Evans Hall, Cal Football Stats & Analysis: Playing Down to the Opponent

Cal was the more talented and yet the game came down to the last minutes

With a smattering of decent passes we still struggled to make the best out of a situation against a weak ASU team. Even when it came down to rushing the ball or stopping the rush, the team didn’t do anything out of the ordinary compared to ASU’s counterparts. We were not as woeful as the Southern Utah or Ok. State performances but not at the same level as Fresno State or SC.

From a PPA perspective, that is from a value per play view, we performed right around the level allowed by the ASU defense despite the fact that their non-Cal opponents so far were Southern Utah, Oklahoma State, Fresno State Fighting Tedfords, and USC. On offense we performed right between Ok “Lost 33-7 to South Bama at home” State and Fresno State. The big thing here is that out of 29 drop backs we only had 9 resulting with positive outcomes.

Flipping over on the yardage standpoint only 5 passes out of 29 dropbacks gained a 1st down. Again despite changing the scheme we’re still facing one of the highest rates of 3rd downs in CFB.

Despite being around the 75th percentile in the number of 1st downs faced, we’re 3rd in the country in the number of 3rd downs faced by the offense and tied for 10th in the country in the number of 4th downs attempted! We’re currently on pace for 204 3rd downs faced in a 12 game season, that would’ve ranked for 4th in the nation in 2022, most by 8 for a team that played only 12 times!

At least our 3rd down to go distance isn’t as woeful as before. However, the issues on 1st down are showing up with a quite high 2nd down distance. I think it has to do with the high number of passes we’re attempting on early downs and considering the woeful efficiency by SJV or sack taking by Finley we’re often behind the sticks on later downs.

On defense we mostly kept ASU contained besides of 3 plays where they were able to gain more than 2 PPA. One thing that is concerning is that on 1st down we weren’t able to keep the ASU offense out of pace when they elected to pass the ball, allowing them to have favorable 2nd and 3rd down looks.

ASU only gained a 1st down on 2 runs the entire game but through the air they were successful on 1st downs in making explosive throws down the field as well as YAC gains. This is the issue, we’re supposed to be a defensive minded team and yet when it comes to keeping one of the worst teams in the conference down we’re doing just average on defense compared to the other teams that have faced them. Even the impressive run stopping performance is under cut by the fact that most defenses the ASU offense has faced had a good day stopping the run.

Nationally by down we’re a below average offense on all downs but the defense moves from being below average on 1st and 2nd downs to being near elite on 3rd downs. This isn’t sustainable for the defense since it is truly a bend and god please don’t break defense.

The Cal defense becomes elite in the 3rd quarter of each game while the offense runs out of gas in the 4th quarter. A part of it has to do with the fact that since there is no garbage time in the data here we’re either protecting a lead or the offensive futility that was the Auburn game is what is recorded.

Ultimately we’re fielding a painful to watch offense that is trading a lot of plays for not too many points vis-a-vis expectations.