Monday Grab Bag: Playoffs, recruiting, and women's basketball
A quick spin around the news as our fan focus shifts from football to basketball
Here we are, on the winter solstice, and the football āregularā season has just ended. Somehow, this has simultaneously been the longest and the shortest college football season ever. But for four teams, it appears that almost everybody else is ready for the damned season to be over. A total of 22 teams have opted out of bowl games, and thatās probably not a full list of teams that would refuse to play in a bowl game were it offered. Thereās still technically college football to play, but I donāt think Iāll be watching many more games this season:
This year, donāt watch the playoffs
Obviously, the four teams chosen to participate in the playoffs this year rankles. But ranking Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Florida ahead of Cincinnati (to say nothing of Coastal Carolina) just gets to the heart of everything wrong with what college football claims to be and what college football actually is.
I found myself very rarely watching games that didnāt involve the Pac-12 this year, because this season was so clearly compromised and I wasnāt going to be entertained unless I really cared about the teams I was watching. Thatās certainly going to be the case this year with the playoffs. So while I would get some vicarious pleasure out of Notre Dameās inevitable destruction at the hands of Alabama, and while Clemson/Alabama is always intriguing just for the sheer concentration of talent, vote with your remote and watch something else.
A quick word on the class of 2021
Youāre likely well aware that Iām far from a recruitnik. If you want specific, intelligent takes about all of Calās 19 new recruits, may I as always suggest our friends at Cal Rivals?
But I do try to at least say something about the class as a whole. Hereās the quick summary:
For Cal to compete for a conference title, that means that the team has to be good enough to best Oregon, Washington, and Stanford. Those three teams have collectively won 9 out of 10 Pac-12 championship games and every Pac-12 North title since the conference expanded.
I took a quick glance at how Oregon, Washington, and Stanford have recruited over the last 11 years (2010-2020). Spoiler alert: really well. Oregonās average recruiting class ranking within the Pac-12 has been 2.8 and they havenāt had a class ranked worse than 5th in the conference. Washingtonās average recruiting class ranking has been 4.3, and they havenāt had a class ranked worse than 7th. Stanfordās average has been 4.5, and they have only had two classes ranked in the bottom half of the conference, largely because Stanford NEVER over-signs and almost never loses players to transfer and so they sign fewer recruits than their conference peers.
In short, for Cal to compete they have to recruit as well as the teams they have been looking up towards over the last decade. For the first time in a decade, Cal has done just that.
True, Calās class canāt really compete with Oregonās absurd top 10 class. But for the first time in forever the Bears have a class thatās clearly better than both Washington and Stanford. One class by itself doesnāt a contender make, but itās a necessary start. If Justin Wilcox can do this one or two more times, Cal will have the baseline talent such that we can finally expect his program to take a step forward.
Cal Womenās Basketball and the season from Hell
A few weeks ago I felt guilty about my inability to find time to write anything about the beginning of the womenās basketball season. Now, with a few weeks of the season in the books, Iām not sure if thereās a ton of value trying to say anything about what happens this season. Such is basketball without guards.
If you havenāt been following the team, you might think Iām being facetious, but Iām not really exaggerating much. Cal entered the season with seven guards on the roster:
Leilani McIntosh (So.)
Cailyn Crocker (So.)
Jazlen Green (So.)
Alma Elsnitz (Fr.)
Ornela Muca (Fr.)
Archer Olson (Sr., former walk-on)
Sierra Richey (Jr., walk-on)
After the first game of the season Charmin Smith announced that Crocker and Green were injured and would miss the entire season. Alma Elsnitz tore her ACL in the final minutes of that same season opener. With one game into the season Cal had lost half of their scholarship guards. Leilani McIntosh has since missed two games with a concussion.
And thatās how you get to the point where former walk-on Archer Olson is playing 40 minutes against USF and 34 minutes against Stanford. Most teams play three guards at a minimum and often play four at a time. Cal didnāt even have three healthy scholarship guards on the roster for two games.
I suppose I should note that freshman Dalayah Daniels is nominally listed as a F/G on the roster, and has been playing 37 minutes per game as guard. In an ideal world she would probably play as a stretch 4 and spend lots of time in the paint, but she has no choice but to handle the ball because there isnāt any other option.
See, Calās top 10 recruiting class is certainly talented, but theyāre all a bunch of true post players, and they kind need guards to pass them the ball. This season was going to be a developmental season anyway, but itās hard to say how valuable Calās development will be when the roster is as decimated as it is.
And so the Bears are 0-6, and if you had told me they would lose half their scholarship guards before the end of their first game I wouldnāt have been hugely surprised. The Pac-12 is still the best conference in the nation, and there is no cavalry coming to offer relief. The Bears will be hard pressed to win a single game this season, and there isnāt going to be much point in analyzing what happens on the court. Hell, this team is only a couple injuries away from having to forfeit games due to the rule that they must have 7 healthy scholarship player available.
Hopefully Calās staff and roster can find purpose in skill development and reps, because thatās all that this season will offer the Bears.
Nick, re: recruiting. Given that Cal did not have much to show this year on the field and what it did show was rather poor, I suspect it may be difficult to get a recruiting class in 2022 that can match this year's class. Recruits have basically nothing to go on. Given that many recruits commit prior to the Fall season even starting that could really hurt Cal this cycle.
That said, who can argue with this staff's ability to recruit. Opening up on-campus visits will be a critical factor to success methinks. Immediate need on the recruiting trail are OLineman. Wilcox wants to own both sides of the trenches and that hasn't happened, yet, albeit this year's MVP unit was far and away the DLine. So, that side of the ball is improving in talent (this year's recruiting class) and coaching (Browning).
Also, competition has to be opened up at QB. Cal's QB play is subpar to other teams in the conference.
Nick, thanks for another great season of journalism, your articles (as well as all the other WFC) are a pleasure to read.
Go Bears!!
I cannot figure out why five teams from the SEC with losing records would want to extend their season and play in a meaningless bowl game while under COVID lockdown during the holidays. Just about every eligible PAC 12 team opted out. It speaks one thing to me: football just means more to those folks. Please tell me what I am missing.....