Nick, I think your opening paragraph is spot on. I think the other problem was that Musgrave wanted a 50/50 offense and wanted us to run the ball effectively, which is real tough to do when you constantly run into a box that has greater numbers than you have blocking on offense. Musgrave seemed to never have good audible calls for Plummer. As a result we either got stoned at the line or Plummer threw low percentage passes deep. In any event, when you have an offense that depends on precision execution, like in the pros, but you don't have pro level athletes, then you're gonna have problems. I think that was a big part of the issues they had with the o-line: they were asked to do things that they just weren't athletic enough to achieve. I think Musgrave is a smart guy but I am ready for a good spread concept offense and I think Spav will be a boost for us. Don't know if any of you watched the Fresno St./WASU bowl game, but watching the play calling for Fresno State was just fun. Not surprising with Tedford at HC (even if he doesn't call the plays anymore).
My eye test on the two O line guys that Cal picked up in the portal least season - Tj Session and Spencer Lovell - were pretty much busts. Session in particular could not handle the speed of edge rushers coming at him from his right tackle position. It's going to be difficult to attract talented O line transfers to a place like Cal, so it's going to take some some in-house building that takes longer than one season to turn around. I expect more O line problems next year if an immobile guy like Plummer is the starter again.
TJ has the athletic ability, he just needs to be coached up better and needs a LOT more reps in practice. The poor play of our tackles, in my mind, was on McClure. He just didn't seem to understand what it takes for guys on the outside to succeed in pass pro.
Leach ran the Air Raid. It's a small playbook (30+ plays) but each pass play has a myriad of rout options, so it's not as simple as some would think. Like Tony Franklin under Dykes while at CAL, the goal of the Air Raid is repetition to perfection. With fewer plays to run you can rep each one many more times than in a traditional offense. In a typical week during the season in a Pro Style offense, you are lucky to rep 20 plays. In the Air Raid system, you are repping plays week in and week out. When you can execute plays perfectly, even when the defense knows whats coming, you score and you win.
As to Spav, he has his own system with its own tweaks. He's known as a brilliant offensive signal caller so I think we'll be fine with him. I'm just looking forward to some variety, insead of some 3rd and 1 screen or dive up the middle, maybe one of those plays like Fresno ran against WASU, like the snap that went under Haener while he was under center, where Hener fakes the QB sneak but the ball goes directly to a RB in wildcat who had the option of handing off to a jet sweep or running the ball himself based on the read. The WASU defense had no clue on that play. Just brilliant and so much fun to watch the ingenuity of the play design and call.
That's the basis of an air raid. Running the ball a lot pull defenses in, air raid offenses have a lot of receivers to spread defenses out horizontally and create a numbers advantage. The problem with pure air raid offenses is that they run into a wall against good defenses. Look at Leach's scoring averages against Wilcox. They never scored more than 20 against us I believe until he left and a new coaching staff took over.
Air raid will be great to get our offense back to average immediately and compete, but if we want to compete for a conference championship we're going to need a more balanced attack.
John Madden, to paraphrase, said that he would build a team from the line up. We should, now, know full well the importance and difference the linemen can make. Let's hope this becomes the priority, because football is all about the trenches.
"I think back to when Cal hired Justin Wilcox and we assumed that it would take him a couple of years to rebuild the Cal defense; as it turned out, there was talent on the roster that had been woefully mismanaged by the prior regime."
Devante Downs had a revival under Wilcox. Our LBs were so poorly utilized under Dykes. And of course, the Takers were composed primarily of Dykes recruits.
There's a fair amount of oline talent on the bench that didn't see the field for one reason or another (injury, not developed enough) Portal may provide some assistance but let's not forget what's inside the den
Agreed there is some talent (potential) on the roster. Not sure if they were injured or if Angus just couldn't coach them up other than Vatikani.
Angus should never have been hired especially right after Greatwood who was basically paid while in full retirement stage. And Greatwood hardly recruited any good players given his rep as an OL coach. Just years and years burned away at arguably the most important coaching position. All of which falls on Wilcox. TBD on this new coach although it appears, on its surface, to be a major upgrade from the previous two.
Inexcusable that we continue to have to discuss the OL for so many gawd damn years!!
All roads for next season go through the O-line. Need some talent and depth from the portal plus some serious coaching up, I do think Bloesch will succeed though.
Hmmmm.....McClure had huge success at UCLA, routinely putting guys in the pros. And then he has multiple all-league guys along the O line at Nevada, where he has just been hired again, btw. He gets to Cal and he is suddenly a schmuck. I think any of these failures on offense at Cal need to be as much on Wilcox as anyone, and probably more. The man seems to have teflon underwear.
Not sure what to expect next year because it HEAVILY depends on OL improvement through scheme or personnel. I'm not expecting BEAR RAID 2.0 DROP 50 but escaping the "first to 21" curse should net us a decent number of points and (hopefully) a couple more wins, even if the conference becomes tougher overall.
Yeah, I did that intentionally because as a P5 team, we should hypothetically aspire to be competing nationally - but I also included Pac-12 rankings to contextualize. But for a place like North Texas, there are no realistic aspirations to compete nationally, and so conference ranking is I think more representative of how they compete against their peers. Having said that, N. Texas ranked very favorably nationally considering their small conference status.
Here's a great story recently aired on KTVU and the special relationship Ott has with RB coach Aristotle Thompson's son who has epilepsy.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/meet-the-11-year-old-football-fanatic-inspiring-cals-golden-bears
Could be a major factor why Ott will stay a Bear. Aristotle's sons have a foundation for other kids with epilepsy: https://helmets4helmets.com/
Nick, I think your opening paragraph is spot on. I think the other problem was that Musgrave wanted a 50/50 offense and wanted us to run the ball effectively, which is real tough to do when you constantly run into a box that has greater numbers than you have blocking on offense. Musgrave seemed to never have good audible calls for Plummer. As a result we either got stoned at the line or Plummer threw low percentage passes deep. In any event, when you have an offense that depends on precision execution, like in the pros, but you don't have pro level athletes, then you're gonna have problems. I think that was a big part of the issues they had with the o-line: they were asked to do things that they just weren't athletic enough to achieve. I think Musgrave is a smart guy but I am ready for a good spread concept offense and I think Spav will be a boost for us. Don't know if any of you watched the Fresno St./WASU bowl game, but watching the play calling for Fresno State was just fun. Not surprising with Tedford at HC (even if he doesn't call the plays anymore).
My eye test on the two O line guys that Cal picked up in the portal least season - Tj Session and Spencer Lovell - were pretty much busts. Session in particular could not handle the speed of edge rushers coming at him from his right tackle position. It's going to be difficult to attract talented O line transfers to a place like Cal, so it's going to take some some in-house building that takes longer than one season to turn around. I expect more O line problems next year if an immobile guy like Plummer is the starter again.
TJ has the athletic ability, he just needs to be coached up better and needs a LOT more reps in practice. The poor play of our tackles, in my mind, was on McClure. He just didn't seem to understand what it takes for guys on the outside to succeed in pass pro.
Why? He only had a couple of weeks to help mid season. I think he did the best he could. If you mean Greatwood that is.
Leach ran the Air Raid. It's a small playbook (30+ plays) but each pass play has a myriad of rout options, so it's not as simple as some would think. Like Tony Franklin under Dykes while at CAL, the goal of the Air Raid is repetition to perfection. With fewer plays to run you can rep each one many more times than in a traditional offense. In a typical week during the season in a Pro Style offense, you are lucky to rep 20 plays. In the Air Raid system, you are repping plays week in and week out. When you can execute plays perfectly, even when the defense knows whats coming, you score and you win.
As to Spav, he has his own system with its own tweaks. He's known as a brilliant offensive signal caller so I think we'll be fine with him. I'm just looking forward to some variety, insead of some 3rd and 1 screen or dive up the middle, maybe one of those plays like Fresno ran against WASU, like the snap that went under Haener while he was under center, where Hener fakes the QB sneak but the ball goes directly to a RB in wildcat who had the option of handing off to a jet sweep or running the ball himself based on the read. The WASU defense had no clue on that play. Just brilliant and so much fun to watch the ingenuity of the play design and call.
That was the concept of Dykes as well who comes from Leach coaching tree.
That's the basis of an air raid. Running the ball a lot pull defenses in, air raid offenses have a lot of receivers to spread defenses out horizontally and create a numbers advantage. The problem with pure air raid offenses is that they run into a wall against good defenses. Look at Leach's scoring averages against Wilcox. They never scored more than 20 against us I believe until he left and a new coaching staff took over.
Air raid will be great to get our offense back to average immediately and compete, but if we want to compete for a conference championship we're going to need a more balanced attack.
Good job Nick,
In a nutshell, “Fix the Offensive Line.”
Yes, but what about the offensive line?
Great article, Nick, as always.
John Madden, to paraphrase, said that he would build a team from the line up. We should, now, know full well the importance and difference the linemen can make. Let's hope this becomes the priority, because football is all about the trenches.
"I think back to when Cal hired Justin Wilcox and we assumed that it would take him a couple of years to rebuild the Cal defense; as it turned out, there was talent on the roster that had been woefully mismanaged by the prior regime."
Devante Downs had a revival under Wilcox. Our LBs were so poorly utilized under Dykes. And of course, the Takers were composed primarily of Dykes recruits.
And with coaching of TDR and GA.
There's a fair amount of oline talent on the bench that didn't see the field for one reason or another (injury, not developed enough) Portal may provide some assistance but let's not forget what's inside the den
Agreed there is some talent (potential) on the roster. Not sure if they were injured or if Angus just couldn't coach them up other than Vatikani.
Angus should never have been hired especially right after Greatwood who was basically paid while in full retirement stage. And Greatwood hardly recruited any good players given his rep as an OL coach. Just years and years burned away at arguably the most important coaching position. All of which falls on Wilcox. TBD on this new coach although it appears, on its surface, to be a major upgrade from the previous two.
Inexcusable that we continue to have to discuss the OL for so many gawd damn years!!
All roads for next season go through the O-line. Need some talent and depth from the portal plus some serious coaching up, I do think Bloesch will succeed though.
Always insightful Nick!
Hmmmm.....McClure had huge success at UCLA, routinely putting guys in the pros. And then he has multiple all-league guys along the O line at Nevada, where he has just been hired again, btw. He gets to Cal and he is suddenly a schmuck. I think any of these failures on offense at Cal need to be as much on Wilcox as anyone, and probably more. The man seems to have teflon underwear.
OT: any chance that the WFC comment section functionality will be improved so that it's as good as the old CGB site?
But if they do that, we’ll have to see Wilcox lick his lips on every single gdmf article.
I used to post that gif all the time
I want Z feature
Not sure what to expect next year because it HEAVILY depends on OL improvement through scheme or personnel. I'm not expecting BEAR RAID 2.0 DROP 50 but escaping the "first to 21" curse should net us a decent number of points and (hopefully) a couple more wins, even if the conference becomes tougher overall.
Yeah, I did that intentionally because as a P5 team, we should hypothetically aspire to be competing nationally - but I also included Pac-12 rankings to contextualize. But for a place like North Texas, there are no realistic aspirations to compete nationally, and so conference ranking is I think more representative of how they compete against their peers. Having said that, N. Texas ranked very favorably nationally considering their small conference status.