I passionately disagree with the author's assertion that Garbers' threw the game away. This loss is not entirely on him. He had a few mistakes but he also made many good plays to counter balance the mistakes. Furthermore, every other unit had as many or more mistakes. The penalties, the blown coverages, the first half lack of pressure, the botched special teams, and the continued infatuation to go for the home run on third and short are all equally as important as Garbers' mistkes.
I agree with this. I thought Garbers played well enough to win. I think Garbers is a very good CFB QB but is in the wrong offensive system for his strengths, which is making plays with his feet. He would look great in a power spread offense, similar to what ucla is running with DTR.
I do think Musgrave and Garbers are getting better at using his legs at the right times. Garbers was the leading rusher in the game in spite of some of the no-hope sacks he had.
I agree, I think Musgrave had to learn the hard way with the Nevada loss that Garbers strength isn’t staying in the pocket and he will never be a pro style pocket passing QB. Why it took the Nevada game to learn this and not the Covid shorten 20 season, I do not know.
Well you still have to throw it deep, you just can’t concede the deep ball and passing game. I believe what Musgrave has done since Nevada is get Garbers out of the pocket more on designed roll outs to give him a run/pass option. I also think he is encouraging Garbers to use his legs rather than throwing so many check downs.
Because he's completing many of them. Have you looked at his game stats? He was 30 for 41 (that's a 73% completion average), passed for 319 yards and 2 TD's. He had 2 int's, one of which was a back shoulder throw in which the receiver did not make the required adjustment. He ws our leading rusher with 71 yards and 1 TD. So Garbers accounted for 390 yards of offense, 3 TD's and 2 picks, one of which was receiver error. I'd say he had a fucking great day in the world of college football.
Maybe “very good” is a bit too much but he is good. Probably in that Kevin Hogan good CFB QB who is mostly a game manager who can make plays with his feet and his arm.
Yeah, I think overall I have the impression that he played well despite 2 INTs and 1 fumble (sack). He hesitated and missed some open receivers but other than that he made good decisions and extended plays.
Fully agree with Chowder. This game was lost for many reasons...the first field goal attempt that was blown by a bad snap could be called the reason for the loss. The offensive PF for a facemask call on Coleman that killed one of our critical drives when we were moving could be suggested as the reason for our loss. Multiple blown coverages allowing UW to complete big plays and convert multiple 3rd and longs could be listed as the reason for our loss. The fact is that we didn't lose because of any one (or two) things. We lost because of many, many mistakes. We have some deep rooted issues. I don't see these being cleaned up quickly, because these are the type of issues that rarely appear on well coached teams.
"The fact is that we didn't lose because of any one (or two) things." Continuing this thought, even if we were to list reasons we lost by outcome on the game, Garbers' play does not crack the top 5. We have issues as you said, and the author's assertion he "threw the game away" is disingenuous at best. It'd be at least debatable if he threw a bad pick to end overtime, but that's not what happened.
This loss is solely on Slater Zellers and Charlie Ragle. Stupidly not taking the ball first with the momentum didnt help but those 2 need to be told personally that they lost this game.
I don't think any loss is every solely on an individual or two because there are always a thousand other moments where a player could have made a play to change the course of the game. Not making a critical mistake could of course swing a game, but the loss is on everyone.
Also, I'm taking this opportunity to remind everyone that these are real humans we're watching (including a 20-something kid) who sometimes read this. Criticism is always fair, but just a reminder to keep it reasonable.
That reasoning is spot on. I do think I'm keeping it reasonable unlike that Lars Thiemann outburst (man that guy just gets my blood boiling) but its good to get that reminder out. However I think the weight of what Zellers did does warrant it, because he had 3 terrible long snaps today, only 1 of which cost us but did cost us in terms of score and couldve costed us further.
He’s still a kid trying giving it every damn thing he has. He knows it was off and will work to get better. Lay into the coaching staff who didn’t have us ready.
Lars Thiemann outbursts are completely justified, so long as no profanity is used.
At the end of the day, the kid is not a PAC-12 caliber player, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a 7-footer that gives you less than he does in 20 minutes per night...
I can think of a whole lot of more painful losses. Stanford last year, Utah in 2015, the McIlwain Arizona game, the Hill-Mary, Oregon State 2007, Arizona 2006, just to name a few.
Not even close. We lost on the road in OT against a divisional opponent after a 14 point comeback. No shame there. It was winnable but not embarrassing. Tcu and Nevada were worse Ls
It makes no sense to take the ball first from a game theory perspective. If your defense makes a stop, all you need is a field goal and you win. It takes the decision-making element out of "do I go for it on 4th".
I think one of the biggest disappointments about this season is that we had a schedule that was really nice. Avoiding Arizona State and Utah for Colorado and Arizona, we could have finished with a really good record without really beating any good teams. I know the team might not have been that good, but it would have looked good on paper and it could have been sold to the recruits.
Yeah and the Pac 12 north looks even weaker than usual, USC is a dumpster fire and looks winnable. Sure,
UCLA looks improved but we get them at Memorial. Throw in a bunch of upperclassmen and experienced players coming back and expectations were high. I thought a 8 win regular season and being ranked was extremely likely, which would have looked good and helped with fans, alums, and recruits.
In normal years we would have played them at home in 2020, but UCLA was actually not on our original schedule in the Covid shortened season that started in October. I forgot if it was Washington or Arizona State game that got cancelled, but we were fortunate to be both looking for opponents and some good job by the administrators to make the game happen at the last minute.
We were supposed to play at Arizona State I believe and it got cancelled due to a Covid out break at ASU. I’m not sure who ucla was supposed to play that weekend.
We have more talent this year than we had during our last full season two years ago. We are bigger and stronger and we have super seniors, so why are we not winning more games than two years ago. IMHO we are making mistakes that start at the fundamental levels. That goes back to coaching. What has changed in the last two years? I'll only list the ones that I think are of importance. Musgrave took over at OC for Beau Baldwin. I think we can all say now that Musgrave is an improvement. Our DC Tim DeRuyter exited last year and Peter Sirmon was elevated to the job. I think we lost a lot when DeRuyter left. Our DB Coach in 2019 was the highly regarded Gerald Alexander. This year it is first year coach Tre Watson. I think the difference in coaching experience has shown itself. Our O-line coach in 2019 was the highly regarded Steve Greatwood. Now it is Angus McClure. I think Greatwood produced better results with less talent and depth. Geep Chryst took over Tight End coaching from Marques Tuiasosopo and I think Chryst has been an improvement. Charlie Ragle has been the ST coach and I think that our ST's have not been good the entire time he has been in that job. They have been ok to bad, but never consistently good. Here are some observations that I think all of you have probably seen for yourself: 1. Our defense is nowhere near as physical as it has been in the past. We used to swarm and pound people, and even our DB's were physical. Our current LB's are soft. We aren't hitting on tackles, we are arm tackling. That's about as fundamental as it gets. We have been 'out-physicaled' in every game we have played. Our heralded secondary and supposedly defensive strength has had blown coverages WAY too many times. Our pass rush has been almost non-existent (until the 2nd half of the UW game). On the other side of the ball we have been schizophrenic on offense, running the ball effectively at times and passing the ball well at other times, but we seem to have a problem doing both well in any game. I am not impressed with how our o-line maintains their run blocking and we really need some more nasty up there (Mettauer and Coleman have nasty, and unfortunately they need to learn to control it better). And lastly, we are making way to many mental mistakes to win. Penalties at key times are drive killers. Having so many false starts is inexcusable. Taking selfish personal fouls is a reason for temporary benching in my view. These mistakes are all the result of poor coaching. Well coached teams don't make these mistakes over and over every week. I have some ideas for solutions that I will list. I'll start by saying on defense the coaches need to identify a physical leader who will set an example with his play. Kunaszyk and Weaver were those guys in the past. We don't have one right now and we need to find him. Next...I like Coach Wilcox and I think he was a great choice as a hire. He fits well with CAL and he has tons of integrity. I want him to be successful. This is his first HC job and he has not learned that it takes a bit of ruthlessness that a CEO must have to build a successful business. CEO's hold their people accountable. In football every player gets graded on film from practice and games. Game performance grades are the ultimate determinant of playing time. Assistant coaches cannot be exempt from this process. Coach Wilcox needs to hold his assistants accountable. After he reviews film every week he needs to let his coaches know what he sees and what he expects in terms of improvement. If necessary he needs to guide them, and his patience can only be limited. At this point his patience should be gone, based on our results and how erratically we have played. Loyalty to your assistants is a good thing, but only if it helps win games. If your assistant coaches are not getting the job done, the entire team suffers. If the team doesn't win, the HC loses his job. With no contract extension in place and a terrible season so far, Coach Wilcox's future options are not looking good. He will have 2022 to turn this ship around. Even with changes in the assistant coaching staff, this will be difficult, because kids will need to learn the changes in a short period of time. Coach Wilcox needs to think of one thing: what can he do to better the team. If it means unloading assistant coaches for better replacements, then he needs to put his loyalty aside and bring in assistant coaches who can get it done. Otherwise he won't be here after 2022 (maybe after this year) and we'll be starting from scratch again.
Lose the turnover battle and you likely lose the game. Penalties were particularly devastating in this game. The lads fought hard but just too much to overcome.
Alpha: You aren't kidding. In his post game press conference he looked like he was about to kill some of those reporters. Seriously, it was a good thing that it was on Zoom or else somebody was going to get their asses kicked.
The best entertainment tonight were the two people commenting on the first half thread after the second half had started. I got the most recs ever in my life.
If you have a subscription, they send an email for the second half. Those writers who are at WFC also wrote at SB Nation and did the same thing. I've been reading their write ups going back to the Sonny Dykes era. I remember his first year of head coaching-OMG, the memes that season were hilarious-a car on fire comes to mind.
A friend of mine played football for Cal in the 1960s (he played with Ed White) and what he said about us then is still true today: "We specialize in close losses." Sigh......
Right, I think their QB was off target in second half. But I feel like the defense improved, so not really a time to be calling for Sirmon's head tonight.
Also, they started rotating more young players into the D-line. The freshman Saunders had the lone sack plus a couple of QB hurries. But certainly we miss Brett Johnson.
Talent won out there...offensive facemask was brutal. Tie game, with the ball, 3 timeouts left...and you go backwards half the distance??? Inexcusable mistake....that’s the hallmark of the Wilcox era...too many costly mistakes.
and they just tried to run out the clock until Jimmy Lake tried so hard to preserve time on game clock for us and we decide to execute quick offense and run out of time.
I thought running out the clock was the right move after the facemask penalty. At that point it is unlikely to get the first down, and you don't want to give UW the ball back around midfield with time on the clock.
Yeah, I would have liked to have seen a pass play on first down. Our FG unit isn’t a strength both in terms of our ability to execute a kick and our FG kickers range and accuracy. Therefore we really need to get as short a FG as possible.
Garbers threw an 8 yard pass to Hunter on 1st down - they then wasted nearly 20 seconds on 2nd & 2 from the 28 WITH 3 timeouts left!! And then came the brutal face mask…UNACCEPTABLE.
A couple of bright spots. Our defense played it's best half of football this season in the 2nd half of the game, so there's that - maybe they can learn from this experience. Also, Musgrave is off the hotseat in my opinion with some intriguing and successful play calls. ST remains a concern with a botched snap and 2 missed field goals. We were only 3-4 yards away from winning the game in regulation with that long attempt.
"Concern" is a very generous way of putting it. We're in a position where if our kicker gets to kick the ball, it's a success. Botched snaps have decided multiple games this season *and we're only 4 games in*. Even uglier if you go back to last season. It's like Ragle did something to break Zellers or something
Wilcox presser (short summary: he’s pissed again) mentioned something about the plane making an unscheduled stop in Eugene. Does anyone know what was going on?
This isn’t a good UW team, it is as poorly coached as Cal right now. Chances are Lake is fired before Wilcox. I’m happy the team fought back but let’s put this in perspective. UW lost to Montana at home and only put up 7 points against them.
Sure, that is true. I still think this is probably the weakest UW team that Cal has faced under Wilcox, both in terms of talent and coaching. I didn’t expect Lake to be Petersen but he has struggled a lot more than I thought he would.
I really think our secondary's inability to cover UW receivers for a majority of the game and an inability to execute fundamentals at key positions (ST, tackling overall) did a lot more to "throw away the game" than Garbers.
I passionately disagree with the author's assertion that Garbers' threw the game away. This loss is not entirely on him. He had a few mistakes but he also made many good plays to counter balance the mistakes. Furthermore, every other unit had as many or more mistakes. The penalties, the blown coverages, the first half lack of pressure, the botched special teams, and the continued infatuation to go for the home run on third and short are all equally as important as Garbers' mistkes.
I agree with this. I thought Garbers played well enough to win. I think Garbers is a very good CFB QB but is in the wrong offensive system for his strengths, which is making plays with his feet. He would look great in a power spread offense, similar to what ucla is running with DTR.
I do think Musgrave and Garbers are getting better at using his legs at the right times. Garbers was the leading rusher in the game in spite of some of the no-hope sacks he had.
I agree, I think Musgrave had to learn the hard way with the Nevada loss that Garbers strength isn’t staying in the pocket and he will never be a pro style pocket passing QB. Why it took the Nevada game to learn this and not the Covid shorten 20 season, I do not know.
But if he learned in the Nevada game, why was Chase throwing deep balls throughout the game?
Well you still have to throw it deep, you just can’t concede the deep ball and passing game. I believe what Musgrave has done since Nevada is get Garbers out of the pocket more on designed roll outs to give him a run/pass option. I also think he is encouraging Garbers to use his legs rather than throwing so many check downs.
Because he's completing many of them. Have you looked at his game stats? He was 30 for 41 (that's a 73% completion average), passed for 319 yards and 2 TD's. He had 2 int's, one of which was a back shoulder throw in which the receiver did not make the required adjustment. He ws our leading rusher with 71 yards and 1 TD. So Garbers accounted for 390 yards of offense, 3 TD's and 2 picks, one of which was receiver error. I'd say he had a fucking great day in the world of college football.
Btw, Garbers was 390 of our total 457 total yards of offense.
vs TCU, that is
I’m off the, “Garbers is a very good QB” bandwagon.
Maybe “very good” is a bit too much but he is good. Probably in that Kevin Hogan good CFB QB who is mostly a game manager who can make plays with his feet and his arm.
Yeah, I think overall I have the impression that he played well despite 2 INTs and 1 fumble (sack). He hesitated and missed some open receivers but other than that he made good decisions and extended plays.
Fully agree with Chowder. This game was lost for many reasons...the first field goal attempt that was blown by a bad snap could be called the reason for the loss. The offensive PF for a facemask call on Coleman that killed one of our critical drives when we were moving could be suggested as the reason for our loss. Multiple blown coverages allowing UW to complete big plays and convert multiple 3rd and longs could be listed as the reason for our loss. The fact is that we didn't lose because of any one (or two) things. We lost because of many, many mistakes. We have some deep rooted issues. I don't see these being cleaned up quickly, because these are the type of issues that rarely appear on well coached teams.
"The fact is that we didn't lose because of any one (or two) things." Continuing this thought, even if we were to list reasons we lost by outcome on the game, Garbers' play does not crack the top 5. We have issues as you said, and the author's assertion he "threw the game away" is disingenuous at best. It'd be at least debatable if he threw a bad pick to end overtime, but that's not what happened.
This loss is solely on Slater Zellers and Charlie Ragle. Stupidly not taking the ball first with the momentum didnt help but those 2 need to be told personally that they lost this game.
I don't think any loss is every solely on an individual or two because there are always a thousand other moments where a player could have made a play to change the course of the game. Not making a critical mistake could of course swing a game, but the loss is on everyone.
Also, I'm taking this opportunity to remind everyone that these are real humans we're watching (including a 20-something kid) who sometimes read this. Criticism is always fair, but just a reminder to keep it reasonable.
That reasoning is spot on. I do think I'm keeping it reasonable unlike that Lars Thiemann outburst (man that guy just gets my blood boiling) but its good to get that reminder out. However I think the weight of what Zellers did does warrant it, because he had 3 terrible long snaps today, only 1 of which cost us but did cost us in terms of score and couldve costed us further.
He’s still a kid trying giving it every damn thing he has. He knows it was off and will work to get better. Lay into the coaching staff who didn’t have us ready.
Lars Thiemann outbursts are completely justified, so long as no profanity is used.
At the end of the day, the kid is not a PAC-12 caliber player, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a 7-footer that gives you less than he does in 20 minutes per night...
I can only imagine the feelings in that locker room post game. This is one of the most painful losses in recent Cal history.
I can think of a whole lot of more painful losses. Stanford last year, Utah in 2015, the McIlwain Arizona game, the Hill-Mary, Oregon State 2007, Arizona 2006, just to name a few.
Honestly Nevada and TCU losses felt worse.
This felt like a program defining game to me.
Not even close. We lost on the road in OT against a divisional opponent after a 14 point comeback. No shame there. It was winnable but not embarrassing. Tcu and Nevada were worse Ls
I feel like "worse" Ls and "painful" Ls are two different things.
Momentum is not a thing in spite of what Cal great Shane Vereen may say. Every play is a chance to change momentum.
It makes no sense to take the ball first from a game theory perspective. If your defense makes a stop, all you need is a field goal and you win. It takes the decision-making element out of "do I go for it on 4th".
He doesn't have a wikipedia page yet. You should create one.
Long snapper
I think one of the biggest disappointments about this season is that we had a schedule that was really nice. Avoiding Arizona State and Utah for Colorado and Arizona, we could have finished with a really good record without really beating any good teams. I know the team might not have been that good, but it would have looked good on paper and it could have been sold to the recruits.
Yeah and the Pac 12 north looks even weaker than usual, USC is a dumpster fire and looks winnable. Sure,
UCLA looks improved but we get them at Memorial. Throw in a bunch of upperclassmen and experienced players coming back and expectations were high. I thought a 8 win regular season and being ranked was extremely likely, which would have looked good and helped with fans, alums, and recruits.
UCLA game is in Pasadena
That’s right, I forgot that last seasons rush game was supposed to be at Memorial before being moved to Pasadena.
In normal years we would have played them at home in 2020, but UCLA was actually not on our original schedule in the Covid shortened season that started in October. I forgot if it was Washington or Arizona State game that got cancelled, but we were fortunate to be both looking for opponents and some good job by the administrators to make the game happen at the last minute.
We were supposed to play at Arizona State I believe and it got cancelled due to a Covid out break at ASU. I’m not sure who ucla was supposed to play that weekend.
maybe UCLA's opponent was Washington.
Utah looks terrible as well this year.
We have more talent this year than we had during our last full season two years ago. We are bigger and stronger and we have super seniors, so why are we not winning more games than two years ago. IMHO we are making mistakes that start at the fundamental levels. That goes back to coaching. What has changed in the last two years? I'll only list the ones that I think are of importance. Musgrave took over at OC for Beau Baldwin. I think we can all say now that Musgrave is an improvement. Our DC Tim DeRuyter exited last year and Peter Sirmon was elevated to the job. I think we lost a lot when DeRuyter left. Our DB Coach in 2019 was the highly regarded Gerald Alexander. This year it is first year coach Tre Watson. I think the difference in coaching experience has shown itself. Our O-line coach in 2019 was the highly regarded Steve Greatwood. Now it is Angus McClure. I think Greatwood produced better results with less talent and depth. Geep Chryst took over Tight End coaching from Marques Tuiasosopo and I think Chryst has been an improvement. Charlie Ragle has been the ST coach and I think that our ST's have not been good the entire time he has been in that job. They have been ok to bad, but never consistently good. Here are some observations that I think all of you have probably seen for yourself: 1. Our defense is nowhere near as physical as it has been in the past. We used to swarm and pound people, and even our DB's were physical. Our current LB's are soft. We aren't hitting on tackles, we are arm tackling. That's about as fundamental as it gets. We have been 'out-physicaled' in every game we have played. Our heralded secondary and supposedly defensive strength has had blown coverages WAY too many times. Our pass rush has been almost non-existent (until the 2nd half of the UW game). On the other side of the ball we have been schizophrenic on offense, running the ball effectively at times and passing the ball well at other times, but we seem to have a problem doing both well in any game. I am not impressed with how our o-line maintains their run blocking and we really need some more nasty up there (Mettauer and Coleman have nasty, and unfortunately they need to learn to control it better). And lastly, we are making way to many mental mistakes to win. Penalties at key times are drive killers. Having so many false starts is inexcusable. Taking selfish personal fouls is a reason for temporary benching in my view. These mistakes are all the result of poor coaching. Well coached teams don't make these mistakes over and over every week. I have some ideas for solutions that I will list. I'll start by saying on defense the coaches need to identify a physical leader who will set an example with his play. Kunaszyk and Weaver were those guys in the past. We don't have one right now and we need to find him. Next...I like Coach Wilcox and I think he was a great choice as a hire. He fits well with CAL and he has tons of integrity. I want him to be successful. This is his first HC job and he has not learned that it takes a bit of ruthlessness that a CEO must have to build a successful business. CEO's hold their people accountable. In football every player gets graded on film from practice and games. Game performance grades are the ultimate determinant of playing time. Assistant coaches cannot be exempt from this process. Coach Wilcox needs to hold his assistants accountable. After he reviews film every week he needs to let his coaches know what he sees and what he expects in terms of improvement. If necessary he needs to guide them, and his patience can only be limited. At this point his patience should be gone, based on our results and how erratically we have played. Loyalty to your assistants is a good thing, but only if it helps win games. If your assistant coaches are not getting the job done, the entire team suffers. If the team doesn't win, the HC loses his job. With no contract extension in place and a terrible season so far, Coach Wilcox's future options are not looking good. He will have 2022 to turn this ship around. Even with changes in the assistant coaching staff, this will be difficult, because kids will need to learn the changes in a short period of time. Coach Wilcox needs to think of one thing: what can he do to better the team. If it means unloading assistant coaches for better replacements, then he needs to put his loyalty aside and bring in assistant coaches who can get it done. Otherwise he won't be here after 2022 (maybe after this year) and we'll be starting from scratch again.
Assistant coach loyalty buys him nothing. Didn't keep TDR from taking the job and Eugene.
Of course, be a good boss and treat them fairly. But in this industry, him going soft on poor performers only hurts the rest of the team.
**job in Eugene
Lose the turnover battle and you likely lose the game. Penalties were particularly devastating in this game. The lads fought hard but just too much to overcome.
Another life lesson for our team that little things matter and they accumulate into wins or losses #GoBears
The better the competition the more true this becomes. Well said.
Is it me, but does it seem like Wilcox is going through somethings?
Alpha: You aren't kidding. In his post game press conference he looked like he was about to kill some of those reporters. Seriously, it was a good thing that it was on Zoom or else somebody was going to get their asses kicked.
*flying crutches*
I thought his pupils looked dilated. Probably a result of pain medication post-surgery. He also looked very stressed out.
I could see him resigning from the pressure. This is gonna take a toll on him.
I hope not. Not that I don't want a coaching change, but that I don't want him him to be so stressed out.
He’s a college football coach in year 5 with an underachieving program. “Sports-related job stress” doesn’t get higher then that.
I get it's a very stressful job. I meant to an extent which requires him to resign, which probably means health concerns as well.
Probably feeling some pressure to win seeing how it is year 5 and expectations were high this season.
Hes definitely seeing what chip Kelly’s year 5 looks like
I do wonder if the crutches prevents him from being everywhere he wants to be on sideline, which makes it seem likes he doesn't have the same energy.
Perhaps he should lick his lips more.
The best entertainment tonight were the two people commenting on the first half thread after the second half had started. I got the most recs ever in my life.
Haha!
If you have a subscription, they send an email for the second half. Those writers who are at WFC also wrote at SB Nation and did the same thing. I've been reading their write ups going back to the Sonny Dykes era. I remember his first year of head coaching-OMG, the memes that season were hilarious-a car on fire comes to mind.
A friend of mine played football for Cal in the 1960s (he played with Ed White) and what he said about us then is still true today: "We specialize in close losses." Sigh......
At least we showed fight. Wilcox still has the kids fighting. Ragle and Sirmon should not have jobs.
I think second half defense was actually good.
So one good half in 8 games?
Yeah, I think it was really good.
Defense played well but its not like the Huskies QB was lighting the world on fire.
Right, I think their QB was off target in second half. But I feel like the defense improved, so not really a time to be calling for Sirmon's head tonight.
They definitely got better pressure and moved him off his spots prior to passing which could have contributed to the errant accuracy.
Also, they started rotating more young players into the D-line. The freshman Saunders had the lone sack plus a couple of QB hurries. But certainly we miss Brett Johnson.
Talent won out there...offensive facemask was brutal. Tie game, with the ball, 3 timeouts left...and you go backwards half the distance??? Inexcusable mistake....that’s the hallmark of the Wilcox era...too many costly mistakes.
and they just tried to run out the clock until Jimmy Lake tried so hard to preserve time on game clock for us and we decide to execute quick offense and run out of time.
I thought running out the clock was the right move after the facemask penalty. At that point it is unlikely to get the first down, and you don't want to give UW the ball back around midfield with time on the clock.
They weren't hurrying up before the penalty though. It was a run play down the middle that the penalty happened.
Yeah, I would have liked to have seen a pass play on first down. Our FG unit isn’t a strength both in terms of our ability to execute a kick and our FG kickers range and accuracy. Therefore we really need to get as short a FG as possible.
Hm... I didn't have a problem with the play calling on that drive.
Garbers threw an 8 yard pass to Hunter on 1st down - they then wasted nearly 20 seconds on 2nd & 2 from the 28 WITH 3 timeouts left!! And then came the brutal face mask…UNACCEPTABLE.
Garbers needs to call a TO there.
A couple of bright spots. Our defense played it's best half of football this season in the 2nd half of the game, so there's that - maybe they can learn from this experience. Also, Musgrave is off the hotseat in my opinion with some intriguing and successful play calls. ST remains a concern with a botched snap and 2 missed field goals. We were only 3-4 yards away from winning the game in regulation with that long attempt.
"Concern" is a very generous way of putting it. We're in a position where if our kicker gets to kick the ball, it's a success. Botched snaps have decided multiple games this season *and we're only 4 games in*. Even uglier if you go back to last season. It's like Ragle did something to break Zellers or something
Wilcox presser (short summary: he’s pissed again) mentioned something about the plane making an unscheduled stop in Eugene. Does anyone know what was going on?
Kindly dropping off Sirmon at his alma mater instead of leaving him on thte tarmac.
He was interviewing potential candidates for Cal's coaching staff from the Oregon braintrust. Quick stop to finalize the salary details.
Maybe begging DeRuyter to come back?
This isn’t a good UW team, it is as poorly coached as Cal right now. Chances are Lake is fired before Wilcox. I’m happy the team fought back but let’s put this in perspective. UW lost to Montana at home and only put up 7 points against them.
Teams improve and decline as the season progresses. UW is a lot better now than it was during week 1.
Sure, that is true. I still think this is probably the weakest UW team that Cal has faced under Wilcox, both in terms of talent and coaching. I didn’t expect Lake to be Petersen but he has struggled a lot more than I thought he would.
Really not sure if that’s more about improvements in the WA offense, or concerns on Cal’s defense..
Entertaining game but brutal way to lose. So many missed opportunities and self inflicted wounds once again
Reminds me of the Pat Barnes fumble on the 1 in the snow at the Palouse in ‘96...just can’t cough it up in those situations
I really think our secondary's inability to cover UW receivers for a majority of the game and an inability to execute fundamentals at key positions (ST, tackling overall) did a lot more to "throw away the game" than Garbers.