A lot of the "roll outs"to the short side of the field are JKS sprinting away form a collapsing pocket and going to his left because he is left handed and it's easier for him to throw going that way. There's an experienced OC on staff, McCann (I think that's his name) who was Jeff Tedford's OC at Fresno State in 2023 (9-3) and 2024 (6-6). Put him and Rolovich in charge of the Offense! PLEASE
I know I wrote a comment previously, but I just watched the offensive plays from the condensed game. What was very clear is that Clemson was not worried about us throwing the deep ball. They had 4 and 5 guys on the line (and sometimes 6) the whole game. And they frequently had 3 LB's in the box to stop our run. Our play calling wasn't fooling anyone. Adam Mohammed did a great job considering that he did most of the work himself. Defensively, Clemson played an excellent game. I took a screenshot of one pass play where all of our receivers were about 1 to 3 yards downfield and in a box about 8 yards wide, with all the Clemson DB's. I wish I could post it here for all to see. It is the most ridiculous route planning I have ever seen. There is no way that JKS has an open receiver, yet he scrambled, ran to his left and completed a about an 8 yard pass to a receiver who broke out and went to the left sideline. But the play was terrible and only JKS's hustle and scramble made something happen.
We didn't use their aggressiveness against them. We had no schemes which beat their defensive alignments. And I don't believe JKS is allowed to audible, because if he could have then he could have changed up a run into a 7 man box to something else. It just appeared that all our plays were really slow developing, even our run plays where our RB's actually created their own success.
Also, it seemed that our OL was not attacking on run plays. They appeared to be more read style blocking, which I don't like because the line would get squeezed and holes collapsed. Like I said, our RB's made their own yards. We have to be able to get guys open on intermediate pass plays or it's going to be a long season.
Going forward it's pretty clear what our opponents will do on defense: stack the box to stop the run and bring pressure on JKS.
During the game, I was calling Run or Short Pass, every single time...
Our offense is so predictable.
Run first down.
Run second down
Throw third down (unless it's within 2 yards).
I was yelling - unleash JKS! Throw on 1st once in a while. And stop running on 2nd and 10. Our O-Line isn't creating enough space. it's like Somerville is reading a "how to run an offense for dummies" and underlined 1) must be 50/50 pass and 2) always establish run first to open up the pass..... but we have a weak o-line and a terrifc QB. Mix it up so it's not so obvious. They are stacking the middle on 1st and 2nd down because 95% of the time we are running. That puts pressure on JKS to throw on 3rd while they are sitting back on 3rd down.
I am no coach, but if I can predict what they are going to do - that's not good.
Also no attempts to attack the middle? How about some simple slants, or TE ins to get the offense going? Do we always have to throw to the flats? It's like we are breaking in a new freshmen or a 3rd string quarterback.
If we have another poor offense outing.. we are going to lose more recruits.
You can see it in his interviews. He's completely focused on "staying ahead of the chains", and it's limiting his strategy. I see this outside of football all the time in the corporate world; underexperienced people heavily rely on crutches to perform because they only know what they know. It's only once you're more senior where you understand where you can take certain risks, and he's not there yet. Rolo needs a heavier hand.
Great write up Avi -- you put to words what we have been forced to suffer watching. Tosh and Ron have been clear -- we have at best a short two-year window to show why we belong after the next realignment. Well, 1/3 of year one is done, recruits are starting to bail, and the fan base will not show up again unless this team goes on a tear. Somerville needs to be shown the door today so Rolo can try to salvage a .500 season and put lipstick on this pig. So far, Tosh's regime makes Wilcox look like a genius.
Let's not forget Saban demoted TL from DC at 'Bama because he struggled to communicate. He made mention of it during a Pat PcAfee appearance a few years ago. I still think he can be successful, but only with an experienced OC and DC. Clock is ticking on his tenure -- and the program.
Tavita Pritchard win against Georgia tech last night was impressive last night. I didn't expect it but was happy for our West Coast ACC buddy. He didn't have any head coaching experience but his offensive and defensive coordinators do ...
I'll dislike them when we play them but they saved our butts helping us get into the ACC ... and both schools get so much crap for being in the ACC that a win for them is good for us, too.
i disagree with this, it was Notre Dame who wanted their west coast trips to mean something that helped us get connected. ND was already basically playing a half ACC schedule so this made sense to them.
We were a package deal because they stuck with us. Berkeley doesn't have private school endowment money that Stanford does, and we had even fewer options than them
One of our fellow season ticket holder friends mentioned that Cal doesn’t do well under the lights and wondered if the team ever has night practices the week they have a night game scheduled. CMS has permanent lights, so it would make sense to practice under the lights.
Lest we forget - many people here wanted to tar and feather Rolovich when we hired him because he didn’t believe in vaccines, didn’t represent the universities’ values, etc. etc.
And now he may be our only hope.
Who did we piss off to get cursed like this? The best offense I’ve seen from us the last 2 years was that guy who kicked the field goal on Memorial Glade on GameDay.
I personally found that talk about Rolovich kind of silly, especially since once he came on board he was nothing but positive about the school and the community. Yeah, he had some dumb views about the COVID vaccine (IMO), but all these years after the pandemic I can't say I care that much what an assistant football coach thinks about that.
At this point we need to trust the process that GM Rivera and Tosh have put in place. Expectations were too high for instant success this season based on the talent we have. ACC sports writers had Cal pegged for 12th in the Conference. USA Today projected Cal as 11th. That would suggest the median forecast for the team was more like 6-6. Sure we had some high profile portal signings on offensive - mainly WR, TE and RB, but we cannot say the same about the OL. And its not like other ACC schools were standing still - North Carolina, VirginiaTech, etc all poured big money into their programs. Sure the offense has been disappointing, but lets not drop the bomb on the coaching staff just yet, we just finished doing that with Wilcox and Co. We do have one bright spot and that is our top 20 ranked high school class - provided we can hold it together. We need to bring in more football talent to Cal and this looks promising. Lets hope for better performance on the field in the meantime.
This isn't a response against the program. It's everyone acknowledging that our OC needs time to grow, and we do not have said time. Notice how nobody is complaining about our DC, since we're seeing improvements week over week. Our offense looks lost on the field, and that comes down to management & communication. Somerville is struggling there.
A lot of the "roll outs"to the short side of the field are JKS sprinting away form a collapsing pocket and going to his left because he is left handed and it's easier for him to throw going that way. There's an experienced OC on staff, McCann (I think that's his name) who was Jeff Tedford's OC at Fresno State in 2023 (9-3) and 2024 (6-6). Put him and Rolovich in charge of the Offense! PLEASE
I know I wrote a comment previously, but I just watched the offensive plays from the condensed game. What was very clear is that Clemson was not worried about us throwing the deep ball. They had 4 and 5 guys on the line (and sometimes 6) the whole game. And they frequently had 3 LB's in the box to stop our run. Our play calling wasn't fooling anyone. Adam Mohammed did a great job considering that he did most of the work himself. Defensively, Clemson played an excellent game. I took a screenshot of one pass play where all of our receivers were about 1 to 3 yards downfield and in a box about 8 yards wide, with all the Clemson DB's. I wish I could post it here for all to see. It is the most ridiculous route planning I have ever seen. There is no way that JKS has an open receiver, yet he scrambled, ran to his left and completed a about an 8 yard pass to a receiver who broke out and went to the left sideline. But the play was terrible and only JKS's hustle and scramble made something happen.
We didn't use their aggressiveness against them. We had no schemes which beat their defensive alignments. And I don't believe JKS is allowed to audible, because if he could have then he could have changed up a run into a 7 man box to something else. It just appeared that all our plays were really slow developing, even our run plays where our RB's actually created their own success.
Also, it seemed that our OL was not attacking on run plays. They appeared to be more read style blocking, which I don't like because the line would get squeezed and holes collapsed. Like I said, our RB's made their own yards. We have to be able to get guys open on intermediate pass plays or it's going to be a long season.
Going forward it's pretty clear what our opponents will do on defense: stack the box to stop the run and bring pressure on JKS.
During the game, I was calling Run or Short Pass, every single time...
Our offense is so predictable.
Run first down.
Run second down
Throw third down (unless it's within 2 yards).
I was yelling - unleash JKS! Throw on 1st once in a while. And stop running on 2nd and 10. Our O-Line isn't creating enough space. it's like Somerville is reading a "how to run an offense for dummies" and underlined 1) must be 50/50 pass and 2) always establish run first to open up the pass..... but we have a weak o-line and a terrifc QB. Mix it up so it's not so obvious. They are stacking the middle on 1st and 2nd down because 95% of the time we are running. That puts pressure on JKS to throw on 3rd while they are sitting back on 3rd down.
I am no coach, but if I can predict what they are going to do - that's not good.
Also no attempts to attack the middle? How about some simple slants, or TE ins to get the offense going? Do we always have to throw to the flats? It's like we are breaking in a new freshmen or a 3rd string quarterback.
If we have another poor offense outing.. we are going to lose more recruits.
You can see it in his interviews. He's completely focused on "staying ahead of the chains", and it's limiting his strategy. I see this outside of football all the time in the corporate world; underexperienced people heavily rely on crutches to perform because they only know what they know. It's only once you're more senior where you understand where you can take certain risks, and he's not there yet. Rolo needs a heavier hand.
FWIW Illinois fired their DC after 4 games
So, we have less interest in good football than Illinois. got it!
Great write up Avi -- you put to words what we have been forced to suffer watching. Tosh and Ron have been clear -- we have at best a short two-year window to show why we belong after the next realignment. Well, 1/3 of year one is done, recruits are starting to bail, and the fan base will not show up again unless this team goes on a tear. Somerville needs to be shown the door today so Rolo can try to salvage a .500 season and put lipstick on this pig. So far, Tosh's regime makes Wilcox look like a genius.
Let's not forget Saban demoted TL from DC at 'Bama because he struggled to communicate. He made mention of it during a Pat PcAfee appearance a few years ago. I still think he can be successful, but only with an experienced OC and DC. Clock is ticking on his tenure -- and the program.
Let him handle recruiting and program marketing, get him an oratory coach and retool the play-calling ASAP. I don't see another path out of this.
ESPN's SP+ ranks Cal's offense as 93rd in FBS. And that is with the Wagner game!
The Wagner game wasn't great, though. Even JMU dropped 90 on them. The fact that we stalled the moment we put in our 2nd string says everything.
OH and the special teams ranked 124th (of 138). I cry.
Those rankings seem really high given the on field performance.
Well written
Tavita Pritchard win against Georgia tech last night was impressive last night. I didn't expect it but was happy for our West Coast ACC buddy. He didn't have any head coaching experience but his offensive and defensive coordinators do ...
"Happy" for a Furd win? What has happened to this fan base?
I'll dislike them when we play them but they saved our butts helping us get into the ACC ... and both schools get so much crap for being in the ACC that a win for them is good for us, too.
i disagree with this, it was Notre Dame who wanted their west coast trips to mean something that helped us get connected. ND was already basically playing a half ACC schedule so this made sense to them.
We were a package deal because they stuck with us. Berkeley doesn't have private school endowment money that Stanford does, and we had even fewer options than them
With all of the donor money pumped into this team, there’s no chance that, behind the scenes, this is being tolerated, right? RIGHT?
I don't believe so. There are expectations and they are not being met. We shall see.
One of our fellow season ticket holder friends mentioned that Cal doesn’t do well under the lights and wondered if the team ever has night practices the week they have a night game scheduled. CMS has permanent lights, so it would make sense to practice under the lights.
Apparently they don’t. /sigh.
At this point, Somerville needs to be removed from the OC job ASAP
He's hamstringing our offensive players who are perfectly capable of dropping 50+ points a game with Rolovich's run and shoot
Lest we forget - many people here wanted to tar and feather Rolovich when we hired him because he didn’t believe in vaccines, didn’t represent the universities’ values, etc. etc.
And now he may be our only hope.
Who did we piss off to get cursed like this? The best offense I’ve seen from us the last 2 years was that guy who kicked the field goal on Memorial Glade on GameDay.
Whenever I mention our football travails to my friend, he simply responds "Curse of the Oak Grove"
I personally found that talk about Rolovich kind of silly, especially since once he came on board he was nothing but positive about the school and the community. Yeah, he had some dumb views about the COVID vaccine (IMO), but all these years after the pandemic I can't say I care that much what an assistant football coach thinks about that.
Right. And he is playing for Indiana!
At this point we need to trust the process that GM Rivera and Tosh have put in place. Expectations were too high for instant success this season based on the talent we have. ACC sports writers had Cal pegged for 12th in the Conference. USA Today projected Cal as 11th. That would suggest the median forecast for the team was more like 6-6. Sure we had some high profile portal signings on offensive - mainly WR, TE and RB, but we cannot say the same about the OL. And its not like other ACC schools were standing still - North Carolina, VirginiaTech, etc all poured big money into their programs. Sure the offense has been disappointing, but lets not drop the bomb on the coaching staff just yet, we just finished doing that with Wilcox and Co. We do have one bright spot and that is our top 20 ranked high school class - provided we can hold it together. We need to bring in more football talent to Cal and this looks promising. Lets hope for better performance on the field in the meantime.
This isn't a response against the program. It's everyone acknowledging that our OC needs time to grow, and we do not have said time. Notice how nobody is complaining about our DC, since we're seeing improvements week over week. Our offense looks lost on the field, and that comes down to management & communication. Somerville is struggling there.
The next season recruits have already started to bail
I’m perfectly willing to give Tosh more time. The OC is a different story, and if Tosh doesn’t fix this it’ll be an anchor around his neck.
This isn't even a growing pain. We aren't showing any sign of growth. The offense is not even a work in progress. It's a complete disaster.
Rolo!Rolo!Rolo! Please save us.
Go Bears forever, BUT NOT LIKE THIS.