There are several story lines to this game. The most important one is the performance of the defense against arguably the best offense in the Pac12. Two key players, Goode & Iosefa, were ruled out of the game late in the week. During the game, Gamble who was coming into his own the past few weeks and who already had two stellar plays in the game went out with an injury. This was the “oh-oh” moment. How does Cal play its secondary now? Drayden played the corner spot in place of Gamble. But in nickel coverage Drayden went to slot with a newcomer, Young, playing corner. So, what does Young do in his introduction to Cal fans? He has 4 PBU’s (pass break ups) with one leading to an INT. Yes, he got beat for a TD but on that play Hicks was the help over the top and made a poor decision. The tape reveals that Hicks paid attention to the TE and not the receiver deepest in the route, which caused him to be late on the over-the-top help. The DB’s for the entirety of the game played solidly. And so did the DL. Holding OSU to over 100 yards BELOW their average rush per game was phenomenal! Cal won the line of scrimmage for most of the game. The young ILB’s held their ground and the entire D executed tackling throughout the game. While improvement on D has been steady each week, this performance and the immergence of new talent was critical in this game.
On offense Cal finally did what fans have been searching for, for over 2 years. They finally played with consistency. And penalty free. More importantly each time OSU scored in the second half, Cal followed with a score of their own. THIS is what good teams do. I have been critical of the OL play ~ rightfully so ~ during the Wilcox era. Is this the game that the OL finally arrived and gelled as a unit? Perhaps. Is this the pivot for the entire offense that fans have waited for with the arrival of Musgrave? Perhaps. OSU’s strength on defense is their ILB’s and corners. Going into the game, on paper, Cal should have been able to run against OSU’s front 4 and they did. THAT is the sign of a good team. Is Cal making progress towards “good”. Perhaps. Sans a few dropped balls, this would have been as close to a perfect game for the offense as any team (pro or college) can get to perfection. That is how dominant and as good as Cal’s offense played. And like all good teams it boils down to the offensive line. It isn’t realistic to expect this high a level of performance but if the O has arrived future performances should be significantly above the norm of the past 2 years.
Finally special teams helped and did not hurt. Enough said. OK, one thing needs to be said. Alftin needs to be on the field more. Perhaps at H-back. Kid is a great athlete and needs to be used prior to his eligibility expiring. His lack of use reminds me of how McMorris wasn’t used.
We shall know if Cal, as a team, has arrived come Saturday in Arizona. Cal should dominate the game from start to finish. They can if they play with discipline and consistency. Folks, AZ isn’t going to fold in this game, they are hungry for a win and will scheme up trickeration or whatever it takes to win. And Cal needs to win this game for any shot at a bowl. So, pressure is now on Cal, let’s see how the team preforms and if they have indeed turned the corner.
We should be worried about the AZ game. Historically a poor venue for Cal although I am not a believer in history as it relates to sports. Pressure is now on Cal and I'm sure the players 'feel" it and the coaches are "thinking" about it. That IT being bowl eligibility.
That was my point at the start. We gotta give the new coaches time just like we did when the OG staff came in with Wilcox. Thankfully it’s improved exponentially since the bye week.
Didnt get to watch the game until after it was over... Wow, most complete game in recent memory. Garbers was awesome, and wouldve looked even better if not for a couple drops. Never seen him throw the ball as proficiently. Wonder if knowing his little brother was making his first p12 start sparked something in him.
It also appears Musgrave is running the offense more around Chase's skill set more and more each week. If we had this kind of play selection from the start we'd probably have a couple more wins. That pro style pocket game flop in week 1 against Nevada had me thinking all doom and there was no way Musgrave was going to adjust.
Also, of course, kudos to the offensive line, where the offense stops and starts..
This season has had massive roster reshuffling on defense since the beginning of the year, and a serious overhaul of the offense. It makes me wonder if we had a more conventional season last year, if the coaching staff would have been able to field more productive units earlier in the season. It also makes me question what they were seeing in spring and fall camp.
very fun and entertaining game. This epitomizes the highs and lows of being a cal football fan.
I thought the tackling by the defense was exceptional. There were very few big yards after contact plays. They held gains to 2-4 yards which allowed them to force them into 3 and medium too long all day.
OSU is a decent program but they are still Oregon State. Their coach, jonathan Smith, is really getting the most out of their limited talent pool especially with Nike University (UO) just down the road.
The Bruins can have him. What a farce of a game. They beat the other team 106-0. That is not a misprint. What a bunch of classless turds (coaches, players, fans) to do that to another team that is clearly over-matched.
No comparison. When Cal beat the Cougs 66-3 in 2008, that was a terrible Cougs team but Cal had their backups in the game for the entire 2nd half and kept the game plan really vanilla with lots of running plays.
The Inglewood-Morningside game was just disgusting. It was 52-0 after the first quarter and 86-0 at the half. Inglewood refused a running clock until well into the second quarter and team also went for a 2 point conversion when it was 104-0.
Justbear: When was that? And I'll bet that by the third quarter all of our starters were resting. Even in the pros they know when to let up (the Rams rested all of their starters today once they went up 38-0 on the Texans). The bottom line is that a coaching staff and a player beating up on an over-matched team just so they could inflate stats is just shameless. I wonder how a guy like that is going to get along with a bunch of other players on a D1 team.
Yea, that was the historically bad Paul Wulff Wazzou team. Later in the season, USC took a knee at the Wazzou 5 yard line (or something) to end the first half because they were already up by 6 touchdowns and just wanted to end the game.
He stated that UCLA was his dream school ever since he was a kid, so sounds like he would've flip to them as soon has he got that commit, regardless of how our season was going.
Great. Follow your dreams where ever they take you but I don't understand something. If he is such a stud (a "transformative talent" as PawlOski put it), why did it take the Bruins so long to offer?
There are several story lines to this game. The most important one is the performance of the defense against arguably the best offense in the Pac12. Two key players, Goode & Iosefa, were ruled out of the game late in the week. During the game, Gamble who was coming into his own the past few weeks and who already had two stellar plays in the game went out with an injury. This was the “oh-oh” moment. How does Cal play its secondary now? Drayden played the corner spot in place of Gamble. But in nickel coverage Drayden went to slot with a newcomer, Young, playing corner. So, what does Young do in his introduction to Cal fans? He has 4 PBU’s (pass break ups) with one leading to an INT. Yes, he got beat for a TD but on that play Hicks was the help over the top and made a poor decision. The tape reveals that Hicks paid attention to the TE and not the receiver deepest in the route, which caused him to be late on the over-the-top help. The DB’s for the entirety of the game played solidly. And so did the DL. Holding OSU to over 100 yards BELOW their average rush per game was phenomenal! Cal won the line of scrimmage for most of the game. The young ILB’s held their ground and the entire D executed tackling throughout the game. While improvement on D has been steady each week, this performance and the immergence of new talent was critical in this game.
On offense Cal finally did what fans have been searching for, for over 2 years. They finally played with consistency. And penalty free. More importantly each time OSU scored in the second half, Cal followed with a score of their own. THIS is what good teams do. I have been critical of the OL play ~ rightfully so ~ during the Wilcox era. Is this the game that the OL finally arrived and gelled as a unit? Perhaps. Is this the pivot for the entire offense that fans have waited for with the arrival of Musgrave? Perhaps. OSU’s strength on defense is their ILB’s and corners. Going into the game, on paper, Cal should have been able to run against OSU’s front 4 and they did. THAT is the sign of a good team. Is Cal making progress towards “good”. Perhaps. Sans a few dropped balls, this would have been as close to a perfect game for the offense as any team (pro or college) can get to perfection. That is how dominant and as good as Cal’s offense played. And like all good teams it boils down to the offensive line. It isn’t realistic to expect this high a level of performance but if the O has arrived future performances should be significantly above the norm of the past 2 years.
Finally special teams helped and did not hurt. Enough said. OK, one thing needs to be said. Alftin needs to be on the field more. Perhaps at H-back. Kid is a great athlete and needs to be used prior to his eligibility expiring. His lack of use reminds me of how McMorris wasn’t used.
We shall know if Cal, as a team, has arrived come Saturday in Arizona. Cal should dominate the game from start to finish. They can if they play with discipline and consistency. Folks, AZ isn’t going to fold in this game, they are hungry for a win and will scheme up trickeration or whatever it takes to win. And Cal needs to win this game for any shot at a bowl. So, pressure is now on Cal, let’s see how the team preforms and if they have indeed turned the corner.
Its weird I am worried about the Arizona game. This is the exact type of game Cal has lost time and time again to Arizona, particularly in Arizona.
We should be worried about the AZ game. Historically a poor venue for Cal although I am not a believer in history as it relates to sports. Pressure is now on Cal and I'm sure the players 'feel" it and the coaches are "thinking" about it. That IT being bowl eligibility.
Dude! You're not wrong, but get your own Novel!
I have one, it's on WFC.
I'm starting to think Tre Watson and Keith Heyward are doing good job of coaching young players to Pac12 talent.
That was my point at the start. We gotta give the new coaches time just like we did when the OG staff came in with Wilcox. Thankfully it’s improved exponentially since the bye week.
Didnt get to watch the game until after it was over... Wow, most complete game in recent memory. Garbers was awesome, and wouldve looked even better if not for a couple drops. Never seen him throw the ball as proficiently. Wonder if knowing his little brother was making his first p12 start sparked something in him.
It also appears Musgrave is running the offense more around Chase's skill set more and more each week. If we had this kind of play selection from the start we'd probably have a couple more wins. That pro style pocket game flop in week 1 against Nevada had me thinking all doom and there was no way Musgrave was going to adjust.
Also, of course, kudos to the offensive line, where the offense stops and starts..
This season has had massive roster reshuffling on defense since the beginning of the year, and a serious overhaul of the offense. It makes me wonder if we had a more conventional season last year, if the coaching staff would have been able to field more productive units earlier in the season. It also makes me question what they were seeing in spring and fall camp.
In terms of making smart reads and accuracy its the most complete game of Garbers career.
I haven't been so happy in a long time. A complete game. Go Bears!
I was just as happy in first quarter vs. Nevada this year. I thought we were going to play Alabama in NC game. lol
very fun and entertaining game. This epitomizes the highs and lows of being a cal football fan.
I thought the tackling by the defense was exceptional. There were very few big yards after contact plays. They held gains to 2-4 yards which allowed them to force them into 3 and medium too long all day.
OSU is a decent program but they are still Oregon State. Their coach, jonathan Smith, is really getting the most out of their limited talent pool especially with Nike University (UO) just down the road.
Great outcome for the good guys. Go Bears!!!
Some stats (through 10/30)
Total Defense, Cal is third in the conference and 1st in rushing defense:
http://www.cfbstats.com/2021/leader/905/team/defense/split01/category10/sort01.html
Total offense, Cal is fifth but Garbers is no. 1 in TO by a wide margin:
http://www.cfbstats.com/2021/leader/905/player/split01/category10/sort01.html
Justyn Martin, the QB from Inglewood who just committed to U.C.L.A. this week threw 13 touchdowns last night against Morningside.
The Bruins can have him. What a farce of a game. They beat the other team 106-0. That is not a misprint. What a bunch of classless turds (coaches, players, fans) to do that to another team that is clearly over-matched.
Well we beat poor Cougs 66-3 once.
No comparison. When Cal beat the Cougs 66-3 in 2008, that was a terrible Cougs team but Cal had their backups in the game for the entire 2nd half and kept the game plan really vanilla with lots of running plays.
The Inglewood-Morningside game was just disgusting. It was 52-0 after the first quarter and 86-0 at the half. Inglewood refused a running clock until well into the second quarter and team also went for a 2 point conversion when it was 104-0.
Justbear: When was that? And I'll bet that by the third quarter all of our starters were resting. Even in the pros they know when to let up (the Rams rested all of their starters today once they went up 38-0 on the Texans). The bottom line is that a coaching staff and a player beating up on an over-matched team just so they could inflate stats is just shameless. I wonder how a guy like that is going to get along with a bunch of other players on a D1 team.
Disgusting, but squarely on the coaches. I do have fond memories of us dropping 86 on Pacific in '91 though.
It was the second game of 2008 after we beat Michigan State in the opener.
I just looked up the stats and we scored 14 pts in 4th quarter, each TD by Tracy Slocum and Brock Mansions (both 3rd strings)
Yea, that was the historically bad Paul Wulff Wazzou team. Later in the season, USC took a knee at the Wazzou 5 yard line (or something) to end the first half because they were already up by 6 touchdowns and just wanted to end the game.
You mean our former commit? No more Justyn Martin commentary. It hurts too much. The wounds are raw.
Hopefully with the win streak (knock on wood) we won't lose any other commits.
Damage is mostly done. I think Martin is a transformative talent. This one is going to sting for a very long time.
It'll be worse than losing out on Takkarist McKinley due to administrative errors.
Nothing is worse than losing that potential #1 recruit class
PawlOski: Something tells me that he was never serious about Cal.
I think we will be fine with MIlner. IIRC Martin was a pro-style qb and not noted for mobility.
He stated that UCLA was his dream school ever since he was a kid, so sounds like he would've flip to them as soon has he got that commit, regardless of how our season was going.
Great. Follow your dreams where ever they take you but I don't understand something. If he is such a stud (a "transformative talent" as PawlOski put it), why did it take the Bruins so long to offer?
Hyperbole. I'm perhaps irrationally in love with him. He jumps off the tape to me. Looks special in a way that Kai Milner does not.
Hey we rate the game here too? Or instead?
The rate the game link here and in the Insta Recap thread are the same.