Just checking in here to note that Braden Lenzy's dad is a former colleague of mine, and they spent a decent number of years in Taiwan before moving back to Oregon.
Kelly’s “you’re going to play better or I’m going to bench you” halftime speeches were an improvement over his “you’re going to play better or I’m going to kill you” halftime speeches.
"What do you think of your team's execution?" - "I'm in favor of it."
I thought that was pretty funny, so I'm sure he cribbed it from somewhere. I thought Brian Kelly was a defensive coach and Marcus Freeman retained much of the ND staff, so I am not sure why ND is struggling on offense. I thought ND's strong offense last year was due to their offensive coordinator, Tommy Rees -- I was impressed quite a few times with the play calls last year which showed really good research/insight as to what the opposing defense would do, and calling the perfect play on offense to blow it up for a touchdown. That would be an unpopular opinion among ND fans this year, though, who likely blame Rees for the offensive struggles.
It was pretty obvious Kelly had been dying for an opportunity to use that quote somewhere, and manufactured an opportunity when none arose. John McKay's response was funny because it was an off-the-cuff response to a reporter's question. Kelly's, on the other hand, was terrible because it was so forced ("I'm in favor of execution—maybe our entire team needs to be executed after tonight.")
I stopped reading after the Tight End. That was enough to have me skim thru the rest, drift over to my clubs calendar and see if I can schedule the IR sauna Saturday at game time.
It's true that unsung back-ups can emerge from nowhere to unseat Cal, from Devon Modster at UCLA to Will Plummer last year. So I hope that the absence of the starter doesn't fuel some kind of breakout performance. I saw that Pyne is only 5'-11" so that is kind of a disadvantage. I guess one of the keys will be our D-line performance, which according to Sirmon (and he said this in general about Cal's defense vs. UNLV) had a lack of effort. Still if we can somehow hold Notre Dame's O to 14 points then we have a shot at winning the game, however you can't expect more than 2 TD's from Cal's offense, so the defense will have to score at least one TD. Pyne did suffer a Pick-6 vs. Marshall.
Small correction, Tyler Buchner threw the pick-6 against Marshall, Drew Pyne threw a regular interception (2, actually, but one was negated by a defensive penalty). To be fair, they were desperation throws with Notre Dame down by 2 scores with under ~2 minutes left. I doubt ND will ask Pyne to play hero-ball, I'm sure they'll try to put the ball in the hands of their other playmakers.
Agree with everything else you said though; not expecting much out of the Cal offense, so a defensive TD would go a long way (like Weaver and UW).
This is a good question, and I don't have numbers, but I would guess so. Thinking about the teams that have given the Cal defense trouble and their best receivers... UCLA with TE Greg Dulcich. Oregon State with TE Teagan Quitoriano. Utah where every almost every receiver is a tight end. USC's blowout win in 2019 was with Michael Pittman Jr and Drake London, who are not tight ends, but they're freakishly big/strong contested catch type of wide receivers. UCLA again with TE Caleb Wilson.
I never really thought about it, but Cal absolutely has trouble with NFL-caliber tight ends, while being comparatively strong locking down a top wide receiver.
I guess one of the problems is having an inside linebacker go into coverage to pick up the TE, which is something that happened against UCLA last season. We were torched until Nate Rutchena came in and managed to stay with Dulcich at least most of the time since he is a former HS safety. So tough TEs exploiting the gap in the zone is worrisome, and even if small DB's can blanket them, they are not going to win contests for the ball due to the height, bulk, and catch radius of those guys. Really hope I am wrong though.
yah in this game, should the ND TE get early success we (Coach Sirmon) have to respond with Rutchena and Paster at ILB. Neither Sirmon (the player) nor Olajedo are good in pass coverage. But Rutchena and Paster would / should do very well, IMO.
This got me thinking... is this why Wilcox loves tight ends on offense? He's talked about how he loves the versatility they bring, and all the things you can do with TE motions, etc. I wonder if he loves tight ends because they're what he finds most difficult to defend?
Strong, tall, quick tight end who will catch intermediate balls thrown into the gaps of zone coverage. Yeah, I still have PTSD from that Ed Dickson game.
That's a good question, and I didn't see the article you're referring to, so I'm not sure the answer or rationale behind it. It could be both. Gary Patterson originally created the 4-2-5 to take advantage of all of the talented defensive backs he had, and Cal similarly has a lot of good DBs and relatively few down linemen. The 4-2-5 is also becoming a lot more popular on college football these days as a counter to a lot of the pass-heavy offenses a lot of teams run. So I don't really know.
The "nickel" or "nickelback" refers to a fifth defensive back (in addition to the usual two cornerbacks and two safeties). Fifth DB = 5 = nickel. Similarly, if you hear about a dime package: 6 defensive backs = 2 nickels = dime. A dime defense is used most often in obvious passing situations (say a Hail Mary before half, when you'd want to trade a bigger linebacker for a ballhawk DB).
The "nickel defense" can refer to any defensive alignment that uses 5 defensive backs: the original 4-2-5, the 3-3-5, etc. Because of the popularity of spread offenses, where offenses try to spread the defense out and find open receivers in the spaces between them, defenses found it advantageous to add an extra coverage specialist/defensive back who will be faster than a typical linebacker, because they need to be able to cover more ground in less time to defend against the spread.
Your question was originally about defensive linemen, though. Washington, under Jimmy Lake, actually ran a 2-4-5. I don't believe Cal runs this or is planning to run this, but I could be wrong, so I'd be happy to read that article you were describing where they said this. I'm usually too busy yelling at my TV to pay close attention to Cal schematically.
Just checking in here to note that Braden Lenzy's dad is a former colleague of mine, and they spent a decent number of years in Taiwan before moving back to Oregon.
Really love your work! Go Bears (...no effing idea what Saturday will bring other than COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Kelly’s “you’re going to play better or I’m going to bench you” halftime speeches were an improvement over his “you’re going to play better or I’m going to kill you” halftime speeches.
Kelly is such a terrible person.
"What do you think of your team's execution?" - "I'm in favor of it."
I thought that was pretty funny, so I'm sure he cribbed it from somewhere. I thought Brian Kelly was a defensive coach and Marcus Freeman retained much of the ND staff, so I am not sure why ND is struggling on offense. I thought ND's strong offense last year was due to their offensive coordinator, Tommy Rees -- I was impressed quite a few times with the play calls last year which showed really good research/insight as to what the opposing defense would do, and calling the perfect play on offense to blow it up for a touchdown. That would be an unpopular opinion among ND fans this year, though, who likely blame Rees for the offensive struggles.
It was pretty obvious Kelly had been dying for an opportunity to use that quote somewhere, and manufactured an opportunity when none arose. John McKay's response was funny because it was an off-the-cuff response to a reporter's question. Kelly's, on the other hand, was terrible because it was so forced ("I'm in favor of execution—maybe our entire team needs to be executed after tonight.")
He took it from an old quote from John McKay, long-time tormentor of Cal. https://twitter.com/eric_adelson/status/1434722714380644358?t=yjSLb5MXIGeHasXxTFICRQ&s=19
A man who got a student/kid killed probably shouldn’t make jokes about executing people.
I always thought Kelly was an offensive guy due to his previous ND success Central Michigan and Cincinnati, which had some fairly good offenses.
I thought most of their offensive success last season was due to their senior QB Ian Book who was a better and more athletic Chase Garbers.
I have never been that impressed with Rees.
I stopped reading after the Tight End. That was enough to have me skim thru the rest, drift over to my clubs calendar and see if I can schedule the IR sauna Saturday at game time.
It's true that unsung back-ups can emerge from nowhere to unseat Cal, from Devon Modster at UCLA to Will Plummer last year. So I hope that the absence of the starter doesn't fuel some kind of breakout performance. I saw that Pyne is only 5'-11" so that is kind of a disadvantage. I guess one of the keys will be our D-line performance, which according to Sirmon (and he said this in general about Cal's defense vs. UNLV) had a lack of effort. Still if we can somehow hold Notre Dame's O to 14 points then we have a shot at winning the game, however you can't expect more than 2 TD's from Cal's offense, so the defense will have to score at least one TD. Pyne did suffer a Pick-6 vs. Marshall.
Small correction, Tyler Buchner threw the pick-6 against Marshall, Drew Pyne threw a regular interception (2, actually, but one was negated by a defensive penalty). To be fair, they were desperation throws with Notre Dame down by 2 scores with under ~2 minutes left. I doubt ND will ask Pyne to play hero-ball, I'm sure they'll try to put the ball in the hands of their other playmakers.
Agree with everything else you said though; not expecting much out of the Cal offense, so a defensive TD would go a long way (like Weaver and UW).
OK sorry for the error.
I believe Buchner threw two picks. One was a pick 6 and the other was around midfield but Marshall couldn’t convert that one into points.
As I was reading this, Ed Dickson scored another 2 TDs against us.
I expect we can replace this with Michael Mayer next week...
Just curious, does anyone know if Wilcox’s defenses have underperformed against tight ends relative to WR’s, RB’s, etc?
This is a good question, and I don't have numbers, but I would guess so. Thinking about the teams that have given the Cal defense trouble and their best receivers... UCLA with TE Greg Dulcich. Oregon State with TE Teagan Quitoriano. Utah where every almost every receiver is a tight end. USC's blowout win in 2019 was with Michael Pittman Jr and Drake London, who are not tight ends, but they're freakishly big/strong contested catch type of wide receivers. UCLA again with TE Caleb Wilson.
I never really thought about it, but Cal absolutely has trouble with NFL-caliber tight ends, while being comparatively strong locking down a top wide receiver.
I guess one of the problems is having an inside linebacker go into coverage to pick up the TE, which is something that happened against UCLA last season. We were torched until Nate Rutchena came in and managed to stay with Dulcich at least most of the time since he is a former HS safety. So tough TEs exploiting the gap in the zone is worrisome, and even if small DB's can blanket them, they are not going to win contests for the ball due to the height, bulk, and catch radius of those guys. Really hope I am wrong though.
yah in this game, should the ND TE get early success we (Coach Sirmon) have to respond with Rutchena and Paster at ILB. Neither Sirmon (the player) nor Olajedo are good in pass coverage. But Rutchena and Paster would / should do very well, IMO.
This got me thinking... is this why Wilcox loves tight ends on offense? He's talked about how he loves the versatility they bring, and all the things you can do with TE motions, etc. I wonder if he loves tight ends because they're what he finds most difficult to defend?
Not sure that 2 games in Terry II would agree with you, re: "Wilcox loves TEs".
I mean, he's played in roughly half of the snaps on offense, even with Latu (per PFF). He just hasn't been targeted at all.
Strong, tall, quick tight end who will catch intermediate balls thrown into the gaps of zone coverage. Yeah, I still have PTSD from that Ed Dickson game.
That's a good question, and I didn't see the article you're referring to, so I'm not sure the answer or rationale behind it. It could be both. Gary Patterson originally created the 4-2-5 to take advantage of all of the talented defensive backs he had, and Cal similarly has a lot of good DBs and relatively few down linemen. The 4-2-5 is also becoming a lot more popular on college football these days as a counter to a lot of the pass-heavy offenses a lot of teams run. So I don't really know.
The "nickel" or "nickelback" refers to a fifth defensive back (in addition to the usual two cornerbacks and two safeties). Fifth DB = 5 = nickel. Similarly, if you hear about a dime package: 6 defensive backs = 2 nickels = dime. A dime defense is used most often in obvious passing situations (say a Hail Mary before half, when you'd want to trade a bigger linebacker for a ballhawk DB).
The "nickel defense" can refer to any defensive alignment that uses 5 defensive backs: the original 4-2-5, the 3-3-5, etc. Because of the popularity of spread offenses, where offenses try to spread the defense out and find open receivers in the spaces between them, defenses found it advantageous to add an extra coverage specialist/defensive back who will be faster than a typical linebacker, because they need to be able to cover more ground in less time to defend against the spread.
Your question was originally about defensive linemen, though. Washington, under Jimmy Lake, actually ran a 2-4-5. I don't believe Cal runs this or is planning to run this, but I could be wrong, so I'd be happy to read that article you were describing where they said this. I'm usually too busy yelling at my TV to pay close attention to Cal schematically.