2024 Cal Football in review: Special Teams and Big Picture

Alternatively: why I will never predict anything other than a 6-6 record from Justin Wilcox

photo via @calfootball on twitter

Previously on 2024 Cal Football in Review: The Offense; The Defense

After reviewing the two major units over the last couple weeks, we’re going to combine special teams with a review of Cal’s full team performance from a win/loss perspective. There are some seasons where that would be a little bit of an odd pairing. But in 2024, Cal’s win/loss performance was so inextricably tied to a handful of special teams plays that it sadly makes sense to combine things this way.

Special Teams

In the rush and bustle of August, I definitely gave Cal’s special teams short shrift. Here’s the extent to which I mentioned them:

. . . on special teams, Cal replaced a pretty iffy kicker situation with a solid option in North Carolina transfer Ryan Coe . . . Cal’s special teams, with improved specialist play, is not a liability.

The advanced stats (SP+ and FEI) ranked Cal’s entire special teams unit 83rd and 64th respectively, which in the narrow band of special teams impact basically means that the unit was exactly at the national average.

And to some extent, the ranking makes sense. Cal was excellent when kicking the ball off and had competent, solid punting units. And the field goal unit wasn’t entirely bad - facing a too-heavy workload, the unit had some nice moments, including 4 made field goals of 50+ yards.

But none of that matters because Cal missed 4 field goals this season that represented the difference between wins and losses in three games. Against Florida State, Pitt, and NC State, Cal lost games due to missed field goals. The harsh reality of special teams play is that there can be multiple games in a row where nothing that happens in that phase particularly impacts your chances of winning a game . . . and then a single play can be the difference between a win and a loss.

But rather than focusing on the often razor-thin margin between a made kick and a missed kick, I’d like to focus on a different stat. Here’s a clip of the team rankings for field goals attempted:

Out of curiosity, I combed through the archives at CFBStats.com and ESPN and I have discovered that Cal’s 37 field goal attempts in a single season is the 2nd most one team has attempted since 2004. In 2014, West Virginia attempted 39 field goals, and across 21 seasons of college football nobody else has been able to even match the 37 that Cal attempted in 2024.

It’s a really bizarre statistical anomaly because it requires two things: An offense that is really good at getting inside the 40 yard line, and really bad at then turning that possession into a touchdown. The FEI rankings even have data subsets to quantify that. Consider these drive result rankings:

Cal offense rankings by drive type:

• Percentage of drives that end in a touchdown or field goal attempt: 47%, 41st in the nation.

• Percentage of drives that earned at least 10 yards: 73%, 40th in the nation

• Percentage of drives that ended in a touchdown: 22%, 106th in the nation

It is very rare, and frankly confusing, to be that good at getting into position to score points, and that bad at then turning those opportunities into touchdowns. And the result of this odd inability is a whole mess of field goal attempts.

So, was it a problem that Cal was below average at making field goals? 100%, it was frustrating and heartbreaking. But this was a problem borne out of a failure to execute on offense just as much as a failure to execute on special teams.

Reviewing Best Case, Worst Case, and Most Likely Scenario

Going back through my final preview article, let’s pick out things that turned out to be almost correct, and things that turned out to be particularly incorrect:

If Mike Bloesch can rebuild the left side of the line . . . then this is a team without any major holes or weaknesses.

This was nearly a true statement. The Bears were really hampered by two major weaknesses that worked in tandem to limit the ceiling of the entire team. We covered field goal kicking above, but the bigger issues was the offensive line generally and the left side of the offensive line specifically, where Cal struggled badly all year long in a way that handicapped the entire offense, particularly in the red zone.

If Cal hits their ceiling, they should win at least six out of seven against UC Davis, San Diego State, Pitt, Oregon State, Wake Forest, Syracuse, and Stanford. And if they hit their ceiling, they should be able to be mostly competitive against the tougher tests on the schedule: Auburn, Florida State, Miami, NC State, and SMU, winning two or three.

If Cal either made their high leverage field goals OR managed to build an offensive line that didn’t require the team to have to settle for so many field goal attempts, then the best-case scenario above is basically what would’ve happened. Cal would’ve won six of seven against UCD, SDSU, Pitt, OSU, Wake, Syracuse, and Stanford, and would have been generally competitive and won three of five against Auburn, FSU, Miami, NC State, and SMU. Hell, you could even imagine a scenario in which the refs do call targeting in the Miami game and Cal finishes this season 10-2, suffering losses only to Syracuse and SMU.

And this isn’t even the kind of fan-fiction that ignores good luck in the other direction. Cal finished 2-5 in games decided by 8 points or less, and 1-4 in games decided by 5 points or less. Cal was perhaps lucky to beat Stanford, but unlucky to lose to FSU, Miami, Pitt, and NC State.

On offense, the fact that Cal is entering the season with a left tackle who is a redshirt freshman converted from tight end/defensive end who has never, to my knowledge, taken a competitive snap at left tackle is, to put it mildly, frightening. Offensive line is generally considered the toughest position group to improve in the portal, and left tackle is the toughest position to get on the line, and Cal still hasn’t really brought in a true left tackle in that time.

This was, by some margin, my biggest fear entering the season, but I allowed what Mike Bloesch did in 2023 to cloud my judgment. Alas, Bloesch was unable to pull off a magic trick two years in a row, and the biggest downside risk ended up sinking Cal’s upside.

Here are three things I believe strongly are true:

1. Cal’s 6-6 record last year was a fair reflection of their true talent against a tough schedule

2. Cal is a more talented team in 2024 than they were in 2023

3. Cal’s schedule is significantly easier in 2024 than it was in 2023.

If you add those three factors up together, I think you get an 8-4 record.

Even now, after the 2024 season, I still think all three of those statements are true. Cal was indeed more talented in 2024 than 2023, and Cal’s schedule was significantly easier. So why didn’t that fact result in more wins, and what does that say about Cal under Justin Wilcox?

Obvious statement alert: Football is a team sport. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that often football is a weak link sport, because it takes 11 guys executing in concert to be successful.

And what I’ve seen under Justin Wilcox is that the exact nature of the problem areas on Cal’s roster has changed from year to year, but there is consistently a problem area. At different times it has been quarterback, wide receiver, offensive line, defensive line, and even briefly in times in 2023, the secondary.

Maybe in some ways 2024 was a sign of progress, because there were really only two position groups (offensive line and kicker) that stood out as major weaknesses, but they were weaknesses nonetheless and it led to another ~.500 season.

Cal’s current recruiting reality is ongoing struggles to recruit high school talent and doing everything possible to fill gaps via the portal. The second part of that strategy has been remarkably successful, and portal additions peppered the two deep on both sides of the ball and kept Cal afloat. But it’s just too much to ask to have to fill so many holes every single year and to find the right answer at every single position group.

I don’t know which position groups will be a problem next year. It could be quarterback, or the offensive line again, or perhaps the secondary after losing roughly 80% of the on-field production from this year. Maybe nobody can replace Teddy Buchanan or Xavier Carlton.

It’s this constant rotation of problem areas that has kept Cal as a .500 team for years on end, and it’s the primary reason I won’t be predicting anything different under Justin Wilcox until he actually manages to win 8+ regular season games.