One aspect of Cal's win was definitely the offensive line play, especially in pass blocking. I wish you had given them more credit in your "post game thoughts". The O line is SO MUCH better than last years and I feel they will get even better as they jell as the season progresses.
Very fair - I'm going to try to spend some time reviewing their performance in more detail. One interesting wrinkle - Frederick Williams only received 7 snaps in the first two games but played every snap vs. Minnesota at let tackle and had a lights out game.
I just rewatched the extended highlights and wow Frederick Williams played incredible! He matched up on Anthony Smith an NFL-caliber DL and dominated. Leon Bell also had a really solid night. So they started the season with Miller and Morrow at starting tackle but it looks to me like Bell and definitely Williams should be starting?
Agreed on the pass blocking. I'm not sure I'm sold on their run blocking ability yet, though. It's hard to judge since we've been passing so much more, but they don't seem to be moving D-linemen very much during run plays.
Need to see more. Minnesota is supposed to have a strong defense up front. They eventually dominated Texas Southern on the ground when they actually tried running, but of course you'd expect that against that opponent. Oregon State run game was okay, not great.
Yeah, just watched this batch of JKS highlights and what's notable are the 3rd and long obvious passing downs where the OL completely picks up the pass rush and no one comes free. Hard to imagine that happening so often against any team last year, and this is supposed to be one of the better DLs they play against.
Nick, again, excellent write up. I saw a few things worth commenting on: 1. JKS made some freshman mistakes and took a couple of big sacks. Teachable moments. Hopefully he learned enough from this game it won't happen again. 2. O-Line was a new group of 5 and I was not fully impressed with their performance. They did a much better job than our group from last year would have done, but their pass pro was not the best we have seen this season. Perhaps because the competition was a step up. 3. Third down and long defense continues to struggle.
Other than that I really appreciated the nuances of Harsin's play calling and his change up to a pass first attack. He obviously noticed something about the Golden Gopher pass defense that he though we could exploit, and he was right.
Lastly, the physicality of CAL was as good as I've seen. DB's were coming up to the LOS to make big hits and tackle, not arm tackle. And the defense was a team effort, guys were pursuing from all over the field.
CAL played a solid game and came away with a deserved win. This game bodes well for our future season.
On the O line, wasn't it this game where the commentators were noticing the time that JKS had? They counted...1, 2, 3 seconds that he had in the pocket. Against Minnesota, I think that's a significant achievement.
Certainly the o- line did a good job much of the time. However, JKS was sacked at least twice and was pressured and hurried in other instances. I really don’t care what the commentators say, one of them was a quarterback, and one of them is a numb nuts. I played offensive line at CAL and I coached offensive line for five years at junior college level. So I believe what my eyes tell me. What my eyes told me is that our o-line had its worst game of the season against Minnesota, but it still wasn’t bad. And it was a new group of five players in the third game. So the coaches haven’t decided on who the starting rotation is for the offensive line. In fairness, Minnesota is the best team we’ve played so far and they’re a good team.
Hey Rug, I know your background and appreciate your insights! I’m just noticing that they seem better than recent Wilcox teams. If I recall correctly, we haven’t had much success on the O line since Dykes air raid and the Tedford teams.
One thing about the JKS-led offense that I'm super stoked about is that there's enough explosiveness in the passing game to make up for the occasional mistake/negative play. In all the previous Wilcox offenses, it always felt like a holding penalty or sack would be absolute drive killers. Yes, we had the occasional Nando/Ott/Jett bit of brilliance to erase those, but here it feels like the coaches actually trust JKS and the protection to get chunks of yardage back.
I don't know how true this actually is, and maybe I'm just looking at this through sunshine-powered blue-and-gold glasses, but I haven't really felt this way since the Goff/Webb-led offenses.
The main thing Cal has done right this year is doing very little wrong. No missed field goals, very few turnovers and basically holding serve and letting their opponents make the crucial mistakes that cost them the game. The Golden Gophers played like previous versions of the Golden Bears. As you pointed out, as the team chemistry gets stronger, the upside of this team, particularly with this schedule has the makings of special season in Berkeley...dare to start dreaming.
The punting was well beyond “solid.” Three punts that likely would have been within the five (making an assumption that we would have been able to down it if he hadn’t tried to pick up the muffed punt late) is amazing and really gave them bad field position for much of the evening.
Starting field position combined with bend but not break defense was key to this win.
On the Perich muff, when the kick left his foot I said aloud "not a great punt . . . but it might work out for us" when it took a healthy bounce downfield, but I had no idea exactly HOW well it would work out!
I spent all game telling my wife the game would be decided by a critical turnover. And then Mr. Perich delivered on the 8 yard line, right in front of our seats. Glorious!
that minnesota drive where they just kept running it down our throats 9 plays in a row culminating in a touch down was concerning. Hope we fix that up.
Yes that was concerning but we have to realize we were playing Minnesota, a Big Ten team that is a run first offense. we won't see another run O that food the rest of the season.
Who has the ear of Rivera? Lets get on a campaign to poach the WR1 from UCLA and VaTech now that those players have 30 days to transfer. Maybe pick up a couple of lineman. Lets spend now to make this a special season and make my negabear season predications as far off as possible.
What the Golden Bears did in Week 3: def. Minnesota, 27-14
It will take an upset to knock freshman quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele and the Golden Bears off this list: After Saturday night's upset-that-didn't-look-like-an-upset over Minnesota, they're projected favorites in each of their next six games.
So we have a 1.1% chance of going 12-0....wooooo hooooooo! Let the sunshine pumping begin!!
I am "naive" and will say this now since we are 3-0, on our way to 9-0 (Nick), 12-0, and a championship as I predicted an undefeated season! :) I think our coaching brain trust of Wilcox, Harsin, Rivera, and even Rolovich? have the range and depth of experiences to bring to bear! on any situation to have a chance, with a talent like JKS and this team.
One wonders, now that the head coaching jobs have popped open at UCLA and VaTech, will one or more among Cal’s coaching “brain trust” be poached while Cal’s offensive improvement rises in the national news.
You know the routine. Whenever an HC gets fired, their friends pick them up for a year or two. It’s a win win situation as the team gets a well qualified coordinator probably for cheap and the coach gets a chance to rehabilitate their resume for another shot at a HC job. And it’s in their interest to do a really good job. So I wouldn’t expect this group to last more than a year, maybe two years tops.
Imagine the hype if Ott and Jett had stayed to experience this with their fellow Bears. I understand that this is now part of the college football landscape, but the hype train would be going like a bullet train had they stayed.
At the same time, I see some real growth already in our RB group, and we appear to be in a situation where the throw is going to open up the run, as opposed to the other way around. I'm not one to predict the future, but it's enough that I'm supremely excited about what lies ahead. Go Bears! Beat the Aztecs!
Ott and Jett seem like cautionary tales. Ott is on a good team but cannot crack the rotation, so it seems to have killed his NFL aspirations. Jett is the back up on a team that totally blows
Leaving aside the transfer thing, I think Ott has never been the same since getting hurt early last year, and I fear that he will never be a special RB again due to those injuries. The cruel reality was that Cal got lucky from a roster building perspective not having to allocate a huge % of the NIL budget to him since he left
I still like Ott, and will root for him wherever he goes, but I agree that we may have been lucky to let him go and not pay him so much money.
We still need an explosive running back though. We are so used to having a really good RB that I am not satisfied with our trio of High, Raphael and Johnson yet.
The current group is good at being decisive and getting tough yards but definitely lack speed. Jet would've been perfect in this offense if he stayed, sigh. There have been a few plays this year and one against Minnesota that I'm sure would've been home runs..
Good point, it is like the NIL equivalent of the Herschel Walker trade.
Re his injury, other than looking at box scores briefly, I have not followed Ott since he left. Is the consensus that his injury is holding him back still?
Forget Cal QBs, I am 46 years old and have been watching CFB my entire life. I cannot recall many true Freshman QB on any team as good as JKS this year on Cal. Trevor Lawrence of course, but there aren’t many that have been this good this quick. Also even Trevor Lawrence was throwing to All American wideouts who were wide open, not exactly the case here…
I would love that, how about Brown playing the entire second half because of our 40 point lead lol, I am fine with Cal blowing out other teams, way too many close games in the past that we lose.
We are going to have two major concerns. I do not care about the rest of the season. Coach Harsin has proven in a short time his multiple pro offense works and that he can develop and adapt. Jks has number one pick potential. Keeping both of them is of dire importance.
One aspect of Cal's win was definitely the offensive line play, especially in pass blocking. I wish you had given them more credit in your "post game thoughts". The O line is SO MUCH better than last years and I feel they will get even better as they jell as the season progresses.
Very fair - I'm going to try to spend some time reviewing their performance in more detail. One interesting wrinkle - Frederick Williams only received 7 snaps in the first two games but played every snap vs. Minnesota at let tackle and had a lights out game.
I just rewatched the extended highlights and wow Frederick Williams played incredible! He matched up on Anthony Smith an NFL-caliber DL and dominated. Leon Bell also had a really solid night. So they started the season with Miller and Morrow at starting tackle but it looks to me like Bell and definitely Williams should be starting?
Agreed. Major improvement in that group.
Agreed on the pass blocking. I'm not sure I'm sold on their run blocking ability yet, though. It's hard to judge since we've been passing so much more, but they don't seem to be moving D-linemen very much during run plays.
Need to see more. Minnesota is supposed to have a strong defense up front. They eventually dominated Texas Southern on the ground when they actually tried running, but of course you'd expect that against that opponent. Oregon State run game was okay, not great.
Yeah, just watched this batch of JKS highlights and what's notable are the 3rd and long obvious passing downs where the OL completely picks up the pass rush and no one comes free. Hard to imagine that happening so often against any team last year, and this is supposed to be one of the better DLs they play against.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljklb37JfeQ
Nick, again, excellent write up. I saw a few things worth commenting on: 1. JKS made some freshman mistakes and took a couple of big sacks. Teachable moments. Hopefully he learned enough from this game it won't happen again. 2. O-Line was a new group of 5 and I was not fully impressed with their performance. They did a much better job than our group from last year would have done, but their pass pro was not the best we have seen this season. Perhaps because the competition was a step up. 3. Third down and long defense continues to struggle.
Other than that I really appreciated the nuances of Harsin's play calling and his change up to a pass first attack. He obviously noticed something about the Golden Gopher pass defense that he though we could exploit, and he was right.
Lastly, the physicality of CAL was as good as I've seen. DB's were coming up to the LOS to make big hits and tackle, not arm tackle. And the defense was a team effort, guys were pursuing from all over the field.
CAL played a solid game and came away with a deserved win. This game bodes well for our future season.
Roll on!
On the O line, wasn't it this game where the commentators were noticing the time that JKS had? They counted...1, 2, 3 seconds that he had in the pocket. Against Minnesota, I think that's a significant achievement.
Certainly the o- line did a good job much of the time. However, JKS was sacked at least twice and was pressured and hurried in other instances. I really don’t care what the commentators say, one of them was a quarterback, and one of them is a numb nuts. I played offensive line at CAL and I coached offensive line for five years at junior college level. So I believe what my eyes tell me. What my eyes told me is that our o-line had its worst game of the season against Minnesota, but it still wasn’t bad. And it was a new group of five players in the third game. So the coaches haven’t decided on who the starting rotation is for the offensive line. In fairness, Minnesota is the best team we’ve played so far and they’re a good team.
Minnesota might be the best defense we play all year.
Hey Rug, I know your background and appreciate your insights! I’m just noticing that they seem better than recent Wilcox teams. If I recall correctly, we haven’t had much success on the O line since Dykes air raid and the Tedford teams.
One thing about the JKS-led offense that I'm super stoked about is that there's enough explosiveness in the passing game to make up for the occasional mistake/negative play. In all the previous Wilcox offenses, it always felt like a holding penalty or sack would be absolute drive killers. Yes, we had the occasional Nando/Ott/Jett bit of brilliance to erase those, but here it feels like the coaches actually trust JKS and the protection to get chunks of yardage back.
I don't know how true this actually is, and maybe I'm just looking at this through sunshine-powered blue-and-gold glasses, but I haven't really felt this way since the Goff/Webb-led offenses.
Yup. You know with JKS that we actually have better than a 50/50 shot at a first down on 3rd and 20.
Al of us who daydreamed about the season Cal could have if we had elite QB play AND good defense at the same time might finally get an answer in 2025!
One of the better post game reports that captures every blow by blow from the start to finish. Great job Nick and Write for California!!
I’d argue you could say this every week of Nick’s write ups…..I think this was just one of the better games to report on!
Right... a win helps everything! But seriously, nice write-up.
The main thing Cal has done right this year is doing very little wrong. No missed field goals, very few turnovers and basically holding serve and letting their opponents make the crucial mistakes that cost them the game. The Golden Gophers played like previous versions of the Golden Bears. As you pointed out, as the team chemistry gets stronger, the upside of this team, particularly with this schedule has the makings of special season in Berkeley...dare to start dreaming.
Had the exact same thought re: turnovers and FG/punting!
The punting was well beyond “solid.” Three punts that likely would have been within the five (making an assumption that we would have been able to down it if he hadn’t tried to pick up the muffed punt late) is amazing and really gave them bad field position for much of the evening.
Starting field position combined with bend but not break defense was key to this win.
On the Perich muff, when the kick left his foot I said aloud "not a great punt . . . but it might work out for us" when it took a healthy bounce downfield, but I had no idea exactly HOW well it would work out!
100%
A rational man writing rational things. Thank you, Nick Kranz, and thank you, Golden Bears et al.
I spent all game telling my wife the game would be decided by a critical turnover. And then Mr. Perich delivered on the 8 yard line, right in front of our seats. Glorious!
that minnesota drive where they just kept running it down our throats 9 plays in a row culminating in a touch down was concerning. Hope we fix that up.
Yes that was concerning but we have to realize we were playing Minnesota, a Big Ten team that is a run first offense. we won't see another run O that food the rest of the season.
Who has the ear of Rivera? Lets get on a campaign to poach the WR1 from UCLA and VaTech now that those players have 30 days to transfer. Maybe pick up a couple of lineman. Lets spend now to make this a special season and make my negabear season predications as far off as possible.
Pick up Javian Thomas
Would love to have Jet back
How much would he have to pay?
He won't have to pay anything
This just in from ESPN...33. California (3-0)
SP+ and FPI rankings: 53rd and 58th
Odds of reaching 12-0, per SP+: 1.1%
What the Golden Bears did in Week 3: def. Minnesota, 27-14
It will take an upset to knock freshman quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele and the Golden Bears off this list: After Saturday night's upset-that-didn't-look-like-an-upset over Minnesota, they're projected favorites in each of their next six games.
So we have a 1.1% chance of going 12-0....wooooo hooooooo! Let the sunshine pumping begin!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMRrNY0pxfM
"so your telling me there is a chance..."
bingo
I am "naive" and will say this now since we are 3-0, on our way to 9-0 (Nick), 12-0, and a championship as I predicted an undefeated season! :) I think our coaching brain trust of Wilcox, Harsin, Rivera, and even Rolovich? have the range and depth of experiences to bring to bear! on any situation to have a chance, with a talent like JKS and this team.
One wonders, now that the head coaching jobs have popped open at UCLA and VaTech, will one or more among Cal’s coaching “brain trust” be poached while Cal’s offensive improvement rises in the national news.
I could see Rolovich getting another shot as an OC.
You know the routine. Whenever an HC gets fired, their friends pick them up for a year or two. It’s a win win situation as the team gets a well qualified coordinator probably for cheap and the coach gets a chance to rehabilitate their resume for another shot at a HC job. And it’s in their interest to do a really good job. So I wouldn’t expect this group to last more than a year, maybe two years tops.
And we are up 25 spots to 34 in the Athletic's ranking of all teams....pump pump pump!
This is 33 of the 27 or 39 3-0 teams- we were ranked pretty far down that list. They don't quite believe in us yet, give it another few games...
Imagine the hype if Ott and Jett had stayed to experience this with their fellow Bears. I understand that this is now part of the college football landscape, but the hype train would be going like a bullet train had they stayed.
At the same time, I see some real growth already in our RB group, and we appear to be in a situation where the throw is going to open up the run, as opposed to the other way around. I'm not one to predict the future, but it's enough that I'm supremely excited about what lies ahead. Go Bears! Beat the Aztecs!
Ott and Jett seem like cautionary tales. Ott is on a good team but cannot crack the rotation, so it seems to have killed his NFL aspirations. Jett is the back up on a team that totally blows
Leaving aside the transfer thing, I think Ott has never been the same since getting hurt early last year, and I fear that he will never be a special RB again due to those injuries. The cruel reality was that Cal got lucky from a roster building perspective not having to allocate a huge % of the NIL budget to him since he left
I still like Ott, and will root for him wherever he goes, but I agree that we may have been lucky to let him go and not pay him so much money.
We still need an explosive running back though. We are so used to having a really good RB that I am not satisfied with our trio of High, Raphael and Johnson yet.
The current group is good at being decisive and getting tough yards but definitely lack speed. Jet would've been perfect in this offense if he stayed, sigh. There have been a few plays this year and one against Minnesota that I'm sure would've been home runs..
Good point, it is like the NIL equivalent of the Herschel Walker trade.
Re his injury, other than looking at box scores briefly, I have not followed Ott since he left. Is the consensus that his injury is holding him back still?
I think he got a new injury
Ouch
Mendoza has been awesome but against cupcakes. They play Illinois this week, so will be interesting to see how he does
Forget Cal QBs, I am 46 years old and have been watching CFB my entire life. I cannot recall many true Freshman QB on any team as good as JKS this year on Cal. Trevor Lawrence of course, but there aren’t many that have been this good this quick. Also even Trevor Lawrence was throwing to All American wideouts who were wide open, not exactly the case here…
So smooth in pocket, throws darts!
These Cal fans somehow delude themselves into thinking it might be the season, but....but it might be the season for us.
The future is bright; focus on beating San Diego.
No let down. As they preach, play to our standard.
GO BEARS!
Agreed. SDSU is the only thing that matters right now. 100% focus. Treat them like Miami treated USF.
Devin Brown playing the entire 4th Quarter, with the game fully iced, would be step in the right direction.
I would love that, how about Brown playing the entire second half because of our 40 point lead lol, I am fine with Cal blowing out other teams, way too many close games in the past that we lose.
100%...I'll be in the stands gently reminding them of this
Super - GET LOUD!!!!
We are going to have two major concerns. I do not care about the rest of the season. Coach Harsin has proven in a short time his multiple pro offense works and that he can develop and adapt. Jks has number one pick potential. Keeping both of them is of dire importance.
What's the point of keeping them if the seasons aren't fun? Always enjoy the ride.
Have fun this season. And also worry about keeping them. Both things can be true at the same time.