speed. Davis never really missed on a guy, and no one every really got a totally clean shot on the QB.

I am by no means saying that this makes Cal's victory more impressive, as I will get to in a minute. I am simply saying that the Aggies deserve some serious credit for being a very tightly run team in all phases.

2. Let's not get too excited. And I don't think too many people are. Blowouts over FCS teams and lower echelon "C" programs in D-1 are always tricky in terms of being much of an indicator. On the one hand, you play whomever is on the schedule, and you accomplish your goal if you dominate them on the scoreboard and stat sheet. On the other hand, if all you do is out-athlete them, and blow them up with big plays, how much does it really say about how you'll play tougher teams down the road?

I don't take a lot away from this game in terms of how good our offense, defense and special teams will be. I really don't. The game plans on both sides were vanilla. Plays that were designed to go for 7 yards were going for 15. The lines up front were disrupting everything Davis wanted to do from the moment of the snap, before the ball even got into anyone's hands. And the performance of most of the players occurred on a cloud of confidence they won't have during conference play.

Let's enjoy the W, but in the words of Denny Green, let's not crown their ass just yet.

3. Pendergast's Defense. Again, can't deduce too much, as Davis wasn't running anything fancy, and rarely got Cal into any tough, pressure moments, like inside the 20 or 3rd/4th and short, or needing a stop badly to overcome a deficit. Those are the moments where you really learn about a defense. With that said, I liked the constant pressure on every series. At its basic level, it's less passive than a read and react defense. A defense should practice all week like they expect to control the game. There is nothing like a pressure defense to instill that.

I also liked the use of 2 down linemen at times. Rushing three is a waste of a player in many cases. I also liked how fast safeties and linebackers played whent they brought pressure. They looked possessed coming through the line which is what you're supposd to do.

4. Pass coverage issues. It's a little tricky to call those almost-completions failures on the part of the Cal defense. On the one hand, you have to think Andrew Luck completes some of those balls. On the other hand, the QB was either rushed or the WR was going to get punished on most of them. While I think the pressure will probably contribute to more than a few misses this season, I come down a little more on the skeptical side for now, because I still think this secondary lacks any true playmakers or blanket cover guys right now. And a good offense will exploit that.

5. Riley needs to stay healthy. I know Sweeney was a little nervous, but consider this. Longshore was exactly where Sweeney is now when he started the 2006 season. If Riley goes down tomorrow, do you see Sweeney putting up the following numbers over the next four weeks?

Minnesota 22/31 - (71.0) - 300 - 4 - 0 - 194.84
Portland St. 24/37 - (64.9) - 309 - 2 - 1 - 147.45
Arizona St. 18/26 - (69.2) - 270 - 4 - 1 - 199.54
@ #21 Oreon St. 22/31 - (71.0) - 341 - 4 - 1 - 199.50

Right now, I don't. Yes, things could change. And he's the best option Cal has. But this is not 2004 or 2008, where there are two viable options at QB.

6. Player performances of note:

JP Hurrell - The guy was an absolute animal on special teams. He was in on almost every special teams coverage tackle.

Tyler Rigsbee - After falling off the radar with the injury, you could finally see why he was so highly touted. His footspeed and quickness were impressive, and showed the kind of athleticism this you need (and frankly Cal doesn't have) at left tackle right now. It remains to be seen if he can dominate DEs in the run game, but in terms of getting downfield and in pass blocking, he looks good.

DJ Holt - Have to admit, I've been a skeptic, but I was pleasantly surprised. Seemed much less hesitant, more instinctive. He can't afford to be a step slow the way Kendricks or Mohamed can. Let's hope he's turned the corner.

Edwards - I think Edwards is a fine player, but this team needs MSG back in the lineup if it is going to dominate both sides. Edwards is a good pass blocker and has nice quick feet. But he's not a bulldozer.

Guarnero - See Edwards. Galas showed some promise, and seems a bit stronger than Guarnero, but his size still seems to hold him back like Guarnero's does. This team needs a more dominant center.

Top 6 DL plus Tipoti - As impressive a 2-deep at DL as I have ever seen in a Cal uniform. All these guys looked physically intimidating. The recruiting has been stellar at this position. And with guys like King and Kaufusi waiting in the wings, things look good.

Wilkerson - Everyone seems to have noticed this kid. He's got that electric way of hitting people that just catches your eye. Definitely a natural. I expect to see a lot of him this season.

7. And here I thought this was going to be a no-name grinder offense. In his first start, in one half, all Keenan Allen did was make two plays that no other player on that team could have made. It really shouldn't have come as a surprise - the last true freshman to start on offense for Tedford was Jackson, and we all know what he did in his first game. It should be fun watching Keenan do his thing the next three seasons.

UC Davis Preview

2010-09-02T21:38:00.000-07:00

Some little known facts about Davis. For some time, one of Davis' great attractions was the cow with the glass stomach, where you could actually see the cow's stomach digesting grass while it was chewing cud. They've long had the #1 (or thereabouts) veterinary medicine school in the country. They are steeped in a tradition of authentic binge drinking, bordering on a club sport. 21 gun salute to the Bossie Cows.

Some more well known facts about their football program, but nevertheless worth mentioning. They peed in Stanford's cheerios in 2005, overcoming a 17-0 deficit to emasculate the Cardinal, on the Farm no less, solidifying the Walt Harris era as another of the long line of precious donkey heads in the venerable Leland Junior football pantheon. They played a decent game against Boise St. on the blue turf last season, down 27-16 with 11 minutes to go in fourth quarter. And head coach Bob Biggs' name was on the list (probably one of the much longer, early lists) of coaches to replace the departed Tom Holmoe. With that, onto the game.

AGGIE OFFENSE

Below is some decent footage of the UCD offense from last year. You will note these are highlight tapes of UCD's junior tight end Dean Rogers (I hereby declare that is a stage name) and sophomore fullback Ishman Anderson. You will also note that Dean and Ishman chose the music for their highlights. If you can get past those distractions and actually watch the football, what you will see is the following.

First, the Aggies are fairly disciplined in what they do. Their linemen, backs and receivers look like they know where to go, and they get there quickly, with good punch. They look like a very well coached, decisive team, that plays well together as an offensive unit.

In terms of the run game, from the cross section of plays shown in the clips, they appear to alternate mostly between zone stretch-type plays, and power run plays behind extra blockers. I don't see a lot of deception, or a lot of trapping and misdirection. They seem like a pound the rock, run right at you offense, trying to get into rhythm and to set up the pass, and mixing in some cutbacks and draws.

That said, they don't seem to have the personnel to overpower Cal with that scheme. They have some good blocking on the edge, in their tackles and TEs, but their interior blockers got pushed around a bit in these clips, and seem like they will be susceptible to that against Cal's front. They also seem to lack the one cut and go knifing-type runner you need to succeed on stretch and edge runs.

As for the pass, based on this film (to clear the air, in the interest of full disclosure, I have never been to an Aggie game), they actually do some nice things off the run packages. This is where "Dean's" highlights are actually...highlights. They used him really well in a couple clips. They pulled him like a run blocker and then released him into the flat, almost like an H-back, reminiscent of the way SC has used Havili (and that TD to Smith in 2006 where he snuck behind the line and got open - awful). Davis also snuck "Dean" behind coverage and got him wide open in the seam a few times. They also do a good job of quickly getting to dead spots in the zones.

What I didn't see much of, and don't expect much of, is stretching the defense with the wideouts. This seems like a rhythm and timing, mostly first option passing game. This will be especially true in this game because they are starting a RS freshman at QB. I don't think they are going to have him going through a lot of 5 step drop, 3-4 progression reads in his first start, at Memorial.

Their QB from last season Denham, a two-year starter, left to join the seminary. (I am sorry I cannot resist. I can't think of a worse indictment of quality of life for football players at Davis. The life of a starting college QB, even at Davis, is supposed to be the envy of every college student, the pinnacle of pimpdom. I'm all about higher callings, but things have got to be pretty bleak around Davis if your starting QB is so ready to take a vow of celibacy in college that he can't just wait two short years and sow his oats a little longer. Plus, if you are going to go cold turkey for life, at least put together a nice mental highlight reel to take with you. Wow. On another note, talk about giving other coaches negative recruiting ammunition. You can bet if that was UCLA's QB, Ed Orgeron would be having a field day in recruiting against them.)

So they're starting a redshirt freshman this season, Randy Wright. As you'll see in the clips, Denham made some really nice, accurate throws last season, got rid of it really quickly, and showed some good pocket presence and command of the offense. That will be a lot to expect from a RS Freshman making his first start in front of 70,000 football starved Cal fans at Memorial Stadium. And now the offensive clips.

Accordingly, on defense, I would normally expect to see Cal load up the line of scrimmage and just try to flood the lanes and overwhelm the run blocking schemes with bodies, forcing Davis to have to throw, and forcing Wright to beat them. However, I could see Pendergast try to play them straight up initially, to see what his players do, and not to give away too much in terms of how he is going to defend various sets.

And when Davis goes to the air, I expect two things: a lot of pressure on Wright, and some coverage disguises to bait him into picks. I think Pendergast wants to (needs to) get these kids excited about this defense. And nothing does that like sacks and turnovers. I won't be surprised if this is a 3-5 sack game for Cal.

AGGIE DEFENSE

They are a 4-3 base team, and I haven't seen a whole lot of gimmick stuff. They seem to favor zone mostly in pass coverage, and did not seem blitz happy. Their DL is a undersized compared to Pac 10 DLs (no surprise there). Their linebackers are a little stiffer than Pac 10 LBs, but decent and pretty disciplined. Where they struck me as a little weak was at corner and safety, both in terms of athleticism, and maybe a bit in vulnerability to blown coverages. In the clips I've seen, and watching the Boise game, I see a well coached defense that is pretty disciplined against the run, but is susceptible to the big play, leaks in the zone, and has trouble one on one on the edges and over the top. That was really their undoing against Boise - in the end, couldn't hang with Boise's faster receivers and pinpoint throws by Moore.

Also, keep in mind that while they played Boise tough, they lost to Fresno State last year in their opening game 51-0, and to Southern Utah 56-35. Now with a new QB, the weak link might be offense, but last year, the defense certainly had some big lapses.

As for the Cal offense, I have no idea what Ludwig is going to do. If I had to guess, I would expect him to throw a little bit of everything in there the first few series, to make sure the players try out a variety of procedures. I'd expect to see power, zone, sweeps, variations of screens, fly sweep, and short, mid and long balls.

But if it were me, I'd be trying to get the passing game going right away, first and foremost. That is the unit that needs confidence, from QB, to protection, to WRs. The younger receivers need to get catches, and Riley and the WRs need confidence they can move the sticks through the air.

Besides, I expect Davis to play conservatively early on and give Cal a lot of a cushion underneath. If I were Ludwig, I'd be looking to march down the field with predominantly pass plays the first few series of the game, rotating receivers and distributing the ball.

As you know, I am not big on predictions. But I will say this (and I am not going out on a limb here): If the outcome is still legitimately in doubt after halftime, then this team is well behind where it should be going into the season. Yes Davis, is going to play hard, and want to prove something. But Cal has the offensive and defensive lines to dominate Davis, and the speed on the edges to win every one on one matchup on both sides of the ball. If Fresno beat these guys 51-0 last year, with a 2-year starter at QB, Cal better have no trouble facing a RS freshman.

Preseason Thoughts

2010-08-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

Before getting to the UC Davis preview (let this be the last time in my life that I type that phrase), some pre-season thoughts.

1. The last of the original Tedford staff are now all gone (Gould was a Holmoe holdover). What effect will it have on this season, and longer term?

It is hard to constantly redefine your program when you don't change your primary coaches for each phase of the game, i.e. offense, defense and special teams. You can tinker with system changes, such as going with the 3-4 or elements of the spread. And you can hire different position coaches, who can help with technique and recruiting. But the only way you are going to change the paradigm, the foundations of your entire approach to the game, is to bring in someone from outside. In one fell swoop, Cal went from 3 out of 3 from the Tedford coaching tree, to 2 out of 3 from outside.

If there was ever a time to catalyze around a fresh mental approach to the game, and capitalize on it, this is it. There are now two coaches who aren't from the Tedford line, who coach the two phases that aren't Tedford's specialty, and who are eager to prove themselves (Pendergast was fired from two DC jobs prior to taking the Raiders DB coach job, and Genyk was fired as head coach of EMU). It will be interesting to see how differently this team approaches and plays the game throughout the course of the season under this re-vamped staff. With low expectations, a high percentage of underclassmen who are not steeped in all of the old guard Tedford staff principles, and the conference being as wide open as it's been since 2003, this is an opportunity to make something happen.

This brings up another point, which is the challenge of keeping a fresh edge over your conference opponents. In today's short attention span college football world, everyone - the fans, the coaches and the media - places a tremendous premium on newness: new schemes, new coaches, new recruiting tactics, new facilities, new uniforms, the list goes on. It's at once a recruiting tool, a strategic tool, a marketing tool, and a motivational tool. And the longer a head coach stays at a program, the harder it becomes to generate this edge.

I spoke with Tedford during the summer prior to the 2008 season, coming off the disappointing 2007 season, and asked him about keeping that edge, that newness, to keep his opponents on their toes. I mentioned that it seemed like teams had started to figure his offense and defense out a bit more, and he wasn't sneaking up on people as much. He acknowledged that he's always working on that issue, agreed that it was a big challenge, that he thinks about it constantly, and that it is one of the hardest things to do. In terms of what he was doing to address it back then, he talked about two main things (remember this was 2008): meeting with Dick LeBeau about the 3-4, and hiring Cignetti.

In retrospect, that comment offers some insight: If those things are what he thought would give him that "edge" back in 2008, I can only assume he is expecting a bigger pop from a new DC and ST coach, not to mention Marshall and Ludwig having a second year to put together different schemes on offense. We'll see if that is the case.

2. Unlike years past, the 2-deeps, particularly defense, are littered with players from all over the country, which should contribute to a fresher mentality.

I have long felt that a lesser discussed, but still important, byproduct of national recruiting is that you have the opportunity to build a team that has a more varied, and thus potentially stronger, mental approach. Kind of like genetics. Mixing is usually better.

Look at the defensive 2-deep. Anthony - AZ (Nnabuife - TX), Hagan - CA (Williams - TX), Hill - TX (Cattouse - IL), Conte - CA (Campbell - NV), Jordan - AZ (Guyton - PA), Payne - TX (Hill - CA), Owusu - TN (Coleman - WA). That’s eight different states among the 22 players on the 2-deep. And I suspect there will be similar variety on special teams. That's a lot of kids from a lot of different places, who were raised on a lot of different brands of football, and who all probably view life and football a little differently. I can't remember a time I've seen that kind of variety on a Cal roster, let alone 2-deep.

For being the University of California football team, long a program that mirrored its predominantly California-based student body, this is an interesting twist. But I like it. Along with new staff and new schemes, this ought to add to that edge.

3. Without a true homerun hitter for the first time in years, can the team find a rice and beans offense to move the chains?

There are no Jacksons, no Bests, no Lynches, no one who makes you hold your breath every time he touches the ball. Yes Vereen is very fast, very talented, and very capable of taking it to the house if he gets a seam. But he's not Jackson or Best. What that means is this team is going to need to manufacture offense a bit more methodically.

But as far as I am concerned, that might be good for this group. Frankly, and I’ve said this before, this team has been too reliant on the big play on offense recently, and has been unable to sustain itself on more steady, rhythm offense. Too often the past few years, when Best and Jackson and the big plays got shut down, what was left got exposed as unable, or perhaps unprepared, to carry the team: the base run game, the base passing game, the defense, and the special teams.

Now more than ever, this team needs a rice and beans, move-the-sticks offense. They need plays and schemes that can manufacture yardage to hold onto the ball, give the defense a rest, and get the QB into a rhythm. And if the OL isn't good enough to allow the team to do it on the ground, they need a short passing game to complement it. In his defense, Vereen may not be Best, but his steady, versatile abilities arguably make him the perfect player to build that offense around, and he's probably better in that regard than Best was.

In my opinion, this is going to be Ludwig's biggest challenge this season.

4. Players I am looking forward to watching this season.

Kendricks - I have been waiting for this kid to pull it all together. When he does, with his speed, he can be an all-conference player.
Allen - The guy who might be happiest to see Allen is Marvin Jones. Jones is great, but he's not quite a guy who can stretch defenses on his own - he needs another guy out there to keep defenses honest and free him up a bit. Allen might finally be that guy.
Payne - Tedford told me prior to the 2008 season that Payne would be a household name eventually, Mebane part II. He certainly looks the part.
Jordan - The coaches keep talking about getting him into 1-on-1 looks so he can get after the QB. If that happens, with his freakish speed, he has the chance to tear the roof off.
Coleman - An absolute monster RS Freshman at 6-6, 306. Should be a cornerstone of this 3-4 for the next couple years.
Hagan - He's either going to return to 2008 form and play his way into the NFL draft, or leave everyone wondering what could have been. With what he's been through off the field, everyone should be rooting for this guy.
Vereen - If he stays healthy, with his receiving abilities, he's got the potential to have an epic season statistically, and run up ridiculous all purpose yardage numbers. For reference, Arrington holds the single season all purpose yardage record of 2139 (2018 of which was rushing), and White holds the career all purpose yardage record of 4934. Currently, Vereen is at 2693 by my unofficial look at the stats, which means he'd need 2241 to tie the record.

Next up, the Aggies.

Depth Chart Announced

2010-08-26T17:11:00.000-07:00

Link.

Notables:

1. Sofele as the #2 RB behind Vereen, passing Covaughn DeBoskie-Johnson. I admit I was looking forward to CDJ being the guy, because he seems like a versatile back with a bit more power. But Sofele is an electric runner, and gets to full speed in a hurry, which is what you want in your change-of-pace back. Hopefully CDJ will get in there as well.

2. Freshman Keenan Allen starting at WR. This was inevitable, but still, not since Jackson has a true freshman started at WR from Day 1. If he's as good as advertised, with Miller, Vereen and Jones on the field, the passing game might finally keep defenses honest.

3. Two sophomores - Schwenke and Galas - at guards. Schwenke was not much of a surprise, but Galas is. Both beat out upper classmen. Once Summers-Gavin comes back, there will only be one senior on the line (Guarnero at center). This is a talented group, and should be pretty good the next couple years.

4. Conte at kick-returner. Might not seem like a big deal, but for me, this one is a head scratcher. I am sure he'll be fine, but at 6-3, 212 and playing strong safety, he doesn't exactly scream "take it to the house" when I watch him play. He's a tall, long defensive player who doesn't read blockers and carry the ball week in and week out at practice. And I don't recall him ever returning kicks before. With multiple sub-11 sec. 100M players with ball skills on this roster, this one seems odd to me. I'd guess there will be some other guys in the mix there, so we'll see.

5. Only two seniors starting on offense (three if you count Edwards, but once MSG returns, he will likely be a backup): Riley and Guarnero. The future looks bright on offense.

6. Jarred Price holding down the #2 spot at OLB. I really thought this guy would fall way down the chart with all the faces at linebacker. And maybe as the season wears on, that will happen. But for now, good for him. Love the guy's sack celebration schtick.

Spring Scrimmage Videos

2010-04-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

Thanks to TouchedTheAxeIn82, here are two videos of Saturday's scrimmage. Video effort is much appreciated.

Raiders DC Pendergast to Be New DC

2010-02-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

Being reported. More to come. Link: http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Wilson-Pendergast-leaves-Raiders-takes-Cal-coordinator-job.html

The Gregory Era Is Over

2010-02-17T14:53:00.000-08:00

Big turning of the page in Berkeley today. Rivals is reporting Gregory is leaving and will take a job as a defensive assistant at Boise State. Lots to say about this. For now I'll just say this: I always viewed this as Tedford's most difficult move because he has been so hands off on defense, but I have also always felt that every year he kept the same DC, it diluted his other efforts to change the culture and breathe some freshness into the defensive side of the program. He's got some momentum right now with the talented defensive class he just signed, and he's got some great recruiters on the defensive staff already in place. The right DC can catalyze all of that.

On another note, a heartfelt thank you to Coach Gregory and his family for devoting their time - many long days and nights - to the Cal program the last 8 years. He helped get the Tedford Era off the ground, and he's been a class act from Day 1, which we all know is not a given in the coaching world. Every coach is subject to criticism for game plans and football decisions, and Coach Gregory is no exception. But one thing you cannot say about Gregory is that he is not deserving of every fan's respect. Good man, good coach. Best of luck to him.

All of a sudden, there's something to talk about again.

Link to Rivals story.

Brief Washington and Bowl Game Thoughts

2009-12-23T10:30:00.000-08:00

After a short hiatus, some very brief thoughts on the Washington loss and the bowl game. Apologies for the sparse posting lately.

1. A good wake-up call. I know a lot of folks have buried the Washington loss away in a dark corner, or tossed it in their psychological garbage disposal. But as convenient as it might be to cut this game out of your memory like an appendix dangling off the end of this year's schedule, I'll say this: I think this group needed to get their butts whipped like that by a team that had no business whipping them.

As much as you never like to see a team learn a lesson the hard way in college football, given how few games there are in a season, sometimes the hard way is the only thing that will get through to a team. Nothing motivates you to put in extra hours in the spring and summer, and prepare yourself mentally each and every day of the next season, than the sting of a humiliating loss the year before.

This group needed to see how well they could play when they were focused, but they also needed to see how badly they could lose when they weren't. Having both things happen so close together in the season will be a good teaching tool. Having it happen at the end of the season will ensure it stays fresh in their minds.

2. Lack of leadership. As tightly knit a group as this team has appeared to be all season, losses like this all but confirm this team lacks effective leaders. Games like this, where it is so easy to lose focus, are the ones where leadership is needed most at the college level (along with non-conference road games).

After an elating Big Game win, you could just feel the team exhale. You could see it in their post-game interviews. Plus, it's final exam time. Throw in the Thanksgiving holiday during the bye week, home with family and friends, fattening up, reading press clippings, and getting pats on the back from everyone back home, and the cherry on top: Washington has 4 wins and Cal smoked them last year. Talk about falling off the motivational cliff leading up to a game. This one had trap written all over it.

That is where leaders make their mark on a team. They help the team keep its collective edge, all week long, every day. They push guys in practice. They call guys during the week and make sure they're focused. They ride guys who need extra motivation all week.

From the first two series, you could see the team didn't have that edge. Yes, they had some injuries, and yes, there were some rocky big plays that turned the game on its head early. But they were unmistakably flat. A well-led team doesn't do that.

I know a lot of people want to blame the coaches for not getting the team fired up about this game. And to a point, that is a fair criticism. Good coaches motivate players. But coaches can't make the kids want it badly deep down all by themselves. It has to come from within, but it also has to come from teammates. Guys respond differently to their teammates than their coaches. They will play hard for a coach. But they will only play inspired for something bigger than themselves - things like their teammates, their program, their hometown.

Leaders bring that out in the team. And a well-led team would not have performed the way Cal did against Washington. This is a critical missing ingredient for this team if it wants to get over the hump next season. It will be interesting to see who emerges this offseason.

3. Bad corner play + stagnant run game = Molotov cocktail. I can think of only one other game under Tedford where the combination of poor corner play due to lack of depth, and a stagnant run game due to weak offensive line play, combined to put the game out of reach so strikingly: Tennessee 2006. The games weren't identical, but they were similar enough to merit a comparison.

In both games, the opponent was determined to smother the run aggressively, forcing 3 and outs early against an over-matched offensive line. In both games, Cal couldn't stay on the field and slow the game down long enough to get the run game going. On the other side of the ball, the Cal defense took away any opportunity the offense had to get the run game back on track by young corners giving up big plays on the edge and putting the team in a hole. Cal had to go to the pass way too early to have a chance. Bad combination, especially on the road.

The corners and offensive line in both games were simply too young and/or not quite talented enough to hit the ground ready to play fast and keep it close, and failing that, right the ship and dig out of the hole after they woke up. There were other things wrong with both games, but when you have to fight for every yard in the run game as it is, and then you dig yourself into deficit on big pass plays, you're pretty much doomed.

4. Scheduling. I am never a fan of blaming the schedule, because for every permutation of how that game might have played out differently had it been scheduled in a different slot, there are an equal number of plausible alternate outcomes for every other game on the schedule as well.

That said, it is generally accepted that in college football, any game played in December, after your rivalry game, is a trap unless it is a conference championship. That is why, with a few exceptions, rivalry games are played last. You leave all on the field the last game of the season. Plus, once you're into December, it's final exams time. There are just a lot of distractions and it's easy to come out flat. The classic example is UCLA, having won the conference and riding an undefeated season, having to fly to Miami in December to play a rescheduled game due to an earlier hurricane, and promptly getting blown out.

When I saw this game on the schedule before the season, I circled it as a probable loss based almost entirely on the date. It is tough to get the kids up for a game like this, and UW is not the place you want to go when you're flat, especially with a QB like Locker. I hear coaches talk a lot about putting the players in a position to be successful. I am just not sure moving this game to two weeks after the Big Game did that.

5. Riley. Yes he was under pressure at times. And yes the run game was struggling. But like the USC and OSU games, when opportunities presented themselves, he failed to capitalize. It's a tough thing to do, and Riley's done a lot of good things this year. But if you want to win the conference, you need a QB who can fire a dagger whenever the defense gives him an opening, no matter how briefly or how seldom the openings occur.

I keep saying it, but it is not a coincidence that Cal hasn't had an all conference QB since 2004. Even in 2006, Longshore only received honorable mention, and that was largely on the strength of his early season games. Until Cal gets all-conference type play from its QB, it can forget about winning this conference. The defenses are too good, and the offenses score too much, to rely solely on a powerful run game. You have to be able to beat teams through the air. If a defense can shut you down simply by selling out against the run, you are behind the curve at QB in the Pac 10. Right now, that is where Cal is. With the young QB talent on other teams in this conference, that is not good enough.

6. Bowl game. I am not going to spend a lot of time on this because there really isn't that much to say. It comes down to Cal's focus and motivation. If Cal comes out with laser like focus, they will win. It is that simple. However, as we saw with BYU last night, if you don't come to play against a top-25 team (even a WAC or MWC team), you can get embarrassed. These lower tier bowls are dangerous for Pac 10 teams because they usually come on the heels of a disappointing season or a late loss, whereas the MWC team is usually jacked to be there and may be riding some momentum. If Cal is even the slightest bit flat, they are in trouble because this is a very good Utah team.

Aside from lack of focus, on the field, Cal's two biggest vulnerabilities are at corner (especially with Syd out), and offensive line (with MSG out). As I said above, if you can't contain the big play on defense, and can't get the run game going up front, you're usually in for a long day.

Defensively, I think Cal is going to have some difficulty at corner. With Syd likely out, it's Nnabuife and Hagan, with probably Hill (if healthy) and Conte rotating. Not exactly a shut down group. Expect huge, huge cushions to the WRs, which will be met with a steady diet of bubble screens and quick outs. In terms of over the top, the vulnerability at corner will be mitigated somewhat by the fact that Utah's QB is not at the level of a Jake Locker or a Sean Canfield. But I do think it is going to be difficult for Gregory to dial up too much pressure with that much exposure at corner.

Aside from the lateral screen game, I also think Cal is going to get a heavy dose of short passes to fullbacks, TEs, and slots, and will struggle a bit with defending it. That is what Utah likes to do, and especially against a physical run-stopping front 7 like Cal's, they will want to get some run-pass rhythm going to take the pressure off the QB. Cal seems to have gotten a little better at defending this, but I think Utah is going to have some success yardage-wise, at least early. My guess is we'll see a lot of bending early, and then Cal will try to suck it up and not break on 3rd down and in the red zone, gambling that Utah's QB will not be able to make plays when it counts.

Offensively, I expect Ludwig to show a lot of looks to try and spread Utah out and test their ability to cover the whole field. I anticipate a lot of short balls, screens, sweeps, and deep balls, with multiple sets and motions early, to try and keep the defense off balance and get them to show their hand a bit. I do think he'll try to establish the run, but I don't have a lot of confidence in the run game right now, especially knowing Utah is going to be selling out against it.

Ultimately on offense, Cal's success will depend on Riley's ability to take advantage of the defense. Everyone knows that to beat this team, you have to force Riley to throw. Utah is well coached, and you can be sure that is what they will do. If Riley can exploit the middle of the field and some matchups that Utah will inevitably give him by loading up on the run, Cal should be able to move the ball and eat clock. If he can't, it's going to be a long day.

I am not big on predictions, but I must say, with the injuries to Best, Syd, and Summers-Gavin, and the natural let-down feel to this game, I think Cal is facing an uphill battle here. I think the odds are good they will not hit the field with a razor sharp edge. If that happens, I think it will be hard to flip the switch against a team as good as Utah. I am not saying it can't happen, but I'll be surprised if they play this game with the intensity level that we saw vs. Stanford.

Some Tedford QB Footage

2009-12-07T12:21:00.001-08:00

Some nice footage of Tedford in action at FSU.

Big Game Recap

2009-11-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

67-33 (.670)                       17-19 (.472)
3rd winningest Cal coach            17th of 22 winningest Furd coach
7-1 in Big Games               1-2 in Big Games

Remember back in 2005 when, after beating the Ayoob-led Bears in Memorial, Carroll delivered a little poke in the eye, saying SC had talked about putting some "separation" between themselves and Cal, and that he thought that win accomplished that? Though Tedford's not the type to take shots like that, the same could be said about this Big Game win. More importantly, coming off wins over Oregon and SC, had Stanford beaten Cal, you can bet Harbaugh would be telling recruits about how Stanford had not only closed the gap on Cal, but had passed them by. In that sense this game really could have meant a sea change for the two programs.

Instead, Cal looked more like its old self again, more like the team everyone thought they might be, and Stanford looked like a team that still wasn't quite ready for the success it had been enjoying recently. Stanford was supposed to be the physical team with the nails QB, but they got run all over and their QB threw a game ending INT. If you can't rise to the occasion against your arch-rival, from whom you're looking for some payback, in the last conference game of the year, needing a win to keep your Rose Bowl chances alive, with a Heisman candidate at RB, you're not quite there yet. In other words, Pete Carroll would say, that "separation" between the programs is still alive and well.

One other thought about Harbaugh before getting some game observations. Since he rumbled onto the scene a couple years ago, I have been struck by how unintentionally comical his corny hyperbole is. From his "enthusiasm unknown to mankind" platitude, to his painfully ironic use of the term "blue collar" to describe his Leland J. Stanford University footballers, Harbaugh is like the kid who wrecks his first motorcycle popping a wheelie while driving out of the dealership. He's playing with words he doesn't understand. His latest gaffe: the use of word "hubris" in the Big Game press conference.

It's not just that he used it in a college football press conference. Though it's a little highbrow, I could maybe see that. But it's the silly way he kept saying it over and over again, as if the more he said it, the more grave it would seem. And that's not even the best part. The cherry on top is that while I am not really comfortable throwing around Greek terms in a football press conference, if you're going to do it, please make sure you're not guilty of the offense yourself. Instead, Harbaugh unknowingly starred in his own parable about hubris that Sophocles himself could have written.

It is the irony of ironies: a coach talking about hubris after he just went for 2 up 48-21 with 6 minutes left the week before. If there are football gods, what Harbaugh did against USC was the equivalent of taking a piss on the leg of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. Anyone who does that, then talks about the dangers of hubris days later, and then goes out and steps on his dick in the biggest game of the year...well, I just have to chuckle on so many levels. All I can say is, you guys can keep him down on the Farm as long as you like.

Some game observations:

1. Vereen. Before this season, if you spent five minutes talking Cal football with me, you know I'd inevitably find a way to work Vereen into the conversation. I've been talking this kid up as the quintessential Ron Gould tailback since Cal signed him out of high school. Based on watching him last year alone, I thought he had the potential to put up Arrington-like numbers once he became a full time starter, precisely because he executes the Gould method to a tee. What that means is he can manufacture yards multiple ways, even when they are hard to come by.

He avoids crushing hits and out of control falls, which will allow him to stay healthy and strong late in games and throughout the season. He always stays low to the ground which allows him to slip tackles. He is patient in waiting for holes to open but decisive to the hole once he commits, which allows him to find yards even when the blocking is not there. He can catch, throw, and has elite speed. And most importantly, he's humble - he's not going to ruin a good 4 yard run by dancing or running backwards to try and turn it into a 40 yard run.

A number of times against Stanford, Vereen found holes that weren't there initially, found a way to squeeze through them, and then clawed his way forward for a quiet 3-4 yards. When that happens time and again, it is demoralizing for a defense. As well as the OL played, Vereen saved their butts on a number of plays that were blown up just like so many others had been this season.

Bottom line: there will never be another Jahvid Best and he's a once in a blue moon player. Stop and give that thought its due. That said, the future is bright with Vereen taking handoffs the next two years.

2. Bob Gregory. Bob Gregory deserves credit for what he did this week. That was as vanilla a defensive game plan as I've seen from him this season, and yet that was as focused and non-hesitant as I've seen his unit play since conference play started. He clearly stripped the defense down for this game, and the result was guys playing with their hair on fire (minus Cattouse's sleepwalk on the first TD) instead of looking lost.

That took some guts and some confidence in his players, because Stanford is at their best when you try to play them straight up. And I know Harbaugh was expecting Gregory to mix it up - throw the "kitchen sink" at him as Harbaugh put it in the press conference. Instead, Gregory simplified everyone's role until they knew it cold, got his best players on the field situationally (something missing from some prior games this season), and got his group playing with reckless abandon. There are some people who will tell you that is the surest way to win a football game.

It wasn't perfect, and there were still some lapses, and some bail-outs by Stanford mistakes (in fairness Cal bailed out Stanford plenty as well - more on that in a moment). But for most of the game, the Cal defense played with confidence, purpose, and largely contained what had been a very productive offense for most of the season.

3. The re-emergence of the short downfield pass. I am glad to see this is making its way back into the offense, because it is a great weapon, and has really been the missing attack point for much of the season. Tedford/Ludwig (or perhaps Riley) had sort of been neglecting the short middle of the field, opting instead mostly for sideline passes, screens, and deep balls. As I've said before, teams scouted this tendency pretty easily, hence the way everyone jumped all over the screen game and short sideline stuff.

The quick strikes to Lagemann, Tucker, and Jones, mixed in with the medium range middle passes to Miller, tend to keep the linebackers and DBs more honest. Throw in a decent run game, and it makes the offense much harder to defend on first and second down. The last time Cal's offense attacked the field routinely with that kind of balance: 2004. It remains to be seen whether the offense can again approach its 2004 form. But for now, trying to attack the same way is a good start.

4. Riley. Another game, another combination of gutty play, a knack for keeping the chains moving, and throws that make you wince. I don't remember a QB quite as mercurial as Riley at the college level. The kid is still a mixed bag throwing a 7 yard stick or slant route on target. Even on the clutch shorter completions, Riley's passes were behind the receiver, including the TD to Jones.

But he continues to lead the team on scoring drives, makes some ridiculously athletic throws on the run, and most importantly, he keeps finding ways to keep drives alive. Like a baseball hitter who consistently finds ways not to make an out, that is the single most important thing a QB can do, no matter how he does it. And to be fair, had his receivers made some easy catches early on, Cal might have pulled away earlier, and Riley might have looked better.

Bottom line: I don't love everything he does, but the guy got another win on the road. Can't argue with that.

5. Some impressive individual performances. Aside from Vereen and Riley, there were a handful of guys who had good games: Summers-Gavin, Mohamed, Alualu, Thompson, Miller, Lagemann, and Payne. All of these guys really impressed me. The reassuring part is that aside from Alualu and Thompson, all of those players are not only back next year, but most have at least two more years on the team. Makes you realize how much youth there is on this year's team.

6. Offensive line. Three things to say. First off, excellent effort and intensity - best game of the season in that regard. Every guy was getting off the ball fast, and playing hard to the whistle. It really set the tone for the offense, which is the line's job.

Second, you can tell this group is maturing in terms of pass protection. They are communicating, adjusting to pressure, and picking up blitzes better than at the beginning of the season.

Third, outside of Summers-Gavin and for the most part Schwartz, I didn't see a lot of great individual performances in the run game. I am not going to name names, but guys are still getting pushed around and thrown off blocks too easily. I recall one player pulling and actually getting knocked on his back by a guy on whom he had a great angle (by play design). Not good. Particularly in zone blocking or plays where there is really no down blocking or angles of advantage, much of the time, this group is still not able to hold its blocks very long.

The good news is this offense has plenty of plays with blocking angles that mitigate this somewhat. On the power runs, the unit was able to be more dominant and the results showed - Vereen shredded Stanford on those runs. He was also able to get some yardage in zone blocking, but it was much more about his creativity in finding the hole than about the OL opening anything big up for him. And on his long run outside, that was pure speed, not great blocking.

Bottom line, as I had figured before the season, this group's strength is not in dominating people one on one but there are plenty of plays in this offense that mitigate this problem. All they require is guys knowing their assignments, playing hard, and a having a patient tailback. The team had all three on Saturday and the result was a good game running the ball.

7. About "almost giving the game away." I have heard from more than a few fans, some of whom are pretty level headed, that Cal got lucky to win that game, and that but for some gaffes by Luck and boneheaded calls by Harbaugh, Cal really should have lost. Here is the problem with that analysis: it ignores the fact that the same could be said of a couple of mistakes by Cal.

Off the top of my head, a few gimme plays come to mind that could have changed the complexion of the game had the Cal players sealed the deal: Riley's overthrow deep to Jones, Ross' drop down the sidelines, Riley's underthrow to Tucker, Tucker's losing sight of the deep ball, Bishop's two missed INTs. An argument can be made that the missed passes were all TDs. Heck, if Mohamed just takes out Gerhart's legs on that last catch and run, instead of trying to strip the ball, Gerhart likely goes down at the 30 instead of the 13. Then Stanford scoring doesn't look so probable.

My point is not to highlight Cal's mistakes. Nor at the same time is it to suggest that Cal's mistakes weren't costly or that it played a perfect game. The point is for every Stanford mistake, Cal had at least one to match it. That is football. The difference between winning and losing is making your opponent's mistakes mean more than yours. Ultimately, Cal was able to better afford the mistakes it made because it made a few more plays, and it capitalized better on Stanford's mistakes.

One last point about this. I have no problem with another team's mistakes playing a big role in a win, so long as the mistakes were the ones the winner game planned around. Cal's game plan was to make Luck beat them on defense, because they figured he was more mistake prone. They did, and he made mistakes. No shame in that.

8. A final word about resolve. I like what I have seen from this team in terms of heart and determination. It hasn't always been picturesque, but they've found ways to scrape out wins time and again, particularly on the road. In those wins, instead of taking turns making mistakes at key times like in 2007, guys took turns stepping up with big plays. Ross, Jones, Miller, Lagemann and Tucker have all made big catches this season. Riley has led multiple late scoring drives. The defense has gotten three game ending INTs, a game ending sack, and forced a 3 and out to set up a game winning drive.

I don't remember a Cal team that had so many plays and series like that in a season. It says a lot about the mental makeup of this team. Down 14-0 on the road, with the Rose Bowl already out of sight, a lot of teams, including some past Cal teams under Tedford, might well have dropped the intensity down a notch. And no doubt a few guys probably did that privately during the game last week. But other guys didn't. It's those other guys making plays at key points that kept the game alive, picked their teammates up, and eventually sealed the deal. That is the essence of a team win, and those are the best kind of wins to be a part of.

Here's to another season with the Axe, while Harbaugh claws his way to .500 with enthusiasm unknown to mankind.

Big Game Highlights (updated)

2009-11-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

[Update: Danzig's vid. Solid as always.]

2009 Big Game from sam walton on Vimeo.

[Update: Highlight video from TouchedTheAxeIn82 and ieeebear. Thank you both.]

For now, Lexus post-game show, from TouchedTheAxeIn82. Thanks for putting this together. My guess is more highlights will be coming throughout the week.

Quick Stanford Preview

2009-11-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

Words fail.

Does anyone feel like Gerhart and the Stanford running game is approaching semi-mythical, tall tale status? From Sunday to today, it seems like they have evolved from being viewed as a very physical, effective rushing team, to being touted as Jim Brown running behind a pro bowl offensive line. I get that they're good. But the Stanford love is getting a laid on a little thick.

In fact, the only significant difference in this year's team as compared to last year is Andrew Luck, not Toby Gerhart or the offensive line. From the games I've watched, I actually think their offensive line was better last year - they lost senior all conference OL Muth (1st) and Fletcher (2d) to graduation. Stanford's run game is well-executed, they play very hard (something I wish Cal did more), and Gerhart is definitely the hardest guy in the conference to tackle. But what makes this team go is Luck, plain and simple. Without him, their run game would get stuffed and their middle-of-the-road defense would wear down. That is exactly what happened last year to Stanford, notably when they played Cal.

So how do you slow this offense down?

1. Disrupt blocking schemes. Stanford's run game is predicated on outnumbering you at the point of attack. They like to pull 1 or 2 linemen/TEs, join them with a FB, and let them plow the gap for Gerhart. In effect, they run anywhere from 2-3 blockers into the gap, followed by the ball carrier. What ends up happening is Gerhart runs behind a cone of blockers and often does not get touched until he is 3 yards downfield.

The weakness in this approach is that to really run it smoothly, it requires the defensive front 7 to be somewhat static and predictable in where they are lining up and what gap responsibilities they have. Teams that do a lot of stunting or who are strong enough to get a lot of penetration at the LOS can disrupt the pulling and trapping schemes that Stanford runs. Exhibit A: the way OSU always frustrates Cal's power run game (which is somewhat similar to Stanford's). When the defenders are constantly moving and aren't where you expect them to be, it screws up the OL's timing, and often leads either to someone not getting blocked, or gaps closing too quickly. This in turn slows the RB down, allowing time for the DBs and LBs to come in and make plays.

OSU did this to Stanford this year and held them to 149 yards rushing, their lowest total of the year (a game Stanford lost). Cal has the front 7, particularly the front 3, to accomplish the same thing. But they can't sit back and play gap control. They have to be aggressive and try and disrupt the blocking schemes.

2. Pressure Luck, but mix it up. Luck's throws are mostly predetermined. From what I have seen, if he is under pressure and has to check down, he is not nearly as effective (most QBs aren't, particularly freshmen). Stanford does a good enough job with the quick passes to FBs and TEs that constantly blitzing is not going to work. But good mixes of fronts, coverages, and pressure packages will rattle him.

3. Strip the ball. Gerhart is a bit careless with the ball. When trying to break tackles, he will chicken wing it leaving it out there for someone to grab. And as big as he is, he is not a tall guy with big hands and long arms, so he's a bit easier to strip. I wouldn't be surprised if Cal is able to recover a fumble or two.

WHEN CAL HAS THE BALL

1. Commit to being overpowering in the run game. No one is expecting Cal to wear people down in the run game. I think Cal can gain an advantage by taking a page out of Stanford's book and trying to run over these guys. Stanford's run defense is average, and their defensive speed is average. If the OL plays with the intensity they showed last week, and Vereen doesn't get worn down after his 30-carry game last week, Cal should be able to run on these guys. What that will do is keep them out of 3rd and long by moving the ball decently on 1st and 2d down. When Cal's been able to do that, the playbook has opened up significantly.

2. Use the quick pass. I have been saying this for a few weeks. Cal has WRs who are more quick than fast as deep threats. And Riley is pretty accurate when stepping into a throw and going downfield (rather than lateral touch passes). Quick slants, curls, and short posts to the slot and TE will keep the chains moving and slow the LBs and safeties down.

No time for more than that today, but in all, I think if the Cal defense and the QB play the way they are capable of playing, and play with focus, I really do think they have more matchup advantages than Stanford. The question is whether the coaches' game plans and the players' mental focus will be where they need to be to maximize those advantages. In Cal's losses, they have not. The game plans either stunk (Oregon and OSU on defense, OSU on offense) or the focus and execution stunk (Oregon and USC on offense). If Cal can avoid that today, I like their chances. If not, as always, start drinking heavily, rinse, repeat.

One final thought. A loss would ruin Stanford's season. Truly. Their tie breaker situation is such that a loss could knock them down to 6th place with some help. It would silence the Gerhart Heisman talk. It would mean the best they could finish is 8-4, which though not a bad record, would make them only 1 game over .500 since Harbaugh's been there. This is a golden opportunity for Cal to stick it to the Cardinal.

(Edit: Here's a link to an article about Tedford's "Academic Game Plan," the system he uses to hold the players accountable for their academic performance.)

Arizona Recap

2009-11-17T08:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Coach Gregory,

I still haunt your dreams,
but you can sleep soundly for a while.

Fondly,
Mike Leach

DEFENSE

Bob Gregory. Bob Gregory endured the coaching equivalent of passing a kidney stone last week, culminating in that final searing but cathartic release when his defense stopped Sonny Dykes' (read: Mike Leach's) offense on its last chance fourth down play. And they did it with a sack, something that offense is specifically designed to, and did all season, avoid like the plague (little known fact: for 10 years, until this season, Mike Leach had never had a starting QB miss a game due to injury, credited to his offensive system that virtually eliminates a QB being sacked).

That offense has been a Rubik's cube for Gregory for years (ignoring 2007 when Dykes was running it with an ill-suited QB and Stoops' fingerprints were still all over the offense). It is safe to say for at least one night, he solved it. Good for you coach. Good for you.

Particularly noteworthy were the defensive players' quotes after the game. Mohamed said they felt "unstoppable" against that offense. Cattouse said the offense had tendencies they thought they could take advantage of, and that they felt like they had a game plan that could take things away from Arizona. That is the talk of a well-prepared defense. Dare I say Bob Gregory outcoached Sonny Dykes last week?

Attitude. The defense finally came out and played like they expected to be in control. They didn't play scared. They didn't sit back and let Foles pick them apart. They didn't concede the short stuff. It almost burned them more than a few times, but in the end, the pressure and aggressiveness, combined with the well-executed run defense, paid off. I hope the players remember how that felt the next two weeks as they practice, because they'll need to bring that intense preparation all week if they want to play with that kind of confidence against the next two opponents.

I still think this group has some holes talent- and experience-wise, and those holes have held them back some. But this game was Exhibit A for the principle that even on defense, where talent is so critical, a solid game plan combined with a motivated, focused group of players can overcome some talent deficiencies.

Mohamed. I am very impressed at how he has grown from more of a speed guy to an ILB who can peel off defensive linemen, read run, and come up and fill gaps. A lot of guys with Mohamed's physical makeup end up running right past inside plays or guessing (and guessing wrong) because they are used to playing on the edge where they can see better. But the kid obviously has some instincts, which are more important for inside linebacker than just about any other position on the defense.

Combined with his coverage skills and lateral range, he is growing into the total package. The rest of the LBs still have big holes in their games, which is a concern the rest of the season and next season. But Mohamed is finally starting to look like the steady presence people hoped he'd be.

Thompson and Alualu. Expect a dropoff next year when these two are gone, because without their playmaking, I question whether Cal wins this game. They were everywhere, and they make critical plays (as they have all season).

Still having trouble covering the TE. Even without Gronkowski, Arizona managed to burn Cal with passes to the TE, joining Oregon, USC, UCLA, and OSU, all of whom made a living off of that concept against this defense. Had Mohamed not made an athletic recovery to break up an early deep ball to the TE (on what was probably a blown assignment by him to begin with), that would have made two TD catches by TEs for easily over 100 yards. And had Gronkowski been in this game, I think Cal might have been in trouble.

Given Cal's vulnerabilities in LB pass coverage, I will be surprised if Stanford doesn't try to hammer Cal with TE and FB passes out of play action all day long Saturday. Stanford has athletic TEs and FBs, they execute the play action very well. The Cal defense needs to prepare for this.

OFFENSE

Offensive line. This group looked a lot more active. In run blocking, guys were getting off the ball more quickly and hitting people until the whistle blew. You could just see a difference from the week before in terms of their composure and attitude. In pass protection, they had some lapses, but they also picked up the stunts and blitzes decently well much of the game.

I am not ready to anoint Summers-Gavin as the savior of this unit and the difference between the run game production vs. OSU and vs. UofA, because the whole unit just seemed more lively and played better. But one thing I really like about this guy's game is how quickly he gets out of his stance when he pulls. It means Vereen can slow down just that much less as he waits for the hole to open, which keeps the run from developing too slowly, something that has been a problem from time to time with this offense.

RB pass blocking continues to be suspect. The lapses continue in this regard. Vereen got smoked on a blitz pickup right up the middle at least once that I recall, and generally, this group (including the FB) is not great in this area.

Vereen. As I have said many times, Vereen is a much more prototypical Gould tailback, in the Arrington and Forsett mold. With players like Lynch and Best, a coach has to be careful not to take away what makes them great, so you live with them doing things a bit differently than you might want as a coach, which both Best and Lynch do/did.

But with Vereen Saturday, you could see more of Gould's handiwork: the almost invisible extra 2 yards of crab walking and crawling after contact, the patience waiting for holes to open and then darting into them, and the avoidance of punishing direct hits. Even without the 60-yard run, Vereen was having a quiet, methodical 100-yard game.

I felt before the season that Vereen is the kind of tailback who could put up big rushing yards over a full season if he could stay healthy, simply because his abilities and coachability mesh so well with Gould's system.

The quick downfield pass. I had hoped before this game that Ludwig would use more quick, non-lateral passes to keep the defense honest, and I was glad to see more of this Saturday. These passes have turned into a good weapon for this offense, by taking the pressure off the running game and slowing the safeties and linebackers. While Riley struggles with lateral balls where he can't step into the throw, he seems to excel when he throws downfield. And it is now clear that Cal has the WRs who can catch these balls and take a hit.

Riley. Riley continued his enigmatic play. On the one hand, he again found a way to lead the team down the field for the go ahead score, as he has managed to do multiple times this season. You cannot ignore that he keeps finding a way to do that. As I've said, Cal really hasn't had that kind of player at QB since Rodgers. When you combine that with a defense that can find a way to get stops, it gives a team a lot of confidence in close games.

On the other hand, he still makes contrastingly remarkable mistakes. His two INTs were back breakers, and he was close to having a third. If he just avoids those two INTs, Cal probably gets at least one, maybe 2 FGs out of those drives.

SPECIAL TEAMS

1. Starting field position for Arizona after kickoffs: 35, 30, 33, 23, 38, 35 (45-10 penalty yards). Sad.
2. But for the kicker's leg whip tackle, Arizona likely scores on that kick return and we are talking about a totally different game. Notably, Tavecchio was actually credited with the tackle on the last two kickoffs. With a game that close, that is a stunning indicator of the ineptitude of the kickoff team.
3. Botched substitutions on at least one FG that almost ran down the play clock.
4. Missed extra point that would have sealed the game.

Bottom line, special teams almost gave this game away. Again.

EXPECTATIONS

A closing thought, to store away for next fall. Now is a good time for fans to take stock of how good they think this team really is, register that thought, file it away, and then revisit it when setting expectations for next season. Don't wait until after the bowl game, or after reading glowing reports about spring ball, or reading about fall camp, or reading the preseason rankings and prognostications, or watching the highlight vids during the slow summer months.

All that can be factored in as well, but now is a good time to take stock because some of the more unsavory things are still fresh in the mind as well: the 3 and outs, the poor run blocking and pass protection, the pliable pass defense (flanker screen, anyone?), and maddening special teams play. And think about the impact of losing guys like Alualu and Thompson and ask yourself how the team will play without them on the field. All of that, the good and bad, should go into the analysis.

Right about now, most fans now have about as honest and unaffected a sense of this team as they are going to have. Last week, a lot of folks were down, and for good reason. The week prior to that, folks were way up, but the sample size probably wasn't big enough. Now, the team won over a pretty good team, but it was ugly and left no one with delusions of grandeur.

Yes, there are still two more games, so the analysis can continue over that time period. But once the season ends, many fans lose perspective almost immediately. So start now. In fact, look at next season's schedule now and try to pick the games (link here). Then review your picks on Monday before the first game of the year, and see if you feel differently.

All in all, another gutty win. Now let's wipe that smile off Harbaugh's face and pee in Stanford's cheerios this week (a loss could knock them down to as low as 6th place if Cal wins out and AZ goes 2-1).

Arizona Highlights

2009-11-16T21:45:00.001-08:00

The latest from Danzig. Much appreciated, as always.

Arizona at Cal Highlights from anonymous on Vimeo.

OSU Film Study - Offense

2009-11-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

Who's ready to jump to some conclusions?

Some losses are attributable to being less talented at any number of positions. Some are attributable to being outcoached, both in game plan and game management (two very different things by the way). And some are attributable to players failing to execute and play at or near their peak level (which barring injuries, is almost always mental at its core - I'll get back to this).

And then there are those train wrecks where all three things happen. If a well played game is a Matisse, these games are Pollock with a bucket of paint after an all night bender. But beyond being ugly, they are unsettling, for the simple reason that they cannot easily be dismissed as aberrant, or as just a bad day, because so many things get exposed across the board. Saturday was one of those days.

You can bet there won't be much family time this week for the coaching staff. The air mattresses and rewind buttons in the film room are going to get a lot of mileage. And I'd venture to say there are going to be some uncomfortable coaches' meetings. Butts are going to get chewed this week, plain and simple.

And that is how it should be. This team looked poor in all phases, and they looked that way for most of the game. Oregon State either looked a step ahead of Cal, or they played fast enough to recover and control them on plays where they weren't a step ahead. At home. And Oregon State hasn't exactly been lighting teams on fire this season. When a mid/upper-mid level conference team, on whom there is plenty of film, does that to you on your own field, that is about as bad as it gets.

So what happened? And don't say, "We can't run the ball. Our pass defense is 117th nationally. We can't get any pressure." The results are obvious. It's the causes - scheme, execution by particular players, talent disparities at particular positions - and what those things say about the team and the coaches, that present the more interesting, and frankly productive, questions.

I'll start with the offense.

1. Lack of intensity on the offensive line. There is a lot to say about the offensive line. I'll start with the most disturbing thing first: this unit lacks fire. To begin with, they are getting off the line way too slow. There is a difference between unathletic slowness and lack of urgency. This group is showing the latter far too often, and that is unacceptable for the unit is supposed to be the guts of the team. You cannot set the tone for the offense, which is the offensive line's job, if you are not intending to drive your man into the turf until he quits, play after play after play.

Good offensive lines almost leap out of their cleats when they fire off the ball, man for man, like a walking wall, and stun the defenders. And if they head up field looking for a linebacker, or pull around the edge on a sweep or screen, they are headhunting. And never, under any circumstances, do they go the whole play without hitting someone.

The thing is, I see this stuff lacking from this group play after play, game after game. It is hard to pin down a single cause. A lot of this is innate intensity. Some guys are just never going to have that mentality no matter how much you try to instill it - like the old saying goes, "If they don't bite as a pup..." I don't know these guys personally, so I have no idea if they lack the right chromosomes. But they certainly don't look like they're playing with that mentality.

Some of this is youth too, and I definitely think that is a problem with the interior three. Younger players are more worried about making mistakes, especially if they are not 100% comfortable with the offense. This causes them to ratchet down the intensity at times. You could see this vs. OSU. They were constantly trying to anticipate OSU's slants and stunts, and it took the edge off their surge.

And some of it is coaching. While a coach cannot necessarily make a kid into a filthy mauler, he can build some of the hallmarks of relentless play into the techniques. I am not ready to assume Marshall is not trying to do this, since I am not at practice. But I am ready to conclude that he is not succeeding in this effort. There is a listless lumbering to the way this group plays that good coaching can shore up.

Too often, I see guys release to the second level to put a hat on a LB or DB, and they kind of trot up to him, lunge at him ham-handedly, whiff, and then kind of turn around and watch the RB get tackled. It's not the whiff that's the problem. It's the approach, and the finish. They should be going after guys with resolve, like they want to take their head off. And they should be finishing every play by trying to find someone to knock on their tail, even if they miss their initial block. A coach can instill this by making it part of the assignment. The frequency with which this is not happening suggests the coach is not pressing it hard enough.

2. Lack of power on the interior offensive line. Before the season started, I wrote that one of my chief concerns about this team was its ability (lack thereof) to run for short yardage and establish a powerful between the tackles run game, due to the loss of Mack and to a lesser degree Malele. While my concerns were valid, it is worse than I thought. The interior three (including Boskovich and Fisher) are just getting physically dominated.

Time after time Saturday, all three interior guys got stood up and pushed straight backwards, on both run and pass plays. This kills the play before it even starts. It stops the RB long enough to allow the safeties and LBs to arrive. And on pass plays, it flushes the QB out immediately, before he can even read his first receiver.

Watching it over and over, you can tell the chief cause of this is often simple lack of heft and strength. These guys look like they are getting out-muscled. This can happen with younger players, especially OL who are still burning off some of their baby fat from high school. Strength and conditioning programs can help this tremendously, especially for kids with bigger frames.

But some guys also just aren't powerful players at the point of attack, no matter now many years they've been in the program or how much weight they can throw around in the weight room. The ability to channel strength and apply it quickly and nimbly at your opponent's weak spot, while maintaining balance and leverage, is a feat of athleticism, not brute strength. That is what made Mack such a rare talent. He could create a ton of leverage by channeling his power to the defender's weakest point and then put his foot on the pedal and mow him down. And that is why you can throw out the recruiting star ratings when it comes to offensive linemen, because most recruiting services can't gauge this kind of ability from a 17-year old kid, hence Mack's lower rating out of HS.

I make this point for two reasons. First, I don't think this line is as ultra-talented as they were touted, or expected to be. Because it is such a matchup oriented position, with dozens of man-to-man repetitions each game, you really can't know this about offensive linemen until you watch them play for a season. Second, this group's youth and lack of experience means there is some upside in terms of building the strength and technique needed to generate power and leverage at the point of attack. But as of now, this deficiency is definitely a hindrance to the offense.

3. Not sticking with blocks. Another disturbing trend is the failure to block to the whistle. Guys are repeatedly holding their blocks for the initial punch and then letting their man go. And sometimes that defender ends up assisting on the tackle. I saw it with OL, TEs, and WRs. This killed a number of runs and screens during the game Saturday.

Again, this is a mentality. Finishing blocks is about want-to and desire. And whatever the coaches are doing to instill this mindset, it isn't strong enough, because this team is not finishing well at all.

4. Riley's inconsistency. I rewatched the game, and the more I watched, the more Riley's misses and decision making stood out. I have rarely seen a guy make such great throws downfield like the strikes he threw to Tucker, Jones, and Sparks, and then just botch a simple swing pass or screen time and again, or throw the same downfield ball totally away, in the same game. For his few great throws, his numerous misses were really damaging to the offense's momentum. And his INT was Longshore-esque, just heaving it into coverage without a prayer of it being caught. It's not all on him, but he killed some drives largely by himself, on plays that a decent QB should make.

I am not saying it is time to bench Riley, for a variety of reasons. But in terms of what we can expect until he graduates, it is hard to imagine him ever putting together a full season like the ones Luck, Canfield, Foles, or Barkley are having. Now in the winter of his 4th year in the system, having been the unchallenged starter for 9 games, and part time starter last season, it can no longer be said that he's young and getting comfortable. He is what he is - an inconsistent QB capable of great plays and startling inaccuracy on any given play. If Cal wants to win the conference, that ain't going to get it done.

I doubt Tedford will give Sweeney any reps this season unless the games are out of hand. But I think he needs to open up a legitimate competition in the offseason.

5. RB pass blocking. This unit has been awful in this regard, and it continued on Saturday. This rarely gets talked about, but it an important part of protection, and right now, it's a weak link.

6. Cal needs a power back. As much as the OL has struggled, there were plenty of times Saturday, and elsewhere this season, where a stronger back would have been the difference between 1st and 10 and 3rd and 2, or 2d and 1 and 2d and 6. Best and Vereen are supremely talented. But both guys pretty routinely only require one tackler once the tackler has his hands on them. Until the offensive line play elevates to the next level, this type of runner is going to be necessary if Cal wants to reestablish the run game.

7. More non-lateral quick passes. The quick slant, quick strike to the slot receiver or TE over the middle, and the quick out have proven to be successful (when Riley doesn't miss). They nullify the OL's inability to block pressure, and they slow down LBs and safeties who are cheating up on the run. This is what Dykes is doing at AZ, and some of what Ludwig did at Utah. When Ludwig called these on Saturday, they worked. But he didn't go to the well often enough.

The lack of plays like this, and the lack of success when Cal did try it, played right in to OSU's defensive game plan.

Thoughts on the defense to come later.

Live Internet Game Stream

2009-11-07T16:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks PRD and Adubble. Hit refresh or play if it's not working. And if it still doesn't work, see links at the right for backup streams. (And don't forget to click the white box in the bottom right corner to watch in full screen, in case it cuts off).

Also, see below for link to Starkey on KGO.

Watch live video from Cal Sports on Justin.tv

Starkey radio broadcast

ASU and OSU Thoughts

2009-11-06T00:40:00.000-08:00

All growns up.

Last Saturday's game was Exhibit A for why QB play is the pivotal difference maker in college football. Cal couldn't run it. They couldn't protect Riley. They were getting nowhere with their screen game in the second half. Nothing was really working on offense. But on the last drive, Riley bought time with his feet, and threw clutch pass after clutch pass. There was nothing special about those play calls. It was just Riley finding guys and being accurate.

On the flip side, while the Oregon and USC losses were certainly not all on Riley's shoulders, there is no question that Cal left at least 20 points on the field in each game due in large part to him not playing up to his potential.

Cal hasn't had a first or second team all Pac 10 quarterback since 2004, and only one honorable mention (Longshore 2006), and yet fans keep expecting each year is going to be Cal's year to win the conference. The best non-USC teams since USC's reign began: Cal 04, Ore 07, Ore 09. What do all three have in common? A QB having an elite season. Rodgers, Dixon and Masoli were all talked about for the Heisman. They all ran their offenses to near perfection. And they were all (when healthy) consensus all conference QBs.

The point is, when Riley is on and playing up to his potential, this offense can run with anyone and can carry the team. When he struggles, the team struggles. That is the reassuring part about last Saturday's game. For the first time in a long time, Cal needed to lean on its QB for the win and he delivered.

OTHER ASU GAME OBSERVATIONS

Rather than talk about the plays in game, I am going to talk about some of the players that stood out to me on Saturday.

Mike Mohamed looked instinctive again. Mohamed looked like the natural football player he showed signs of being last season. The last time I saw a Cal inside LB sniff out inside runs, shed and fill gaps, and flow to the ball like that was Bishop in '06. Mohamed isn't quite in Bishop's class in several respects, but like Bishop, he looked like a natural inside linebacker Saturday, rather than an outside linebacker trying to play inside. I hope Gregory leaves him where he is and lets him get comfortable at the position. Then we just need 2 or 3 others like him.

I like Fisher at LG. I like what I saw from him, especially in run blocking. He's quick twitched and has a nice intensity about him. At times this season, I have felt like the OL has been getting off the ball a bit slow, sort of lumbering. Fisher seemed to pop out of this stance a bit more, which is what you want from your interior three. ASU had some really good DTs, including all-conference caliber DT Guy, and Fisher handled himself decently well. OSU has Paea, another load. With Fisher likely to play again, it will be interesting to see how he does.

Payne and Tipoti are wrecking balls. Payne has been battling injuries, but even for the few plays he was in there, you can see his potential. More than anything else, he shows some legitimate quickness. On two tackles I saw, he kind of came out of nowhere to tackle the ball carrier at full speed.

And Tipoti isn't quite as fast as Payne, but he's a bulldozer. The guy consistently pushes the center straight back. Hill's talent and experience are definitely going to be missed this week, but these two guys rotating all game long should provide plenty of problems for OSU front line.

Josh Hill can play the run. He makes me nervous in pass coverage, but the kid can flat out tackle. You can teach that technique all you want, but the timing and the nose for how a guy is going to break, is somewhat innate. And Hill seems to have it.

Corners who can shed blocks and make big stops on the perimeter are not only rare, they are difference makers. How many times has Syd been the only guy between a TFL and a 15 yard gain? Hill's tackle on that 3rd down to force the last ASU punt was textbook. Now if he could just tighten up those cover skills.

Cattouse is the first ballhawking safety I can remember under Tedford. Tedford's safeties have always been big hitters, and sometimes good at reading the pass. But none have really been guys who could make plays on the ball, or arrive just when the ball was getting there and blast a guy: Giordano, Gutierrez, McClesky, DeCoud, Hicks, Johnson, the list goes on - all fast and physical, but not ball hawks. And that has long been a complaint of mine.

But watching him make that ridiculous swat at the ball without touching the WR, and knocking a receiver out of a catch on another play, it seems like Cal has found that guy in Cattouse. Between all his picks and breakups last season, his filthy hit on Decker this season, and the plays he made in his first start Saturday, I think the future is bright for him. And he's only a sophomore.

I am starting to feel sorry for Best. The coaches are trying everything to get this kid the ball, but the blocking is just terrible. It is pathetic how the press keeps talking about his low rushing numbers against USC and Oregon. If Best was running behind Cal's 2005 OL, he probably goes for 2300-2400 yards. Can he drag 3 tacklers with him and grind out 100 yards on 30 carries? No. Does that make him a bad runningback. Of course not.

Best is still a phenomenal talent. And in a balanced offense with decent blocking, he would be devastating.

THOUGHTS ON OREGON STATE

Cal better be practicing how to defend the TE pass. OSU loves to go to their TE Halahuni, and he's done some damage this year. Cal has proven they are vulnerable to the TE pass - Dickson, Ayles, Paulson all had big days against Cal. Cal just needs to be ready for these plays and not get caught flat footed. Halahuni is not as tall as Ayles or Paulson, so the jump balls they got burned on in those games won't be as big of an issue.

Cal had better be practicing how to defend the bubble screen. OSU will run this all day. That is their offense: spread you out with bubble screens and fly sweeps, and then pound the rock with Rodgers inside. If Cal doesn't jump all over this play, Riley will just keep running it.

Cal seems to have gotten better at lining up to cover this better, i.e. not leaving the inside receiver uncovered, and then getting after it quickly once the throw is away. That will have to continue, because unlike the past teams who have run it, OSU has the ability to turn that play into a back breaker.

Canfield will shred this defense if he is not pressured. Canfield is tall, has a quick release, and knows the offense. If he gets time, he will pick the defense apart. Gregory is going to need to sell out here and there to get pressure, as well as try to mix up looks a bit. I've said it before - they don't need to send the house, but they do need to use stunts to try and frustrate blocking schemes and confuse Canfield as to where the pressure is coming from. Canfield is error prone if he's pressured. But if he gets time, as we all remember from Memorial in 2007, he can be pretty good.

Cal's receivers have to fight off bump and press. OSU likes to play press and try to disrupt Cal's WR's timing with the QB. This has worked at times in the past. Cal's WRs have find ways to fight off the press and get free. If they do, OSU can be had, especially if Riley's deep pass in on, as we saw in 04 and 06, when Rodgers and Longshore torched their aggressive corners for deep ball after deep ball. Incidentally, in both those games, OSU's corners were pretty green, just like they are this year.

Final thought about the USC-Oregon game. As I watched that game, I couldn't help but notice something: whenever Oregon would make a big play, the USC defensive players were visibly frustrated, cursing, slashing their arms in disgust, hands on their hips. I saw this as early as the second quarter, while the game was close. And the mood on the USC sidelines was noticeably somber. No hootin' and hollerin'. No singing "Lean on Me" and yucking it up. And Coach Carroll's eyes were pretty big and glassy, and his demeanor was pretty pale much of the game, especially toward the end, when it became clear they couldn't stop Oregon. He certainly wasn't running around to his players talking about "winning forever," or trying to pump them up, or talking about how "jacked" he was.

Why do I mention this? Because after Cal's losses to Ore and USC, a lot of folks questioned whether Tedford should be more "upbeat" and "loose" like Coach Carroll. Maybe if he were, the argument went, the players would have found a way to break out of the funk in those games. Instead, the implication was that the sidelines were a tomb because Tedford was too stoic.

Well, whatever Carroll's methods are, they certainly weren't working on Saturday. For a guy who is all about having fun and whose teams take that to heart, that sure didn't seem to show itself on the field. Carroll's players were already whining and bitching while the game was still very much unsettled, and his sideline looked like a morgue. And Carroll's pallor was such a stark contrast to his whole "pumped" and "jacked" schtick that it all sort of seems like, well, a schtick.

The point is, it's amazing what getting whipped will do to all that looseness and bravado. Even for Captain Com-Pete himself.

ASU Highlights

2009-11-02T13:49:00.001-08:00

From Big C (new), and extended highlights from PRD74 - thanks as always for your hard work.

Washington State Film Study

2009-10-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

Of late, the annual Cougar scrimmage has been the tonic for what ails the Bears. It makes Jahvid feel like Jahvid again, Riley feel like he can throw darts all over the field, the d-line feel like they're unblockable, and the reserves not feel silly for actually taping up before the game.

But this year, it looks like a lot of the media and fans are putting an asterisk next to this one: "another victory over a bottom dweller - how is this different than MD, EWU, Minn, UCLA?" "the defense surrendered too many yards and looked soft doing it," "the kickoff coverage still bites," "we still don't know if this team is any good or just better than a few really bad teams," the list goes on.

Fair enough. Beating a team that is in full scale rebuilding mode shouldn't give a ton of comfort to a team that still feels like it has something to prove. But I do think it's a bit overreactive to dismiss the ways Cal dismantled them and focus only on some of the struggles. Cal didn't just beat them offensively and on special teams; they chopped them to pieces all over the field. By the end of the first half, they had 35 points, 3 passing TDs, 5 plays of over 20 yards, 160 return yards and a 1 ST TD.

And yes, the defense served up chunk after chunk of yardage through the air, which I will get to. And yes that is a glaring concern. But let's be fair here. Almost everyone plays down to teams like Wazzu. But with a 5-score lead in the second quarter? You can't expect the defense to not to lose a little focus. And something else that bears mentioning: in the second half, Wazzu failed to score a point and only crossed midfield twice, and that was with Cal playing a lot of reserves. I think the defense is allowed to take some confidence away from this game and not feel like it was a complete failure.

That said, one thing is starting to become apparent after watching the other conference teams the past few weeks. This Cal team is probably going to go as far as its offense can take it. If the defense can get stops, turnovers, sacks, and shut down the run, that will be a bonus. But more often than not, the offense is going to have to be the unit that puts pressure on opponents. Which is precisely why it was so critical for the offense to gain some confidence as well. With that, onto the game observations:

GOOD THINGS I SAW

1. The continued diversification and evolution of the offense. Last year, the offense found its identity, kept things a bit simpler, and ran with it. This year, every game we see a new wrinkle and plays built off previous wrinkles. For example, early on we saw the QB draw. Then we saw the option with a pitch. Then we saw the option where Riley kept it. Then we saw the wildcat with a read option handoff. This week, we saw a read option where Riley kept it and ran untouched for 15 yards. Defenses now have a lot to think about.

This is something a lot of fans have been waiting for from Tedford's offense, because for the first few years, it felt like the potential was there for that. It's nice to see that Ludwig has that in mind.

2. More deception in the passing game. Last season, it seemed as though the passing game was fairly vanilla, and its success was less dependent on catching defenses out of position and more on just making a good play. This season, though Riley has had some pinpoint passes, we are also seeing a lot more plays where guys have separation or are wide open, indicating the defense has been exploited.

The best example from Saturday was the the 60-yd bomb to Ross. That pass was out of a similar formation and what appeared to be a similar line call or signal from Riley, as the earlier TD pass to Jones. Riley even looked the same direction as he had on the Jones pass just before he threw to Ross, but just threw deep instead of underneath. This was a nice use of multiple options out of the same set. If defenders are playing zone and watching Riley, it is going to look like the same play.

3. Good for Gregory for mixing it up on defense. From the 4-down linemen to the stunts and blitzes, I thought Gregory showed a lot of commitment to finding ways to get better and finding ways to play to his unit's talents. That is what a good coach is supposed to do. And I think the results show that this team can get pressure in other ways, by playing to its strengths.

4. Richard Fisher looked pretty good at LG. Granted it was late in the game, but he was moving people around pretty well, and definitely looked like the best of the OL reserves out there. After going from walk-on to finally getting a scholarship this year, it would be great to see him get in there with the 1s this week if Summers-Gavin is hurt.

5. Riley is starting to show signs of seeing how he can beat defenses. He is getting that look about him at times, like he knows where he wants to go with the ball, and expects the guy to be open or the run to go for yardage. Players in Walsh's system (and its offshoots) used to say that the QBs would often call the play in the huddle and say it should be a first down or a TD, just based off the call and the way to the defense was being set up. Riley's got a ways to go, but you can tell he's getting to the point where he's starting to see the bigger picture.

THINGS THAT STILL NEED WORK

1. Run blocking. The yardage was better, but much of the good running was just Cal's speed - Wazzu still had guys there waiting on a lot of plays. Better defenses would have stuffed those plays. Expect a lot more stuffing and less gravy against ASU this week based on what I saw.

The counter to this will likely be Cal's use of the diversity of run looks that Ludwig has been building into the offense: fly sweep, read option, draws, counters, mixed in with the staple power runs, inside zones, and toss sweeps.

2. Still can't properly defend the flanker screen. Cal is still relying on a slower OLB who is way out of position to get all the way to the sideline, usually chasing the guy from behind, while the corner gets blocked easily after giving a huge cushion to the split end. On Wazzu's second quarter drive, Cal had Browner at OLB in tight, the inside WR totally uncovered, and the corner Hill giving about a 7-10 yard cushion to the outside WR. The ball goes to the inside receiver, and Browner (a converted DL) tries to run down the WR while the corner Hill gets blocked 10 yards downfield. Easy 10 yard gain for Wazzu. What a circus.

First off, if you are going to put the onus on the OLB to stop this play (which is not unheard of), you need speedier OLBs or you need them out wider. Mohamed and Kendricks look like the only LBs fast enough to cover this play if it's to the wide side of the field. Second, whoever is at OLB has to recognize the GIANT bubble created by the combination of (1) no coverage over the inside WR and (2) a 10 yard cushion given to the outside WR. When he sees that, he has to be coached either to (1) start creeping over before the snap, (2) take a massively wide angle as soon as the ball's thrown, or (3) the safety needs to recognize the bubble and creep over.

The thing you cannot do, which Cal's defense continues to do, both against 2 and 3 WR sets, is leave BOTH a gaping hole over one of the WRs AND give the other WRs a huge cushion. You can't do those things and expect not to give up at least 6-7 yards per play.

3. Riley's yips on the freethrow passes. Riley continues to have problems with the gimme passes. The concern here is that in tight games, the great play calls that produce these wide open receivers are going to be pivotal moments in the game. Cal has to drive the stake in the opponent's heart when the opportunities present themselves, such as when Vereen was wide open on the sidelines vs. USC.

I think Riley is largely doing what he's been asked to do, and he's leading the team well. But to carry the team, which it's looking like the offense is going to have to do, he is going to have to stick the daggers when he gets an opening.

4. Kickoff coverage. The saga continues.

5. Defense starting slow against the pass. It seems like the defense enters games not prepared to play fast against the pass from the start. They seem to need to adjust to the speed and pace of the opponent's passing offense before they settle in. At this point, it is a foregone conclusion that they will see a steady diet of quick passes the rest of the way. The coaches need to have them ready to defend this stuff from the start. In other words, assume you are playing Texas Tech every game, because any offensive coordinator worth his salt is going to run those plays against this defense until they can prove they can stop it.

More thoughts later.

Washington State Highlights (updated)

2009-10-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

1. Mr. Reliable, PRD74, has posted his camcorder highlights from the stadium. That's right, instead of soaking in the game day experience at sunny memorial, PRD74 (and whomever shot the video below from CGB) burned his deltoids off holding trying to hold a camcorder steady for 4 hours so everyone else could enjoy the game too. Pretty solid camera work too. If there were a silver star for fandom, I would award it to you.

2. Sequence of plays filed from student section. Here's a link a nice sequence of plays from someone's camcorder in the stands - just hit play and the clips will play in sequence. Thanks to the videographer and CGB for putting this together. Link.

3. Cable Recap Highlights.

Cal-WSU 10/24 from Cal98 on Vimeo.

4. Cable Recap Highlights (alt version).

Midseason Thoughts

2009-10-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

I am sure many Golden Bear fans once again have that familiar feeling, that feeling of watching football with a rational, grounded mind. It is that certain equanimity, missing from most college football fanbases, that Cal fans can proudly call their own. I am not talking about accepting mediocrity, or being content with losing games. I am talking about watching games with an awareness of how good your team actually is, whether you're a USC fan or a Washington State fan.

Until this last game, the media hype, unabashed optimism, and a small sample size of games conspired to make that challenging, even for the for the most cold-blooded, battle-worn, curmudgeonly Old Blues. That is precisely why I said I'd wait to pass judgment on how good this team was until after the UCLA game.

Unlike week 2 or 4, by this time, I figured Cal will have been jabbed in a variety of its pressure points: (1) facing teams that have enough film on this year's personnel and schemes to be ready for its game plans, (2) facing a range of offenses and defense, both in terms of scheme and ability level, (3) facing conference opponents with a target on its back due its rank, and (4) meeting the challenge of quashing some of its long-standing nemeses: non-conference BCS road win when favored, beating USC, and beating UCLA on the road. In years past, these pressure points have been acid tests for Tedford's teams (which they have failed), and they typically don't all surface until about this point in the season.

So what have we learned? Based on what I have seen, I'd say this team is about 1-2 wins better offensively than last year's team, and about 1 win worse defensively. In terms of record, comparatively that says 9-3. Mind you, that's not a prediction since the opponents and scheduling are different. But given the personnel similarities, last year's team is a good benchmark for comparison. And comparing the two teams, this group appears to be a bit better.

OFFENSE

The offense has improved slightly in terms of its actual execution, but considerably in terms of flexibility and variability. In terms of execution, i.e. how well the players are actually playing, I'd say the QB and WRs are playing noticeably better, the OL and RBs are about the same, and TE and FB are slightly below last year's level of play.

In terms of scheme, the offense seems to have spread its wings a bit under Ludwig. We are seeing a greater variety of plays, some greater use of deception, and more diversity of attack points. Even in the losses, Cal showed a number of things offensively that have been missing the past couple years. You get the feeling this offense is on the verge of really getting going.

Riley. We are starting to see the real Kevin Riley, the mean of his ups and downs. Thus far, the good: he throws a great long ball, doesn't turn it over, and can make plays happen with his feet. Those are three things Cal hasn't had in a QB since 2004.

The struggles: lack of consistent, repetitive accuracy on the short and medium routes, and lack of mastery of the playbook and reads to the point that he's a step ahead of opposing defenses. At this point, it also does not appear he is going to hurt defenses with the second and third option on pass plays - it's primary receiver, scramble, or bust right now for the most part.

The good news is the things he's good at are god-given, and the things he needs to work on usually improve with experience. So there is room for optimism. You can already see that Riley is starting to get the feel of when he can beat defenses, with the scrambling and the deep ball. Once he gets comfortable spreading the ball around on intermediate routes, the offense is going to be tougher to stop.

Passing game starting to draw boundaries. As the season has worn on, more and more of Riley's passes have been one of three varieties: (1) very short, (2) to sidelines, or (3) deep. With a few exceptions, the 10-20 yard balls over the middle have been missing.

On the one hand, this is a sound scheme (if it is by design), because those are the least likely to be picked off. On the other hand, it is limiting the receivers somewhat in their ability to do much damage, or even at times to get open. These three kinds of passes are the easiest to defend, especially if defenses start to see that the middle is not a threat. If guys are getting thrown to over the middle constantly, it opens up the sidelines a lot more and it pulls the LBs back a bit into coverage, which can make the draws and run game even more effective.

Plus, as scary as some of Riley's overthrows have been over the middle, that part of the field is wide open. It will be interesting to see if Riley and the coaches start trying to attack it more, especially if teams start taking away the deep ball and the sideline stuff.

Lack of reliable run game. What has not improved offensively is that this team still has no "rice and beans" offense - the plays that sustain the offense between all the big plays. Right now the Cal offense is living off Red Bull and vitamins instead of real food. 500 yards of offense doesn't matter if you can't get 3 yards when you really need it. Great offenses can get those yards on the ground. This team is still relying on the big play the way the Cal basketball team relied on the three pointer last season. When the big play isn't there, it is struggling to manufacture yards. Exhibit A: the entire second half versus UCLA.

Offensive line struggles. The key to this lack of staple offensive rushing production is not mysterious. The offensive line (including FBs and TEs) is struggling to block LBs and dominant DLs. They do fine (not great, but fine) straight up against down linemen. And they do fine when they have a good angle on LBs from the snap. But they are not getting good blocks on crashing or flowing LBs and disruptive down linemen. This was a problem last year as well.

I keep hearing about how you can't run into 8 man fronts, and you have to bounce outside or throw to punish defenses for that. I don't agree. You have to prove you can get yardage against those sets from time to time, even if it's only 3-4 yards. You see it in the NFL. Good teams run against 8 man fronts. Heck, in 2005, plenty of teams stacked the box against the pass-inept Ayoob offense, and the team still averaged 235 ypg rushing (#2 conference). They got those yards with a dominant offensive line

(Side note: I shudder to think how great that 2005 team could have been had Rodgers stayed - Lynch, Jackson, the OL, Hughes, Bishop, Mebane, #1 scoring defense, #2 rush defense. That was an undefeated team waiting to happen. Makes you wonder how things would be now.)

This OL is still young, but right now, it is getting beat in the run game. If it doesn't start being able to chop wood against defenses, it is going to be a ball and chain around the offense's ankle.

Ludwig is an upgrade. To Ludwig's credit, instead of just running the same run plays over and over, he has added some different wrinkles to get the ground game going, notably the wildcat, more fly sweep action, well-timed draws, and the use of the option. The option and the draw were responsible for most of Cal's rushing yardage Saturday outside of Best's TD (which was all Best). Eventually these will stop working if they are overused. But by mixing them in with the bread and butter Tedford run plays,even if that bread and butter isn't working all that well, Ludwig is giving the offense more of a chance to keep defenses honest.

I really think Cal has a good one in Ludwig, and I hope he gets the chance to stay another year and really kick this offense into high gear.

DEFENSE

Unlike the offense, the defense is playing worse than last year, pretty much across the board with the exception of defensive line. They are getting beaten through the air long, medium and short. Though they are stopping the methodical ground game, they are still giving up multiple big runs a game. And though their sack total is high, their pass defense stats show that their pressure is not taking opposing offenses out of their comfort zone. To the contrary, they are allowing opponents 63% completions and 129 passer rating. That says the pressure isn't working.

Talent level. I say it constantly: defense is much more about talent than offense. On offense, your scheme can account for a lot. Look at Texas Tech. Most Tech players never see the NFL, but they put up ridiculous numbers. Same with Air Force. But the best defenses year in and year out are the Alabamas, USCs, Oklahomas, etc. Though they have great coaches who get the most out of their players, they also have future NFL starters (not just players) on their defenses.

This team does not have that elite level of talent. They have probably one surefire NFL starter/backup in Alualu, and a handful of guys who have a chance of making a roster but that's it. After watching this unit for 6 games, I'd say Alualu and Thompson look like first team all-conference players, and maybe a few others make honorable mention. No shame in that, but it's important to keep this talent level in mind when evaluating the defense.

Bad reads and being out of position. In particular, at LB and DB, this defense has taken a step backward. With the exception of Thompson, both groups are struggling to make reads and are getting caught out of position. The best examples are the big runs teams have had - Maryland, USC, Oregon, UCLA. Guys go to the wrong spot (Mohamed), chase the wrong player (Ezeff), take poor angles or leave their feet too early (Thompson), or just plain bury their head in someone's chest as the runner goes by them (Johnson, Young).

For some of these players, it is just a question of lack of experience. But for some, it is lack of instinct. The former will improve with time, and in particular I think we'll see improvement at LB over the course of the season. The latter probably will not.

Constant shuffling of LB spots. While I have a number of issues with Gregory, which I will get to, one that relates to this issue of being out of position is all the shuffling around at LB. I get that you want to figure out where they fit. But seriously, you don't know where Devin Bishop, Mike Mohamed, and Eddie Young should play at this point, in their third, fourth, and fifth years in the program, respectively? This constant moving around is almost certainly making these guys think too much and play tentatively. You can see it with Mohamed in particular. Give them their spots (which can still be multiple, such as one spot on 1st and 2d down and another on 3rd down - as long as it's fixed), and let them get comfortable with it.

Lapses in technique. But beyond being out of position, even when they are in position, their technique is failing under duress and they are still getting beat. Case in point would be Hagan's coverage on the acrobatic sideline catch by the UCLA receiver. He was right there, but he turned around a split second early and lost a few inches (admittedly a tough play, but if he watches the receiver's eyes like he did vs. Damian Williams in the endzone last year, he probably breaks up that pass). Same thing has happened to Ezeff, Mohamed, and Bishop trying to cover TEs - stride for stride but poor ball technique. This is on the coaches. This is what you work on in practice.

Passive game plans. Notwithstanding some of the talent limitations, this defense should still be performing better than it has. And that is where I take issue with the game planning this year.

I understand that if people are going 5 wide and throwing within 2 seconds, you want to avoid jailbreak blitzes every play. But Cal is consistently rushing 3, and occasionally 4, and dropping 7 or 8, yet they are still giving up chunks of passing yardage. At some point, if your coverage defense isn't getting it done, you have to acknowledge that the conservative play is just death by 1,000 cuts.

Where is the zone blitzing from last season? Where are the twists and delayed blitzes? Where is the corner blitz? Eddie Young ran a delayed blitz Saturday and got a sack. Why not do that a few times with Kendricks or Mohamed, who are even faster than Young? Owusu gets zero pressure rushing straight up, but virtually every time he's gotten a sack or pressure this season, it's been off a slant or a stunt. So run those stunts.

This defense has good athletes. Not all of them are necessarily equally good football players, either because of experience or just plain ability, but the right calls can mitigate some of that. Blitzing is one of those calls. And guys like Owusu are a perfect example of that.

Passive game plan = passive attitude. As much as defense is about talent, it is also so dependent on attitude. Lawrence Taylor's crazed dog mentality sums it up. The Cal defense needs to be told on Sunday before the week of practice begins that they are going to impose their will on the opposing offense, that they are going to be the unit that the team rides to a win, not the offense. They need to practice with that mindset and they need to play with that mindset. And the best way to ensure that happens is to put in a game plan that reflects that mindset. Rushing 3 or 4 and dropping 7 or 8 every play doesn't do that. Playing read and react and keeping everything in front of you on every play doesn't do that.

Promising young defensive line. This unit looks like it's going to continue to be strong the next couple years. Guyton, Tipoti and Payne all look like future rocks on the front line. Owusu still looks like he's working through some technique issues, but he definitely has the ability as a pass rusher if the right calls are made. This group looks like the strength of the the defense right now.

Hagan's return. It's hard to say your #2 corner can make that big a difference, but you could see how some of Hagan's ability to jump short routes changes the game on defense. When he and Thompson are in there and playing at 100%, it either means a more likely pass breakup or it forces teams away from the sideline and into the middle of the field on the short and intermediate stuff. That's when INTs and sacks are more likely to happen. That is what we saw last year.

If Hagan is really healthy, and Thompson can stay healthy, I do think we'll see less vulnerability to the short sideline routes that have been killing this defense.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Coverage. An abomination plain and simple. There's not much to say except that it is sloppy and in disarray. Here and there, the gunners will make great plays. But other times they just look like they're lacking in urgency, like they are waiting to see what the runner is going to do instead of trying to close in and take his head off.

I have been saying for years Tedford needs to take these units over personally, hold tryouts for special teams and make it a privilege to be on the special teams coverage units. And then he needs to talk not just about stopping people, but about changing the game on special teams - creating turnovers, knocking people silly, and stealing momentum. That is what special teams is all about.

Alamar: Leave Anger alone. This one actually irks me more. Brian Anger was the #1 HS punter in the country coming into Cal. He already knew how to blast sky bombs before he ever put on a Cal uniform. And before he was ever coached by Pete Alamar, he was fine. He didn't even struggle early on last year, so clearly the adjustment to D1 was not a problem. Plus, as far as I know, no one on Cal's staff can punt, including Alamar.

So my question is this: why is it that every time I see Anger coming off the field, Alamar is right there jawing in his ear? You have to wonder if there's a correlation between Anger all of a sudden shanking punts this year and Alamar's constant commentary.

Kickers and punters are different than other players. They're like golfers. They get a handful of chances to do something that requires perfect coordination in one sweeping movement, with guys running at them.

Their psyches need to be handled differently. You don't chat at them during a game. You call the play in the huddle - punt left, punt right, etc., and you let them execute. And if they don't execute, you wait until practice to talk about it. And even then, you can talk to them about direction, but not too much. As long as it's high, you should have the athletes to cover. Don't waste the kid's talent trying to turn him into a surgeon with the football.

Kickoffs. I think there may be some of the same problems here. If Tavecchio can truly kick into the endzone repeatedly in practice, then it's clearly mental with him. So, let him be. Let go of the crazy blooper kicks and cute angle kicks. Tell the kid to let it rip and see what happens. It can't be much worse than the average starting position we're giving everyone anyway. With the height he's getting, it's almost a certainty he can kick a line drive out of the endzone. So let him try.

OVERALL

I think this team has the potential to win the rest of its games. Though it lives and dies by the big play, the repeated big plays in almost every game, going back to last season, shows it is not a fluke. You can almost expect one every game. Even against SC, they were there but for maddening execution errors.

But this offense cannot carry this team to wins if the special teams and passive defense continue to give teams life and let them hang around. The attitude has to change on these units. They have to play with their hair on fire, not like they're trying to avoid making a mistake. If they can summon this attitude, this team can run the table, because it will be the most talented and well-coached team top to bottom in every game the rest of the way. If they cannot, they will get exposed by Arizona's and Oregon State's offenses at a minimum, and possibly others.

UCLA Recap

2009-10-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Mismatch.

1. Game ball - Kevin Riley. The best part of Riley's performance Saturday wasn't 60-degree wedge lobs he was dropping into a cup all over the field, or the timely 6 yard scampers for first downs (though it was nice to see those plays again from him). It was the fact that Riley came up with those nails plays when his team needed him most. He almost had a bit of an edge to him the way he carried himself. Cal hasn't had its QB be that guy for a long time, especially on the road.

2. Good for Tedford and Ludwig for trusting Riley. With the way Riley has struggled the past two games, it would be easy to imagine the coaches puckering a bit and coming out with a bunch of low risk passes to play it safe until they could see how Riley was playing. But you could tell from the play calls that they had 100% confidence in him, and it showed in his demeanor.

3. Best's running style is severely hampered by injury. Bigger, straight-line or one-cut runners can play through injury a bit more because frankly, their top end ability is just faster and stronger, not necessarily more dynamic. But Best is like an Italian sports car. When he's fully tuned and running perfectly, he runs with a rare combination of speed, strength, elusiveness, and anticipation. But just like one of those cars, his blend of skills is tightly calibrated. The slightest injury can throw off the whole machine. Even injured, he's still at worst a Corvette. But in particular you could see that his physical limitations affected his vision and instincts. It was as if he didn't see (or wasn't looking for) the creases because he knew he didn't have the juice to get through them.

Given how much discomfort he was in, with the cramping and asthma, it makes the long TD run he had that much more impressive.

4. Egregious holding by UCLA. I don't recall seeing an offensive line commit holding so deliberately, so often, across the board, for an entire game, the way UCLA's line was holding on Saturday. It was almost like they were coached to do it, because they were giving bear hugs and grabbing cloth from the snap of the ball. Alualu must have been held three or four times trying to pursue the QB. Jordan was held as the RB went right by him on UCLA's long TD run. The list goes on.

As bad as the lack of pressure was (and it was pretty abysmal), this definitely didn't help. This made the hands to the face call on Alualu all the more absurd.

5. The BBDB defense is officially back. I thought it might have been retired, but apparently Gregory still has it on speed dial. That was as passive a defensive game plan as I've seen, against an offense that was begging for Cal to shut it down. Clearly, the plan was to take away the run and the deep ball and make UCLA dink and dunk their way up the field. While I don't have a problem with that scheme per se, if you're going to run it, you better have LBs and DBs who can close holes and cover ground quickly. This group just isn't playing fast enough this season to do that. When that happens, the result can be a steady diet of 4-7 yard pass plays being completed with ease.

And while Cal was able to keep UCLA out of the endzone, I would not get too excited about that. UCLA is in the bottom 10 in red zone TD% and 101 out of 120 in scoring offense nationally. This game was ripe for the defense to attack, sending guys from all over the place, and using delayed blitzes and mixed coverages. Instead, they played read and react, and the result was they let a bad offense run up 450 yards and 26 points, and frankly were a bad QB throw away from another Bruin comeback against the Bears in Pasadena. If Gregory dials up this Sally Ann defense against Arizona or Oregon State, they are going to get lit.

6. The special teams are officially an embarrassment. It has gotten to the point Tedford seems to have words with Alamar on every special teams play. It's abysmal, and totally uncharacteristic of Tedford's detail-oriented approach. I am not saying Alamar should be fired, as I am not privy to what other things he may do well for Tedford in the area of quality control, etc. But he should be moved off of special teams, and someone else needs to hired/moved over.

At this point, no excuses, statistical aberrations, or injuries can overcome the established trend on the field: middle to bottom of the conference kick and punt coverage for Tedford's entire tenure. See for yourself:

Conference rank 2004-present -
(1) Opponent kickoff return yards: 6,5,8,6,6,6.
(2) Opponent punt return yards: 7,7,2,2,8,10.

7. Good finishing blocks downfield. A lot of great blocks downfield extended long runs. Jones in particular drove his man backward for about 10 yards on Vereen's first TD. These blocks are not only the difference between a 7 yard run and a 27 yard run, but they are great indicators of effort. Teams that give up on downfield blocks leave points on the field.

8. Derrick Hill is quietly having a very good season. Before the season, I called Hill an "enigma." He started as freshman, which was promising, but he also started in Tedford's doghouse, which was ominous. Last year he showed flashes, but seemed to play a bit banged up. He's got great upside as a quick, penetrating 3-technique, but candidly, of all the players on the defense, I initially thought his talent would be the most wasted in a 3-4. So it was sort of hard to read him going into this year.

But it is now safe to say what he's done to transform himself into an effective, if disruptive, NT is downright impressive. He flat outplayed O'Dowd (a consensus All-American) in the SC game, and had his way with UCLA's OL as well. He may not get the recognition he should, but right now, he's doing everything you want out of your NT.

9. Tipoti and Guyton have bright futures. I was very impressed with the push both of these guys got. They both use excellent technique, in terms of pad level and use of the hands. And both guys were driving their blocker backwards repeatedly. Admittedly, they provide more depth than I anticipated coming into the season.

10. The gatorade bath says something. Say what you will about a gatorade bath after a mid-season win over a middling conference team. But Boateng's quote gives some insight into what the players think of their coach:

"I didn't know if it was a good idea because of what has happened the last two games," Boateng said. "But we just felt like coach deserved it because he's worked hard."

And according to Okanes:

Boateng said offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig lit into the offense at a team meeting Friday night.

"He was very upset about what's been going on the last two weeks," Boateng said. "We felt like we had to step up and get this win for him."

Based on these and other post-game quotes, it sounds like Tedford and the staff not only lit a fire under the team, but they also rallied them together. I am reminded of all the bluster by the pundits about how Tedford's message wasn't getting through to the team, and how this was a defining game for Tedford and a make or break game (I actually do not think it was). I doubt these critics will ever be silenced, but I thought the team's response on the field and post-game was pretty telling.

All in all, this was a salty win and a cathartic streak-breaker. Questions abound on defense and special teams (which I will get to in my next post), but it was nice to see the offense and the swagger make an appearance again, especially on the road.

UCLA Highlights

2009-10-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

From Danzig, and extended highlights from PRD74 - great work as usual (especially the extra work getting the first quarter in there after ABC blacked the Bears out during the end of Texas-Oklahoma - classic ABC).

My post-game thoughts to come shortly.

Danzig

Cal at UCLA from jamie vades on Vimeo.

PRD74 Extended

(Very) Brief UCLA Pregame Thoughts

2009-10-16T20:17:00.001-07:00

Sorry folks. On the road this week and weekend, and I'll be at the game, so no time for a preview, except the following thoughts:

1. The Cal defense needs to do two things: (1) attack, and (2) be ready to defend the TE pass, bubble screen, and dump offs to the RBs. That is the key to this game on defense. They are good enough to lock this offense down and force punts and turnovers, and they need to go into this game with that mentality. Anything short of that on the road, and the home team will eventually find its way on offense.

2. The Cal offense does not need to panic. Keep sticking with the game plans, be patient with the run, and finish blocks. The difference this week is just get Riley in rhythm. That is the difference between a balanced offense and a stagnant one. If gets comfortable, Cal will be fine offensively. If he doesn't, again, start drinking.

3. I said I'd hold off on making a judgment as to how good this team was until after this weekend. We'll learn something about this team this weekend.

4. I am not in the business of predictions, but I will say this: Tedford and his staff are usually well prepared, and get the team to play pretty well, after a bye when the expectations are not high. I don't know what we'll see, but I will be surprised if the team looks unprepared.

5. For a different perspective, watch some different players than the RBs and QB for a change. On offense, watch the guards for a whole series. Then watch the WRs run routes and block. On defense, watch the LBs for a whole series. It'll give you a good insight into how well guys are actually playing, regardless of how the play turns out.

Check links to the right for video streams of the game. Between JustinTV and the other sites, you'll find a link somewhere on one of those sites if you poke around long enough. Sorry the quick preview, but I'll have plenty of thoughts after the game.

Offensive Film Study and Other Thoughts

2009-10-10T01:00:00.000-07:00

When you lose, there are three kinds of film study sessions that follow. First, there's the one where you see that the other team just had you beat at all the critical junctures, both schematically and in how they played. For example, most of Wazzu's film sessions last year went like that. As a coach, you feel a bit small watching those sessions, but you've got so much work to do that you don't have time to dwell on it. And you know your talent level has pretty much set a ceiling.

Second, there's the one where everything pretty much went right except a couple key plays, say in a close loss. That's the film session Belotti's staff had after the loss to Cal in '07. While the loss hurts, as a coach you look at those and feel pretty good that you're on the right track.

Then there's the third one, the one that makes you want to slide all the papers and gatorade bottles off the table, throw some furniture, and then slump down into a chair and start rubbing your eyes and your temples in frustration and exhaustion. This is the one where time and again, all game long, you've got the right scheme, your guys have won their share of individual matchups, just like in practice, but unforced mistakes and sloppiness by one player (same one or different one each time) keep killing the plays.

Watching film of the SC game is going to sting. It's going to gnaw at a details guy like Tedford in a way that very few things in football can. It makes me green with nausea to think of all the points and chunks of yardage that Cal left on the field Saturday through unforced errors. And I'm just a fan. My investment in the program pales in comparison to the coaches' and players' investments. I wouldn't trade places with those guys right now. I guarantee you Tedford would forfeit his salary to have some of those plays back right now, because he knows he had the SC defense beat.

With that, let's look at some of questions people have raised this week concerning the game plan, the play calling, and the in-game adjustments.

1. The game plan was pretty good, just like last year, but variety of play calls was better than last year. Last year I thought Cignetti had a sound game plan and I thought he dialed up the right plays. Same goes for Ludwig this year. The difference is Ludwig showed an even better diversity of looks. Bottom line, I really liked the game Ludwig called.

There were just so many plays where Cal had the matchup they wanted, and the receiver was open. Against a defense that good, I was impressed. The problem of course was poor execution at critical times, which is beyond frustrating, but the fact that the plays were there is a good sign.

The offense showed a nice mix of looks: fakes out of the screen packages, moving the pocket around and rolling Riley out, nice use of the reverse, the wildcat, and the quick passes to the TE, tailback and slot receiver. Lots of attack points all over the field.

If this team can limit the mistakes, it can get back to scoring 30 a game easily.

2. Riley wasn't as bad as often as I initially thought, but his mistakes were just killers. On rewatch, he made plenty of decent throws, more than I thought. And some of his misses weren't all that bad -- good coverage, under pressure, good throw aways. But rewatch also confirmed that his bad plays were the kind that makes you pull your hair out as a coach.

Last year I wrote that Riley's biggest nemesis was the "freethrow" passes, the ones that were easy, wide open passes. And on rewatch, it was definitely the gimmes that he struggled with. This is 100% mental. Like I said earlier in the week, it remains to be seen if he can shake this.

3. Riley has not "regressed" under Tedford. I keep reading and hearing about how Tedford turns his QBs into head cases until they regress into mediocre QBs. Not to be a downer, but I have news for you: I have seen nothing to suggest Riley is an elite talent. He is a decent QB with the potential to play some great games, but that's all.

And before you cite the Armed Forces Bowl, the second half of Ore St. 07, Mich St., MD 09, as evidence of his upside, those games all have one of two things in common: (1) they were coming off several weeks to prepare, and/or (2) the game plans were simplistic. Tedford said at the coaches' tour before the 08 season that the AFA and OSU game plans were considerably simplified for Riley (ditto for Levy vs. Stanford and BYU), and though he gave Riley credit, he also noted that having Jackson, Hawkins and Jordan really helped.

Why do I make this point? Because there is a big difference between game planning and mentally preparing for the opening game or a bowl game, and the grind of putting in and executing full blown game plans week in and week out during the course of a college football season. The latter is 10 games a year, the former is 2. This a huge component of the mental aspect of playing QB.

And Riley's performance in those week-to-week games, especially against good defenses, has frankly been average from the very beginning. So I am not sure how much regression there has really been.

For what it's worth, coming off a bye, this pattern suggests he'll have a nice game vs. UCLA.

4. The offensive line played pretty well. On run plays, often they got a good surge and got angles and leverage on the defensive linemen. The exception was Jurrell Casey blowing Cheadle and Boskovich up a couple times. Casey is a load, probably a first day draft pick, and the latest in a tradition of ridiculous talent at DT at SC, so no shame in that.

The breakdowns in blocking were on the edges, by TEs, WRs, FB, or just SC's ridiculous speed. Holley in particular struggled with SC's quickness. Also, I said in my preview that for the past couple years SC has killed Cal with guys coming around the edge unblocked and grabbing runningbacks from behind or making shoestring tackles. This happened again this year. Often Cal's plays don't call for those guys to be blocked because most defenders aren't fast enough to make those plays going away from them. But Carroll sent Mays, a safety, and LBs a few times on run blitzes, and they worked. Cal has got to get this fixed.

On pass plays, the OL protection wasn't bad either, save for a few breakdowns. I actually thought Riley got spooked and started scrambling prematurely a couple times, when the line actually had things under control. Given how many times SC was sending blitzers, I thought the protection was decent. Each guy had a lapse here and there, but for the most part, they protected well, much better than versus Oregon. Jahvid Best on the other hand has pass blocked poorly most of the season, and there is really no way to sugarcoat that.

5. SC's defense was as fast as any I've seen under Carroll. They made up for inexperience with ridiculous speed, particularly on the edges. Cal won't see another defense like that all year.

6. The FG was the right call, and it's not debatable. I keep hearing about how the FG call was gutless. People, listen to me. When you're on the 20 yard line, with 12 seconds and no timeouts, and your offense has been struggling all game against maybe the best defense in the country, you don't get delusional. The way Cal had been playing, the chance they score a TD from 20 yards out against that defense was maybe 5% or 10% tops. Heck, they were having trouble getting 4 yards per play against SC, let alone 20. And in the red zone, their average was even worse.

In contrast, the chances D'Amato hits a FG from there is probably at worst 50%. Coming off your best drive of the game, you want to come away with points. You play the odds there, and the odds say kick it. From 10 yards out, or with 17 seconds on the clock, you try a play. But 20 yards with 12 seconds - no way.

And consider one other point. If you try to run a play, the chances of something ugly or untoward happening go up exponentially. Riley takes a sack and clock runs out. They try to rush the kicker onto the field and can't get the kick off. They complete a pass but the guy gets tackled and clock runs out. Now you get zero points and you look awful doing it. Talk about deflating. Not a great way to head into the locker room.

7. People have overestimated the raw talent on this offense, period. Outside of Best, Schwartz and Tepper, the rest of the offense will not get a sniff at all conference or even a practice squad on an NFL roster (Boateng too could be an undrafted FA on measurables, but that's about it). If Cal gets back to scoring 30 points a game, it'll be a good coaching job.

8. Let's wait until a few other coaches besides Pete Carroll win the conference before we start talking about Tedford not being the guy to get Cal over the hump. Last I checked, no one else has won outright since Carroll's run started, including Belotti, the dean of Pac 10 coaches. Is Cal undisputedly the most talented team in the conference, or even second most talented? Does it have the best or even second best facilities? Does it have the biggest donors or even second biggest? Does it have the most football-conducive administration or even the second most?

The answer is no to every one of those questions. And yet for some irrational reason, everyone thinks Tedford should be fired if he can't get Cal to finish first or second (and 04 and 06 don't count apparently). I am not saying Tedford is god, or he's the best coach in the conference, or even that his teams occasionally disappoint when they lose.

But he's been doing what he's done, which is win at a .663 pace over 7 years, with more hurdles than most other coaches in the conference. He's got a considerably better winning percentage than UCLA or Stanford since he's been at Cal, the only two schools with comparable academic and institutional impediments to football success. If it is so easy to find someone to get a team over the hump, how come Washington, Arizona, UCLA, and ASU haven't been able to find that magic guy? All four are on their second coach during Tedford's tenure.

Wait until the facilities get built, the talent improves, and a few other coaches still beat Tedford to the Rose Bowl after all that, before we say the Tedford experiment is a failure.

[Comments glitch fixed by the way, so you can again leave comments.]

USC Highlights

2009-10-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of ieeeBear, from the Danzig coaching tree. Nice work ieee.

Some Initial Thoughts

2009-10-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

I have been saying all season that I am withholding judgment on how good this team is until after UCLA, and I am sticking with that. I said I thought before the season Cal would lose up at Oregon. I thought before the season that the SC game was a toss-up. I am not dumbfounded by Cal's record right now - I always thought this was a 10-2 team that could go 11-1 if Riley had a Jerome Randle-like metamorphosis, or could go 8-4 if he played like last year. More on him in a minute, but for now, the latter is certainly looking more likely.

And the defense is playing about how I thought they would. I figured they'd take a step back at linebacker and as a result, Gregory would have them more heavily keyed on the run to overcompensate for lack of experience, leaving them vulnerable to short passing and TE routes. Check. I am maybe a tad surprised at how occasionally ill-prepared they have seemed against certain offensive looks, but with the exception of the Oregon game (which by season's end will I think look more and more out of character), they have made the kind of mistakes I expected.

What I totally whiffed on was Riley's mental game. I had him pegged as kind of a loose player who could shake off bad plays, fire himself up and make a good one the next play. But what I've seen from him the past two weeks is that he takes bad plays HARD. Riley never recovered mentally from that interception he threw to Mays. He missed almost every pass he threw the rest of the night, hitting only a couple. He was just never the same guy. And versus Oregon, it just seemed like once he started missing on passes, it just kept happening again and again.

The QB position, in terms of comparing one high level college athlete to another, almost exclusively mental. They can all throw. They can all hand off and sell fakes. Where they diverge is between the ears - how well they master the offense, how well they read defenses, how well they understand game plans, and perhaps most importantly, how well they play under duress - mental, physical, self-imposed, and externally-imposed duress. Can they still put the throw on the numbers when they've had a terrible day, there's a DE bearing down on them, it's third and long, and the team is behind? When they see a man wide open, do they think, "I am going to rip the defense's heart out with this one." or do they think, "Holy crap he's open, I cannot miss this or we're screwed."

I have no idea what goes through Riley's head, but twice now, we've seen Riley's quality of play drop off dramatically from where it has been at other times. In both instances, the drop off occurred after he struggled with wide open passes and pressure early in the game.

This tells me something: he has trouble shaking off mistakes. I am not criticizing him. It's hard enough to be a Pac 10 starting QB, but to have to suck up mistakes and frustration in the middle of a game against a defense like SC is just plain hard. Most people couldn't do it.

But that's the job of a college quarterback, and the fact is, Riley looks like he's struggling with it. He looks like a guy who gets into a funk and can't get himself out. I am very curious to see how he does against UCLA. If he rights the ship, and can keep his wits the rest of the season, this team can run the table the rest of the way (yes, I think they are a decent QB away on offense from doing that from here on out). If he continues to struggle mentally, I fear things could get ugly.

It's not all on Riley, but the fact is, quarterback play is the missing link for every other team in the Pac 10 trying to take down USC. It's not a mystery. The only other Pac 10 teams who legitimately looked like they might win the conference in the last 7 years were Cal 04 and Ore 07. And what is the first thing you think of when you think of those two teams? Rodgers and Dixon leading great offenses. USC has had the best QB in the conference every year but those two years. If Cal wants to get there, it needs better QB play, plain and simple.

I'll have many more thoughts on the game later, but I will say this much for now: for all the bitching about Cal's coaching and play calling, Cal had Pete Carroll's defense fooled repeatedly Saturday night in the passing game, more than I've ever seen. There were plays to be made all over that field. And if those passes were completed (and they absolutely should have been), the Cal coaches look like geniuses, Carroll looks like he's rebuilding, Best probably goes for 100 yards, and Riley is the toast of the town. I am livid at the unforced errors - nothing irks me more watching football than that. But mark my words, whenever Cal can find players who can make these plays, SC is going down.

USC Preview

2009-10-02T00:05:00.001-07:00

If everyone plays as hard as Alualu, Cal will win.

Cal doesn't have to worry about playing with eyes in the back of their head this week. There isn't a ton of deception in what USC does. It's your basic pro style offense and defense, that derives its effectiveness more from talent and execution than from confusion and mismatches (though there is a little of that too). But SC can do that because they have the best players in the conference. And in fairness to the coaches, they execute pretty well most of the time. They also play very hard, which isn't always the case for ultra-talented teams. Once again, Cal will have its work cut out for it.

WHEN USC HAS THE BALL

To me, Cal should be approaching this like a throwback Big 10/SEC game. Don't expect your offense to win it for you by scoring 30 points, because it ain't going to happen. The Cal defense should assume the attitude that they are going to take the USC offense out of its game and its comfort zone, put them in difficult field position, pressure the QB, strip the ball at every opportunity, lay as many punishing hits as possible, and then get just enough from the offense to seal the deal. That's pretty much been the Cal-SC game most years anyway, but this year in particular, the defense should be licking its chops, not playing passive contain defense.

This USC offense is still very dangerous, and they have a rock of an offensive line, the conference's best receiver, best fullback, and the second most dangerous tailback after Best (McKnight would be all conference if he played at Cal). But they are more prone to error and to stalling than I think I've ever seen them under Carroll. There's an opening there and the Cal defense needs to jam a crowbar in there and rip it open.

Things Cal Can Exploit

Barkley Turnover Potential. Barkley does a ton of things extremely well for a freshman. If I had to pick one recruit under Tedford that I wish Cal had signed, he would be it. I think he is that good, and he's going to be a star. So Cal better take their shot while they've got it, because from now on, QB will be a strength of this offense, not a weakness.

However, right now, Barkley does some freshman-type stuff that Cal can exploit. First off, he telegraphs pretty blatantly. I haven't really seen him look off receivers or even do a ton of quick checkdowns. If he scrambles, he's good at finding an outlet, but in terms of standing in the pocket and fooling DBs with his eyes, I don't think he's there yet. Against Cal's zone defense, especially in long yardage, there are opportunities to anticipate routes and throws.

Second, he will heave off his back foot under pressure at times. He's smart enough to heave it high, and he's strong enough to throw it deep and usually out of reach, but he still is a bit more careless with the ball than I would like if I were his coach. Yes, he's only thrown 1 pick, but most of his passes have been very high percentage and not into coverage. Again, Cal may have some opportunities to turn him over or at least anticipate and break up passes.

Third, he's got a sore shoulder. It might not affect his throwing a ton, but you can bet it won't feel too good getting sacked.

Finally, he faced one decent secondary in Ohio State, and they held him in check until the last drive (11/28 167, INT, sack). Then Tressel went conservative and Barkley led them on a drive, albeit of mostly screens and dump offs, but he led them up the field (let that be a lesson about conservatism Bob Gregory). The other defenses: San Jose State and Washington State.

The point is, he's only been tested once and through three and half quarters of that test, he looked pedestrian and his offense only managed 10 points, 7 of which came off an 47-yard INT return to OSU's 3 yard line. He hasn't seen a bunch of different looks against fast defenses, and he hasn't really been under much pressure.

Other turnover prone players. I always scoff at the notion that a team is turnover prone. It's usually certain players. On this team, it starts with McKnight. He is the quintessential athlete playing RB. He forgets the RB part sometimes, especially the ball security part, when he starts making all those crazy cuts, and the result is he gets stripped.

Similarly, though they may have been fluky fumbles, SC runners fumbled two times vs. UW, and the team has lost 6 fumbles through four games (Cal lost 3 by contrast, all fluky). I attribute some of that to the fact that the constant rotation of backs (1) does not let the runners get into a rhythm, and (2) makes the guys want to try and do it all when they're in there, instead of just grinding out the yards. These things keep the kids from settling down and playing in control, and the result can be fumbles or other bad decisions.

It's the rule that if you want to beat SC, winning the turnover battle is critical. Cal has chances to do that this year more than any in recent memory.

Things Cal Needs to Watch Out For.

Screen Game. USC has murdered Cal with bubble screens. They get the ball to their athletes in space and get 7-12 yards a pop. Expect more of the same Saturday. They will use McKnight and Williams on short slips bubbles and fires and let the OL and the athletes do the rest. Here's a refresher from last year, notably the last play of the clip - TD on a quick screen to Johnson.

The key to stopping this is (1) don't spend all game giving a 7-yard cushion, and (2) if you do, have the OLBs ready for this play so they react quickly. Yes Williams is good and yes it's risky he'll put a move on a pressing corner. But if you give him 7 yards he's just going to gash you. And at some point, you need to trust your safeties and your pass rush too.

And in general with every kind of screen, LB tackling is key. Too often this season we've seen Cal in position on screens only to fail to make tackles to stop first downs. You can't have that against SC. Don't go for the big hit and whiff, just swarm and wrap up.

Varying Release Points for Receivers This is probably the method of deception that USC employs most effectively. For years, USC has had great success with passes to tailbacks, fullbacks, TEs and slot receivers, but releasing them late, from unconventional spots, or into holes in the zone. The two most dangerous variations I've seen this year are (1) the pass to the fullback on playaction where he's acting like a lead blocker, and (2) the pass to the slot WR who releases into the flat after running laterally behind the offensive line like he's going to kick out the OLB. Cal fans will remember the latter because Steve Smith ran it on 3rd and short vs. Cal in 2006 and score a TD off it (the play Hughes complained was the difference between Carroll always going for it and Cal never doing that). More bad news: Dickson killed the Bears with this last week. Here's a little sample of what they did to Wazzu last weekend.

In man coverage, these are much less of a problem because there will be someone watching these guys. But in zone coverage, these players tend to get ignored initially. Especially on the fullback pass, both the tailback and the fullback head downfield to carry out the run fake, and the defense is usually keyed on the tailback. Every time I've seen USC make this pass, the fullback is wide open.

Similarly, on the WR release, the WR almost hides behind the OL for a couple seconds and then springs into the flat. By the time the zone defender gets a read on him, the ball's already on the way.

The best way to counter these plays is man coverage, but I don't think you're going to see a lot of that from Gregory, especially on slot receivers and fullbacks. In zone, the key is just to be aware of these plays as they read Barkley. As I said, he telegraphs, so they as long as the defense can avoid biting hard on the play fake, they should be able to get there in a hurry. On playaction, the tailback rarely gets the pass, so key on the fullback. And anytime Williams lines up in the slot, if you're going to zone, he should be priority #1. He is the best receiver in the conference bar none and Cal should defend him that way.

In sum, I really think Cal can win this game with defense. USC still has the most talented players on offense, but they've got just enough roughness to smooth out right now that a good defense can keep them in check. I hope the Cal defense goes into the game with this mindset.

WHEN CAL HAS THE BALL

Despite all the injuries and new faces on the USC defense, don't think for a minute Cal is going to have an easier time moving the ball. The USC defense is like the Texas Tech offense - it's going to do what it always does, even if USC loses the game. It's about Pete Carroll's airtight scheme and ridiculously talented players. Defense is so much more about superior talent than offense. That's why there's all kinds of great offenses out there on lesser teams like Air Force and Tusla, but the best defenses year in and year out are the teams that get the best recruits, teams like USC, Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, LSU, Florida and Texas.

Things Cal Can Exploit

USC Is Playing Younger Players Due to Injury. USC is as banged up on defense as I have ever seen them, and is playing some younger guys and backups. Most of them are still blue chippers, but experience still counts for something. In particular, the front 7 is pretty green. They are mega-talented, but they just don't have as many snaps as some of the past teams. It doesn't mean they won't still be the best defense in the conference, because they will. But it does mean they are more prone to the occasional slip up a couple times a game. Tedford's always been about the setup, like with the fake screen TD that almost was last year. A young defense is more vulnerable to being set up.

The Short Pass. Carroll typically gives up the underneath stuff to try and keep everything in front. Rodgers killed them with the dink and dunk in 2003 and 2004. Especially when they move the pocket around, there are holes all over the place inside of 10 yards. I don't know why, but the coaches haven't really attacked this area of the field as much with Riley. Quick slants, dumps to the TE, quick outs -- these should all get Riley in rhythm and slow down USC's LBs a bit to loosen up the run.

Use Best as a Decoy. USC is going to be so keyed on Best it's not funny. This young defense has been hearing all about this guy in practice all week. They watched what MD did to him last year. They saw how Oregon shut him down, and how SC contained him last year. They believe they can do it again.

Suck them in. Best might be the best decoy in all of college football. His mere presence on the field is a glaring distraction. Can you imagine what a pump fake to him in the slot would do to whomever is covering him? Someone is going to be open, and a draw play up the middle is going to be open. All Cal has to do is fake to him on a play that they always go to him on, and there is going to be daylight. I frankly can't believe the coaches haven't done this more.

Things Cal Needs to Watch Out For.

Pass Rush. Tepper and Schwartz are going to get tested like never before. These two DEs, Perry and Griffen, are the two best pass rushing DEs I have seen since Carroll's been there. Perry is a bit banged up, but the guy has 6 sacks already...as a freshman. Griffen has 3. These two are pure speed rushers and absolute terrors on the edge. Here are some clips of the defense against Wazzu last weekend.

Aside from the tackles moving their feet, Riley has got to step up in the pocket. He absolutely cannot sit back there patting the ball waiting for guys to get open. He's got to step up, and get out of there. If he does, there will be opportunities. And the middle three need to do their part to give Riley that cone to step up into. This pass protection is the key matchup in the game. If Cal can't give Riley time, it's going to be a long day.

Sealing the Edges on Inside Runs. I have never seen a defense make so many shoestring tackles using a LB or safety coming around the outside of the OL and tripping up the RB as he runs through the middle of the line. SC's players are so fast that they gamble they can get around the edge quickly enough to make the tackle before the RB hits the hole. Maualuga was a master at this, and he tripped up Best twice on plays that would have gone for at least 15-20 yards last year. Why do I know they would have gone for big gains? Because they were right at the hole Maualuga left in the defense when he took off around the edge. I've seen Mays do the same thing.

Cal's edge blockers and backside blockers, typically TEs and WRs, need to chip these guys hard just to keep them out of the play. Cal has struggled with this type of blocking all season, and I've commented on it before. If they don't take care of business here, USC's speed is going to contain Best all day long.

Opportunistic Secondary. Throw anything over 10-12 yards over the middle at your peril against this defense. Nate Longshore never learned. And Riley apparently didn't last year either, throwing a pick in the endzone. The plays are there occasionally, but your accuracy has to be perfect. And Riley isn't that guy. Neither was Longshore.

A common thread in Cal's losses to SC is they keep turning the ball over. SC has picked Cal off...get ready: 9 times from 2005 through 2008. That's just over 2 times per game. And they've gotten a pick in every game. No one else comes anywhere close to this kind of turnover production against Cal. This has been a huge advantage for USC in these games. If Cal expects to win, they simply cannot keep repeating this.

OTHER KEYS TO THE GAME

1. Kicking/Punting and Field Position. Make USC drive the length of the field. Cal needs to get Anger back on track, and needs to cover kicks and punts, so USC has to work for everything. I think we'll see Anger boom a couple now that he's back in the comfort of Memorial. This is critical in games like this.

Also, SC is down to a backup punter and a their kicker is a bit shaky. Cal needs to seize the advantage on special teams.

2. Playing Four Quarters. It sounds like a cliche, but Cal has just been owned in the fourth quarter against SC, more than against any other team. Cal needs to go into the fourth quarter with the mindset that THEY are going to put USC away, not just try to hang on (which is frankly how they've looked the past few years).

3. Wide receivers. With the exception of a couple big catches, Cal's WRs have been neutered by USC. I don't think this group is good enough to make any noise, but I'd like to see the coaches try to get the ball in their hands on some short slants and quick screens, just to get them involved. Ross is good with the ball in his hands. Jones showed he can catch a laser on the slant. Use them.

4. Show Some Guts. This is the biggest recruiting weekend I can remember under Tedford. The list of guys visiting Cal for this game is star-studded. This team is trying to get its mojo back and fighting for its life to stay in the conference race. Don't play like you're just trying to hang around. Go out and take it. Tedford and Gregory need to show some balls and some fire this weekend and unleash the hounds.

USC - Opening Thoughts

2009-10-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

Looking for motivation? Look no further.

Before the season started, just about everyone, from Tedford down to the black-hearted pundits, felt this was Cal's best chance to beat USC - early in the season, at home, new QB, and breaking in new players on defense and new coordinators. And if not for the Oregon loss, everyone would still be saying that. Well, I am still saying it. USC is walking dangerously close to the ledge and they are just begging to be pushed off it. They have finally had that run of bad luck that has so miraculously eluded them the last 7 years under Carroll. Welcome to the club.

In one off-season, they lost their OC, DC, QB, all conference SS, and 3 all conference LBs. Then early this season, they lost their starting CB, starting DE, starting DT, starting WR, and starting QB (Corp). Then the new QB (Barkley) and Mays got hurt. Then they lost to UW. Then they lost two starting LBs. Last week they lost another DL for the season. And Barkley, Mays, Perry, and multiple LBs are going to play banged up this weekend. And then Stafon Johnson got hurt this week ending his season - one of the major leaders on this team. If Carroll wins the conference this year with all that, he deserves coach of the year in my opinion.

But while I feel bad for the injured players, I have absolutely zero sympathy for the program. Between the years and years of lucky calls in tight games, to the total domination of west coast recruiting, to the arrogance of the fan base, as far as I am concerned, they have been long overdue for some bad luck.

Plain and simple, Cal has the chance to pull the plug on USC this weekend. USC's the Million Dollar Baby on death's doorstep, and Cal is Clint Eastwood, dabbing Baby's dry lips as he slowly slips a lethal cocktail into the IV. Goodnight Trojans, it's Cal's year, not yours.

That's how the team has to approach this game. And I am going to say it now: This week, it's on the Cal coaches to get the players into this mindset, that they are going to ruin SC's season, crush their spirits, and turn the lights out on them. Other weeks, maybe not. But with everything that's happened, and the golden opportunity this presents to the team and the program, the coaches need to dig deep and do nothing short of paint a masterpiece this week. For this reason, I think this might be one of the more defining weeks of Coach Tedford's career. He is going to need to get this team to use the Oregon loss as motivation, to play at a fever pitch with their hair on fire, and in the words of James Bethea, to play like they want to take their fucking hearts.

Offense, defense and keys to the game to come later.

Oregon Recap Part II (Defense and Closing Thoughts)

2009-09-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

With the exception of a few times last year, I have always felt that Tedford's teams have been offense-driven. The defense feeds off the offense, and tends to derive its confidence from how the offense is doing. I doubt seriously Tedford and Gregory have ever entered a conference game saying, "Let's just keep it vanilla on offense, and let the defense and field position carry us." Tressel, Carroll, Stoops - definitely. Tedford? No way. Tedford is the anti-Tressel, the anti-Big 10: "Let's just keep everything in front of us on defense, don't give up the big play, and eventually the offense is going to get untracked and put them away." More often than not, as the offense goes, so go Tedford's teams.

And to a degree (keep that qualifier suspended in mid-air for a moment while I make this point), I think that rang true Saturday. While giving up 42 points and 500+ yards of offense is an unmitigated failure defensively, I can't shake the feeling that the offense's continued failure to score, let alone put together sustained drives, was like a weight around this defense's neck. And I am not just talking about being on the field so much, though that is a big part of it. I am talking about playing (and play calling) with confidence. The secondary and linebackers just looked a little hesitant out there, as did most of the early defensive calls. It was almost like they were just trying to bide their time until the offense to get rolling. Then late, they looked desperate, and started taking the wrong kind of chances to make plays.

I'll get to my criticisms of the game plan, lack of adjustments, and the execution problems in a moment. But let it be said that while the defense's failures were the straw the broke the camel's back, the offense's struggles to make key plays time after time after time were the big pile of hay that was already there.

So the first question that jumps out is whether that is an acceptable identity for a team? It seems so foreign to assume a Tedford team would come into a conference game expecting to lean on its defense. But should that be a foreign concept, especially with this group? My answer is no way, and that's where I get off the page with Gregory, not the x's and o's stuff.

Gregory knows his scheming. He's a really technical, cerebral defensive coordinator, more than people give him credit for (maybe too much so, frankly). But in the 7 going on 8 years I've been watching Gregory's defenses, I have never, not once, gotten the sense (and that's all it really is - a sense) that the Cal defense has gone into games with the notion that they are going to dominate the game and carry the team. To me, that's an identity-level, pit-of-your-soul type mindset. That starts with the coach. And I just don't think Gregory approaches defense that way.

That is where the problems started Saturday - attitude. The defense did not play like a defense that intended to shut Oregon down and win the game for the team, come hell or high water. Don't misunderstand, it's not that they did not play hard (I didn't see dejected body language on defense until very late in the game). It's that they appeared to have more of a passive approach.

While I agree that you have to be careful attacking Oregon too much given the potency of their offense, you also have to keep an offense out of its comfort zone. That means pressure, variable coverages, stunts and blitzes. And early.

And that really comes down to the game plan, which is squarely on the coach. Game plan and attitude go hand in hand. When the coach says Monday last week, "We are going to shut this offense down by attacking it and taking them out of their comfort zone, until they make mistakes," it changes the way the team practices all week long. And it affects their attitude going into the game.

That clearly was not the game plan, and that is my second criticism. The game plan was (1) stop the inside run (slavishly) and (2) keep everything in front of the secondary. Those are not bad things by themselves, but that game plan needed more. First off, it needed more attacking and confusion elements. Second, it was simply not prepared for many of the wrinkles Oregon threw at it.

Beginning with attacking, I get that you have to be careful sending the house and going cover 0 when you're playing the Oregon offense in Autzen. But Masoli has proven to be much, much worse when he tries to throw under pressure. He was against Cal last year, and he has been this year. Similarly, the Oregon offensive line was green and had shown some struggles all season. Cal has some of the best pressure front 7 players in the conference. Why not use them? Do some stunts, delayed blitzes, and altered fronts to confuse the blockers. Cal did very little of this in the first half. Consequently, Masoli and the blockers pretty much ran their blocks the way they practiced them. That makes things pretty easy when you're at home on top of everything else.

Second, and this is a big one, the Cal defense looked just plain unprepared for several of the plays Oregon ran. First thing to say there is hats off to Kelly. He drew up some really nice plays. And he clearly had some things waiting to unleash on this defense (as I predicted he would). In particular, the run-pass option plays were killers. Masoli would show like he was running and then quickly fling the ball out to a receiver. Much like a pump fake, the quick feigning of run froze the pass defenders and gave the receiver a bubble. While this is one of the toughest types of option plays to stop, the defense clearly was unprepared for it.

The other thing they were clearly unprepared for was the bubble screen. And we've seen this before from Gregory's defenses. USC scored on it against Cal last year with relative ease (and will again Saturday if Cal is not careful), and a few other teams got some nice gains out of it as well. This play can be tough to stop cold if it is well-timed or audibled to against outnumbered coverage, but even then, you can keep it to under 5 yards if you are prepared to defend it properly.

This leads me to my third concern: lack of adjustments. I get that if you're hell bent on stopping the run, you're going to be vulnerable on the edges and over the top. And I get that if you go into the game expecting Masoli's arm not to hurt you badly (a reasonable expectation at the time), you're not going to be dropping 5 into coverage on first and second down. Ok fine, stick with your game plan and see how it works.

Well, it worked well for a quarter. But even during the first quarter, you could already see that Oregon was intent on establishing the pass. And though Cal held them on the scoreboard in that quarter, Oregon was completing passes all over the place. Once you see that as a defensive coach, you have to start adjusting to it.

In the second quarter, it became clear Oregon was going to stick with using the pass to loosen up the run, and it worked. In particular, they were using Dickson and the bubble screen, and then mixing in run plays inside. 5 minutes into the second quarter, after Oregon's second TD, Masoli had thrown 17 passes, and Dickson had 6 catches for 84 yards. Ok, coach, the game is still close, but your game plan isn't working. Time to adjust your coverages, and time start putting a spy on Dickson.

But that really didn't happen. Oregon continued to work the sidelines with the pass, and continued to hit Dickson on a variety of plays.

Before I get to my closing thoughts, the last thing that warrants mentioning is that this group of LBs still has a lot of maturing to do. Several times, they just looked confused on anything other than a zone run. I think this maturation will occur over the course of the season, but be prepared for this group to have a few more slip ups along the way, because teams are going to come after them with fullbacks, TEs, rollouts, and short routes, starting with USC this weekend.

In closing, I said I'll reserve judgment about how good this team is until after the UCLA game. I still think playing at Oregon is the toughest game on Cal's schedule in the odd numbered years, and that's why I circled it as a loss heading into the season. As bad as the loss was, there are lots of reasons to throw it out as probably not likely to repeat itself this season: unique offense, toughest road venue in the conference, #6 ranking, and lots of unforced execution errors. If Cal rights the ship by beating USC and UCLA, it will be 5-1, 2-1, with in my opinion its two toughest road games and toughest home game behind it. Before the season started, I'd have taken that in a second.

Oregon Recap

2009-09-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

A total team effort.

My advice to all Cal fans, particularly the angry mob: Think like a coach, or you will be miserable as a fan. Fans retch and self-flagellate over games like this because they focus on what the loss means about the season, about the disappointment, about how much worse the team might be than they thought, about the rankings, about all of the themes and platitudes that emanate from the media like radiation, leeching into the sports fan brain until the brain is "washed" of its sense.

Coaches (at least the good ones) don't think like that. The only 30,000-foot-view conclusion they draw is, "We're not going undefeated." Then they move onto looking at what went wrong and game planning for next week. Why? Because they know you're not as bad as your worst day on the field, and you're not as good as your best day. There are too many variables in the game of football for the extremes to tell you much. You're somewhere in between, and the coach's job is to make that "in between" fall as close to your best as possible, as many weeks during the season as possible.

Though Cal looked destined to struggle in this game pretty early on, for a variety of reasons which I will get to, the outcome (the score, how the team played, how much better Oregon looked) is no more indicative of how bad this team is, than the Maryland score was indicative of how good it is. Teams have really bad days, especially in the college game. And when those really bad days coincide with another team's really good day, especially on the road against a potent offense, the results can be ugly, and frankly, aberrant.

Do I think Oregon wins that game in Autzen this year 7 out of 10? Probably. Oregon had motivation, an offense that had been underperforming and was cocked and loaded for bear, and a great home field advantage. Cal had a target on its back and took Oregon lightly. Bad combination. Do I think Oregon is as superior a team to Cal as the way that game played out? No way. Same goes for Maryland and Minnesota.

Onto the game. I am going to start with the offense, because I believe that is where the fabric started to tear (and then the defense let Oregon blow the game wide open).

Play Calling

I admit when I first watched, I thought the offensive playcalling was unimaginative, that Riley was only looking deep or throwing it away, and they were just running Best into a pile. Anyone else feel that way?

But then I re-watched it and I have to admit I came away a bit less critical of the playcalling in the first half than I initially was (by the second half, Oregon was on a roll and Cal was a shell of itself, so I don't take much away from the second half). Much like the USC game last year, a lot of the calls were there -- the execution just stunk. And remember, there was no way Cal was going to come in and average 7 yards per play against this defense. So when I say "the calls were there," I mean there were a couple big plays mixed in with the usual 2-3 yard runs Aliotti's run-stopping scheme was yielding, that had they worked, could have kept the offense going.

First drive - ended in a FG. Not spectacular, but scoring on the first drive off a fumble recovery is a fine way to start the game.

Second drive - Tucker fails to make the catch on the laser from Riley over the middle. MacArthur, Lyman, Jackson, Hawkins, Jordan all make that catch. Tucker makes that catch 9 out of 10 ten times. If he does, Cal at least gets a FG and it's 6-0.

Third drive - Riley and Jones miscommunicate on a second down sideline throw where Jones is open and sure to get a first down (seemed like Jones' mistake, but not sure). Then Riley badly underthrows a slip screen to Ross, and the blockers whiff, leaving Ross with no chance. Two good play calls thrown away with poor execution.

Fourth drive - Well-timed play-action pass to Tucker gets thrown away on Tucker's unsportsmanlike penalty. That was exactly the play they went into this game trying to burn Oregon with. The defender was stride for stride but he was beat, hence the PI call. If Tucker keeps his cool, Cal's on the 15, again with at least a FG. At this point Oregon's got 11, so it's still a game. Drive ends with a second miscue, albeit more excusable - a long missed FG.

Fifth drive - Best fumbled handoff.

That's 5 drives, 6 unforced errors (and there were more errors on other plays, especially in the blocking).

Sixth drive - This drive started well, with Tucker getting a first down on a nice bubble screen. Great call, one I would have liked to see a few more times. Then Riley went deep off play action to Tucker on first down, which was another great call since Cal had been running on first down. Tucker had a step, but Riley badly overthrew it. More bad execution. Then Riley almost threw a pick trying to hit Miller over the middle.

Seventh drive - Nice 6 yard pass to Miller on second down. Then Cal hurries up to the line on 3rd and 2 in a double tight formation with receivers tucked in, showing obvious run. This was the first disappointing call of the day. Cal hadn't been able overpower Oregon's front 8-9 guys all day. 2 yards is a long way to go with that matchup. That was an opportunity for something tricky.

However, even with that, if Holley doesn't totally whiff on his block, Best likely gets the first down. This was a standard power run and Holley just missed badly, and his man blew it up.

Eighth drive - Only 56 seconds left in the half.

On rewatch, the play calling wasn't terrible. Play action on first down, a nice bubble screen, couple nice TE passes, couple end-arounds, and some open receivers on missed completions. It wasn't great, but it was good enough to have yielded more than 3 points had the execution been there.

That said, there were some things I thought were missing from the play calling. First off, they should have moved the pocket around, and rolled Riley out a bit more, just to slow down some of the blitzing and change the look up a bit. He can throw well on the run, and it would have added a different dimension to the passing game and the play action game.

Second, they should have attacked with curls and flat routes more. Oregon was giving them this all day. These might have gotten Riley in a bit more of a rhythm.

Third, they should have used the fly sweep action, even if just for fakes, more. When they did, it worked. It's worked well all season.

Riley

I said in my preview this game would tell us more about Riley than probably anyone else on the team, simply because Oregon's defense was going to be the first one to be good enough to put the onus on him. What I saw is a guy who's play started to suffer when things that should have worked were not working. I am not ready to say he's incapable of overcoming those types of situations, but he certainly did not show that he's a guy with nerves of steel who can just block it out. I also think it's now clear he tightens up on the road.

I still like that he hasn't thrown a pick (though he almost did again). And I like that he made some good decisions in throwing it away, buying time with his feet, and managing the offense. He looks like he knows the playbook and is in command out there. I don't think Riley is going to be the second coming of Rodgers, but I also expect a better game from him this week, coming back home, and motivated to right the wrong. But he's going up against another tough defense, so don't expect a metamorphosis. We'll learn more about him this week.

Receivers

These guys simply have to do a better job. Between the drops, not getting separation, and at times missing blocks, this was a total step backward for this group. Cal needed a go-to receiver Saturday and there was none to be found. I am a concerned this team may not find that guy this season.

Offensive Line

Much like Maryland last year, the offensive line got handled Saturday. A lot of it was guys just being a step slow, or looking lost. But guys also got physically beaten a few times, which made me cringe. Guarnero got abused time and again, to the point where I am now officially concerned that he cannot handle bigger DTs who have speed. Cheadle whiffed a bunch and got blown up a few times. Tepper looked bad in pass protection. I hate the cliche of "guys took turns messing up," but this group really did just make mistakes across the board. Most of the mistakes though were just guys being out of position, but there were also guys just getting handled too.

I still think this unit can be very good, and but Saturday was as sloppy as it gets.

Special Teams

I like the way D'Amato kicks. He gets great air under the ball, nice true spin, and he doesn't look like he's trying to murder it when he kicks. No way to know, but he has the look of a good kicker.

Also, the coverage was good. Great play by Moncrease on the kickoff, and solid punt coverage.

A Bit About the Team's Psyche

Someone asked about this in the comments. I am not worried. I really believe when they watch this film, the players are going to say, "No way we are that bad. We had a bad day, the game got away from us, and that was that. Time to move on."

My reasoning is that this team has to know how good it is. They know the talent they have on the field. The defense knows it's got guys like Syd and Tyson. The offense knows it's got guys like Best. They see what they're capable of every day in practice. They know they're better than 42-3.

And that is why I don't think Tedford is going to lay into them. Good players know when they have screwed up badly. They don't need a coach to rub their face in it.

But what they do need, and what I am concerned about, is some ass chewing about details. Guys were sloppy and the coaches need to ride them hard this week about every little thing. They need to be reminded that those little things can kill a drive or break the other team's back, depending on how they are executed.

And Verran Tucker, Sean Cattouse and Darian Hagan need to have their butts reemed for all the jawing they are doing. Cattouse did a little taunting again. Hagan's always chippy. And Tucker just plain lost it. Act like you've been there, and act like you are humbled to wear the jersey and play the game.

I'll talk about defense later.

Oregon Preview

2009-09-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

Chip Kelly: The Tedford that Duck fans have been longing for...or a canard?

Before the season started, way back in the Spring, I circled this game as a loss. Oregon looks a bit worse offensively than I expected, so I'm a bit more optimistic. But make no mistake, I am still very uneasy about this game.

But frankly, I am always uneasy about the Oregon game. There is something about this matchup since Tedford got here that just makes it uncommonly tense every year. With the exception of 2006, it's always a defensive struggle, it always comes down to the last few minutes, and every play just seems magnified.

The things that point in Cal's favor this week are (1) Cal won last year despite multiple turnovers; (2) Oregon's offense is worse this year; (3) Cal's offense is better this year; (4) Oregon might have lost a bit more on defense from last year than Cal, and (5) TJ Ward is out, and a RS freshman is playing in his place.

The things that should worry Cal fans are (1) It's only a matter of time before Oregon's offense starts clicking - it happens every year; (2) It's only a matter of time before teams figure out how to take some things away from Cal offensively - it happens every year; (3) There is a good chance Best is not able to shake loose this week, and Cal has yet to prove it can win in that scenario - it lost almost every game last year in which that happened (the exception, you guessed it, Oregon - go figure); and (4) No offensive player except Tepper has taken a meaningful snap in that stadium. And now I am hearing Thompson may be a scratch due to the flu.

I am not saying this is going to be a disaster for Cal. But I just can't see Cal having its way with Oregon. I'll be pleasantly surprised if they do, and not surprised if this one's an ugly nail biter.

WHEN OREGON HAS THE BALL

I hate to rehash the basics of the Chip Kelly spread, because it's beaten to death, but in a nutshell, Kelly says they have four main run plays: inside zone, outside zone, counter and draw. And then there's the passing game. We all know it's more complicated than that, but the one thing that definitely rings true is that the inside zone play is their bread and butter, and it pretty much sets up the rest of their offense.

That play is basically a form of the option where the QB puts the ball in the RB's belly and then either hands off or keeps. In either case, the ball carrier then reads the defense and the blocks and heads to the bubble. It can be more complicated than that, but that's basically it. The objective is (1) to fool the defense with the play fake as to who has the ball, (2) to fool the defense as the direction the ball is going, because the QB and RB ultimately run opposite directions after the fake/handoff, and (3) to eventually suck the defense in so they are susceptible to outside zone and other plays. It's very effective when executed properly, and if you go to sleep even once, you can get burned badly.

In terms of pass, bottom line, this group is just not very good. Masoli is short, he doesn't read defenses very well, and he's basically only reliable throwing on a roll-out or throwing quick outs and lateral-type screens. He is dangerous on roll-outs because his run threat can get DBs to bite, and because he has a nice arm. But I don't see him standing in the pocket and throwing darts on skinny posts for 15 and 20 yard gains.

I'd guess Oregon will still try to throw the ball, try to use some play action, and try to spread the ball laterally to keep the defense honest. But I don't think it will be anything Cal hasn't seen, and I doubt we'll see the passing precision we've seen the past three weeks.

In general, there are three keys to stopping this offense:

1. Disruptive defensive linemen blowing up the offensive line. The fake/handoff exchange (and the accompanying read) takes a moment. If Alualu comes barreling through the line or pushes an OL backwards or into a gap, it screws up the timing and typically dooms the play. Cal had some success with this last year. USC did too.

2. Outside linebackers must stay home and play disciplined. The outside linebackers have easily the toughest job on the field against this offense. They have to stay home and not get sucked down inside, but they also can't be flat footed. On most read runs, the runner is reading the OLB (or DE in 4-3). If he pinches, the runner bounces outside. If he plays contain, the runner will dive inside if there's room. The key is to do neither (unless the defensive play says otherwise, say on a stunt), so that neither gap on either side gets any bigger, i.e. so there are no bubbles.

But staying home can make you flat-footed, and that's the challenge. You still have to shed quickly and close in with speed. This is the area that concerns me most about Mohamed, Young and Bishop. None are particularly good shedders. The hope is if they can hold their ground, the playside ILB, corner and safety can get there.

Someone commented on my post-game thoughts on Minnesota that this may be the game where Follett, Felder and Williams' absence is felt for the first time. I think that could be right.

This is the key matchup in the game, on either side of the ball, period.

3. Get them in 3rd and long. Masoli is just not a very good passer or reader of defenses. I am sure he'll make plays, but if he's under pressure, he's going to make mistakes. If Cal can win the down and distance war, the defense will be in control.

I predict Oregon is going to get their yards on the ground, and probably break a few big ones off. I also think they'll catch Cal sleeping with a few new wrinkles. As bad as they've played, I just can't see Cal shutting down this run game. So if you're expecting Cal to stay under its 62 yard-rushing defense average, you might want to hide your eyes.

Where Cal can, and I think should, control the Duck offense is against the pass. If they can take away the pass, it will put the game in the Cal offense's hands (barring turnovers and special teams gaffes, both of which I sense coming on like a bad case of dysentery - I just have that queasy feeling).

WHEN CAL HAS THE BALL

I think this is where we are going to see how far Riley has come. It's no secret that the way to beat the Oregon defense is through the air, because lord knows Nick Aliotti isn't going to let you run the ball. Many coordinators talk about stopping the run, but few actually walk the walk. Aliotti would sell his family into slavery, commit crimes, defile himself, whatever, you name it, in order to stop the run.

Aliotti - stop the runs at all costs.

But Tedford, to his credit, has always been stubborn about continuing to try and run against Oregon, and by game's end, they've managed to accumulate some yards. But in the early going, Oregon just shuts it down. They put 8 in the box, the safeties are totally dialed in to run first, and they pretty much sell out and force Cal to throw. Historically, Cal has been able to win through the air. Longshore burned them deep in 2006 and 2007, and both Riley and Longshore had success throwing the ball last year.

Enter Riley tomorrow. This is the game where he will be called upon to make key passes, especially on third down. Winning the Oregon game has often been about big third down throws when the 1st and 2d down rushes are getting stuffed. Those plays are what separate the good QBs from the great ones. Longshore, for all his faults and haters, always seemed to find a way to make big third down throws against Oregon (not always against others, but definitely against Oregon).

I also wouldn't be surprised to see Cal try and spread the ball around early the way they did against Minnesota, especially to get the ball to Best in space. This again will require Riley to keep the offense humming. I really think we're going to learn more about Riley tomorrow than anyone else on this team.

On offense, I predict Cal will do what it always does against Oregon: struggle to run the ball, save for a few big plays, and attack their secondary all over the field until it yields points. Then they'll go back to the run. Could be wrong, but this feels like that kind of game.

OTHER THOUGHTS

1. Special Teams - All We Can Do Is Pray. Remember the scene in Major League, when Cerrano is giving JoBu the rum and lighting up a smoke for him, to try and conjure the power to hit a curve ball? Well Alamar better be sticking needles into a doll likeness of Oregon's special teams coach, and every Cal fan better start doing a rain dance or lighting some herbs and saying some chants, because that's what it's come to folks. The special teams (with the exception of Anger) is officially in the hands of the cosmos.

All I can say is, if you think you are going to win a game in the most hostile stadium in the conference by giving Oregon the ball at the 50 and muffing punts, you're in for a monumental letdown. This could do Cal in, or if they can at least get the punt coverage down, it could be a field position weapon. Either way, a big key to the game.

Pray to JoBu Cal fans, because he's all you got right now.

2. Turnovers. Cal has won these games largely because they've won the turnover battle. And even then, they've barely gotten out alive. Can't say enough how important it is they not lose that battle tomorrow.

3. Riley needs to learn to slide. The next two opponents are hard hitting, head hunting defenses, and they will try to take Riley out, I guarantee it. Riley has already led with his head twice this year, and I frankly don't get it. With as much time as Gould spends with his RBs telling them how to fall, you'd think the same instruction would be drilled into the QB's head, especially after his concussion last season.

4. A little payback for Ludwig. Oregon fans are not bashful about their disdain for Ludwig. They think the offense stagnated under him, and they think he squandered good teams with his playcalling and QB management. I happen to disagree. First off, pornstache Belotti wanted to go to the spread, but Ludwig was a pro-style guy from Fresno State (similar to Tedford). Belotti insisted (despite not having the personnel to do it). When it didn't work, everyone blamed Ludwig. I still don't understand why Belotti hired him if that's what he wanted.

Second, the guy had very little talent to work with on offense, and a terrible defense backing them up. Then he recruited a kid named Dennis Dixon and touted him as the next great Oregon QB. Of course, he was run out of town before he could coach him, and that was that. Third, and maybe the biggest reason Oregon fans never cut him a break: he followed Jeff Tedford, the guy Oregon fans have never gotten over losing to moribund Cal. Predictably, they wanted him to be like Tedford and produce like Tedford. He wasn't (for the reasons above, and because there's only one Tedford no matter how many Chip Kellys and Gary Crowtons you bring in, as Oregon fans are painfully learning).

I happen to think Ludwig's timing was just off. The jury's still out on how good he is, but from what I've seen so far, his Utah season looks a lot more like what he's capable of than his 2002-2005 seasons at Oregon.

For his sake, I'd enjoy watching him carve up the Oregon defense, while Belotti grits his teeth on the sideline, dying to rip the headset off Kelly's head and start calling plays. Here's hoping Ludwig gets a little payback. For a douchey article on Ludwig by your typical provincial Oregon journalist, here you go: link.

All in all, throw the numbers out the window, because this one could go any way. I think we're going to see closer to the Oregon team everyone thought we were going to see this weekend. They're going to play better than they've played the last three weeks, and are going to give Cal some trouble. But Cal is the better team. As long as they limit mistakes, they'll win. If they make mistakes, start drinking.

Minnesota Recap

2009-09-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

Cal defense: gave up 37 yards rushing Saturday.

This win was much less about seeing how good this team was, and more about how tough it was. Like I said, I'll reserve judgment on how good this team is until after UCLA (and it's still got some work to do in some areas to be sure). But in terms of toughness, I admit I am starting to be a believer. The way they hit, the way they finished blocks, the way they got after the QB and the way they made big plays in crunch time - all of it showed grit, something Tedford's teams have lacked more often than I'd like since 2004.

When you play on the road as the favorite, teams are going to give you their best game. They're going to make runs and you're going to look ugly at times. Minnesota pulled out all the stops. They got a performance for the ages by Decker, a game that will have Gopher fans uttering his name in hushed tones over beers and cheese curds for years to come. They got a poetic TD pass from Decker on a genius trick play to tie it up late. They were christening their new stadium. And they got every special teams break you could get, plus some egregious bailout calls. I know a lot of teams would have folded and had a good excuse for doing so - sometimes the home team just gets hot and gets all the breaks.

But even with all that, Cal still won. It's funny - Cal played the role that for so many years Cal fans could only envy - the powerhouse team that comes to town, gets Cal's best game to make it interesting, but pulls away late due to better talent, better coaching, and more toughness. Nice to see for once.

As for thoughts on the game, in no particular order:

1. Blitz pickup needs some sharpening. Got befuddled a couple times vs. Minnesota. Film study will fix this. But let it be known, for all MD's bluster about blitzing, Minnesota blitzed much better. I came away impressed by how disciplined their defense was, and how well they drew up and executed their blitz packages.

2. Backside defenders making tackles in the run game. On more than one Cal offensive run play vs. Minnesota, I saw a tackle by the backside defender when the play was going away from him. On at least two occasions, the blocker was a wide receiver (Boateng once, and Jones once). The defender just pinched down inside and even the though the play was going away, the defender managed to get in there and make the tackle. Granted, the lack of daylight on the playside slowed the RB down a tad, but this sort of thing has been a problem before.

Seems minor, but it's also such a minor fix, that it really shouldn't be an issue. These backside defenders are not supposed to make plays like that. Heck, use a cut block if you have to, but this needs to be fixed.

3. TE blocking. Still having some problems here at times.

4. Marvin Jones' blocking. The guy is fine one on one in the open field on a corner, but he's kind of weak when he's in tight or on a crack back. A bit reminiscent of the way Jackson used to block. I realize he's pretty thin, but I'd like to see a bit more hitting from him, as these are sometimes key blocks.

5. Kickoffs. Two things. First, it is time for Tedford himself to take the bull by the horns and run the special teams unit like he runs his offense - with detail-obsessed, no-nonsense, painfully repetitive precision. Practice until you can't get it wrong. I get that he's supposed to delegate as a head coach, but however he and Alamar are handling it, it ain't working. And if you look at the stats going back 7 years, Cal's kick coverage has been middle to low in conference every year.

And I am not talking about the kicks. The coverage is abysmal. Guys are out of position, they are lackadaisical, they are down the field upright and off balance like they don't know what they're going to do or don't expect to make a tackle. It's not for lack of talent, as this team is loaded with athletes. It's about discipline and focus. Time to step in coach.

Kickoff coverage is a kamikaze mission. It's a blitzkrieg. You come down the field like you're shot out of a cannon, low to the ground, ready to run through a wall and smother the ball carrier. You stay in your lanes, you play disciplined and you close in until there's nowhere to go.

Second, it is time to start thinking about mixing in other kicking strategies - squibs, line drives, etc. The distance is not going to fix itself over night. And the directional and pop-up kicks are backfiring more than they're working. I think Cal is just getting too cute with it given its limitations at kicker.

6. Riley's late throws and locking on. Riley had a heck of a game and this is a bit picky. But some his throws are still late, and eventually they are going to get picked. The one Tucker had to steal back was late. Also, most of the game, he's still pretty much looking down his primary guy. Not always, but enough of the the time that a safety is going to pick him off one of these days. The guy played a great game, but this is an area I'd like to see him improve on.

7. Stop worrying about the secondary. I can literally hear the hands wringing over the cyberwaves. People, listen to me. This is not your father's Cal secondary. This is not Harrison Smith throwing his arms up in desperation as the ball sails over his head safely into the receiver's arms. This is still the second or third best secondary in the conference behind USC and maybe UCLA, and probably the best on third down.

But, for a reality check, this is also not last year's USC secondary, giving up 134 pass yards per game. If you were hoping for that, you should stop watching now. What this is is a very good, well coached secondary, with a sound zone scheme, within a defense predicated on stopping the run and the deep ball. By my count, with the exception of two one-in-a-million plays (Decker's Kurt Schilling "bloody chin" TD catch and Decker's Schilling-esque fastball TD pass), they've stuck to the script pretty well. And I think the numbers at season's end will bear that out.

To execute the plays that everyone is up in arms about requires, for the most part, a pretty specific combination of things: a veteran QB that knows exactly where he wants to go with it, with veteran receivers with whom he has chemistry, who trusts his receivers and the playbook, and an offense that is comfortable throwing in rhythm on first and second down. As inferior as MD, EWU and Minn are perceived by fans, all three happened to have this combination. I am willing to go out on a limb and predict we are not going to see that combination much if at all the rest of the year, except maybe vs. Washington. Go down the list:

Masoli (no)
Barkley/Corp (no - run first, conservative),
Craft/Prince (no),
Loebbestal/Lopina/Tuel (no),
Sullivan (no),
Canfield/Moevao (no - run first),
Scott/Foles (no),
Luck (no),
Locker (perhaps).

With the exception of Ore St. and Washington's experienced QBs, this list is a bunch of QBs with very little experience, behind mostly suspect OLs, who I don't see throwing 40-50 times a game with laser timing routes to receivers on first and second down.

Plus, even good passing teams still have to run the ball to beat Cal, something no one has been able to do with consistency this year, and very few did last year. If Cal continues to shut down the run, which I think it will, the only QB who can maybe beat them anyway is Locker, and Washington will need turnovers and big plays to beat Cal.

Also, instead of ruminating over what seems like bad pass coverage, let's look at the actual numbers. The defense is currently giving up 207 passing yards per game. Let's compare to Cal's pass yardage defense over the last 5 years:

2004 - 238 (Pac 10 9th - 1st was Wash 185)
2005 - 240 (5th - 1st was Ore 223)
2006 - 240 (9th - 1st was Ore 170)
2007 - 214 (2d - 1st was USC 189)
2008 - 193 (5th - 1st was USC 134 (as an aside, take a minute and let that last number sink in))

207 is currently well ahead of every pass defense Tedford has had except 2007. Granted, we're only one quarter of the way through the season, but still those numbers are interesting. And consider one other point: that's 207 yards given up to pass-first teams who have been trailing Cal in every game, all game long. When you shut down the run, you are going to get thrown at a lot. And when you play quick pass offenses like the last three opponents, you're going to give up yards.

I am not saying this secondary is perfect. But when you're averaging 48 points, 488 yards, and zero turnovers on offense, and 62 yards rushing, 3 sacks, and 2 TOs per game on defense, and you have a home run-hitting offense, 207 yards passing per game on defense does not mean the sky is falling.

7. The dreaded third quarter on offense - some perspective.

Lots of hand wringing here as well, over the three 3 and outs and lack of offense in the 3Q. I recall the announcers putting up one of their silly graphics about all the Cal drives ending in punts or non-scores, and you can just feel that little graphic repeating itself in the fan complaints this week. People: ignore 95% of what the color announcers and talking heads say, especially in the college game. Most of them don't know squat, especially about the teams they are covering, and are content to quote the media guide fluff and recycle the same boring themes each week. (Exceptions are Papadakis, Pawlawski, and Norrie, who actually know what they are talking about. Fouts knows, but he gets too into the game and is too biased. The rest are empty suits, opinionated windbags, or guys who suck at commentating - Mark May, Craig James, Lee Corso, the list goes on.)

Let's break down the offense on those drives. To begin with, there were only three series in the quarter, due to getting the ball late in the quarter after the punt fumble. That was not the offense's fault.

1. First series: three rushes for nine yards, the last being Riley's QB draw coming up barely short. Not great, but by itself, not cause for alarm.
2. Next series: Incomplete, 8 yd reception by Vereen, and then Vereen slipped on what would have been a sure first down run, as the hole was there. Freak thing.
3. Last series: Incomplete, huge gain on a back breaking screen to Best nullified on B.S. holding call, followed by two incompletions. Again, I'd chalk this up to a freak bad call.

I just don't see anything there that screams offensive ineptitude. Take the slip and the bad call away, and all of a sudden it's not a bunch of 3 and outs. And give Minnesota some credit. Cal wasn't going to score on every drive. Be prepared for teams stopping the offense, or the offense making some mistakes.

Finally, keep in mind, Cal won the 1Q and the 4Q, and never gave up the lead. That counts for something, right?

8. Cal won't face another QB-WR combo like that all season. They took everything else away from Minnesota. 37 yards rushing, 113 yards passing to the rest of the team - that's 150 yards of offense minus Weber-to-Decker.

10. Tyson Alualu is playing like an All American, let alone all conference. He had two sacks, and the only reason he didn't have three was Weber hastily threw the ball away as Alualu was pulling him down. The guy faced double teams most of the day, against maybe the biggest OL Cal will see all year, and they couldn't handle him. Appreciate this guy while you can, because for the college game, he's pretty darn good.

11. Fantastic play calling. There were so many examples. But maybe my favorites were three calls late in the game in crunch time. Whereas people are upset about the third quarter offense, the fourth quarter offense was nails when it counted. First, the long pass to Ross to set up the go ahead TD. They had 8 in the box, and Ross was in tight - looking a lot like run or short pass. Game is on the line, it's first down, you're on the road, Minnesota's got the momentum. And Ludwig trusts his QB and backup WR and puts the ball in the air. Clever, gutsy call.

Then after the pick, Cal's got the ball back, it's 3d and 7 and everyone is pretty much expecting pass. Minn is showing blitz but they end up only sending one extra guy pretty much playing pass. Even the announcers are calling for play action (did I mention never to listen to the announcers?). And what does Ludwig run? The option. On third and long? Loved it. What was even better is that Riley had run a QB keeper twice on third and long already that day, so it really sucked them in once they saw him start running.

The third great call was the pass to Miller over the middle on first down, just after Riley got the 1st down on the sneak. Cal is just outside field goal range, they've gotten the momentum back, they've just gotten a first down on four straight run plays, and there's about 5 minutes left. We've all seen Tedford opt to run the ball, avoid a turnover and eat clock in these situations. Especially on first down. Gotta love Ludwig calling for the TE pass over the LB's head there. Minnesota never saw it coming. That play pretty much iced the game.

Riley was great in the clutch, but Ludwig's calls were behind those great plays to seal that game. Really, really impressed with this guy.

All in all, a gritty road win that this team and the coaches really needed.

Minnesota (not Maryland) Highlights (Recap to Come)

2009-09-22T11:03:00.001-07:00

Highlights by Danzig and extended highlights by PRD74 - many thanks to Danzig and PRD for great work as usual.

My post-game thoughts to come later today - apologies for the delay.

Danzig Highlights

Cal at Minnesota from jack bauer on Vimeo.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Minnesota Preview

2009-09-18T01:11:00.000-07:00

Eric Decker: 60% of Minnesota's offense.

The first two games have been prologue, nothing more. Yes, this team appears to be upgraded in several respects, but really, from a 30,000 foot view, the results aren't much different than last season, or frankly, the season prior to that. Revenge win in the home opener, followed by a blowout over a weaker team. I have said since Spring ball started that I will reserve judgment about what kind of team this is until after the Minnesota game (and really, I will continue to do so until after UCLA).

Why? Because this is the first real chance for Tedford to exorcise one of his demons. By my count, he's got three: (1) beating USC, (2) winning the conference outright, and (3) winning non-conference BCS road games with a target on his back. The consensus is this is the best chance he's had to do all three since he's been here. He knows it. His staff knows it. His players know it. And they all know that everyone else knows it.

That's a lot of pressure. Throw in the annoying incessant questioning about the start time, flying out Thursday, the weather, the recent road struggles, and you can bet Tedford and the team want this one really badly. You learn a lot about a team and its coaches in games like that.

Before getting to Minnesota, some further thoughts on Eastern Washington.

1. Biting on fakes. I re-watched that first EWU scoring drive, and after doing so, one disturbing commonality among most of the back-breaking plays was biting on fakes. Whether it was Syd biting on the pump, Kendricks biting on Nichols' juke, or Eddie Young and Brett Johnson biting on the play fake for the TD, the defense just got played.

That says one thing loud and clear: no respect. Syd got beat because he got caught peeking. He got caught peeking because he thought he could jump the route and pick the ball off. You think he does that against Chris Turner in the MD game? No way. They went into that game dead serious, respecting their opponent and playing pissed off.

And on the TD pass, Young and Johnson crashed so hard toward the LOS you'd have thought it was the FG unit on the field. They gave no respect to the pass.

The good news is, it wasn't a question of talent or even scheme. It was just state of mind. But they better play with more respect against Minnesota. Because whereas you might be able to flip the switch vs. a FCS team at home, it's not quite that easy on the road against D-1 athletes.

2. Riley's QB keeper play. It might have seemed like just one play. But I promise you that single play probably changed the complexion of this offense from a scouting standpoint more than just about any play since Best's breakout run as a freshman vs. Tenn in 2007. This team has had a statue at QB for most of the last three years, and in 05 Ayoob could run but his arm wasn't a threat. With Longshore, that play fake would have immediately meant pass from a scouting standpoint. Now, it gives the safeties one more thing to think about before dropping.

Great wrinkle by Ludwig. My guess is Riley continues to go for big yardage on keepers for a few more weeks, and then hopefully can start beating people deep when they start gambling with the run.

3. Tight end blocking. At times it looks good, but at times it looks pretty bad. I remember one play they motioned a TE over to block right next to another one, and ran behind the two of them, and the defense still blew it up. Not a good sign. Part of it is youth, but you always worry with TEs that they think of themselves as receivers more than blockers, and thus don't approach blocking with the tenacity you'd like. Something to watch for in the coming games.

Onto this week's opponent.

Minnesota Offense

Scheme-wise, nothing about this offense really wows you, or is all that gimmicky. Though they swear up and down they've shed all remnants of the Dunbar spread, the one thing that seems to have stuck is the shotgun and quick passing. Otherwise, it's pretty straightforward. They seem to want to run first, sprinkle in some short passing and suck you in with play action. However, in both of their first two games, they've gone to the pass early because the run game hasn't been there.

When they run the ball, they don't try to fool you. In the two games I watched,I didn't see much pulling, trapping, or exotic blocking schemes, and not much misdirection. It's pretty much just about getting a good surge and then picking a hole and getting downfield. They have an obese offensive line, led by orca-fat LT Jeff Wills, weighing in at a svelte 6'7" 365. 100 cheeseburgers to you Jeff! And may you live forever.

All that girth hasn't helped much, as Minnesota is currently 91st nationally in rushing offense, averaging 110 yards per game. Against Syracuse and Air Force.

Minnesota's fat offensive line: Eating too much because they only rush for 110 yards a game, and rushing for 110 yards per game because they eat to much.

When Minnesota goes to the air, it's about as predictable as when Cal used to bring Clemons in for the QB sneak. The whole stadium knew where the play was going. In Minnesota, the ball is going to Eric Decker. The difference of course is that Decker actually makes plays regardless, and is an All American, whereas Clemons got stuffed every time and wasn't a starter, let alone an All American.

Decker has just about all the tools: speed, quickness, toughness, strength, precise routes, and great hands. He has the quicks to get open, the speed to burn you deep, the strong hands of a possession receiver, and the tenacity of a go to guy. He reminds me of a combination of Steve Smith from USC and a healthy Chase Lyman. Cal is not going to shut this guy down with one guy, or with tight zone defense.

But Cal can minimize his effect in a number of ways. First off, hit the living daylights out him every time he touches the ball. With the amount he gets targeted, he is going to take his share of shots. If he keeps getting punished, he will be tired by game's end.

Second, mix up coverages and pressure packages to confuse the QB Weber. He is always looking for Decker, and he telegraphs pretty blatantly and doesn't really look receivers off. If holds it too long because he's confused, he's going to get picked or sacked.

Third, focus on stopping the run first. Though Decker put up nice numbers in both games, Minnesota nearly lost those games because they couldn't run the ball. They squeaked by against lesser teams on some last minute plays. Decker made some plays, but he also wasn't a factor for large parts of the game because it was obvious they were in passing mode. If they get into third and long, or get behind, it will be easier to blanket Decker with an extra guy in coverage.

Here's some clips of Decker for your viewing pleasure:

Minnesota Defense

Like the offense, nothing too exciting here, though they are a bit more sound in what they do. They have contained both opponents pretty well. They run a 4-3, play very disciplined, keep everything in front of them, and flow nicely to the ball. However, their weakness is I don't see a ton of speed.

Everyone is talking about their linebackers and for good reason. They are big, athletic and aggressive. They attack and try to disrupt the play and are pretty good at diagnosing. Watching them, they remind me of Tennessee's 2006 linebackers and MD's 2008 linebackers, in terms of recognizing run plays, crashing hard and blowing them up before they ever get started.

The other teams that have LBs that play like this: OSU and USC. This has actually been a problem for Cal's run game at times under Tedford. The key to neutralizing this is misdirection, good play fakes, and cutbacks, plus a respectable passing game. Eventually, if these types of plays work, they'll slow down a step and that is when you can run right at them. Whereas Cal has struggled for various reasons in the past with this, Ludwig's mix of play calls shows some propensity to avoid this problem. I expect these LBs will make some plays, but eventually Cal will get the run game rolling.

But the real question mark is how Minnesota's secondary will defend the pass. Their secondary really hasn't been tested this season, but they got totally schooled on a play action bomb for a TD vs. Air Force of all teams. And they also got burnt for a long TD pass vs. Syracuse. They have one pretty talented corner in Simmons, but overall, watching them this season, I feel comfortable saying that if they go man or ever cover 1, Cal can torch them deep.

Again, the key will be to establish the run and suck them in. If Cal does that, it'll be up to Riley to make them pay.

Here are some highlights of Minnesota's last two games, showing the big TD passes they gave up:

Syracuse game link

Air Force game

Bottom line: this game is all about attitude. Cal doesn't need to worry about getting out-schemed or tricked. Minnesota is not a tricky team. Cal just needs to hit the field ready to out-hit, out-run, and out-hustle Minnesota. If they do that, they will control both run games, which will allow them to control the game. If they come out flat or give Minnesota momentum plays early, it could spell trouble. Let's see if they can exorcise the road demon this week.

Eastern Washington Highlights

2009-09-16T15:13:00.002-07:00

Courtesy of Danzig and PRD74 - excellent work as usual and thanks to both.

Danzig highlights.

EWU vs Cal (9/12/09) from david cutcliff on Vimeo.

PRD74 Extended Highlights. Part 1.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Some Quick Thoughts

2009-09-12T20:41:00.001-07:00

Kendricks led the conference in tackles with 12 after week one. He got 14 more today for a total of 26 (along with a fumble recovery). For some perspective, Eddie Young had 40 tackles all season last year and he was a starter.

Some quick impressions, more to come later.

1. EWU only ended drives in Cal territory twice all game - 1 TD and 1 missed FG on the 22. The rest of the game, they never crossed the 50 (correction: they crossed the 50 a third time, but that drive ended when Kendricks picked up the fumble behind the 50 and ran it back). While I was not happy with the defensive softness early on, I don't care who you are playing, that is ridiculous.

2. EWU deserves a ton of credit. They came ready to play, were not intimidated, and played pretty smoothly in the first quarter. They executed their passing game to near perfection on the second drive, showing they were not going to let the bad first drive rattle them.

They made Cal's offensive line look bad a few times in pass rush, and their offensive line prevented Cal from getting to the QB for the most part until Cal went to the blitz. For an FCS team to do that to a top 10 team, on the road, is impressive. Good for the Eagles. They came to play.

3. Cal has yet to turn the ball over this season.

4. Cal's offensive line blocked the run pretty darn well, but they got pushed around in pass pro a bit more than they should have, especially up the middle. Cheadle almost got knocked clean off his feet at one point. And EWU definitely blew up some plays with pressure without sending the house. This needs to get fixed.

5. Brett Johnson has no regard for his personal safety when he hits. That is why he is my new favorite player of the week on this defense.

6. Mychal Kendricks is a tackling machine, with 26 after two games, 12 solo. The guy is all over the field, and he is in on, or imminently near, virtually every tackle when he is on the field. You can't coach that. He's a long way off of Willard or Nickerson-type numbers as of now, but he's showing that kind of potential. When he learns to tackle better and play in control, he's going to be a bona fide star.

7. Brian Holley looks like he might make the fullback position a weapon again for this offense, rather than just a blocker. That hand plant to break a tackle was sick.

Overall, Cal did what they needed to do. They started off a little soft defensively, but once they locked in, they did what they wanted to at will, which is what a top 10 team is supposed to do. Onto Minnesota and getting the road monkey off their back.

Eastern Washington Preview

2009-09-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

What do we know about EWU from a football standpoint? Not much. Not a lot a chances to watch them on TV. Two years ago, their coach was Paul Wulff, now the coach at Wazzu. Shortly after Wulff left, EWU got put on probation for indiscretions during Wulff's tenure. Sound familiar Cal fans?

Offense

We know they have a four year starter at QB in Matt Nichols (6'3" 220) who is poised to break all kinds of EWU passing records this year. He had a real nice season his sophomore year in 2007 (Wulff's last year), as the Big Sky Offensive MVP (apparently a bit of a tradition at EWU - he was the fifth in 7 years), with a 156 rating, 34 TDs and 9 INTs. He slipped a big his junior year (current head coach's first year).

We know they have a bona fide blazer at RB, Taiwan Jones. He raced Best in HS in the 100, posting a 10.56 and a claimed 4.22 40. After playing corner last season, they moved him to tailback this season. He took his first carry 87 yards to the house last weekend against Western Oregon and finished with 123 yards on 12 carries.

We know they have a four year starter at WR in Aaron Boyce (6'3" 210) who is about to break a bunch of EWU receiving records and has been playing catch with Nichols for 4 years.

Their offensive coordinator Aaron Best played at EWU and graduated 9 years ago, then was the OL coach under Wulff, and is now the OC. He said they have basically used the same play calling system for 13 years.

Last year they averaged 98 yards rushing per game and 299 passing. They attempted 305 rush to 450 passes. In prior years that they were more balanced. Last week, they rushed 31 times and passed 30 times.

From the few clips I have seen, Nichols mixes in short routes with deep routes pretty evenly. He definitely looks like he likes to hold on the to the ball, stare down his primary guy, and hit him deep. That guy more often than not is Boyce. He can move around, has quick feet, and can throw decently well on the run. He threw 17 INTs his freshman year, only 9 his sophomore year, and then 14 again last year.

Conclusion: this offense knows what it wants to do, has experienced players who know the system, will likely strive for run-pass balance, and will get the ball in Jones' and Boyce's hands as much as possible. It is also turnover prone.

Defense

I know even less about the defense. Their defensive coordinator is new and came over with their head coach Baldwin. From their participation stats from last week's game, it appears they run a 4-3 with a weakside end and three tackles, which sounds to me like the DE is the hybrid or "elephant" type player and the tackles are traditional down linemen. These four players go freshman, sophomore, junior senior.

The previews suggest the defense lost its biggest playmakers up front on the defensive line to graduation, but the strength of the team is at linebacker, where they go freshman, junior, senior.

At secondary, they have a four year starter at FS, a junior and senior at corner, and a soph at SS. Losing Jones from the corner position forced them to move a corner over to safety.

The clips from last year show an aggressive pressure defense, that mixes in some blitz, hits hard and plays fast. However, they lost their biggest playmaker, a defensive end named Peach, who appears have been the heart and soul of the defense, a Follett-type.

Game Plan

Like any game, Cal should exploit its advantages, which are speed on offense, superior line play, and pressure on defense. While Cal's receivers and passing game are good, this game can be won in the trenches with the run. Cal should focus on executing its run plays with precision and mix in some play action and screens here and there. With Best and Vereen's speed and the OL's ability, the creases should be there and Best and Vereen should make some big plays. I don't anticipate the need to throw the ball a ton.

On defense, the key is to keep everything in front of them early, don't let Jones untracked, and pressure Nichols over and over once they get into passing situations. I think he can be forced into INTs and that should blow the game wide open. Eventually, that will take away the run.

Some things I'd like to see

1. Run blocking executed perfectly. Though the blocking was pretty good Saturday, a few guys made some mental mistakes. Let's see if the team's talk about correcting its mistakes holds true. If it does, I predict some highlight runs.

2. Run defense executed perfectly. I think everyone knows what needs to be done here after last week.

3. Better kickoffs and better kick coverage.

4. More TE passes.

5. Not to take anything away from EWU, but Cal should get up early enough on this team to let its reserves play the entire second half. In particular, guys I'd like to see more of for depth development at key positions are Kapp, Galas, Owusu, Guyton, Campbell, and Brooks.

6. Best, Vereen, Riley, Alualu, Jordan, Syd, Guarnero, Schwartz, Tepper, Jones and Tucker on the bench as soon as possible.

Deep Cover - Code Name: EWU

2009-09-11T10:08:00.001-07:00

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to find the most ridiculous analogy possible to apply to your football program's highlight video. Mission accomplished.

There are times in every program's evolution when transcendental vision, unified ambition, and talent coalesce into a singularity of purpose and produce greatness for the ages. The people who put together Eastern Washington's 2008 highlight video, no doubt after dozens of late nights burning their eyeballs out in the editing room, thought they had reached that moment with the video below. Unfortunately they were, in the words of Harry Doyle, "JUUUST a bit outside."

Couple of guidelines on making a promo video for your football program.

1. Don't use the 1950's reel-to-reel black and white, grainy video effect, with the 1920's silent film fuzzy border for anything football related that doesn't involve leather helmets, the Four Horsemen, Vince Lombardi, or a hallowed moment in your program's history that predates color television. A 2008 press conference to announce the hiring of your new coach does not qualify.

2. Don't use the eerie war chant classical music with the horns and drums while flashing words like "Honor" and "Pride," and then show a clip of your team being led out of an inflatable tunnel with an eagle mascot driving a four-wheel ATV.

3. Oh and about those words, "Honor" and "Pride," they can be doozies. If you think there's even a shred of a chance you miiiight get put on probation within a year of making the video (cough cough), you might want to rethink putting those words in bold in your video. Irony can be a cruel thing.

4. Unless you're program's mission is to embed a spook assistant coach on an opposing team's staff and steal game film or sabotage their game plan, football and espionage are about as analogous as football and the Betty Ford Clinic. Your players are not "agents."

5. Don't ever, under any circumstances, use as background music for a football promo video 80's action TV soundtracks from shows like the Fall Guy.

Ok, I kid. Good for EWU for loving their program. And I'm sure the players and coaches could care less about this stuff, which is all that matters on Saturday. But I got a kick out of this one.

Here are the rest of the 2008 highlights, broken up into three videos. Analysis and breakdown to come.

A Primer on Blocking Schemes - Q&A with CGB

2009-09-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

Another installment of BWNQ's collaboration the Q&A with California Golden Blogs, this time regarding blocking schemes. Link.

So Much for a 21-Point Spread

2009-09-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

This is starting to follow a script for home openers. Shock the visitor and take the momentum on a turnover or special teams play, pressure the daylights out of the opposing QB, and run the ball down the other team's throat in the second half. And of course, have some defensive lapses, but make stops when you need to.

So, as excited as everyone is, should we take any more away from this game in terms of optimism than after Tennessee 2007 or Michigan State 2008? I think it's a fair question. Everyone was pretty high on Riley after last year's Michigan State game, and pretty high on the whole offense after beating Tennessee in 2007. But neither quite delivered the same goods thereafter (obviously for very different reasons and under very different circumstances, but still).

My answer however this year is yes, I think we can be a little more optimistic about this team than we were after the last two successful home openers. But it's a cautious yes, something every self-respecting, kool aid averse Cal fan can understand. The main differences I see in this year's team than 2007 or 2008 are: (1) depth, (2) a legitimate pressure defense (that includes a secondary to back it up), and (3) a talented offensive line. Neither of last two teams had the aggregate of all three of these things at the level this year's squad does.

Good teams succeed when their personnel and scheme match up well, and lose when they don't. Great teams always match up well, because they have enough variety of weapons to exploit the various weaknesses and openings each opponent presents. Depth, pressure defense, and good line play are just more weapons, but they happen to be extremely effective, as we saw Saturday night. Depth allows you to wear the other team out and avoid injury to your starters, which allows you to play at a high level all season. Pressure allows you to disrupt offenses that may otherwise have a way of beating you. And good line play opens up the run, gives the QB time to get into a rhythm, and wears out the opposing defense.

The reason I am cautious though, is that the distance Maryland traveled, their youth, and the fact that Cal jumped on them early, took them down a notch pretty quickly. That allowed Cal to start playing loose and ratcheting up the pressure everywhere. While that's what good teams do to other teams, I will remain skeptical until I see this team bring that kind of execution and mojo on the road at Minnesota.

GOOD THINGS I SAW

Obviously, when you beat a decent BCS program 52-13, there's a lot to like. But I'll focus on a few I found particularly notable.

1. Gregory's disguising of blitzes, sets and coverages.

I have always felt the most effective pressure a blitzing defense can apply is mental pressure on the offense before the ball is ever snapped. This is never accomplished on just one play. It's accomplished over several plays that set up the big plays later. Gregory did a real nice job of this Saturday.

The sacks and big plays off of pressure were not simply the result of Cal having better athletes on defense (though that helped). Maryland's offensive line and RBs were confused more than once. For example, when Jordan recovered the fumble on the sack, it was on a simple twist. But it was a twist in the middle of three LBs showing blitz. When the ball was snapped, only 1 blitzed and the other two dropped. Certainly not a revolutionary play call, but when this comes at you all game, in different combinations, it can be daunting.

But the other piece to this scheme is the coverage. As I said in my preview, clever and varied zone blitzing can be a nice counter to timing and precision routes, because among other things, it leaves the QB unsure where his "bubble" in the zone is going to be. If he knows he's only got a second to make a read, and he knows the defense has been mixing it up every time, it's going to make him uneasy about predetermining where the bubble is going to be. That leads to hesitation, which leads to leads to sacks, INTs, or throw aways.

This is how defenses can start to actually dictate what the offense does a bit. Gregory's group still has work to do, but I saw really nice use of blitz packages Saturday.

2. Backups making plays on defense.

Since Tedford arrived, Cal fans are no strangers to unheralded backups making big plays on spot duty on offense, or as key reserves, whether it's Vinnie Strang or Burl Toler or Anthony Miller in the Emerald Bowl. It is the hallmark of Tedford's precision, system-oriented coaching. But the same really can't be said of defense under Tedford. The team really hasn't had the depth of talent to trust its backups for much more than occasional snaps.

But Saturday night, we saw plenty of defensive reserves come off the bench in non-garbage time and make key plays. Whether it was Bishop's getting pressure on a blitz or making a couple big hits, or Josh Hill's ridiculous open field tackle, or Kendrick Payne's pass deflection on a spin move, these were the kinds of plays Cal fans typically expected starters to make.

This is a big difference between the USCs of the world and everybody else. Their reserves make big plays. Nice to see Cal getting a little of that.

3. Offensive playcalling and use of motions and formations.

Not much to say here except I thought Ludwig and Tedford did a nice job of attacking the defense in a variety of ways, and a nice job of neutering some of Brown's blitzing by switching things up at the LOS. Blitzing is gambling, and good gamblers go with odds. It's hard to gauge your odds if the offense is shifting around before the snap. Cal showed nice multiplicity of formations and use of motion, while still running the same or similar plays.

Look for them to capitalize on this by starting to add plays and wrinkles against teams that don't blitz as much.

4. Smooth execution on offense.

This might have been the cleanest, most well-executed game I've seen offensively from one of Tedford's teams in a while. No guys sprinting onto the field just before the snap. No desperation QB timeouts just before the play clock ran out. Most plays were blocked perfectly, to a man, and the ones that weren't didn't involve linemen running out into space and blocking nobody or whiffing. Everyone looked like they knew where they wanted to go, and the team looked very business-like, no-nonsense on offense. In other words, Tedford was probably pretty happy.

5. Shane Vereen.

Vereen just killed Maryland Saturday. Not just how he played, but how the coaches used him. It seemed like every time they went to him, Maryland either wasn't ready, he had a mismatch, or he just owned them with a couple moves. He had a great sideline catch keeping his feet in bounds. He made some silly cuts to get into the endzone and to get first downs. He's more than just Best's backup. He's really a different weapon in his own right. I don't know how much credit he's going to get this year, but at based on last year and this game, he's going to have a heck of a season.

6. Rice and Beans Run Game

Last year after the Wazzu win, I made the comment that I wanted to see if the offense could sit down and just feed itself with a fork and knife, manufacturing yards bit by bit, rather than just mainlining TDs into the vein with big plays. As we saw, the team had a bit of trouble with this last season. While I'm not ready to conclude this team will get over that hump, I definitely saw signs Saturday. In particular, I saw what I like to call "rice and beans" rush offense.

Jahvid's 73 yard run is the sizzling appetizer. You get one, maybe two, per game. The 5 and 6 yard runs up the middle and off tackle on first down are the rice and beans. They may be boring, but without them, you leave hungry. Last year, this team couldn't get those nice big carries repeatedly against most teams. Saturday, thanks to dominant blocking by the OL, the first half rushes looked like this:

5
73
7
5
-2
4
5
6
0
1

After that the game was pretty much in hand. Those are decent numbers in terms of situationally trying to establish a run game in the first half of a game. Sprinkle in a legitimate passing game, and that makes the offense very hard to stop.

THINGS THAT STILL NEED WORK

1. Defending the run on the edge.

Cal made some of the same mistakes on Scott's TD this year as they did when he burned them last year. The play has been broken down ad nauseum already, but you just can't have lapses like that. It's not a tricky concept and Cal is going to see it all year. USC ran it at San Jose State all day long, so Cal better figure it out. The OLB and CB need to hold their ground at a minimum, and should really be shedding. The playside ILB needs to beat his man to the ball. The safeties cannot miss the tackle. You can bet they'll work on this one a few times.

2. Kickoff coverage.

The kicking sucks, but don't expect a quick fix. But the coverage is inexcusable with this kind of athleticism. And the kicks were high enough for the coverage to get there, including on the big return. Cal continues to be middle to low in the conference in kick coverage yardage. Come on guys.

Tight end pass coverage.

This has long been a problem for Gregory's defenses. Maryland burned us badly last year with this, and the TEs got into the act again this year. Part of it is Gregory giving up the dink and dunk underneath stuff, but our LBs are too fast to leave these TEs open like that.

IMPRESSIONS OF NEW STARTERS/KEY RESERVES

Kendricks - Great instincts, elite speed, needs to work on tackling. 12 tackles in his first game is a heck of a debut. I expect big things.

Bishop - Decent instincts, love the reckless abandon. Great closing speed.

Holt - Same as Bishop, but younger, which is impressive. Better than I thought he'd be. Needs to improve instincts, but bright future.

Josh Hill - Ridiculous open field tackle when he lost his helmet. And I like that he didn't get chippy afterward like Hagan always does.

Owusu - Freakish get-off for a big guy. Needs lots of work in run defense. Package guy only right now, not a 3-down guy. Jordan, Alualu, Owusu could be the best pass rush line in conference though.

Payne - No dropoff versus Hill. Tedford said this summer he could be "a household name, like Mebane." Enough said.

Holley - Showed ball carrying skills that looked a tad better than Will's (though Will was under-utilized). Great catch and run ability. Blocking was fine - saw nothing to worry about here.

Curran - Surprisingly good blocker. Better than Miller on Saturday in my opinion.

Miller - Decent blocker, but looked more like a WR blocking than a TE. Releases nicely and has quick feet.

MSG - Very good for first start. Almost missed on a couple, but saved them. Great at finishing blocks and getting the last shove in, the way Mack used to.

Cheadle - Also really good for first start. Really strong at the point of attack and mowed some people. Both he and MSG need a little work on pass pro, but never really got used. We are going to be fine at guard.

Jones - no need to explain.

Official recap and stats here.

Maryland Highlights

2009-09-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

[Update 9/8/09] First highlight vid of the season by El Maestro, Danzig.

Huzzah! PRD74's extensive highlights are here. Thanks a million PRD, for the highlights and the stream -- I guarantee you people would lose their minds if you ever stopped doing this. Enjoy.

Quick Video Highlights

2009-09-07T12:30:00.000-07:00

I know Danzig and PRD will have the real goods up in a day or two, but this will suffice for now. Thanks to CalTV. Postgame analysis to follow.