Evans Hall: Cal Defense Decides Who Wins The Game

Teddye Buchanan

Cal defense has achieved a statistical height that hasn’t been touched since the TAKER era lead by AN ENTIRE NFL SECONDARY (Davis, Bynum, Big Hawk, Hicks) and Evan Weaver/Jordan “Please Don’t Make Me Dinner” Kunaszyk.

Anything between the 1st Auburn TD at Q1 11:42 and Q4 11:27 Cal defense had the Auburn offense in a torture chamber lead by one Teddye Buchanan and his incredible statline of :

11 Tackles, (9 solo, 2 assisted), 3 TFLs (2 of them sacks), 2 QB Hurries, and a Forced Fumble. He truly turned into Cal’s Escanor.

Matriculating the ball down the field but not much more.

The Cal offense struggled against Auburn, there no two way about it. Besides the early play by the Nando lead offense overall we were held in check especially in the run game where we had a substandard rushing offense from an efficiency standard and just a mediocre one on the explosive front.

The passing game showed a worrying lack of explosion needed to make scoring drives easy. Dink and dunking down the field can work once in a while, but in the long run, if we’re to make a run the defense is allowing us to have, we need more from the offense and hopefully the returning starters can give Fernando and the WRs time to make things happen.

Quarter by Quarter PPA by Offenses

Early in the game the Cal and Auburn were able to be effective passing offenses but lacked in the rushing game, especially Auburn. However, the game pivoted in the 2nd quarter where the Cal offense was able to generate some movement through the air while the Auburn passing offense (that Hugh Freeze refused to abandon) began to crater, hitting a nadir in the 3rd where they were only surpassed by Vanderbuilt whose pool passing PPA was caused by the team being up by several scores against an FCS opponent and not really being locked in.

Turning an offense that should by any measure be at least average across the board to become putrid in the passing game is an achievement. The only thing that worries me is that most QB we’ll face aren’t going to Payton Thorne or coached by Hugh Freeze.

Cal Defense made Auburn’s Offense earn every yard

Here we see down by distance progression Auburn’s offense had to do vs. what they actually achieved. And on all accounts Cal forced Auburn in unfavordable downs in 2nd and 3rd downs, often putting their offense in passing down situations even early on and on 3rd down.

What is worth noting that only 2 times did Auburn earn a 1st down on 1s downs ann only 5 times did they convert on 2nd down. We also saw that rarely did the passing game generate the yards to get past the sticks while Freeze refused to run the ball on 2nd downs despite it’s high efficiency, allowing the Cal defense to really pin their ears and attack on 2nd and long.