Cal football stumbles, hurts itself against UC Davis, wins comfortably
Was anything learned about the 2024 California Golden Bears? It's unclear.
Remember the first day of your time at Berkeley? New faces, new people, new everything? It was a dazzling array of experience and imagination and opportunity. The world felt wide.
But there sure was a lot of mess in there too. Saturday against UC Davis was a reminder of how overwhelming that first day Cal experience can be.
The Golden Bears, overhauled with dozens of new faces from the portal and facing a slew of injuries, had to learn how to be a new version of a football team again. And the result was something you’d prefer to discard in the Memory Dump of unmemorable Cal wins.
After a very promising finish to 2023, Cal reloaded in the transfer portal, particularly to lift up the offensive ceiling. They gained potential young faces who could reshape the very nature of the team.
And of course, in classic Cal fashion, many of the potential portal solutions seemed to be out or unavailable against UC Davis.
Wide receiver
Cal was coming in flush with talent at wide receiver, with two starting transfer wide receivers in Kyion Grayes (Ohio State) and Tobias Merriweather (Notre Dame) slated to give the Bears the extra boost they needed. Neither played a snap on Saturday, causing concern about their long-term availability. Then Jonathan Brady was injured sometime in the first half, meaning three of four of Cal’s impact wide receiver transfers have uncertain statuses attached to them.
The depth provided us with cushion for error. Mikey Matthews handled himself well with some nice first half plays, and Mavin Anderson returned to form when given an opportunity to star on the outside. Corey Dyches had a few nice catches as well. There were drops that have to be cleaned up here.
The real surprise was redshirt freshman Nyziah Hunter, who capitalized on his nice fall camp to make some very nice plays down the stretch, including an incredible adjustment on his touchdown.
Offensive line
Cal’s big issue upfront all fall was figuring out who would be their new center, and it seemed like they had settled on a solution in Will McDonald. McDonald did not play on Saturday. Matthew Wykoff slid over, but then he also got banged up (but did return). Nick Morrow also had a small nick but seemed to be fine when he came back. That’s a lot of movement on the offensive line from the anticipated starting lineup.
As you can expect, the communication and execution all game wasn’t exactly crisp. The absence of Sioape Vatikani was also felt, as the replacements on the interior struggled to get any sort of push. UC Davis has a very good defensive line, so this was a perfect storm for a struggle bus inside. Still, by the second half, the Bears started getting enough push to keep drives moving toward scoring.
Running back
Cal had a deep running back room they were hoping would provide cover for Jaydn Ott. But the offensive line didn’t give them much to work with, leading to a fairly inauspicious debut. UC Davis also seemed to play hard to stop the run and Cal seemed content to keep running. Ott still did make one touchdown happen by adjusting to crash outside (and thanks to nice WR blocking by Hunter).
Obviously the biggest concern is the mysterious Ott injury that we will likely not find out more about until the Bears take the field at Auburn. There will be no updates from Justin Wilcox as per usual, so maybe he is okay, but Ott has already made it clear that the injury is not season-ending.
So we will see him again. We just don’t know when.
Transfer Kadarius Calloway had the most unfortunate first snap that gifted UC Davis one of its two touchdowns and injured himself in the process. Jaivian Thomas and Byron Cardwell did their best to pick up the slack and close the game out.
But the instability here and at O-line projects a very tough road ahead to score on the ground in Auburn.
Quarterback
The worries about QB have been present all spring, and they were borne out in Game 1.
Fernando Mendoza and Chandler Rogers knew they were rotating drives for most of this game, and the performance seemed to bear out why. Mendoza was efficient, but not exactly lighting the world up with his play as he had to seek out the checkdown, and when he did look further downfield, wide receivers had to make some very difficult catches to account for that. Rogers was athletic, but his accuracy on his throws was not quite there and he seemed quick to abandon the pocket when he couldn’t find an open read.
With neither quarterback able to take control of the game, UC Davis (who ran a base nickel package) seemed more able to punish the Cal run game by sending an extra defender into the box and let their secondary handle 1-on-1s with the receivers. This combination of injuries and undistinguished quarterback performance led to a labored, disappointing 24 points of offense.
The generous interpretation is that the Bears kept their playbook as vanilla as possible to save stuff for the brutal month they have ahead. The sobering one is Cal does not have an answer at quarterback as of yet, and is praying the “Chase Garbers at Ole Miss” breakout game is on its way.
The offense was simply off in Game 1. They can’t really be off anymore.
The formula for success for the 2024 Golden Bears might again rely on a familiar formula: Great defense. The Bears restocked with a host of talented transfers, and they bolstered up the defense on every part of the ball. First test in, they look much more complete.
The first half was not easy on the eyes, as Cal stuck to its base formations. Cal’s best pass rusher David Reese did not play most of the game (precautionary?), and the Bears struggled to generate pressure on the first half. The Aggies found the soft spots in the zone coverage, while also making some spectacular traffic catches. UC Davis ran 30 more plays than Cal in the first 30 minutes, bleeding the excitement from the stands and putting up some soft alarm bells across the fanbase.
But by the second half, thanks to a much improved pressure rate, the Bears were back on lock, and by the end of the third it was clear who was in command. The Aggies put up 35 yards on 20 plays in the meaningful second half action. Throughout the game, Cal was clutch when they needed to be, forcing four fourth down stops. The Davis scoop and score masked a fairly workmanlike defensive performance.
Special teams had a nice improvement as well, as Lachlan Wilson put punts inside the 20 and Ryan Coe forced touchbacks on all his kickoffs. There was one near mishap on an Aggie onside kick and I would like to see us return consecutive punts cleanly sometime before I perish, but those are small quibbles. We’ll get to the standout performer in a little bit as well.
Some standouts:
Teddye Buchanan and Cade Uluave: Buchanan played his first game at Cal like it was his 50th. All holes were plugged in the run game after UC Davis’s first touchdown drive, and the Aggies were forced to go full Air Raid to generate any sort of movement. Uluave looks better than ever, essentially ending two second half drives with a pick and a pass breakup. This has the potential to be a very special ILB pairing.
TJ Bollers: I don’t think Cal has had an impact defensive lineman upfront in sometime with the active hands of Bollers. He batted down two passes at the line of scrimmage! His ability to generate interior pressure will be critical for our opponents that lie.ahead.
Cheikh Fall and Ryan McCulloch: With Reese limited, Cal needed another OLB to step up to assist Xavier Carlton on the edge, and thankfully both Fall and McCulloch were up to the challenge, generating four hurries in the second half.
And what a day for Nohl Williams! His kickoff return essentially put an end to the upset concerns, his interception ended the game, and he piled up two more pass breakups to boot.
Additionally, Aidan Keanaaina showcased impressive athleticism (a PBU from the line by a nose is crazy); Marcus Harris locked down one side of the field, and his interception made it clear why no one was throwing his way; Nate Burrell and Carlton locked down one side of the field with ten tackles combined.
All in all, the defense looks far more complete than recent incarnations, with 20 defenders logging counting stats.
But ultimately UC Davis isn’t a team with standout offensive performers or talents. Auburn will be the litmus test for testing whether this defense can truly be an elite mash unit again.
FCS games under Justin Wilcox have had a pretty methodical pattern to them: Struggle for a half, take control in the second, then win by a less than impressive two to three touchdowns.
2017: Cal trails Weber State 20-17 in fourth quarter, scores 16 unanswered
2019: Cal trails UC Davis 10-0 in second quarter, outscores them 27-3 after
2022: Cal trails UC Davis 7-0 in second quarter, outscores them 34-6 after
2023: Cal trails Idaho 17-0, scores 31 unanswered
2024: Cal trails UC Davis 13-7, scores 24 unanswered
Saturday’s game against UC Davis was a similar result. There was lots of noise, but no clear signal. None of these games really provided any indicator of how the season was going to go.
Wilcox doesn’t seem to care much about style points, and treats these FCS games as the extension of a fall scrimmage. Iron out the basics, get a sense for what works and what doesn’t, make adjustments when needed and move on.
It is comforting to know that Cal has enough talent to win these comfortably without revealing too much. It is less comforting that Cal doesn’t have enough talent to blow the doors off their easiest game of the year and put one away when needed.
So fellow Golden Bears, ultimately I can’t tell you what this game portends for the rest of 2024. We could be on the edge of catastrophe with a very WIP offense. We could be holding everything back for a surprising breakthrough with a much improved defense. Or we could just be on the verge of the same ol’ mid that we’ve been accustomed to the last decade.
Just remember, it’s the first day of school. And we probably don’t want to remember much about our first days either.
We are about to find out a whole lot about this program in 6 days
Im not sure why we are playing qb musical chairs again-Fernando gave us spark last year and we should be building on that