46 Comments
Sep 11, 2022Liked by Avinash Kunnath

Thanks Avi.

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Getting beat one-on-one on the OL and DL is not going vanilla and turtling up, it is flat out getting your ass beat one-on-one.

Simple, no excuses or reasoning ("don't give up the play book") needed. Our lines are getting beat, 2 weeks in a row now. Angus has to go prior to the end of year.

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Sep 12, 2022Liked by Avinash Kunnath

Great read avinash. Really solid analysis and I always love your input. The UNLV game was a mess in the second half. It was a duplicate of the Nevada game last year where CAL jumped on them early and didn’t put them away when they should. I don’t see a lot of “step on the throat” mentality when they have these teams on the ropes. They allow them to get back in the game and it’s becoming a trend in the Wilcox era. Having said that, I still believe in JW. He’s a heck of a coach and he’s the right fit for the program. The fact that he could have gone to Oregon with unlimited support and resources proves he can coach. Players like him and he likes being in Berkeley. BUT, the offensive line continues to be a mess and he hasn’t been able to fix it. If the line simply average with the young explosive offensive weapons CAL has this year, this team I believe could go 8-4. Plummer is clearly an upgrade from garbers when he has time in the pocket. His arm talent and experience shows it. But the o-line is a disaster and CAL will be 6-6 this year if it isn’t cleaned up in a hurry. Way to many missed assignments and defenders just rushing freely. I’m surprised Plummer wasn’t injured by the end of the game with the amount of abuse he took.

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It's not about saving the playbook for better teams, or we wouldn't have been running the same vanilla bullshit all throughout last season. Part of college football is running up the score on lower quality teams -- if we refuse to do this we will never be considered a good team.

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I don't think coaches should react to fans, and should do what they think is best. But if Wilcox and Co. don't start Ott next week against Notre Dame after what we saw against FCS and G5 level talent by everyone else, that's just malpratice and someone needs to be fired by the end of the year. You can blame the offensive line or whatever, but the coaches need to do what it takes to win with what we have. If we have an inconsistent o-line, we need to stop starting RBs who have no idea how to gain yards behind said line.

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History repeats itself much too often with this team. I am not sure that the coaches intentionally go vanilla or that is all they can come up with. Not so sure most of the problems are with the play calling. Either way, it will be a nasty, brutish, and long season if things stay as they are. Hopefully the line play gets better, the reads get better, the blocking on the screens improves, they stop running plays to the flats that don't work, and they play Ott as much as possible. Cal is a much better team with him in the game, regardless of the play calls. Looking forward to the Arizona game in a couple weeks.

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Absolutely embarrassing this continues to happen in YEAR FUCKING 6.

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Turtling? I think they just got outcoached and outplayed. Cal should have lost the game at the end but they got bailed out by their defense. Again. Something is very seriously wrong with the offensive line and the offense in general with this team. For years. Position coaches may be underperforming, but the responsibility ultimately falls on Wilcox. He made the hires. It's incredible how consistently poor Cal's O-Line has been and continues to be year after year.

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UNLV is way better this year than they were last year and the year before. I think Wilcox said they had 40 new players through the transfer portal. Their O and D-line's were both solid. They had a legit #1 receiver and the QB was solid. They had a decent running back. Transfer portal guys are an immediate upgrade. Watching the game will leave you with a terrible first impression that is a knee jerk response. Watching the film will give you a much better perspective. I'm not going to say we played well; we have some real issues to work out, but we're not nearly as bad as you may think. If we can solve our scheme issues then, like Marshall, we can beat Notre Dame.

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“ The defense gave up a bunch of third downs”? Unlv was 1/12 in third down conversions and 1/4 in fourth down conversions. Hand it to the D - they won the game for Cal!

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Random thought: Ott and Cal should partner with NBA Youngboy and make shirts with the slogan "I feel like I'm Marshawn Lynch in 2006"

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Another chapter in the ‘How to Make a Win Feel Like a Loss’ novel that we get to see this coaching staff write five to seven times a year. Of all the frustrations to come from this game - the lack of asses in seats, the students that can’t be bothered to show up, the fact that we apparently no longer have a cheer or dance team, another season of disastrous offensive line play that will surely cost us wins, the complete lack of a killer instinct to freaking bury teams that have no business hanging with us - what has me most on the verge of going nuclear is how the hell the guy responsible for scoring 60% of the touchdowns so far this season only gets handed the ball 7 times? What more does this coaching staff need to see to realize Ott is our most dynamic playmaker? We have a fanbase long down the road to apathy that hasn’t had a star worth coming to see since maybe Goff. But nooooo, we wouldn’t want to generate any level of excitement in the mundane world of Wilcox-coached football. Good lord it makes my blood boil. Let’s keep scraping for .500 seasons with 20k or less in Memorial. Must be nice to get extensions with a sub .500 overall win-loss record and pocket a shade under $5 mil a year with the only expectation being the continuation of mediocrity. I can’t wait to see where Ott transfers this off-season to become the featured back. In the meantime, I will continue hoping to be proven wrong.

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Just win baby. No more excuses.

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WRT playing Ott more, I agree they shouldn't have pulled him until there was a bigger margin. But looking at the box score, it seems like coaches really need a third RB to get reps. Ott had 7 carries for 52 (7.4 YPC) and 1 TD. Moore had 6 carries for 26, a below-average 4.3 YPC (last year was 5.2). Seems like staff settled on Brooks as the #3 back and gave him 10 carries for a bad 22 yards (2.2 YPC). We don't need RB by committee this year -- Ott & Moore should get vast majority of reps -- but a team can't get by with just 2 backs, and young players need reps. Brooks appears to really need reps.

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Ott has the tools to find holes. The OL can manage. The other RB’s cannot.

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This was a credible analysis of the UNLV game. We learned that our Offensive Line is not yet capable of giving our quarterback and receivers time to deliver, and our running game is weak. Our defense performed reasonably well, but I was surprised at how easily in the second half the Rebels were able to run against us. Let's hope that Notre Dame's quarterback is out for the Cal game, and we can at least play a close game.

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