The Good, the Bad, and the Rock Fights: Cal at Louisville 2025
When is a Pillowfight not a Pillowfight?
Welcome to the Good, the Bad, and the Rockfights, our weekly attempt to make sense of what unfolded on the field during the previous weekend. We classify each game into Good, Bad, or some category in between. In a Good or Bad game, things generally all go well or poorly (I know, this kind of profound insight is the reason you keep reading Write for California). But the combinations of which aspects of the game fare well or poorly make the Rockfight, Pillowfight, and Bizarro Game categories more interesting to analyze and understand. Saturday’s game had some stark contrasts across categories, as it felt like a Pillowfight for the first three quarters as each team moved the ball up and down the field with ease. And then a fourth-quarter Rockfight broke out when seven consecutive drives ended in punts (meanwhile, the only previous punts were on each team’s second drive of the game). So were three quarters of pillowfighting enough to offset a quarter of rockfighting? Or would this game turn into something else entirely?
PFF Grades
Before we figure out what kind of game this was, let’s look at the grades. PFF rated every player on every snap and consolidated those grades into the twelve categories below:
This looks more Pillowfight-shaped than Rockfight-shaped, as the offensive grades were mostly good while the defensive grades were a mixed bag. Offense was nearly in the top 25% while the passing grade was curiously middling. JKS was not helped much by a low Pass Protection grade but he was definitely helped by a stellar Receiving grade (Jacob De Jesus!). Running was slightly better than usual while Run Blocking was perfectly middling. On the defensive side of the ball, Defense earned a low grade. Run Defense was awful this week and not helped by the lowest Tackling grade we have seen in the Wilcox Era. Meanwhile Pass Rush was better than usual and Coverage was strong; so why did Louisville insist on passing the ball so often?
PFF Clusters
Strong offense and some defensive struggles—sounds like a Pillowfight, right?
Nope! Bizarro Game! Bizarro Games tend to have poor OL grades and terrible tackling grades, while Pillowfights often have uniformly bad defensive grades. The stronger pass defense grades probably kept this one just inside the Bizarro Game cluster. Interestingly, this one overlaps considerably with the Pillowfights, so it may be reclassified as a Pillowfight later, as these categories are constantly evolving and these peripheral games can easily switch categories. Relatedly, do you remember last week when I noted that the UNC game that ended our three-year Rockfight losing streak was reclassified as a Bizarro Game? Well, it’s turned back into a Rockfight. Speaking of evolution of these clusters, The Bad has grown considerably since last week, as it added 5 new games on its left border: 4 former Rockfights and 1 former Pillowfight (all losses, unsurprisingly). For reference, here is last week’s plot:
There’s much more movement than usual from last week to this week (and I know at least a few of you will nerd out on charts like this).
One final fun fact: the closest game to the Louisville is the 2023 USC game, another game decided by a bold decision to go for the win rather than the tie. I think I prefer the outcome of the Louisville game…
Onward to our final smattering of statistics:
Odds and Ends
Offensive Player of the Game: WR Jacob De Jesus earned a grade of 79.8 in the best game of his career so far.
Defensive Player of the Game: CB Paco Austin, 78.7
Iron Men [played every snap]: LT Nick Morrow, LG Jordan Spasojevic-Moko, C Bastian Swinney, RG Tyson Ruffins, RT Braden Miller, QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele
Pass Protection: Cal surrendered 18 pressures (3 sacks, 2 hits, 13 hurries) on 55 pass plays for a sub-par protection rate of 67.3%.
Pass Rush: Cal forced 18 pressures (2 sacks, 4 hits, 12 hurries) on 42 pass plays for a better-than-usual rate of 42.9%.
Tackling: Cal missed an incredible 26(!) tackles on 72 plays for a successful tackling rate of 63.9%, a new low in the Wilcox Era.
Shake and Bake: Cal evaded 16 tackles on 76 plays for a much-better-than-usual rate of 21.1%. Apparently tackling was quite a challenge for both teams on Saturday.
Run Stops: Cal forced only 8 stops on 30 run plays for a horrific rate of 26.7%, the second-worst rate of the Wilcox Era. And yet Louisville kept calling for Miller Moss to pass the ball…
Aren’t these games so much more fun to analyze when Cal wins?
Go Bears! Bury Furd. Finish strong.
looking at the coverage and run defense grades, I’m even more shocked that Louisville passed so much