Post-Game Thoughts: Virginia Football 2025

Cal falls in predictable fashion, in front of a predictably concerning crowd

Photo credit: TonyCorsoImages

Full disclosure: this is going to be a little bit shorter than usual. That’s partially because we’ve got some other things cooking right now - basketball previews, prospective head coaching candidates, etc., and partially because there’s just not much new to be learned from this game. I saw very little from Game 9 that looked different from what we’ve seen in games 1 through 8. This team very much is what it is.

If you don’t look closely, you might think that Cal vs. Virginia was really close. Another coin flip game like BC or UNC or Virginia Tech. After all, Cal got the ball back down 3 points with time on the clock to drive for the game tying or game winning points.

But even minimal scrutiny paints a different picture. Virginia outgained Cal by about 200 yards, gained 9 more first downs, and averaged a yard more per play, and seven drives that entered Cal territory vs. four Cal drives that entered Virginia territory.

This game was kept close because Virginia couldn’t finish drives. One missed field goal, one fake field goal, and one late 4th down failure (that should’ve been a chip shot field goal to ice the game if Virginia hadn’t messed up earlier opportunities) gave Cal a chance to steal a win.

Alas, that chance wasn’t a good one. Needing to drive ~50 yards in 0:29 with no timeouts isn’t really much of a chance at all.

Offense

Efficiency Report

12 possessions: 3 touchdowns, 7 punts, 2 turnovers (2 interceptions), 1.75 points/possession. Cal points/possession entering the game: 2.1. Virginia points/possession allowed entering the game: 2.0.

(Removed: Cal’s final, pointless, could-only-matter-if-someone-got-hurt drive of the game)

So: Cal had one long touchdown drive that went for 14 plays and 75 yards. Then there was the trick play touchdown.

Cal’s third longest drive of the game was 6 plays, 33 yards, and ended in a punt.

An off game from JKS

It’s amazing how quickly you get used to a quarterback hitting guys in the chest. JKS has been Cal’s quarterback for a whole 3/4th of a season, but against UVA he was just a little bit less accurate than usual. Normally routine passes were outside the numbers. Tougher throws were just a little bit off. His decision making was less decisive.

This showed up in two downfield throws to Jacob De Jesus. The first was a sideline fade that was juuuuuust slightly overthrown, allowing the UVA corner to recover and pull the ball away. The second was a go route that was just off De Jesus’s fingertips. Neither are terrible throws, and De Jesus couldn’t helped his QB out by making tough catches, but that’s the margin sometimes between a win and a loss.

Defense

Efficiency Report

12 possessions: 3 touchdowns, 2 field goal attempts (1-2), 5 punts, 2 turnovers (2 downs), 2 points/possession. Cal points allowed/possession entering the game: 2.0. Virginia points/possession entering the game: 2.5.

One of the reasons that Cal’s defense has struggled this season relative to a typical Justin Wilcox defense is that the Bears haven’t gotten many red zone stops. Cal is 91st in the country in allowed red zone touchdown percentage. But for a change, against Virginia, the Bears were able to stiffen four times when Virginia got in field goal range, and UVA collected just three points out of those four stalled out drives.

If Virginia had successfully kicked field goals on all four drives, that would put them at 2.75 points/drive, better than Virginia’s season long average. But Cal deserves credit for forcing those stops, both on 3rd down and then on 4th down when Virginia elected to go for it instead.

The difference in the game was up front

In many ways this game was a bounce back performance after the disastrous Virginia Tech game. Even without Cade Uluave for much of the game, Cal’s defense was significantly more disciplined, and improved as the game went on. The Bears limited explosive plays, tackled much better, and forced the Cavaliers to go the length of the field.

The difference was ultimately in the trenches. On running plays, UVA was generally able to churn out more consistent yardage and kept their 3rd down attempts shorter (average of 5.3 yards to go vs. Cal’s 7).

And when those 3rd downs did come, Cal couldn’t get any pressure. Per PFF, JKS was pressured on 11 of 37 drop backs. Conversely, Cal pressured Chandler Morris on just 6 of 41 drop backs. One of those six pressures was a sack that Morris took unnecessarily where he had a ton of time but panicked and tried to scramble through the line and was swallowed up. But most of the time, Morris took advantage of that lack of pressure to make plays and keep the chains moving, whereas sacks and pressures killed a bunch of drives for the Bears.

The lack of Ryan McCulloch hurts, but this is still a disappointing development for what was supposed to be one of the strengths of this team. Cal had three out of 4 game one starters along the line out there, but couldn’t win many one-on-one battles up front.

A horrible rule

On the first play after the 2 minute warning, T.J. Bollers makes a tackle to force 4th down. Bollers is obviously hobbled, but he tries to get off the field before falling to the ground in pain. This is a disastrous development for Cal, and Bollers is visibly distraught, probably because he knew what it meant for Cal. What it means specifically is the following:

1. The clock continued to run after Bollers made the tackle because Cal was out of time outs.

2. Because he was unable to get off the field, Cal was charged with a 10 second run off.

3. Finally, the clock restarted with a full 40 second play clock AFTER the 10 second run off.

As a result, Cal lost 71 seconds rather than the ~40 seconds that would typically run off, because they had a player who was legitimately hurt. It forced Cal to be much more aggressive about going down field immediately, which made a game ending interception much more likely.

I get why this rule was instituted - to prevent fake injuries from stopping the clock. But it seems to be there’s an obvious solution: the refs blow the clock dead as soon as an injury occurs . . . and then the clock starts again with a 40 second play clock once the injured player is off the field. UVA still gets to run off their 40 seconds, and Cal isn’t punished for suffering an injury.

Because the current rule? Aside from being unfair, it also risks a dude trying to run off the field when he’s hurt just to avoid damaging a chance to win a game.

Special Teams

UVA screw ups/Cal plays keep in close

For the second game in a row, the Bears were beaten on a per play basis on both side of the ball, but made up ground by making plays and/or letting their opponents self destruct on special teams.

This week, it was a missed field goal and a missed fake, plus a shanked punt and a nice De Jesus return. Cal ended up gaining 5 net yards/punt across the entire game despite one nice UVA return deep into Cal territory.

The fake failed because the right end of UVA’s blocking formation just didn’t block the outside rusher (Masses) who was paying attention and attacked the runner to help make the tackle in time. He was assisted by Dru Polidore, who appeared to be hanging behind the line, perhaps in a fake kick protect role. So credit to Cal’s players for making a heads up play, and also probably to whoever designed Cal’s field goal unit for having a guy ready to protect against a fake. Meanwhile, demerits to UVA for bad execution, bad design, or both.

Coaching

More trick plays please

A common complaint I’ve had across nine years of Justin Wilcox coaching is a dearth of trick plays. Cal ran a double pass to perfection in this game and earned an easy touchdown, and when you have an offense that cannot generate big plays through conventional means, it frankly means that you need to take MORE risks with trick plays rather than fewer.

(My favorite part about THIS particular trick play? Making the primary target a running back. Lots of trick plays fail because most DBs keep guarding a WR when in doubt, but sneaking a running back through the line got Raphael through the secondary without notice.)

I guess at this point though I’d prefer we saved all of them for Stanford?

Big Picture

Last week I mentioned that one factor in Cal’s head coach decision calculus is that some amount of die-hard fans are increasingly checked out.

Well, announced attendance for the game was just over 30,000, even though Cal’s 5-3 record technically ties for the best record over the first eight games of the season under Justin Wilcox.

Fans aren’t dumb, and there are two problems here that fans die-hard and casual alike recognize. The first problem is that if 5-3 after eight games is the BEST you ever do as a coach, it means that there is a very hard ceiling on what that coach will ever achieve. The second problem is that fans were smart enough to realize that close wins over teams like BC and UNC aren’t exactly results that indicate there was some kind of dark horse ACC contender in Berkeley.

So it was hardly surprising that 30,000 showed up on a pretty sleepy Saturday afternoon. They were given a reasonably entertaining, reasonably competitive game, but the better team was clear most of the game and the final outcome was pretty predictable.

As has been the case for nearly two decades, this is now a one game season. It’d be nifty if Cal beat either Louisville or SMU, and it’s fun to have a chance to ruin somebody’s season. But as per tradition, the only game left that really matters is Stanford. The opportunity to retain the axe (and clinch a bowl trip and extra practices for the players on the roster) is all that most fans will care about emotionally.

If Cal wants to have a season where games in November against anybody but Stanford matter, then changes will have to be made.