My dollar opinion. I understand, that teams like UC Davis, you want to try certain situations before you have to play tougher games, but why not soften up their offense and defense by making their qb very uncomfortable by playing a simple base and blitzing the hell out of qb. Correct me if I am wrong but we didn't start blitzing til later in the game. That should have been KEEP IT SIMPLE so kids can gain confidence and settle down. All that defensive stunting can wait later in the game. That's it. On offense, stop all that passing because your keeping their DL fresh and the other guys start saying we can play with these guys. The first series snap Ott gets 5yds running, then a pass on 2nd down, then its 3rd swing pass to the flat, drive is dead, WHY? Run the ball! Just run the ball right at them til you wear them down (we have the line to do it). Then, play call some situations you like to run in the game. First unit should have never played as long as they did. I hope Chancellor Lyons is watching! Eight years, its time to start having winning records, too much money at stake! This game should have been a blow out!
Great comment. As a former high school head coach and an ass't college coach, I've never agreed with Sirmon's defensive strategy. He's very generic on passing situations. Against Davis I saw very little corner or nickel dogs especially in the 1st half. Also, as you said, the run game was nearly abandoned. Bloesch (O coordinator) was not impressive with his play calling. I hope he and Sirmon were hiding "stuff" from the more hard competition to come.
My 1⁄2p: from my spotty memory, most Bruce Snyder teams and early Jeff Tedford teams had the consistency with game planning, as you describe, while at Cal that I thought helped their teams build for success down the road/later in the schedule. As a coach attracts talented athletes and by extension more depth, doing this early in a season I imagine would be a lot easier.
It's obvious we need a new HC but that's old news. I liked their new receiver corps, and Mendoza looks improved. The OL and pass rush were disappointing, even with the injuries. IMO Vatikani is their most important player, let's see how they do when he comes back. ILBs looked good especially Uluave again. Kicker Coe looked good. Ott's injury sucks but they are incredibly deep at RB, with Cardwell, Williams-Thomas, Jet, and Callaway all very capable with a good OL. Biggest key to season is getting Vatikani back and finding a pass rush. Biggest problem is their mediocre coaching staff. I love Bloesch as the OL coach but not as OC. Gilbert not a good hire. Defense hasn't been special since DeRuyter left.
The game itself became almost irrelevant to me once Ott got injured, and that's the only thing I care about right now.
After reflecting on it, I think the pivotal moment was Calloway's disastrous first carry. Aside from the scoop and score, if that freak (helmet leading) hit didn't happen, he very well could've established himself in the game and Ott wouldn't have needed to be in.
In hindsight, that was probably Wilcox's plan, but he didn't have the team completely ready and things didn't go as planned.. So we had to lean on Ott to establish control of the game, and shit happens. Bad shit happened. Hoping for the best for Ott.
Can someone PLEASE tell the DJ in charge of the between play and pregame "music" to turn down the volume and play a lot less of it. Very seldom can one hear the public address announcer as he describes the results of plays and penalties and also conversation with one's fellow spectators
Welp, it’s a new trend that panders to our modern minds conditioned to multi-stimuli and immediate gratification. Deeper realms of focus and thought are not popular, so these are replaced with quick samples of information.
Taught for nearly 20 years. People, today, would prefer movies to books.
So, after watching several teams struggle against Big Sky opponents this weekend, I'm feeling a tiny bit better about yesterday. Not a whole lot, but just a bit
Cal fans: Yes, the offense was sluggish but it did start moving in the second half. Also, the Cal defense really stepped up with three interceptions, which is a good sign after last season's issues on that side of the ball.
Having a hard time imagining Cal competitive with Auburn. Was disappointed in the o-line play. Need to average more than three yards per carry. In other news, on Sling, the ACCNX didn’t allow me to watch the entire game on “replay.” It chopped off the final ten minutes of the game. I gather there was nothing more to see of any interest anyway, but still this is unacceptable. Furthermore, other than Roxy, who’s excellent, the ACCNX butchered this telecast. And I’m PO-ed that any game on ACCNX is not recordable via Sling DVR. I miss P12 Networks. Okay, done with rant. Go Bears
Exactly. I think the network went far down the talent bench for this one. Roxy was great though. There are really talented Bay Area commentators who could have brought up the quality level on the sideline and as the color commentator. The one who worked with Roxy yesterday was knowledgeable on football strategy but not so much on the teams’ rosters and how to pronounce Uluave. It sounded like he was shipped in from New England.
Cal appeared to be completely out schemed in the first half. They must have had a look at an actual scouting report at half. Ott's injury looked bad enough to be an ACL. He was reportedly very emotionally upset on the sideline. He was limping, but so was Klay Thompson.
Absolutely. Buchanan was everywhere and Uluave displayed his typical big plays and penchant for aggressive ball hawking especially in second half. Defensive backfield also showed a strong ability to cover and identify what UCD was trying to do in that second half.
On the subject of depth chart, I was surprised to not see Mason Starling, Kyione Grayes or Trevor Rogers in the receiver rotation. Maybe a couple members of our deep and talented receiver room will redshirt. But I was really curious to see what these guys could do. Merriweather I think may be nursing an injury.
There are spots where what Rogers excels at is an advantage. That’s when he should be brought. His passing was not on point. Bring him in for his legs.
This was a disappointing B- performance. The 1st half was a disaster rescued by an electrifying kickoff return. While the defense stepped up in the 2nd half, the perplexing decision to insert Rogers broke whatever momentum Cal had after the 21-13 lead. Our running game, hence our blocking, was minimal at best. Let's hope that Ott's injury is not serious. In essence this was not a solid performance. Auburn scored 66 points in their cupcake game, so they apparently had a solid start.
We’ve seen this QB merry go round before, right? Has it ever worked? They need to stick with a QB get a comfortable lead against an opponent like UCD and then bring in the second QB to get him reps. This is how you get both QBs to transfer out (assuming they have eligibility after this year).
Do any of you negative commenters ever stop to think, hey, maybe Davis is a good team? They have good O and D coordinators and a really good QB and good receivers. Cal's O line had injury problems and also, Cal didn't want to show their entire running game to upcoming more important opponents.
I think the point for many of us is how Cal looked unprepared starting the game. Both teams had missing players. It looked like the same old Bears. We’ve seen this story too many times.
Yes. UCD will be good this year. No shame in not blowing them out. However, it’s very concerning Cal couldn’t win the trenches battles. That’s where you need to see a clear distinction between the championship subdivision and the bowl subdivision teams. Not wanting to reveal entire playbook aside, Cal wanted Ott to have a Heisman flavor of great game, and he had nothing close to it, mostly due to Cal’s poor ability to create openings at the line of scrimmage. But of course some credit for that goes to UCD’s cohesive line play.
I certainly agree that replacing Mendoza after he finally seemed to get the offense into gear was a unfortunate, particularly since we played such a lackluster performance in the first half.
Watching the Bears win at Memorial Stadium is always great fun but my goodness that O-Line looks weak. Spotty pass protection and they opened no holes for the backs. Impressed with the D especially in the second half. Couldn't understand a word from the PA system. So on brand for Cal in the Knowlton era.
And playing not to lose instead of playing to win…reminds me of one of the opening scenes in “Crazy Rich Asians” where Rachel Chu schools her opponent.
Yep. I could cut and copy all of my ratings for FCS wins over Wilcoxs 8 years at Cal because they are always the same. Closer than expected and feel more like a loss than a win.
You seemed to pump some sunshine on the Locked on CFB. That guy is really down on Cal. I’d agree with the downer, except he projects as more like 5-7, if that.
8 years of mostly average football overall, a losing conference record, QB mismanagement, offensive ineptitude, and poor hires. None of that changed in the offseason and it won’t change during the season.
The excuses will be injuries and having to travel so much this season. This is another 5-7 team. More than likely lose against Miami, FSU and Auburn and split our other 8 games 4-4 to get to 5-7. Wilcox will be brought back for one more “win or else” type season and knowing our luck he goes 7-5 and wins his bowl game so we bring him back.
I just have zero faith in his ability to diagnose an issue with his football team and take meaningful steps to address and correct it.
And his insistence on using 2 QBs is inexcusable.
The talk that Cal wanted to keep things close to the vest and not give Auburn too much film is simply laughable - he’s not a good enough coach to be able to win with anything other than his very best…that is just a fact.
Using 2 QBs was actually essential. Having a backup with game experience is crucial when the starter goes down. Wilcox had to see what Rogers could do, and now we know - not much in this game anyway. So does the 3rd string guy get reps this week, or does the QB coach give Rogers some detailed work? Up to them, but it's a virtual certainty that Mendoza will come out at some point this season and we can't have some guy touching the ball for the first time vs FSU or NCS. If not against UCD, then vs who?
My dollar opinion. I understand, that teams like UC Davis, you want to try certain situations before you have to play tougher games, but why not soften up their offense and defense by making their qb very uncomfortable by playing a simple base and blitzing the hell out of qb. Correct me if I am wrong but we didn't start blitzing til later in the game. That should have been KEEP IT SIMPLE so kids can gain confidence and settle down. All that defensive stunting can wait later in the game. That's it. On offense, stop all that passing because your keeping their DL fresh and the other guys start saying we can play with these guys. The first series snap Ott gets 5yds running, then a pass on 2nd down, then its 3rd swing pass to the flat, drive is dead, WHY? Run the ball! Just run the ball right at them til you wear them down (we have the line to do it). Then, play call some situations you like to run in the game. First unit should have never played as long as they did. I hope Chancellor Lyons is watching! Eight years, its time to start having winning records, too much money at stake! This game should have been a blow out!
Great comment. As a former high school head coach and an ass't college coach, I've never agreed with Sirmon's defensive strategy. He's very generic on passing situations. Against Davis I saw very little corner or nickel dogs especially in the 1st half. Also, as you said, the run game was nearly abandoned. Bloesch (O coordinator) was not impressive with his play calling. I hope he and Sirmon were hiding "stuff" from the more hard competition to come.
My 1⁄2p: from my spotty memory, most Bruce Snyder teams and early Jeff Tedford teams had the consistency with game planning, as you describe, while at Cal that I thought helped their teams build for success down the road/later in the schedule. As a coach attracts talented athletes and by extension more depth, doing this early in a season I imagine would be a lot easier.
McDonald, Vatikani, Grayes, Merriweather, Ott, Calloway, all injured and none of us knew till yesterday. Time to get back on anti depressants
Also, where was Reese. I didn't see him at all. He is our best edge rusher and outside contain guy.
It's obvious we need a new HC but that's old news. I liked their new receiver corps, and Mendoza looks improved. The OL and pass rush were disappointing, even with the injuries. IMO Vatikani is their most important player, let's see how they do when he comes back. ILBs looked good especially Uluave again. Kicker Coe looked good. Ott's injury sucks but they are incredibly deep at RB, with Cardwell, Williams-Thomas, Jet, and Callaway all very capable with a good OL. Biggest key to season is getting Vatikani back and finding a pass rush. Biggest problem is their mediocre coaching staff. I love Bloesch as the OL coach but not as OC. Gilbert not a good hire. Defense hasn't been special since DeRuyter left.
The game itself became almost irrelevant to me once Ott got injured, and that's the only thing I care about right now.
After reflecting on it, I think the pivotal moment was Calloway's disastrous first carry. Aside from the scoop and score, if that freak (helmet leading) hit didn't happen, he very well could've established himself in the game and Ott wouldn't have needed to be in.
In hindsight, that was probably Wilcox's plan, but he didn't have the team completely ready and things didn't go as planned.. So we had to lean on Ott to establish control of the game, and shit happens. Bad shit happened. Hoping for the best for Ott.
Also hoping best for Calloway, hoping he doesn’t have a cracked rib.
Can someone PLEASE tell the DJ in charge of the between play and pregame "music" to turn down the volume and play a lot less of it. Very seldom can one hear the public address announcer as he describes the results of plays and penalties and also conversation with one's fellow spectators
Agree. Give me some more Cal Band music though. No need for all the canned, amplified loudspeaker garbage..
Welp, it’s a new trend that panders to our modern minds conditioned to multi-stimuli and immediate gratification. Deeper realms of focus and thought are not popular, so these are replaced with quick samples of information.
Taught for nearly 20 years. People, today, would prefer movies to books.
So, after watching several teams struggle against Big Sky opponents this weekend, I'm feeling a tiny bit better about yesterday. Not a whole lot, but just a bit
I didn't see any need for QB merry-go-round.
There was nothing good about Rogers.
Well, we found out something by putting in.
Yes, we found out. But I wished our coaches would have found out during the fall camp.
Mendoza, too, had a couple of three-n-outs. But, yeah, it clear that he’s the guy moving forward.
Cal fans: Yes, the offense was sluggish but it did start moving in the second half. Also, the Cal defense really stepped up with three interceptions, which is a good sign after last season's issues on that side of the ball.
Having a hard time imagining Cal competitive with Auburn. Was disappointed in the o-line play. Need to average more than three yards per carry. In other news, on Sling, the ACCNX didn’t allow me to watch the entire game on “replay.” It chopped off the final ten minutes of the game. I gather there was nothing more to see of any interest anyway, but still this is unacceptable. Furthermore, other than Roxy, who’s excellent, the ACCNX butchered this telecast. And I’m PO-ed that any game on ACCNX is not recordable via Sling DVR. I miss P12 Networks. Okay, done with rant. Go Bears
Who actually played on the offensive line? I know they mentioned a few players were out like Vati?
Morrow, Swinney, Wykoff (until injured), Stoffel, Session, Reimer?
Strut: You aren't kidding about the sideline reporters. One of them kept calling Mendoza "Mendenoza".
Exactly. I think the network went far down the talent bench for this one. Roxy was great though. There are really talented Bay Area commentators who could have brought up the quality level on the sideline and as the color commentator. The one who worked with Roxy yesterday was knowledgeable on football strategy but not so much on the teams’ rosters and how to pronounce Uluave. It sounded like he was shipped in from New England.
Cal appeared to be completely out schemed in the first half. They must have had a look at an actual scouting report at half. Ott's injury looked bad enough to be an ACL. He was reportedly very emotionally upset on the sideline. He was limping, but so was Klay Thompson.
On a positive note, assuming starters stay healthy, ILB play will be a bright spot for this team!
Absolutely. Buchanan was everywhere and Uluave displayed his typical big plays and penchant for aggressive ball hawking especially in second half. Defensive backfield also showed a strong ability to cover and identify what UCD was trying to do in that second half.
Uluave may be the second coming of Weaver.
He has speed. It feels more like Mike Mohamed.
I thought the same thing when I watched him at the game.
Nothing against rodgers but I better only see Mendoza unless he is hurt. Offense just flows better than him.
On the subject of depth chart, I was surprised to not see Mason Starling, Kyione Grayes or Trevor Rogers in the receiver rotation. Maybe a couple members of our deep and talented receiver room will redshirt. But I was really curious to see what these guys could do. Merriweather I think may be nursing an injury.
I think a few were injured.
There are spots where what Rogers excels at is an advantage. That’s when he should be brought. His passing was not on point. Bring him in for his legs.
Rogers is historically not a bad passer at all. Twenty-nine TD’s to five INT’s last year don’t lie.
That’s a good point. He seemed off his game yesterday. It’s tough to come in for spot drives. Perhaps this points to having one QB to be the starter.
I remember watching him play twice last year with North Texas, neither time was I very impressed.
This was a disappointing B- performance. The 1st half was a disaster rescued by an electrifying kickoff return. While the defense stepped up in the 2nd half, the perplexing decision to insert Rogers broke whatever momentum Cal had after the 21-13 lead. Our running game, hence our blocking, was minimal at best. Let's hope that Ott's injury is not serious. In essence this was not a solid performance. Auburn scored 66 points in their cupcake game, so they apparently had a solid start.
We’ve seen this QB merry go round before, right? Has it ever worked? They need to stick with a QB get a comfortable lead against an opponent like UCD and then bring in the second QB to get him reps. This is how you get both QBs to transfer out (assuming they have eligibility after this year).
Tebow and Chris Leak
Goff and Rubenzer
Dak Prescott and Tyler Russell
Dennis Dixon and Brady Leaf
Mark Brunell and Billy Joe Hobert
Do any of you negative commenters ever stop to think, hey, maybe Davis is a good team? They have good O and D coordinators and a really good QB and good receivers. Cal's O line had injury problems and also, Cal didn't want to show their entire running game to upcoming more important opponents.
I think the point for many of us is how Cal looked unprepared starting the game. Both teams had missing players. It looked like the same old Bears. We’ve seen this story too many times.
Regardless of how good the FCS level team is, a Power 4 team should ALWAYS win convincingly.
Yes. UCD will be good this year. No shame in not blowing them out. However, it’s very concerning Cal couldn’t win the trenches battles. That’s where you need to see a clear distinction between the championship subdivision and the bowl subdivision teams. Not wanting to reveal entire playbook aside, Cal wanted Ott to have a Heisman flavor of great game, and he had nothing close to it, mostly due to Cal’s poor ability to create openings at the line of scrimmage. But of course some credit for that goes to UCD’s cohesive line play.
I certainly agree that replacing Mendoza after he finally seemed to get the offense into gear was a unfortunate, particularly since we played such a lackluster performance in the first half.
need separate surveys for first and second halves
Bears need to play full games not half games.
Watching the Bears win at Memorial Stadium is always great fun but my goodness that O-Line looks weak. Spotty pass protection and they opened no holes for the backs. Impressed with the D especially in the second half. Couldn't understand a word from the PA system. So on brand for Cal in the Knowlton era.
Wilcox special….wins that feel like losses….
And playing not to lose instead of playing to win…reminds me of one of the opening scenes in “Crazy Rich Asians” where Rachel Chu schools her opponent.
La Burrita just started selling the "Wilcox Burrito"
It's a regular burrito except they stomp on it right before they hand it to you.
Yep. I could cut and copy all of my ratings for FCS wins over Wilcoxs 8 years at Cal because they are always the same. Closer than expected and feel more like a loss than a win.
I remain amusedly baffled by the sunshine pumpers that pegged a Cal team coached by Justin frigging Wilcox as a 10 game winner. Unreal.
and then you get to me who reins it all in!
TD,
You seemed to pump some sunshine on the Locked on CFB. That guy is really down on Cal. I’d agree with the downer, except he projects as more like 5-7, if that.
It’s 8 years of data with Wilcox at Cal now.
8 years of mostly average football overall, a losing conference record, QB mismanagement, offensive ineptitude, and poor hires. None of that changed in the offseason and it won’t change during the season.
The excuses will be injuries and having to travel so much this season. This is another 5-7 team. More than likely lose against Miami, FSU and Auburn and split our other 8 games 4-4 to get to 5-7. Wilcox will be brought back for one more “win or else” type season and knowing our luck he goes 7-5 and wins his bowl game so we bring him back.
I just have zero faith in his ability to diagnose an issue with his football team and take meaningful steps to address and correct it.
And his insistence on using 2 QBs is inexcusable.
The talk that Cal wanted to keep things close to the vest and not give Auburn too much film is simply laughable - he’s not a good enough coach to be able to win with anything other than his very best…that is just a fact.
Using 2 QBs was actually essential. Having a backup with game experience is crucial when the starter goes down. Wilcox had to see what Rogers could do, and now we know - not much in this game anyway. So does the 3rd string guy get reps this week, or does the QB coach give Rogers some detailed work? Up to them, but it's a virtual certainty that Mendoza will come out at some point this season and we can't have some guy touching the ball for the first time vs FSU or NCS. If not against UCD, then vs who?
Chandler Rogers has started 2-seasons worth of games and is your clear back-up. It’s pretty simple.
I think after this game, it's obvious that Auburn will only need to prep for one QB.
Facts.