Evans Hall: Early to Run, Early to Fail

Running ourselves into trouble.

Photo Credit: Rob Hwang

Woody Hayes is credited by Darrell Royal with coining the phrase “Three things can happen when you throw the ball, and two of them are bad.” In the case of Cal football let me tweak to this:

“Nothing happens when Cal runs the ball on 1^st down, and yet it is still bad.”

Today I will be focusing on the efficacy of Cal’s insistence on running on 1^st downs.

Inert and Unsuccessful: Cal Running Game

However, let’s look at the big picture efficiency (% of plays that let us stay on schedule) and explosiveness (% of plays that are either 10+ rushing yards, or 20+ passing yards).

We can see here that after facing Oregon State, Minnesota, and San Diego State; Cal’s rushing attack has been abysmal overall when it comes to enacting any sort of positive change relative to their peers. We boast one of the worse rushing success rates, some of the teams behind us on the metric can at least show above average explosive run outcomes. Additionally, because of the poor showing by the offense in general against the Aztecs the passing game has also regressed to the quartile with the worst outcomes.

Patterns Emerge

Focusing on the four games we have played so far the rushing success rate and lack of explosiveness being the main takeaway from this. However, the signs of the troubles were already present at the Oregon State game with the rushing statistics already below 40% success rate and 10% explosive run rates.

Zooming into the 1^st down we can see the real issue with the offense. It is extremely hard to have to face 2^nd and long, it limits the type of plays we can select and thus narrows down the things the defense has to worry about.

Even though this article is focused on the running game, the early down passing game isn’t above criticism, relying on explosive plays to move the ball but still sitting behind the majority of the P5 comparators in efficiency.

The effect of such poor 1^st down performance is evident in the median length of the 2^nd down distance to go: 8.

Which puts us in a very unfavorable spot. Though half of the FBS has the same issue, the problem prevails on 3^rd down where we are comfortably closer to the bottom of the P5 bucket where we move 1 yard down on the median to face one of the longest 3^rd downs in the nation.

Hell thy name is Snapdragon Stadium

I gave each point a little bit of jitter, sacrificing a little bit of accuracy for distributional analysis. JKS had 2 explosive completions on 1^st down and absolutely nothing else through the air, while the running game clustered closely around the 1-4 gain range. This sets up a 2^nd and long where we are passing at a very high clip. Sometimes we were able to uncork and explosive plays but 6 of the 13 passing attempts didn’t progress the ball at all. It is also worth noting that the shortest 2^nd down we faced was 2^nd and 4.

The failure to keep the ball moving on early downs forces the offense into bad scripts on 3^rd down, the continued failure on those downs puts more pressure on the QB as well as gives the defense the confidence to try things that are more aggressive. Failing to keep on schedule will be the death knell of this team if not addressed post-haste.

Conclusion

Right now, we’re back where we were for the last 9 years of the Wilcox tenure. An inefficient offense that is relying on moments of brilliance from individual players upon whom the momentum of the game will depend on. Somehow throughout the 5 OCs, several QBs, dozens of OLs, WRs and RBs, a defensive minded HC has been able to find a way to be consistently terrible on the side of the ball he has the least control over. Remarkable.

The only possible non-QB ray of light is the track record that Coach Anae has with the OL, and that some WR will breakthrough since we have athletic talent on the outside. I don’t have faith that the RB room contains anyone whose ceiling doesn’t stop at “Borderline P5 Starter”.