Post-Game Thoughts: San Diego State Football

The Bears find their offense in the 2nd half to cruise to 3-0

Credit: Rob Hwang

There is a version of this game where everybody walks away happy. That version of this game features Cal breaking big runs early rather than late, and it features maybe one less drop or one more made field goal. It’s a game where Cal gets out to a big lead early rather than waiting for the 3rd quarter.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a fun fan experience to stand in the chilly evening air waiting for the refs to announce their latest penalty call while Cal let by 4 points. This was a wildly annoying game . . . but in retrospect it was just a matter of time until the avalanche hit and SDSU got buried.

Also ideally the game would’ve featured fewer penalties committed by the Cal student section, but that’s just how life goes sometimes. But hey - the fates that held sway over Pac-12 Cal would have ensured that those penalties would have swung a win into a loss, but new and improved ACC Cal fates caused this to just be a goofy footnote in an otherwise routine Cal win.

Offense

Efficiency Report

12 drives: 4 touchdowns, 2 FGAs (1-2) 3 punts, 3 turnovers (1 interception, 2 downs), 2.6 points/drive

The baseline numbers are solid enough - 6.7 yards/play will score you some points, particularly when you’re grabbing 9.2(!) yards every time you hand it to a running back. But while Cal spent most of the game gaining yards in big chunks, they spent a not-insignificant part of the game going backwards.

And it was those backwards plays that killed them. Cal punted three times, and each time a sack was prominently involved. One of Cal’s 4th down conversion failures happened on a sequence where they got called for a holding call that set them back 10 yards and set up a 4th and 1.

So the operative question from this game is: What does Cal need to do to eliminate negative plays?

Fernando is a tough SOB but I wish we didn’t need to see it displayed so often

The first answer to the question above is improve in pass protection generally and blitz pick-up specifically. SDSU didn’t blitz a huge percentage of the time, but when they did it was effective and they laid some hard hits on Fernando.

If you ever wondered how the scouts might miss on a QB like Fernando Mendoza, I suspect that one reason is that it’s hard to measure something like the ability to get ear holed from the blind side by a linebacker and pick yourself up off the turf, purge that unpleasant experience from your brain, stand in the pocket again, and confidently deliver the next pass.

But that’s what Fernando is remarkably good at doing. In back to back weeks he’s been absolutely creamed from his blind side and it hasn’t impacted his performance except to the extent that he changes his calculus to try to get the ball out faster.

Now, the pressure that SDSU got was not entirely on the offensive line - the Aztecs dialed up some clever blitz packages that overloaded parts of the offensive line, and a few of the sacks were a combination of iffy running back pass protection and perhaps a lack of awareness from Fernando to sense the pressure and hit a hot read. Jaivian Thomas is probably Cal’s MVP from the game for what he did on the ground, but he struggled in pass protection. That’s probably not a huge surprise for an undersized true sophomore running back, but until he improves that skill Cal might be better off putting him into the flat running a pass pattern as a hot read option rather than trying to pick up blitzing linebackers.

Improved run blocking

The ACC network put together a nice package of Jet Thomas runs:

I watched them on repeat trying to find a pattern to what Cal did differently, if anything, from their first two games. I didn’t necessarily see Cal lean on any one particular play type, as there was a mix of zone and power looks, but what I found most encouraging was that you could pick out every single lineman for a key block somewhere in the highlight reel, including Cal’s tight ends.

When you add in a fast running back who is decisive hitting the holes created, that makes for a plus run game. Thomas kept getting 5-10 yard runs where it was clear during the game that it was just a matter of time until he got past the linebacker level and would break a long run, and that dam burst in the 3rd quarter when Cal put the game away.

Defense

Efficiency Report

12 drives: 1 touchdown, 1 field goal, 6 punts, 4 turnovers (2 interceptions, 2 downs), 0.8 points/drive

On twitter earlier in the week, I asked for one thing out of Cal’s performance against SDSU:

Well, it was functionally a shut out. Cal gave up a field goal on a drive that started at the SDSU 40 that required a 4th down conversion and was aided by a highly questionable targeting call on Craig Woodson. Cal’s 2nd and 3rd stringers also gave up a touchdown in 4th quarter garbage time. You don’t have to change much for this game to actually end with SDSU having put up zero points.

SDSU put up an anemic 4.2 yards/play, and that number goes down to 3.5 yards/play if you take away the touchdown drive that happened after Cal’s starters were pulled. The defense doesn’t control enough variables such that their play can guarantee a shut out, but the defense played well enough that if luck had been on their side they might’ve put up a doughnut. Mission accomplished.

Is there anything new to learn from this performance?

San Diego State is probably the worst offense Cal will play all year - yes, worse than UC Davis. They were shut out last week against an Oregon State team that just allowed Oregon to average more than 9 yards/play in the Civil War, and Cal got to face their back-up QB due to injury.

But it’s still a functional FBS defense and I do respect their offensive brain trust, even if they’re so early on trying to install Sean Lewis’ offense. There’s always something you can glean from every game. So, what do we think we learned about Cal’s defense from this game?

• Ryan McCulloch is (at least) Cal’s 3rd best outside rusher. Given the chance to play starter snaps with David Reese’s injury, he’s stepped up with 14 total pressures across three games and appears to have taken a sophomore leap after getting limited back-up snaps last year.

• Cal’s DB depth is OK, but a step down from the starters. Not exactly a surprising development, but Marcus Harris and Nohl Williams are pretty clearly Cal’s two best corners, and Craig Woodson is ahead of Cal’s back-up safeties.

• Teddye Buchanan is Cal’s best blitzing MLB since Evan Weaver

• This is the most disruptive Wilcox defense in years, and maybe ever. Cal put up a more modest 18% havoc rate against SDSU, which is still well above the average for Wilcox teams and would place Cal well into the top 25 in most seasons, depending on the exact calculation of havoc rate used.

And . . . that’s probably about it. The front four (and really the entire starting 11) played about as well as they did last week after you adjust for opponent quality, and while that’s not surprising it’s another piece of evidence that should make you think that this year’s defense is close to vintage pre-pandemic Wilcox defenses rather than the units that were comparatively weaker over the last few seasons.

Special Teams

Still choosing to believe in Ryan Coe

Look, a second missed field goal from inside 40 yards is frustrating, but his kicks are so straight and go so far that I feel like only the slightest bit of calibration will turn him into a plus-college-placekicker to go along with his well-established plus-college-kickoff skills.

Meanwhile, Cal’s 44 yard net punt average to SDSU’s 38 yard net punt average plus another week of booming kickoffs out of the end zone means another week of field position wins. If this continues and the kicks go through the uprights then Cal will actually have plus special teams for the first time in the Wilcox era.

Coaching and Errata

Regarding card stunts

There was a whole lot of anger directed at the students for helping to incur two 15 yard penalties by throwing light cardboard onto the field, and while I get the frustration, I had a hard time getting too mad, for the following reasons:

1. Students turning the card stunt cards into projectiles has been happening for decades. I certainly recall students engineering them into all kinds of foldable objects, whether hat or ninja star in the mid 00s, and my mom reported constant throwing during her student days in the late 70s. We just got away with it because the opposing bench was too far away to hit and because the Cal sideline would clear out anything thrown onto the field before a ref noticed.

2. It’s an incredibly tiny bored minority that actually throws them *onto the field*

3. The PA system to tell the students to cut it out is remarkably hard to hear.

The problem, of course, is that attempting to control many thousands of students when you hand all of them easy projectiles means that inevitably SOMEBODY is going to throw them. Which means the only solution is to take away the projectiles.

On a side note, I get why SDSU would furiously point out the little dabs of paper that made their way onto the field, but the furor with which they used to point it out to the refs was . . . embarrassing.

Now, if we could somehow convince the students that left early to stick around for the entire game when ACC teams come to town, and also to no longer tolerate red shirts in the student section, then this increasingly old blue wouldn’t have anything to annoyingly belly-ache about.

A bad timeout, explained

There was grumbling in my section that Cal called a timeout after having appeared to have converted a 3rd and 15 right at the sticks. The refs, given more time to apply the rulebook in exactitude, reviewed the play and stuck Cal with a 4th and 1 that the Bears would then fail to convert.

I’m told that Cal called the timeout because their radio communications were down/malfunctioning, and they weren’t able to call plays. Bad luck, I suppose.

Big Picture

This game has continued a pattern seen throughout Cal’s first three games: Defense good, offense intermittently good. It has been enough to win all three games with relative comfort*.

This is now the reality we find ourselves in:

A 9-3 season is an outcome that is absolutely realistic. Hell, you could look at the list above and decide that 10 wins is not a wild outcome.

This moment of opportunity is a result of two simultaneous developments:

1. Obvious improvement from the Cal defense to pair with a solid returning/rebuild Cal offense, meaning that for the first time in the Wilcox era both units are power conference average or better at the same time.

2. Cal’s schedule going from a murderer’s row of top 25 teams to one of the weakest schedules among power conference teams.

Miami is the only surefire top 25 team on Cal’s schedule. Cal is categorically better than at least four of the remaining nine teams on the schedule, and only one team is categorically better than Cal.

One of those toss up games is up next: Florida State. That feels silly to type when one team is 3-0 and the other is 0-3, but Florida State hasn’t actually played a bad team yet and their roster is still very talented, no matter how badly they have been deployed through a quarter of the season. While Florida State started off in Vegas as roughly touchdown favorites, the line has moved sharply in Cal’s favor and is moving closer to true coin flip status.

If Cal wins this game, they will move to 4-0 for just the 3rd time** since 2007. After FSU, Cal enters a bye week, meaning that we will have two whole weeks to revel in a wildly improbable undefeated start to the season. Two weeks to revel in two road wins in the deep south. Two weeks to revel in the excitement of a home date against the (probably also undefeated) Miami Hurricanes. Two weeks to ponder what has to be the biggest Cal football home game since the Tedford era.

Through hard work and good luck, Cal has been handed an opportunity to make noise like we haven’t seen in . . . well, the living memory of most players on Cal’s roster. Luckily, those same dudes on the roster sure don’t seem to be afraid of anything.

*No, in the moment I was not actually comfortable while watching Cal beat Auburn, but it’s also true that Auburn never possessed the ball in the 2nd half trailing by less than 7 points and Cal objectively should have had a bigger lead.

**Cal reached 4-0 in 2019 and 5-0 in 2015