Post-Game Thoughts: Syracuse Football

Cal falls back to .500 after a wasn't-that-close loss to the Orange

photo via Calbears.com

I’m down bad right now, Cal fans.

For the first nine games of the season, even while losing painful close game after painful close game, I allowed myself some space to believe that the team was improved. Certainly, better NIL funding and portal recruiting meant that the roster talent level had gone up. And the on-field results felt so close. When I couldn’t sleep at night I thought about how if Cal had Barrett Miller, or an all-conference level kicker, that this team would probably be 8-1 and dreaming about upsetting SMU to make the ACC title game.

I allowed myself to imagine that Cal was rounding into form after getting healthy. In terms of injuries, Cade Uluave was basically the only guy missing who was expected to be a major contributor on either side of the ball, and the Bears would build on their two game winning streak to close out the season with momentum.

And then Cal came out and got thoroughly beaten by Syracuse. The Orange scored on their first six possessions, the offense never got on track even when they didn’t turn the ball over, and Cal never held the ball down by less than 13 in the 2nd half.

The best that Cal can do this season is now 7-5, and even that would take a massive upset win over an SMU team who will be playing with all of the motivation in the world.

Another year under Justin Wilcox, another slog to maybe making a low tier bowl game. Same as every other year

Offense

Efficiency Report

10 drives: 3 touchdowns, 2 field goal attempts (1-2), 3 punts, 2 turnovers (2 interceptions, 1 downs), 2.5 points/drive (Syracuse’s average for the season: 2.5 points/drive allowed)

Hey, Cal hit the average! Of course, average isn’t exactly what we’re aiming for. The offense is supposed to be rounding into form as it gains healthy contributors, not aiming to match what Syracuse has allowed entering this game against a largely weak schedule.

The other aspect is that Cal did much of their damage in the 2nd half (18 of 25 points, 230 of 391 yards) when it was always a two score deficit and Syracuse was perhaps playing a bit more conservatively.

Negative plays check in

Cal allowed Syracuse to record 8 tackles for loss on 57 plays, which on the face of it isn’t terrible, except for the fact that Syracuse really struggles for disruptive play. That 7% tackle for loss rate is higher than what Syracuse managed against every single team on their schedule with the exception of FCS Holy Cross. After a couple of weeks of managing to mostly avoid negative plays, Cal went right back to allowing them

Fernando was off

It went beyond the two interceptions, one a bad read and the other a slight underthrow. He was inaccurate on throws that he had generally been nailing the rest of the season, and left a number of plays out on the field that could have helped Cal climb back into the game.

The unfair reality is that Cal is too dependent on Fernando; they don’t have another source of consistent offense, meaning that he’s not allowed to have a bad game. He had his first bad game of the season and it was costly. It shouldn’t distract from his development as a player or that he was the primary reason for a couple of wins and the primary reason Cal nearly won a few other games, but this one was undeniably rough.

Defense

Efficiency Report

9 drives: 3 touchdowns, 4 field goal attempts (4-4), 2 punts, 0 turnovers, 3.7 points/drive (Syracuse’s average for the season: 2.8 points/drive)

Syracuse didn’t punt until 14:40 left in the 4th quarter, and that was thanks to an offensive pass interference flag, and I suppose that is a pretty good illustration of how consistently the Orange moved the ball.

Granted, 5.6 yards/play isn’t a huge number that would typically indicate a team will go three quarters without punting. It’s a reflection of how rarely Syracuse failed to make positive plays and how much Cal failed to disrupt any of that.

The numbers look a bit better because Cal was able to force four field goal attempts. If Syracuse had cashed in on a couple more scoring opportunities then Cal would not have had the chance to make the score look cosmetically better.

What do you do when the strength of your team gets beaten?

I mean this in the general sense and the specific sense.

Generally, Cal’s defense was badly beaten on Saturday. Syracuse ran 84 plays, and exactly three of them went backwards. One -1 yard rush, one two yard sack (that, if I recall correctly, Kyle McCord ran out of bounds on?) and one swing pass that was fumbled backwards. Cal was utterly unable to disrupt Syracuse’s plays, and the Orange were able to run their offense largely uninhibited by Cal’s front four defenders.

Meanwhile, Cal’s secondary was specifically beaten. Per PFF, here how they meted out responsibility for Syracuse’s passing production:

Nohl Williams - 5 catches on 10 targets for 49 yards
Marcus Harris - 4 catches on 9 targets for 37 yards
Matthew Littlejohn - 4 catches on 5 targets for 32 yards
Craig Woodson - 5 catches on 5 targets for 72 yards
Cal’s middle linebackers, collectively - 5 catches on 5 targets for 86 yards

It’s always hard to determine causation with stuff like this. If it were one dude getting torched maybe it was a bad matchup. But when it’s the entire team I lean towards gameplan/prep.

Syracuse hardly went deep all game long (only two attempts that went beyond 20 yards downfield and an average depth of target of just 6.6 yards) but still managed to operate with impunity by regularly completing short passes. It honestly reminded me a lot of watching what Cal did to Wake Forest last week. And basically everybody responsible for coverage duties on Cal’s defense was responsible for allowing Syracuse to pick their way down the field. Of the 45 Kyle McCord passes that weren’t batted down, Cal was only credited with breaking up three of them. The Bears were unprepared to handle what Syracuse’s offense threw at them.

Before the game started, I was actually confident about this matchup, because I thought that Cal’s hypothetical strength matched up well with what Syracuse wanted to do. I had visions that Cal would do to Kyle McCord what Pitt’s defense did. Instead, it was the exact opposite.

Special Teams

Where’s the line between Morris and Coe?

Derek Morris came into attempt a 48 yard field goal, and everybody in our section was confused, feeling that Coe was the better bet to hit a field goal that long. Our priors were confirmed when Morris missed the kick (both short and wide, IIRC), which then led to Coe coming out for Cal’s subsequent 44 yard attempt. Kinda seems like Coe should be the guy for anything 40+ yards?

Coaching/Game Theory

Converting a long 4th down is easier than recovering an onside kick

I got really annoyed late in the game when Wilcox twice made conservative decisions while down two possessions:

1. 4th and 9 from the Syracuse 26 while down 16 with roughly 13:00 left in the game - Wilcox kicks the field goal rather than going for it and trying for a touchdown

2. 4th and 14 from the Cal 29 while down 13 with roughly 10:00 left in the game - Wilcox punts rather than going for it.

I fully recognize that either of these attempts were longshots. But my feeling at the time was that you had to attempt them when you’re down two scores.

By skipping on going for either of them, Cal was left having to attempt to drive the length of the field on a short clock, get a two point conversion, then recover an onside kick, then drive the field for a touchdown again and get a two point conversion again, just so you could get the game into overtime where you’d only have a 50% chance to win.

The odds of all of that happening? Remote. You’re better off attempting a low-percentage-but-not-impossible conversion rather than punting/kicking without really changing the state of the game.

I’m less annoyed by the 4th and 14 in some ways, because at that point you’re talking about the difference between a 1% and a 2% chance of winning. But the field goal is indefensible. Teams convert 9 yard gains all the time - conversion rates around college football are ~31%. You simply have to get a touchdown on that drive; anything less is surrendering the game. And that’s without factoring in the very real chance that Cal might’ve missed the field goal, a thing that has happened to Cal ALL SEASON LONG!

Probably should’ve accepted that 1st quarter Syracuse penalty

On 3rd and 9 from the 24, Syracuse throws an incomplete pass AND gets called for a personal foul. Cal declines the penalty and Syracuse kicks a 42 yard field goal. In that moment, I wanted Cal to accept the penalty and attempt to force Syracuse into either a punt or a much longer field goal, on the assumption that Cal’s defense would not allow a conversion on 3rd and 24.

Big Picture

Honestly, what astounds me is the incredible consistency of Justin Wilcox.

I don’t mean that positively. Despite the way that commentators throw out ‘consistency’ as the key to success for any athlete or team, it’s not always a good thing.

Justin Wilcox consistently produces certain kinds of games.

One type of game is the discouraging win over an FCS team. Another is the galvanizing non-conference win over a power conference team that turns out to be much worse than they usually are (UNC x2, Ole Miss x2, Auburn). The most maddening is the ‘fail to compete against a team that you were supposed to beat.’ Prior examples include Colorado 2017, UCLA 2018, and Washington State 2022. We hadn’t gotten that yet in 2024, but the Syracuse game delivered exactly that.

And of course the other kind of consistency is the season as a whole:

5-7
7-5
7-5
5-7
4-8
6-6
5-5 (so far)

In seven full seasons as a head coach, Justin Wilcox has been within one game of .500 in six of them, and only his 4-8 performance in 2022 standing as an ‘outlier.’ Add up the numbers and he’s 39-43, but a ghastly 21-39 in conference play.

Despite roster changes, shifts in recruiting philosophies and roster building strategies, despite good health years and bad health years, despite easy and hard schedule strengths, despite good and bad luck, it always adds up to more or less .500 football. No outside factors seem capable of shifting that dynamic.

I was dumb enough back in August to talk myself out of predicting another ~.500 season because I thought that the shift to the ACC would be enough to break the cycle. It was stupid of me to assume that anything could break the inertia pulling Justin Wilcox towards a .500 record and a below average in-conference performance.

Because Cal is broke, Justin Wilcox will be back next year. I won’t be dumb enough to predict anything different when August rolls around next year.