In professional tennis the digital billboards and banners are shut off during play. My observation was the field eye level streaming popping banners must have been blinding. Not great neurologically. Lights so bright my friend had to put sunglasss on at night. Also the piercing electronic noise not ideal. Would be nice to have player have a field that isn’t streaming bright lights in their line of site. We should follow what professional tennis does. Shut em off during play. Lucky no one had a seizure
Agree wholeheartedly! It was especially distracting Friday night! And the music is deafening! My phone tells me I am in an environment that will damage my hearing! And the fellows on the field have to hear the plays?
I’ve wondered about the field level banner ads, too. And it’s not just the Mic Men who don’t know when to keep quiet—the electronic noise machine is equally guilty.
We constantly put ourselves at a disadvantage outside of the banners! For example, the mic (wo)men are spirited, but keep doing things that distract our team as opposed to disrupting our opponents. I feel like we don't really have home field advantage at CMS even though we should
This has been discussed among the fans the last couple of years. I have heard constant complaint about the electronic noise and many requests for more band music.
Nick, nice write up, again. My take is a bit different than yours. First of all, I hear players saying that offensive execution in practice is great, but it's quite obvious that it's really poor in our games. I believe the reason that our offensive execution in games is so poor is because we are actually playing against opponents that scheme to stop us, and thus are probably running different 'looks' against us. I also think that Somerville's offensive system is not as complex as many say because he has shown very little ability to keep opposing defenses off balance with his play calls. His play calling is vanilla at best and defensive coordinators know what is coming. It's not a recipe for success.
Second, when you cannot effectively run the ball then you can't effectively pass the ball. Our run game is terrible. Is it because of our personnel? I don't think so. I don't believe our OL personnel is that bad that they can't be successful. I really believe their lack of success is a combination of poor scheme and poor coaching. I see a breakdown in fundamentals on just about every play: guys losing their base and standing up, guys not finishing blocks, guys not going to the whistle. This is all on the coaching. Schemewise I need to watch more film but I am not a fan of our pass pro schemes.
Lastly, I have never been a fan of pro style offenses in college. They are complex and take a long time to learn and perfect. Heck, Tedfords's QB's typically needed 2 seasons to assimilate the playbook before succeeding. Remember Joe Ayoob? He was heralded as the best JC QB in the country, and not by a little bit, when he was recruited by Tedford. He did not have enough time in Tedfords system when he was forced into action and we all witnessed the result. I am a huge fan of a modified spread and I like Urban Meyer's spread where he utilizes tight ends, unlike Tony Franklin's Air Raid system.
What is clear is that Somerville is asking his kids to do things they can't do. I had to deal with a similar situation when I coached and we had a new OC come in. He had a playbook and wanted players to execute his plays. I looked at it and marked plays that I told him to dump, because my OL did not have the talent to successfully execute all of his plays. He wasn't happy about it but I told him I'd rather run plays that I know we can run successfully. A good coach doesn't make the players fit his playbook, he designs plays to maximize the strengths of his players. I'm not sure Somerville has done this.
Lastly, I would really like to see Somerville's play matrix where he lists plays that he can use for every down and distance situation. What I have seen thus far makes me think either that his list is not very diverse or that they install 20 plays a week, believing these plays will be effective against the opposing Defense, and then they stick to these plays for an 80 offensive play game. Neither situation is one built for success.
Lastly, I agree that it is too late to install a newer and simpler system and thus I think this year is going to be a big bust, unfortunately.
Good analysis! I don’t share your experience or expertise, but just as a fan I would note that sometimes you do see a team start to click midseason, so I hold out some small amount of hope for a turnaround still. But admittedly I have not seen anything that would tend to suggest that such a turnaround is likely.
Great observation. When teams start clicking its because they finally have had enough practice time, beyond Spring drills and Fall camp to finally execute the playbook properly. It's much more difficult to bring in a bunch of Portal transfers and get them up to speed in just Spring and Fall periods, especially when you have a complicated offense. I would love to see this happen with CAL, but I don't seen any real evidence of marginal improvement over our first 4 weeks. I think our schemes and plays on offense are problematic.
Thank you for your appreciation. Just know that I am not always right. These are just my observations based on my playing and coaching experience. I do know for every defensive scheme/alignment, there is a play or there are plays that beat that alignment. And for every offensive play there is/are defensive schemes/alignments that are designed to beat the offensive play. The winner is the smarter coordinator that can either call the right play to beat the scheme or a smart QB who is allowed to audible to a new play when they see the defensive scheme id not favorable to the offensive play call. The Clemson DC owned our OC in this game.
We came to the same conclusion midway through the 4th quarter and did what we haven't done before, left the game early. I did not have an understanding as well articulated here by Rugbear, Nick, and others at that game Friday night, but I have seen our past four games and know enough to accept that this offense is so dysfunctional on every level it seems beyond fixing. Expensive mistake. Damn.
I always look forward to hearing your analysis. I’m still optimistic about Tosh long-term, but I think this is going to be a rougher transition than we thought. We need a really really solid OC for him to enjoy the success that I think he is capable of. I had hoped his experiment was going to work, but clearly it is failing on offense.
Thank you and I am 100% in agreement about Tosh. I like his energy, and I really like the pillars of his culture. I think as he is able to recruit kids out of high school and if the House passes the new college sports legislation which limits players to one transfer, that Tosh's hard work and recruiting prowess will come to the forefront. I also have to applaud him for the last interview he gave. Without throwing a coach or player under the bus he essentially said that the problem was not tenable, that he had other seasoned OC's and play callers and that the problem has been dealt with. That's a very classy way of demoting your OC and hopefully solving the problem.
RR and Tosh need to do some real soul searching on O and ST. The D is coming together, but the GBs will get crushed the rest of the season without some drastic changes to 2 of the 3 facets of their game. The pro style O has been a disaster and JKS' talent is being squandered. Tosh saying "we're going to look at the tape, trust the process and work to get better every day" is not going to work for this offense. On current course we are going to struggle to get to 6 wins - which means portal transfers out and HS decommits. Big changes needed on O now! Please!
If at his weekly news conference Lupoi doesn’t announce a change in OC and implementation of a simple, straightforward offense that is plug and play rather than a complex NFL quagmire, that will tell us all we need to know about him, RR and the season’s trajectory. To continue with an offense that squanders the generational talent of JKS is tantamount to football malpractice and will make Cal the laughingstock of the season.
What Somerville has done knowing full well the talent he has to work with not only demonstrates a monumental ignorance of how the college game must be played today, but is a testimony to Lupoi’s inexperience and RR’s overindulgence in the face of the obvious.
Salvaging this season will require drastic changes in the offensive playbook to simplify the sets and turn JKS loose to do what he does best. If Mohammed is out then it will be up to someone else in the RB room to step up and provide the running game balance that this team will need going forward. As for the WR room, all I can say is that these guys are being paid a small fortune to get open and, lest we forget, TO CATCH THE FU$KING BALL!
As for ST, penalties, and missed tackles, that’s all about coaching, something that this team apparently desperately needs.
Where is Mike Leach when u really need him. He made WSU teams competitive (and fun to watch) with much less talent than other pac12 teams. Rolo could be an answer to our current O woes, and he is even on the coaching staff!
Tosh was smart enough to keep Somerville shielded from the press session, where he would have gotten roasted. Rollovich needs to be made OC/Assist HC, and Somerville let go. Why this hasn't happened already is beyond me
Tosh's interviews and press conference are uninspiring IMO and often feel like drivel. I'm not exactly hopeful he's the guy to right this kind of capsizing ship mid season
The most parsimonious move would be to let another QB come in to see if he can run the system. Brousseau looked like he was real comfortable in the short pass and screen game. Hate to waste JKS, but I just don't see us installing a new offense mid-season. Something is off with him and his receivers (and it's not just because of the poor pass protection). I think there's a danger in giving young kids too much money; I call it the Ott effect.
Everybody thinks Rolo is the answer but the run and shoot is not easy to install either. The QB and receivers need to be on the same page and right now they are not.
I have considered benching JKS for at least a half. This would give him a different perspective; one he has never had in college given he has started every game of his career. But boy 'o boy would the fan base go hay-knuckle if in that 1/2 of football we got torched. At this point everything should be up for consideration.
The whizz bang, cheesy game experience in which the Cal Band has been left to sit on its collective hands while the loudspeaker garbage fills in every crevice is insufferable, not fine (not absolving the Cal Band here, who need to cop an attitude, be more aggressive during the game: PLAY MORE OFTEN, turn and face your student section occasionally while playing, etc.). The finest football programs in the land feature their marching bands prominently because that is a big part of what makes college football games unique, and what in the past made attending a game at California Memorial Stadium special. It’s a shame that this is slipping away in favor of a crappy soundscape that has become tired, repetitive, predominantly canned. Scrap the DJ. And, please, stop playing Save Me, San Francisco.
My understanding is that they get in severe trouble whenever they play without permission of whoever is directing the overall game day experience. This is why you often hear them play more during away games than at home.
Completely agree. The noise factor at the game is now such that my wife won't even go anymore. I go to see Cal play not be arranged the whole game by way-too-loud noise blaring from the speakers.
It does hurt looking at UCLA, which was more or less evenly matched with us at the beginning of the season, having the start we fantasized about for ourselves.
Can’t the truth be that this team is not as good as we hyped it pre-season and also not as bad as we’re saying it is now? We’re talking as if the season is tanked.
Alan: Good points. As I said in an earlier post, I'm trying to remain hopeful but I suppose we are going to have to see some real progress next week against UNLV. Also, being married to a Bruin and seeing their team heading in the right direction ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!!!!!!!
A good analysis. I have always thought this year was being way over-hyped. Anyone who has played team sports know how hard it is to integrate a bunch of new players into a successful team. Put on top of that a completely new ( and complex) system and you have a recipe for potential problems. You are correct, the offensive scheme has been a total disaster and dealing with that is going to be the major challenge of Tosh's young career. Other side of the ball, I think the defense shows real promise and the DC has done a good job of that integration. I'm willing to give it some time to see what unfolds but I still think the Bears are moving in tge right direction. Just not as fast as we (probably unreasonably) wanted to see.
What you write is true, but just head 300 miles south to Westwood and see how it is done. We had a higher ranked transfer class and a better rated QB. Yet...
It's really galling that the Baby Bruins started from a worse place than Cal and they are now 4-0 and putting up 50 points a game against BIG 10 opponents. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
While the bruins' success is laudable, the major difference is that their new coach brought several assistants and key players with him from JMU (a playoff team last year). So they had a giant advantage in integrating players into a proven system.
This is the age of the portal. You don't get two to three years to implement your system anymore. Players come and go in one year. Maybe "pro style" offense works in the NFL, but a college OC needs a system simple enough for players to excel in one season.
I appreciate your patience and optimism. From what I gather from the diseased brains that pore over every detail of past performance, our trajectory is all wrong. We’re getting worse, not better. Our star is shackled, not liberated, by “ the process”.
On another note, I hate to hear that the game experience has been overtaken by whiz-bang production values over band leadership and entertainment.
I hope we can take it to UNLV, but good, and that JKS, Mohammed et al stay healthy and flourish.
UCLA had the advantage that the (very experienced) coach brought with him 10 (very goid) players from a playoff team the year before and he installed the same system he had used at JMU. That gave UCLA a huge head start.
Great write up, Nick. I see it from another perspective-a mid tier distressed asset turnaround that inexplicably chose a zero alpha op/ execution model {GM(0) + HC(0) + OC/PC(0)} with seemingly 0 Cal alum/Haas turnaround expertise/strategic oversight/risk assessment/management/mitigation/org/structural/systems/PE/VC input & the predictably abysmal ROI on the unprecedented $80+M injection. No amount of RL barreling out of the end zone on a banana bike & flashy gimmicks can distract from the reality that RR/TL/JS are/were completely in the dark wrt to their most basic/critical assignment-protecting/supporting/the development of the Star QB this historic rebuild centered around. They gave him a dude whose play calling experience is 12U. This was an egregious gamble & I personally am not wanting those who architected an organizational failure on this level to fix it. I love Cal football & hope some pros have been engaged to right this ship & STAT. Go Bears forever, just not like this.
After seeing the punt returned for 6 and, on the ensuing possession, the two anemic runs up the middle (why not have a sweep (counter or not), wheel, play action or anything else on 2nd down?!!?!) for another loss of possession, I could not take it anymore! We decided to jam early which NEVER happened in the past (Also my 2nd grader was not enjoying the loud music or the Clemson fan behind me who had a little too much to drink). I asked her if she wanted to go to the VT game and she said when it’s less crowded and with headphones. I think I just may be taking her. Haha. go Bears!
In professional tennis the digital billboards and banners are shut off during play. My observation was the field eye level streaming popping banners must have been blinding. Not great neurologically. Lights so bright my friend had to put sunglasss on at night. Also the piercing electronic noise not ideal. Would be nice to have player have a field that isn’t streaming bright lights in their line of site. We should follow what professional tennis does. Shut em off during play. Lucky no one had a seizure
Agree wholeheartedly! It was especially distracting Friday night! And the music is deafening! My phone tells me I am in an environment that will damage my hearing! And the fellows on the field have to hear the plays?
I’ve wondered about the field level banner ads, too. And it’s not just the Mic Men who don’t know when to keep quiet—the electronic noise machine is equally guilty.
Right. If you can’t see the ball or vision distorted by lights. No bueno
We constantly put ourselves at a disadvantage outside of the banners! For example, the mic (wo)men are spirited, but keep doing things that distract our team as opposed to disrupting our opponents. I feel like we don't really have home field advantage at CMS even though we should
This has been discussed among the fans the last couple of years. I have heard constant complaint about the electronic noise and many requests for more band music.
Nick, nice write up, again. My take is a bit different than yours. First of all, I hear players saying that offensive execution in practice is great, but it's quite obvious that it's really poor in our games. I believe the reason that our offensive execution in games is so poor is because we are actually playing against opponents that scheme to stop us, and thus are probably running different 'looks' against us. I also think that Somerville's offensive system is not as complex as many say because he has shown very little ability to keep opposing defenses off balance with his play calls. His play calling is vanilla at best and defensive coordinators know what is coming. It's not a recipe for success.
Second, when you cannot effectively run the ball then you can't effectively pass the ball. Our run game is terrible. Is it because of our personnel? I don't think so. I don't believe our OL personnel is that bad that they can't be successful. I really believe their lack of success is a combination of poor scheme and poor coaching. I see a breakdown in fundamentals on just about every play: guys losing their base and standing up, guys not finishing blocks, guys not going to the whistle. This is all on the coaching. Schemewise I need to watch more film but I am not a fan of our pass pro schemes.
Lastly, I have never been a fan of pro style offenses in college. They are complex and take a long time to learn and perfect. Heck, Tedfords's QB's typically needed 2 seasons to assimilate the playbook before succeeding. Remember Joe Ayoob? He was heralded as the best JC QB in the country, and not by a little bit, when he was recruited by Tedford. He did not have enough time in Tedfords system when he was forced into action and we all witnessed the result. I am a huge fan of a modified spread and I like Urban Meyer's spread where he utilizes tight ends, unlike Tony Franklin's Air Raid system.
What is clear is that Somerville is asking his kids to do things they can't do. I had to deal with a similar situation when I coached and we had a new OC come in. He had a playbook and wanted players to execute his plays. I looked at it and marked plays that I told him to dump, because my OL did not have the talent to successfully execute all of his plays. He wasn't happy about it but I told him I'd rather run plays that I know we can run successfully. A good coach doesn't make the players fit his playbook, he designs plays to maximize the strengths of his players. I'm not sure Somerville has done this.
Lastly, I would really like to see Somerville's play matrix where he lists plays that he can use for every down and distance situation. What I have seen thus far makes me think either that his list is not very diverse or that they install 20 plays a week, believing these plays will be effective against the opposing Defense, and then they stick to these plays for an 80 offensive play game. Neither situation is one built for success.
Lastly, I agree that it is too late to install a newer and simpler system and thus I think this year is going to be a big bust, unfortunately.
Good analysis! I don’t share your experience or expertise, but just as a fan I would note that sometimes you do see a team start to click midseason, so I hold out some small amount of hope for a turnaround still. But admittedly I have not seen anything that would tend to suggest that such a turnaround is likely.
Great observation. When teams start clicking its because they finally have had enough practice time, beyond Spring drills and Fall camp to finally execute the playbook properly. It's much more difficult to bring in a bunch of Portal transfers and get them up to speed in just Spring and Fall periods, especially when you have a complicated offense. I would love to see this happen with CAL, but I don't seen any real evidence of marginal improvement over our first 4 weeks. I think our schemes and plays on offense are problematic.
Best analysis on here. How about you go apply for the OC spot?
Thank you for this -- so helpful to hear from people who know.
Thank you for your appreciation. Just know that I am not always right. These are just my observations based on my playing and coaching experience. I do know for every defensive scheme/alignment, there is a play or there are plays that beat that alignment. And for every offensive play there is/are defensive schemes/alignments that are designed to beat the offensive play. The winner is the smarter coordinator that can either call the right play to beat the scheme or a smart QB who is allowed to audible to a new play when they see the defensive scheme id not favorable to the offensive play call. The Clemson DC owned our OC in this game.
Yes, were not wining the rock-paper-scissors battles.
We came to the same conclusion midway through the 4th quarter and did what we haven't done before, left the game early. I did not have an understanding as well articulated here by Rugbear, Nick, and others at that game Friday night, but I have seen our past four games and know enough to accept that this offense is so dysfunctional on every level it seems beyond fixing. Expensive mistake. Damn.
I always look forward to hearing your analysis. I’m still optimistic about Tosh long-term, but I think this is going to be a rougher transition than we thought. We need a really really solid OC for him to enjoy the success that I think he is capable of. I had hoped his experiment was going to work, but clearly it is failing on offense.
Thank you and I am 100% in agreement about Tosh. I like his energy, and I really like the pillars of his culture. I think as he is able to recruit kids out of high school and if the House passes the new college sports legislation which limits players to one transfer, that Tosh's hard work and recruiting prowess will come to the forefront. I also have to applaud him for the last interview he gave. Without throwing a coach or player under the bus he essentially said that the problem was not tenable, that he had other seasoned OC's and play callers and that the problem has been dealt with. That's a very classy way of demoting your OC and hopefully solving the problem.
Great analysis. I have a likely naive question: how was the epic across the board failure of the offense not seen in practices?
If I were the defensive coordinator in those practices, I would have said to Tosh "dude, your offense is not working."
Who’s to say he didn’t say that.
And, if he did, would Tosh listen and respond?
RR and Tosh need to do some real soul searching on O and ST. The D is coming together, but the GBs will get crushed the rest of the season without some drastic changes to 2 of the 3 facets of their game. The pro style O has been a disaster and JKS' talent is being squandered. Tosh saying "we're going to look at the tape, trust the process and work to get better every day" is not going to work for this offense. On current course we are going to struggle to get to 6 wins - which means portal transfers out and HS decommits. Big changes needed on O now! Please!
If at his weekly news conference Lupoi doesn’t announce a change in OC and implementation of a simple, straightforward offense that is plug and play rather than a complex NFL quagmire, that will tell us all we need to know about him, RR and the season’s trajectory. To continue with an offense that squanders the generational talent of JKS is tantamount to football malpractice and will make Cal the laughingstock of the season.
What Somerville has done knowing full well the talent he has to work with not only demonstrates a monumental ignorance of how the college game must be played today, but is a testimony to Lupoi’s inexperience and RR’s overindulgence in the face of the obvious.
Salvaging this season will require drastic changes in the offensive playbook to simplify the sets and turn JKS loose to do what he does best. If Mohammed is out then it will be up to someone else in the RB room to step up and provide the running game balance that this team will need going forward. As for the WR room, all I can say is that these guys are being paid a small fortune to get open and, lest we forget, TO CATCH THE FU$KING BALL!
As for ST, penalties, and missed tackles, that’s all about coaching, something that this team apparently desperately needs.
This all just drives me nuts!
Where is Mike Leach when u really need him. He made WSU teams competitive (and fun to watch) with much less talent than other pac12 teams. Rolo could be an answer to our current O woes, and he is even on the coaching staff!
Tosh was smart enough to keep Somerville shielded from the press session, where he would have gotten roasted. Rollovich needs to be made OC/Assist HC, and Somerville let go. Why this hasn't happened already is beyond me
Tosh's interviews and press conference are uninspiring IMO and often feel like drivel. I'm not exactly hopeful he's the guy to right this kind of capsizing ship mid season
At the end of the session Tosh bolted out of the room after blurting out "Hold on to your asses."
It's great having a head coach who is masterfully leading the program. 🤪
The most parsimonious move would be to let another QB come in to see if he can run the system. Brousseau looked like he was real comfortable in the short pass and screen game. Hate to waste JKS, but I just don't see us installing a new offense mid-season. Something is off with him and his receivers (and it's not just because of the poor pass protection). I think there's a danger in giving young kids too much money; I call it the Ott effect.
Everybody thinks Rolo is the answer but the run and shoot is not easy to install either. The QB and receivers need to be on the same page and right now they are not.
I have considered benching JKS for at least a half. This would give him a different perspective; one he has never had in college given he has started every game of his career. But boy 'o boy would the fan base go hay-knuckle if in that 1/2 of football we got torched. At this point everything should be up for consideration.
The whizz bang, cheesy game experience in which the Cal Band has been left to sit on its collective hands while the loudspeaker garbage fills in every crevice is insufferable, not fine (not absolving the Cal Band here, who need to cop an attitude, be more aggressive during the game: PLAY MORE OFTEN, turn and face your student section occasionally while playing, etc.). The finest football programs in the land feature their marching bands prominently because that is a big part of what makes college football games unique, and what in the past made attending a game at California Memorial Stadium special. It’s a shame that this is slipping away in favor of a crappy soundscape that has become tired, repetitive, predominantly canned. Scrap the DJ. And, please, stop playing Save Me, San Francisco.
My understanding is that they get in severe trouble whenever they play without permission of whoever is directing the overall game day experience. This is why you often hear them play more during away games than at home.
Damnation Agnes! Even the Cal band is stumbling this year.
Completely agree. The noise factor at the game is now such that my wife won't even go anymore. I go to see Cal play not be arranged the whole game by way-too-loud noise blaring from the speakers.
So loud that I can't hear Paws and Justin.
It does hurt looking at UCLA, which was more or less evenly matched with us at the beginning of the season, having the start we fantasized about for ourselves.
Can’t the truth be that this team is not as good as we hyped it pre-season and also not as bad as we’re saying it is now? We’re talking as if the season is tanked.
Alan: Good points. As I said in an earlier post, I'm trying to remain hopeful but I suppose we are going to have to see some real progress next week against UNLV. Also, being married to a Bruin and seeing their team heading in the right direction ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!!!!!!!
Sigh, we've gone past Toyota Tercel and Geo offenses. The question are we right now an Edsel or a Pinto?
I was one of the Old Blues who predicted around 6 wins this preseason. Unless something changes, I don't see how we get 4 more wins
A good analysis. I have always thought this year was being way over-hyped. Anyone who has played team sports know how hard it is to integrate a bunch of new players into a successful team. Put on top of that a completely new ( and complex) system and you have a recipe for potential problems. You are correct, the offensive scheme has been a total disaster and dealing with that is going to be the major challenge of Tosh's young career. Other side of the ball, I think the defense shows real promise and the DC has done a good job of that integration. I'm willing to give it some time to see what unfolds but I still think the Bears are moving in tge right direction. Just not as fast as we (probably unreasonably) wanted to see.
What you write is true, but just head 300 miles south to Westwood and see how it is done. We had a higher ranked transfer class and a better rated QB. Yet...
It's really galling that the Baby Bruins started from a worse place than Cal and they are now 4-0 and putting up 50 points a game against BIG 10 opponents. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
While the bruins' success is laudable, the major difference is that their new coach brought several assistants and key players with him from JMU (a playoff team last year). So they had a giant advantage in integrating players into a proven system.
This is the age of the portal. You don't get two to three years to implement your system anymore. Players come and go in one year. Maybe "pro style" offense works in the NFL, but a college OC needs a system simple enough for players to excel in one season.
I appreciate your patience and optimism. From what I gather from the diseased brains that pore over every detail of past performance, our trajectory is all wrong. We’re getting worse, not better. Our star is shackled, not liberated, by “ the process”.
On another note, I hate to hear that the game experience has been overtaken by whiz-bang production values over band leadership and entertainment.
I hope we can take it to UNLV, but good, and that JKS, Mohammed et al stay healthy and flourish.
Tosh sounds more like a meathead the more I hear him. I don’t watch or listen to him anymore.
Where is Archie Bunker when we need him?
I had never left the game early until this game. It was unwatchable. Defense is getting better but we are still missing tackles.
Did JKS ever have any clean pocket in this game? He was facing the defenders in his face more than Goff did.
UCLA had the advantage that the (very experienced) coach brought with him 10 (very goid) players from a playoff team the year before and he installed the same system he had used at JMU. That gave UCLA a huge head start.
Great write up, Nick. I see it from another perspective-a mid tier distressed asset turnaround that inexplicably chose a zero alpha op/ execution model {GM(0) + HC(0) + OC/PC(0)} with seemingly 0 Cal alum/Haas turnaround expertise/strategic oversight/risk assessment/management/mitigation/org/structural/systems/PE/VC input & the predictably abysmal ROI on the unprecedented $80+M injection. No amount of RL barreling out of the end zone on a banana bike & flashy gimmicks can distract from the reality that RR/TL/JS are/were completely in the dark wrt to their most basic/critical assignment-protecting/supporting/the development of the Star QB this historic rebuild centered around. They gave him a dude whose play calling experience is 12U. This was an egregious gamble & I personally am not wanting those who architected an organizational failure on this level to fix it. I love Cal football & hope some pros have been engaged to right this ship & STAT. Go Bears forever, just not like this.
After seeing the punt returned for 6 and, on the ensuing possession, the two anemic runs up the middle (why not have a sweep (counter or not), wheel, play action or anything else on 2nd down?!!?!) for another loss of possession, I could not take it anymore! We decided to jam early which NEVER happened in the past (Also my 2nd grader was not enjoying the loud music or the Clemson fan behind me who had a little too much to drink). I asked her if she wanted to go to the VT game and she said when it’s less crowded and with headphones. I think I just may be taking her. Haha. go Bears!