Post-Game Thoughts: SMU Football

The Fernando-less Bears fall quietly to end the regular season

I wasn’t able to watch this game live due to family obligations, which honestly was kind of a relief BEFORE I saw the news that Fernando wasn’t going to play due to illness. I went from thinking Cal had a ~15% chance to win to thinking that Cal had a 4% chance to win, and I still haven’t rewatched the full game and probably never will.

There wasn’t much of a chance that this game would teach us something that we didn’t already learn from the first 11 games of the season, or create anything worth reacting to emotionally. Being without the player around which the 2025 season will be built (good place scenario) makes this game even more useless than anticipated.

Which is to say that this will be shorter than the usual Monday column, but that’s probably what this game was worth anyway. Let’s get this over with:

Offense

Efficiency Report

11 drives: 3 field goal attempts (2-3), 5 punts, 3 turnovers (1 interception, 2 downs), 0.5 points/drive. SMU defensive points/drive allowed in 2024: 1.6

I don’t like splitting out a big play from the larger totals, but it feels important to note that 38% of Cal’s passing game production (and 24% of Cal’s entire production in the game) came on one long pass to Nyziah Hunter. Admittedly, it was a really excellent route from Hunter and throw from CJ Harris, but it played a big part in making Cal final numbers look better than the whole.

The main reason the offense sputtered all game long? Because . . .

Negative play report

Total plays run: 63
Negative plays: 16
Negative play ratio: 25%(!!!)

An offense cannot function when a quarter of the plays it runs go backwards. That would be the case if the offense was unusually explosive. But even a team like Miami, who leads the country in plays of 20+ yards, only does so on 10.7% of their snaps.

When I watched the condensed game highlights I saw problems all over, of all varieties. Physical stuff, like getting beaten in a one-on-one pass blocking rep. Mental stuff, like a missed blocking assignment. Physical stuff, like getting beaten to a spot on a screen blocking pull. Name a problem, and it was out there.

Which leads us to our off-season to-dos on the offensive side of the ball . . .

Retain the skill position guys, fix the offensive line

We’ll go into more depth on roster building topics over the next few months, but the goal is clear. Cal’s skill position talent is not a problem and is as strong as it has been at any point since Jared Goff and Sonny Dykes were cooking on offense. Cal’s offensive line finished 130th in the country in sacks allowed, 132nd in tackles for loss allowed (ahead of only Southern Mississippi and, hilariously, Stanford), and 115th in yards/run.

This team is an offensive line away from a really interesting offense, but the offensive line is also a really difficult rebuild.

Defense

Efficiency Report

12 drives: 5 touchdowns, 1 field goal attempt (1-1), 5 punts, 1 turnover (downs), 3.2 points/drive. SMU offensive points/drive in 2024: 3.0

I’ve elected to not remove any drives from SMU’s ledger. You could argue that the final drive of the first half should be removed because SMU only had 30 seconds to score, but SMU did try to score again. You could also argue that the final drive of the game was garbage time and SMU used a back-up QB . . . but Cal was still playing the starters and they still allowed a touchdown against the reserves, so I’m counting it.

On one hand, Cal’s defense more or less allowed the same level of efficiency that SMU has averaged all year long. On the other hand, Cal doesn’t expect its defense to be average, and that’s cold comfort when you allow three touchdowns on the first four drives of the game. I don’t think that SMU called off the dogs or anything, but it’s also true that this game was all but over very quickly.

Time for a near complete rebuild

Out of eligibility*: Craig Woodson, Nohl Williams, Miles Williams, Marcus Harris, Teddye Buchanan, David Reese, Matthew Littlejohn, Xavier Carlton, Ricky Correia

On that list are the guys who got the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 9th most snaps on defense. Put another way, Cal is losing six of of seven starters in the back 7, plus a couple of key players in their front 4 rotation.

That’s not a total, Mark-Madsen-style rebuild, but we also haven’t taken into account any players who might elect to transfer.

Presumably some players on the roster will be ready to step up. But Cal will also probably have to do some heavy portaling across the entire defense

*There’s the possibility I’m wrong on somebody here what with NCAA eligibility rules changing by the second, but I believe this is accurate.

Special Teams

Back on the placekicker portal merry-go-round?

Ryan Coe continued his late-season bounce-back, nailing field goals of 40 and 53. Alas, he’s out of eligibility. Derek Morris missed a field goal from 40 yards to finish 10-13 on the year without attempting any kicks from 50+ yards. There’s always the possibility that Morris, a true freshman, will improve with age and experience. Cal will need him to do so, or need to dip into the portal, because 77% accuracy from inside 50 yards isn’t quite enough.

Big Picture

Last week we were too busy celebrating beating Stanford to care about the big picture. Nobody enjoys sober analysis days after winning the axe and partying on the field.

But with that in the review mirror, it’s time for some hard truths:

1. Cal finishes the regular season 6-6, with five wins over FBS opponents. The FBS teams Cal beat finished a combined 15-35 against FBS opponents other than Cal.

2. The best team Cal beat is 5-7 Auburn.

3. Cal’s six losses (all in ACC play) came against teams that were collectively 33-27 against non-Cal FBS competition.

In other words, Cal’s wins came against a collection of mostly very bad teams. Meanwhile, Cal’s losses came against two top 25 teams (SMU and Miami), three middling power conference teams (Pitt, NC State, Syracuse) and one team going through a nightmare season (Florida State).

Justin Wilcox was handed by far his best chance to break through at Cal. He was handed an impressive NIL budget that afforded him solid players up and down the roster. Cal’s injury situation was within the normal range of what you would expect for a typical college football season. He was given a schedule that seemed easy prior to the season and ended up being even softer than expected in retrospect when pre-season projected ACC contenders FSU and NC State both struggled.

And yet, 6-6. And yet, another .500 season.

Even the Big Game, the high point of the season, acted to point out how much this team had underperformed. This team is too talented to need a 4th quarter comeback to win by a field goal against a team like Stanford.

We are left with little choice on what to do next. Cal does not have the money to make a coaching change. More relevantly, Jim Knowlton is not the right man to select the next Cal football coach, and Cal apparently lacks the institutional fortitude to fire Knowlton, no matter all of the evidence suggesting he isn’t fit for the position.

So the only option is to continue to hope that somehow Wilcox finds the right mix of coaching and roster personnel to somehow turn the corner. Root for guys who are fun to root for regardless of the wins and the losses like Fernando and Cade and (maybe still?) Jaydn.

And hope against hope that somehow next year is the year.