The picture you see above was taken by me, of my paused TV, while watching the game at home.
What you see in the image above was in immediate reaction to a Towns McGough made field goal as time expired in the first half, tying the game at 10-10 entering halftime.
I don’t want to knock Tosh Lupoi for celebrating a made kick or anything. Heck, in some sense, maybe 10-10 was something worth celebrating. Cal started the game with 5 straight empty possessions on offense, gaining just 42 yards on 18 plays. Finding a way to scrape together even some tiny semblance of offensive production in the 2nd quarter was a form of progress.
But Cal had just authored a truly terrible half of offense against a team that had spent the first half of the season getting gashed by every single FBS team on the schedule. So for obvious reasons, Tosh’s upraised arms reminded me of a different piece of ACC legend:
Yes, Frank Beamer celebrating reaching overtime scoreless against 2-8 Wake Forest in 2014. Virginia Tech would go on to lose the game 6-3, a result that signaled the terminal decline of his otherwise tremendous run with the Hokies. Beamer would announce his retirement a year later.
Cal would take the momentum earned from that end of half field goal and turn it into a 0-21 second half performance to a team that just fired their head coach.
The image of a coach celebrating a small positive in a sea of problems rang very, very familiar.
Offense
Efficiency Report
13 drives: 1 touchdown, 2 field goal attempts (1-2), 7 punts, 2 turnovers (1 interception, 1 downs), 0.8 points/drive.
As I watched the game, I was mostly just shrugging in indifference because I’ve already given up on the season. But in retrospect, this was a deeply depressing showing. Consider NC State’s pass defense game log:
Against a pass defense that has been shredded by every FBS team it has faced, Cal looked more like Richmond than Appalachian State.
JKS, the avatar of Cal fan hopes and a presumed NFL talent, wasted throwing various 5 yard routes.
The desperate hunt for efficiency that cannot be found
The Cal offense has a massive problem: they are approximately the worst rushing team in the country. The Bears are averaging 3.8 yards/designed run, making it nearly impossible to sustain drives.
Against NC State, we saw a bunch of different wrinkles all intended to try to manufacture running game production, and offensive efficiency. You had direct snaps to Ashten Emory. You had four zone read plays with Dominic Ingrassia at QB. There was a (very ill-advised) JKS zone read keeper. You had a direct snap to [checks notes] Mason Mini?!?!
Approximately none of these little wrinkles were notably successful. Cal averaged 3.9 yards/designed run against NC State’s mediocre run defense, just like in every other game. And I think Cal’s coaching staff might be approaching building the offense from the wrong viewpoint.
Modern football analytics has recently spent a lot of time looking at the value of explosiveness vs. efficiency. Based on what I’ve seen from Cal’s offense since moving on from Jordan Somerville, I suspect that Cal’s coaches are spending lots of time trying to find ways to be more efficient, to stay ahead of the chains. God knows you’ve heard every color guy on earth talk about how '“this is an offense that just can’t afford to get behind the chains,” right?
But here’s the thing: it is impossible for this Cal offense to regularly stay ‘ahead of the chains.’ Maaaaaybe it would be possible if Cal had a health collection of skill position talent, but that’s not what Cal has. What Cal has is an offensive line that cannot run block and skill position players who cannot reliably break tackles and turn 3 yards into 6 or 7.
If Cal wants to score points, they have to hunt for explosive plays. It is not a coincidence that Cal’s only touchdown of the game came with an explosive play, a 30 yard downfield pass to Chase Hendricks.
To be clear: I have plenty of sympathy for Pat McCann, who was given the near impossible task of trying to install on offense on the fly mid-season. And if Cal changed their offensive philosophy to spend the entire game hunting for big play opportunities, I have no illusion that the offense would magically become good. There would still be a ton of failed drives, probably more sacks, maybe more turnovers as well.
But I also think it plays into literally the only plus skill you have right now: JKS’s ability to throw accurate balls downfield. I’d much rather give Cal’s WRs chances to make contested catches downfield than . . . well, what we saw on Saturday.
Because bringing in Dominic Ingrassia to run the world’s most predictable zone read, or running a wildcat to a non-QB? That’s a one way ticket to, well, 0.8 points/drive against one of the worst defenses in the ACC.
Defense
Efficiency Report
12 drives: 4 touchdowns, 2 field goal attempts (1-2), 5 punts, 1 turnover (1 fumble), 2.6 points/drive.
Again, a tale of two halves for the Cal defense:
1st half: 32 plays, 116 yards (3.6 yards/play), 10 points allowed
2nd half: 30 plays, 204 yards (6.8 yards/play), 21 points allowed
For 30 minutes, Cal’s defense allowed basically nothing except for one explosive play to start the game. But in the 3rd quarter NC State found a little bit of running game efficiency that set them up for explosive plays when they reached midfield, and that was all she wrote.
A return to the Cal 2026 defensive default
Before getting bested in every way by Wake and SMU, Cal’s defense was defined by mostly strong play ruined by penalties and busts. And against a non-elite offense, Cal returned to just that. Here are events on NC State’s 4 touchdown drives:
TD 1: 49 yard bust on a sideline go route when AJ Tuitele was late to recognize his man-to-man responsibility when a RB lined up wide.
TD 2: 38 yard touchdown pass when Cal couldn’t get pressure on an empty set, Bailey looks off Lopa as the lone safety, and Jae’on Young gets beat on the deep post.
TD 3: NC State gets a 29 yard run when Solomon Williams gets sucked inside and leaves the outside gap wide open, AND Ricky Fletcher commits a pass interference to shorten the drive.
TD 4: Cal commits a face mask AND an unsportsmanlike, then Kamar Mothudi gets beaten when he somehow gets assigned to a WR in motion for a 36 yard gain.
If you take away those 4 explosives, and NC State gained a terrible 2.9 yards/play. But that’s entirely unsatisfying, no?
Earlier in the year, I’d point out how Cal played pretty good outside of a few explosive plays and the back-breaking penalties, and hope that Cal could cut out the busts and penalties and become a complete defense.
Here we are in game 9, and Cal is still getting busts and committing very costly penalties, and that’s just the reality of who the Bears are this year.
I’d also point out a structural problem: Cal’s busts are very frequently when opposing offenses create skill position mismatches in coverage against Cal’s linebackers. Cal’s ILBs are talented, but young and not yet effective in coverage responsibilities. Maybe this is something that can be drilled in the off-season, but it’s been a major weakness this season.
Lopa vs. CJ Bailey was narrowly a win for NC State
If there was a path to a win, it was Kingston Lopa creating havoc against CJ Bailey’s attempts to go deep. And Lopa nearly paid that matchup off, getting close on a couple of potential interceptions when he read Bailey’s eyes and jumped routes. But Bailey looked off Lopa for a key touchdown pass in the 3rd quarter, and was able to pay off enough downfield looks away from Lopa to power NC State to the win.
Special Teams
Another game, more bad idea kickoff returns
3 returns in this game, resulting in an average starting field position of the 18 yard line. I realize that this is both boring, beating a dead horse, and also complaining about roughly the 117th biggest problem facing Cal football. But it frustrates me because it is a problem that could be fixed in 10 seconds but Cal keeps lighting field position on fire every game.
Game Theory/Coaching
Tosh Lupoi’s 4th down approach is not built for the team he has.
With 13:21 left in the 2nd quarter, trailing 7-0, Cal attempted a 4th and 3 from the NC State 47.
If you’ve been reading my columns for any length of time you know that I usually love 4th down aggressiveness. But we must consider the facts: Cal’s offense is horribly inefficient generally, and bad on 4th down conversions specifically. Cal is 7th in the country in 4th down conversion attempts . . . and 129th in the country in conversion success rate.
You must also consider the upside and the downside. The upside of a conversion is that Cal will still be 40-odd yards away from the end zone with an offense that struggles badly to string together 1st downs. The value of a conversion is not outweighed by the risk of handing any offense the ball at midfield, when Cal’s defense is liable to commit a penalty and basically hand the opponent a free field goal.
And that’s what happened. NC State goes on an 8 play, 27 yard drive, but 10 of those 27 yards came from a holding penalty because Solomon Williams (???) was caught in coverage. If this drive had started at the 25, no problem. But it started at midfield, so NC State got a free shot at 3 points, which they converted.
Big Picture
You, me, and every other Cal fan was naïvely hoping that blowout losses to SMU and Wake Forest said more about how good those teams were and less about how bad Cal is, and that returning to playing flawed teams would result at least in competitive games, if not wins.
Getting blown out by a coach-less NC State deflates that hope, and it means there is exactly one goal left for the season:
Beat Stanford.
This will go down as one of the crappiest Big Games of all time, matching up arguably the two worst teams in power conference football. I don’t give a damn, get me The Axe back.
Cal plays Stanford in three weeks. Cal’s coaching staff should spend all three weeks scouting Stanford, prepping plays, saving up tricks, and pulling out all the stops to win the only game I and most Cal fans give a damn about. I mean come on, are you telling me anybody is going to get jazzed about a road win over Virginia?
Meanwhile:
Mike Norvel fired, $50 million buyout
Mike Locksley fired, $10 million buyout
Dave Aranda fired, $12 million buyout
Dave Doeren fired, $10 million buyout
Tosh Lupoi’s buyout in year one? $18 million. Next year? 14.8 million, then 11.4 million.
I don’t enjoy the fact that these numbers must be considered and discussed, but I think we all understand where we are and the direction events are likely to go.