Defensive Film Review: Getting 3rd down stops

Preventing Tanner McKee and company from converting 3rd down passes helped Cal turn the 124th Big Game into a blowout

This was a tough game to pick out interesting plays in part because Stanford’s offense is so crummy and one-dimensional, and in part because the game direction was particularly bad.

On Stanford’s side, all the Cardinal could really run on offense was quick passes that would allow an immobile McKee to get the ball out quickly. Hence all the short passes that Cal either snuffed out or stopped for short gains. It’s not really interesting to break down a goal line fade or a WR bubble screen, for example.

On the game direction side, this is the most pulled in camera work I’ve seen from the Pac-12 network. You frequently couldn’t see 3 or 4 players because the broadcast zoomed in so close to the box at the snap. So trying to understand what was going on downfield was hard always and impossible without a decent reply.

But worry not, we’ve still got plenty of Cal glory and Stanford schadenfreude for you.