My overriding sense while watching the game was that it felt like Cal was playing and coaches were calling plays as if they knew they were going to win the game. No sense of urgency, no clever calls, just buy-the-book, let's just go through the motions of what dominant teams do. It's like no one had looked at the scoreboard.
I want to point out that I had my Nevada and TCU articles already prewritten, and I essentially said the same thing about the comparison of Cal to TCU. However, after watching Cal's last game, I'm not so sure if this thesis holds up anymore and if I should change it. Max Duggan is like Chase Garbers when he was at his peak.
Cal football instagram always posts final score even if it's a loss. Last Saturday the final post was the half time score and never posted anything after it. That's how embarrassed they were.
We had multiple chances at winning the game. Thats the fact. The INT to FGA. The 4th down stop. There were so many chances. the first quarter and our defense gave us MULTIPLE shots. the offense just could not execute and find something that worked semi-consistently in the second half. simple as that.
Having, like most of us, the usual reaction aka "feeling/attitude" about a loss like this, I more deeply investigated the cause and effect. Certainly gone that route many games before.
Posing questions to myself such as if the game was exactly the same. Except we made a TD in that last red zone. Then happened to get a 4 & out or any other negation of a Nevada scoring success, by hook or by crook and ended up with the win.
ak_A would have been quite pleased aside from the visceral relief of dodging that bullet. Sure, it was close and we didn't perform very well over a large span of downs. Should not have been that close, etc.
Now, how does that set with me? And we've been here before too i.e. North Texas, Weber State, etc. The win salved the ego and yes the performance was disappointing but I was several steps back from the doom cliff concerning the next game. But, in the Nevada game's those key events just happened to not come about.
So here are a couple of thoughts for you that should be included in any analysis (Coaches look at this stuff): 1. How many passes were delivered accurately that were dropped as a total number and percentage of total pass attempts; 2. How many incomplete passes were poor passes as a total number and as a percentage of total pass attempts; 3. How many times was the QB hurried or harassed out of the total number of pass attempts and as a percentage of total pass attempts; 4. How may times on plays that were NOT obvious pass play situations did someone on the o-line change up their stance because the play was actually a pass, and as a result allow the D could read pass? (It happened way more than you think - you can't get away at the college level with cheating on your stance). I think these metrics will lead to a good understanding of our breakdown after our first quarter success. After the first quarter UNR started bringing more guys into the box to stop our run. In doing so they took away our short pass game as well. It forced Chase to throw longer passes, thereby allowing their pass rush more time to pressure Chase. UNR did an excellent job of staying disciplined in pass rush lanes and made it very difficult for Chase to get room to scramble. Our roll out passes gave him more time, but I'd like to see metrics on Chases effectiveness on roll out pass completions. Something tells me he's not Pat Mahomes trying to throw on the move.
You know....I think there was a reason that 2/3 of the post game questions revolved around....why did you stop running the ball? I disagree with this somewhat- "Almost everybody aesthetically loves a long, sustained drive. The problem is that it’s really hard to consistently execute long, sustained drives. Inevitably you’re going to make a mistake on a play and/or your opponent is going to make a great play, and then you’re behind schedule, and then the drive ends."
The complement to a team with a stout defense is always a ball-control, time of possession, field position, boring but methodical offense. If the other team doesn't have the ball, they can't score. I don't remember seeing one running play where we got less than five yards. Use your tight ends, play action off of that, a few designed QB runs, and you can also compensate when the defense sells out against the run. I'm not saying that you never throw the ball downfield, but understand that it's a lower percentage play, and calling all of those passing plays can be drive killers.
There were poor throws, dropped balls, and a lot of other problems....but I'm going to say that was still one of the most poorly called offensive games I've seen in a long time. I don't get it, it's not like Musgrave hasn't ever utilized a run-first offense, he's actually very good at it. We have a very good O-line, and four backs that could all start for us....every time they were given the opportunity, they showed that.
We had 153 yards rushing to their 161. On the passing side our numbers were ok but not great. Chase was 25/38 for 177 yards and one interception. Strong was 22 of 39 for 312 yards and one int. Chase had a better completion % and same int number. The difference in this game was explosive plays. That's it. I want to watch the whole game again instead of just highlight, but based on what I saw in the highlight tape Chase rarely had time to set up for the deep ball.
You will never succeed running the ball over and over. You have to have a pass game as well to win. Our run game should have opened up our pass game. The problem was our o-line was way less effective in pass protection than run blocking.
I never said "run the ball over and over". But I believe we had seven (7) rushing attempts in the second and third quarter? You can always call some play action or RPO plays from the run game, bootlegs, designed QB runs, and also some downfield passes for sure. But we all but abandoned the running game....when that should be our strength? Yes....Nevada had more explosive plays....because we kept giving them the damn ball back too many times. As far as pass protection, I'm no expert, but I don't recall seeing more than a couple of QB hurries....?
True most of the time, but Nevada showed no ability to stop us, so why try to start passing with low percentage passes? It seems like we were 2nd and 10 or 2nd and 7 every time we threw, so that created a lot of 3rd and longs where the football bible says you need to pass, leading to more three and outs.
Excellent write-up but have two disagreements: 1) I am prolly the only one who was ok with declining the penalty. Yes, 3rd & 28 is nice, but with Strong "throw[ing] the ball all over the field" it was highly likely they pick up 10+ on that 3rd down, making it 4th and say 15 or 4th and 10, and a much shorter FG attempt. 2) Not sold on Strong. Still believe that Slovis has a better shot at Sunday work. Finally, Cal's D was fortunate that Nevada had ~7 dropped passes, or the score would not have been close.
I was 50/50 on the penalty but I probably would have taken it. If Nevada throws an incompletion, we get a sack or they complete a short pass (5-7 yards) or throws a pick then they don’t get any points.
yes, converting a 3rd and 28 is extremely low but that is not the expected outcome which is/was: can Strong complete a 10+ yard pass against soft coverage, and those odds are pretty good. Thus, instead of 4th and 18, it would have likely resulted in 4th and less than 18, for a shorter FG attempt. (Not to mention a possible bad PI call..)
I have real issues with Wilcox’s decision to run a pro style offense and it ever being successful at Cal.
1. Pro style offenses can be complex and difficult to master due to the lack of practice time and the constant churn of a college football roster.
2. You need a lot of talent to run it successfully and Cal just can’t recruit at the level needed to make it work.
3. Most high school recruits no longer play in pro style offenses in high school. Most high schools have adopted the spread so how many HS players want to go from spread to pro style. The players that do come, you’re often trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
4. You can see even teams like Bama, ND, and just about everyone has moved away from the pro style, college football is evolving. We need to evolve with it.
I love the pro style, but I agree with all of your points against it. Much too complicated for college. Like you said, there is almost always too much churn in college. If you have Aaron Rodgers, it's great, but he's going to graduate or leave for the draft. If he gets hurt, you better hope his understudy has been learning the system for a while and is pretty smart. As Rugbear pointed out, if your tackles aren't top-notch, your QB has no time to set up for his throws. Contrast this with Mike Leach. I don't necessarily want to go all Air Raid, but every single quarterback he puts in his system throws for 500 yards a game. The blocking schemes in the Air Raid also help to compensate if you don't have near-NFL level of talent on the o-line. Whatever system you use has to be more plug-and-play than the pro style.
ST's were bad, really bad IMO. The punter was under duress on each punt, we were fortunate a punt wasn't blocked. How STs continues to be such a liability does not bode well. Hell our punt coverage sucked, how difficult is it to maintain lane assignment?
It appears, to me, that Garbers has no self confidence. Either he himself knows he can't make the throws necessary or he has such a mental block about it that his body won't allow him to make the throws. If we see him pressing in the next game than it is time for a new QB. Simple.
At the very least Cal needs to "see" another QB on the field. At some point this season, Wilcox will need to choose if his livelihood boils down to CG. I'd like to think Wilcox is smart enough to know that he needs to look at other "options". Cuz 4 years w/ the same QB hasn't produced different results.
Agree on all accounts. Garbers has some serious flaws that I hoped Musgrave would correct and didn’t. The ST are so poorly coached that a few high school teams could put play. Our offensive line for all of their size and “experience” failed to decently protect the QB in pass protection.
Then the bonehead strategy mistakes throughout the game.
This is a HUGE coaching issue at a number of critical senior staff positions. I believe we have strong players who have the ability to be a very competitive team; however, the coaching level at this point is simply not good enough.
Agree. We need to block and hold for a second instead of just letting guys run through. And on pass return we MUST put some pressure on the opposing team punter so that he doesn't have all day to move around and do a rugby style punt, thereby letting his coverage get downfield. ST's are an ongoing issue and Wilcox needs to be unmerciful about fixing it.
College football is dictated by offense nowadays. Its obvious in the CFP with those teams putting up 40 every week, but even at Cal’s level its much easier to be consistent on offense than it is to try to hold opponents to less than 20 and win. Wilcox needs to figure out the QB position this season or his tenure is gonna be as limited as the Bears passing game.
Great article Nick. I have calmed down a bit since Saturday night thinking maybe, just maybe Wilcox can turn it around. The defense was OK after all, not great but adequate enough to win the game. We have to be able to score more than 22 points. I don't know if there is the time and/or the inclination to modify the passing game but that surely must happen. Chase is not a pure pocket passer like Goff or Davis Webb, and we were spoiled with their ability to deliver all of the throws. Musgrave has to let Chase improvise, roll out, and throw on the run if need be, or run it himself - that's his strength. Otherwise it's going to be a very long season for the Cal offense.
If he's going to turn it around, it has to happen next Saturday. If Cal loses to TCU, it will require them to have a winning season in the Pac 12 just to finish 6-6 (assuming they can beat my alma mater, Sac State). We all know that Cal has not had a winning record in the Pac since 2009. Tedford couldn't do in his last three years, Sonny couldn't do it in his four years, and Wilcox appears not likely to do it in his fifth year.
I just had an epiphany and a way to get revenge on a Nevada team that has put the whammy on Cal three straight times. Let's say Wilcox takes a header this year and does not turn the offense around. It would then become apparent his ceiling was never a head coach, but a always good defensive coordinator. The Cal administration and boosters pony up and go after Jay Norvell as the next head coach. He would be the first African American head coach at Cal with the bonafides to turn the offense around pretty quickly. He has been a successful offensive mind at places like Nebraska, Oklahama, Texas and Arizona State. And now he has one of the best offenses on the West Coast at Nevada after finding and developing NFL level talent like Strong, Doubs, Cooks, and Turner.
I only dare bring this up because five straight three and outs against a team you should beat at home is just too painful to consider for the short term and long term future.
THAT is a great idea! We should take a page from Oregon. When we beat them last year with a great defense they decided to hire 'Root and one of our other coaches and I'm afraid it is going to have an impact when we meet them in a few weeks. I really like Wilcox but if he can't turn things around, then I hope that his replacement will bring good offense AND defense to the program. Ever since Tedford was fired, we are either all offense (Dykes) or all defense (Wilcox). Why can't we get it right?
Tell me why we were supposed to beat UNR at home. Because they are a Mountain West school? That's unreasonable thinking. As a P5 school we should be a solid matchup against Mountain West schools. But UNR is a preseason favorite to win their conference. They have a QB who has been touted as a to 3 draft pick. They have two WR's and a tight end who will probably play on Sundays. They are a GOOD team and we should not fool ourselves into thinking we're a better team just because we are in the PAC12 and a P5 conference.
Let's start with Cal was not supposed to be just any Pac 12 team. They were picked by the experts and fellow coaches to finish third behind Washington and Oregon in the North Division. And they were named 3.5 point favorites by Vegas. And then you add in a returning 4-year quarterback in Garbers who had the rep - last year notwithstanding - of winning games he started and finished. Lots of experience behind him, too. Then you add in the size advantage in the trenches. Cal proved it by running the ball down Nevada's throat and going up by 14 points before you could blink.
So yes, Cal should have won on paper. But what was not calculated was player development during the off season and game planning by the coaches. It was pretty clear from watching the game that Nevada wanted it more and had coaches that made better adjustments. I will just go right out and say it now...they have better coaches with better schemes that fit the talent they have. For that program to have four or five NFL ready guys on their offense when probably none of them received much attention from Pac 12 programs is pretty remarkable.
I don't know if any of you read my prediction of the game outcome: I said we would either win big going away (like the 1st quarter) or we would lose close in the final minutes. Lastly, I understand everything you are saying, but go back to what I said about UNR having a potential TOP 3 DRAFT PICK at QB, two WR's and a tight end that will play on Sundays, they ARE a good team, probably better than TCU. As to adjustments, we made them, but we DID NOT EXECUTE. And we did not have any explosive plays, unlike UNR. Lastly, in 2010 UNR had Colin Kaepernick at QB and they ended the season ranked 15th in the December 5th BCS poll. This year's UNR team could be better than the pundits realize.
We can't make explosive plays when our fastest receivers are on the bench. Honestly, our best receivers all transferred and now we're sitting here relying on who would have been their backups while the freshmen sit. I don't get it. I know playbooks can be hard to pick up in your first year, but we're instead deciding to just rely on a roster that hasn't worked for 3 years.
We will find out how good of a team Nevada is when they go on the road to play Kansas State, the team that just knocked off Stanford. I predict they lose that game. I agree with you they are a very good Mountain West team, but they do not play particularly well on the road (until Saturday night, that is). They got beat in Hawaii last year. They will have a nice little 10-2 regular season and beat Tulane in the Captain Crunch Bowl. And I am thinking that record would be 6-6 if they played Cal's schedule.
I think the comparison to the 2010 Nevada team is a much different animal. Kaepernick was a player that college football had never seen before. He was also perfectly suited for Chris Ault's pistol offense. He remains the only college quarterback in history who had over 9,000 passing yards and 3,000 yards rushing. No wait a minute....I'm wrong there. There was another quarterback who did that. His name was Cody Fajardo. He also played for Nevada and was the guy who ruined Cal's new stadium opening in 2012.
We had a few explosive running plays but we had no explosive passing plays. That’s a big part of the problem and why Nevada had a much better passing game than us despite similar passing attempts and completions.
Lastly, I agree that on offense they have talent but that defense is not talented enough to hold a decent Pac 12 team to only 17 points.
Our defense played well enough to win the game and held a talented and explosive offense in check. Our offense couldn’t exploit an average MWC defense. Which isn’t a good sign when we will be facing teams with more talent on defense.
I agree with your first premise and would hope to agree with your second one, but if you watch the film, it's pretty clear where we got beat...and for a PAC12 team, it should not have happened.
Yes the Nevada offense is good and has some talent at QB and WR. Our defense did a good job of holding all that offensive talent to 22 points. We didn’t lose this game because we couldn’t stop Nevada.
Nevada lacks talent on defense. How many of those defenders do you think get drafted? The issue is our offense was shut down for 3 quarters against a defense that is probably below average in terms of Pac 12 talent.
I don't know the whole picture. How many were dropped (I counted at least 5). Even with these he had a decent pass completion percentage. And how many misses and the int were obvious throws? The int at the end was an obvious late 4th quarter with no time outs left play. Where do you go in that situation? The sideline. While I wasn't super impressed with Chase's game, from the limited film I watched, he wasn't bad either. He had a better efficiency than Strong, he just didn't have the deep throws. And that leads to the question of why. The film tells me that it's not all on Chase. The o-line did not give him the time to set up in the pocket and throw the deep ball. And that's on the film and the film doesn't lie.
That would be an informed hire. I have always liked Wilcox and he plays the coach at Cal role very well. The problem is the results and the under .500 conference performance as you suggest.
I wonder if the executive search firm AD will hire would be smart enough to contact him. And if Norvell has a successful season someone lease will probably offer him more than we would be able.
Excellent write up! Thanks for doing this each game.
My overriding sense while watching the game was that it felt like Cal was playing and coaches were calling plays as if they knew they were going to win the game. No sense of urgency, no clever calls, just buy-the-book, let's just go through the motions of what dominant teams do. It's like no one had looked at the scoreboard.
At least we're not Washington #woof
OT: did y'all see Mike Saffell on the sideline w/ headphones on speaking with Wilcox? I wonder what role he is playing on the staff.
He posted a photo of himself on twitter with a playsheet in hand. I would guess he's working as a GA https://twitter.com/1031michael/status/1434987922403508225?s=20
Reasonable, reasoned and well said. Thank you.
Does all of this mean that we aren't going to the Rose Bowl?
Non conference game
Btw, here's a preseason Scouting Report for TCU. You could probably replace TCU with CAL and it would be the same report. https://collegefootballnews.com/2021/08/tcu-cfn-college-football-preview-2021
I want to point out that I had my Nevada and TCU articles already prewritten, and I essentially said the same thing about the comparison of Cal to TCU. However, after watching Cal's last game, I'm not so sure if this thesis holds up anymore and if I should change it. Max Duggan is like Chase Garbers when he was at his peak.
Cal football instagram always posts final score even if it's a loss. Last Saturday the final post was the half time score and never posted anything after it. That's how embarrassed they were.
We had multiple chances at winning the game. Thats the fact. The INT to FGA. The 4th down stop. There were so many chances. the first quarter and our defense gave us MULTIPLE shots. the offense just could not execute and find something that worked semi-consistently in the second half. simple as that.
Having, like most of us, the usual reaction aka "feeling/attitude" about a loss like this, I more deeply investigated the cause and effect. Certainly gone that route many games before.
Posing questions to myself such as if the game was exactly the same. Except we made a TD in that last red zone. Then happened to get a 4 & out or any other negation of a Nevada scoring success, by hook or by crook and ended up with the win.
ak_A would have been quite pleased aside from the visceral relief of dodging that bullet. Sure, it was close and we didn't perform very well over a large span of downs. Should not have been that close, etc.
Now, how does that set with me? And we've been here before too i.e. North Texas, Weber State, etc. The win salved the ego and yes the performance was disappointing but I was several steps back from the doom cliff concerning the next game. But, in the Nevada game's those key events just happened to not come about.
C'est la vie. Next.
So here are a couple of thoughts for you that should be included in any analysis (Coaches look at this stuff): 1. How many passes were delivered accurately that were dropped as a total number and percentage of total pass attempts; 2. How many incomplete passes were poor passes as a total number and as a percentage of total pass attempts; 3. How many times was the QB hurried or harassed out of the total number of pass attempts and as a percentage of total pass attempts; 4. How may times on plays that were NOT obvious pass play situations did someone on the o-line change up their stance because the play was actually a pass, and as a result allow the D could read pass? (It happened way more than you think - you can't get away at the college level with cheating on your stance). I think these metrics will lead to a good understanding of our breakdown after our first quarter success. After the first quarter UNR started bringing more guys into the box to stop our run. In doing so they took away our short pass game as well. It forced Chase to throw longer passes, thereby allowing their pass rush more time to pressure Chase. UNR did an excellent job of staying disciplined in pass rush lanes and made it very difficult for Chase to get room to scramble. Our roll out passes gave him more time, but I'd like to see metrics on Chases effectiveness on roll out pass completions. Something tells me he's not Pat Mahomes trying to throw on the move.
You know....I think there was a reason that 2/3 of the post game questions revolved around....why did you stop running the ball? I disagree with this somewhat- "Almost everybody aesthetically loves a long, sustained drive. The problem is that it’s really hard to consistently execute long, sustained drives. Inevitably you’re going to make a mistake on a play and/or your opponent is going to make a great play, and then you’re behind schedule, and then the drive ends."
The complement to a team with a stout defense is always a ball-control, time of possession, field position, boring but methodical offense. If the other team doesn't have the ball, they can't score. I don't remember seeing one running play where we got less than five yards. Use your tight ends, play action off of that, a few designed QB runs, and you can also compensate when the defense sells out against the run. I'm not saying that you never throw the ball downfield, but understand that it's a lower percentage play, and calling all of those passing plays can be drive killers.
There were poor throws, dropped balls, and a lot of other problems....but I'm going to say that was still one of the most poorly called offensive games I've seen in a long time. I don't get it, it's not like Musgrave hasn't ever utilized a run-first offense, he's actually very good at it. We have a very good O-line, and four backs that could all start for us....every time they were given the opportunity, they showed that.
“Use your tight ends“
That’s just crazy talk - who ever heard of such a thing??? (asking for my friend Bill Musgrave)
We had 153 yards rushing to their 161. On the passing side our numbers were ok but not great. Chase was 25/38 for 177 yards and one interception. Strong was 22 of 39 for 312 yards and one int. Chase had a better completion % and same int number. The difference in this game was explosive plays. That's it. I want to watch the whole game again instead of just highlight, but based on what I saw in the highlight tape Chase rarely had time to set up for the deep ball.
Our passing numbers were abysmal. 4.7 yards per attempt compared to Nevada’s 8. Throw out the completion % numbers as that is misleading in this game.
Mistake : UNR only had 61 rushing yards....sorry...I type like shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG-uwxWZk6c
You will never succeed running the ball over and over. You have to have a pass game as well to win. Our run game should have opened up our pass game. The problem was our o-line was way less effective in pass protection than run blocking.
I never said "run the ball over and over". But I believe we had seven (7) rushing attempts in the second and third quarter? You can always call some play action or RPO plays from the run game, bootlegs, designed QB runs, and also some downfield passes for sure. But we all but abandoned the running game....when that should be our strength? Yes....Nevada had more explosive plays....because we kept giving them the damn ball back too many times. As far as pass protection, I'm no expert, but I don't recall seeing more than a couple of QB hurries....?
True most of the time, but Nevada showed no ability to stop us, so why try to start passing with low percentage passes? It seems like we were 2nd and 10 or 2nd and 7 every time we threw, so that created a lot of 3rd and longs where the football bible says you need to pass, leading to more three and outs.
Excellent write-up but have two disagreements: 1) I am prolly the only one who was ok with declining the penalty. Yes, 3rd & 28 is nice, but with Strong "throw[ing] the ball all over the field" it was highly likely they pick up 10+ on that 3rd down, making it 4th and say 15 or 4th and 10, and a much shorter FG attempt. 2) Not sold on Strong. Still believe that Slovis has a better shot at Sunday work. Finally, Cal's D was fortunate that Nevada had ~7 dropped passes, or the score would not have been close.
What's actually sad was that Wilcox did not trust the defense and instead relied on Nevada to miss FG.
I was 50/50 on the penalty but I probably would have taken it. If Nevada throws an incompletion, we get a sack or they complete a short pass (5-7 yards) or throws a pick then they don’t get any points.
Chances of converting a 3rd and 28 are slim.
Yes, but with Carson Strong and those receivers if they do it was game over.
Making that field goal ended the game.
yes, converting a 3rd and 28 is extremely low but that is not the expected outcome which is/was: can Strong complete a 10+ yard pass against soft coverage, and those odds are pretty good. Thus, instead of 4th and 18, it would have likely resulted in 4th and less than 18, for a shorter FG attempt. (Not to mention a possible bad PI call..)
I have real issues with Wilcox’s decision to run a pro style offense and it ever being successful at Cal.
1. Pro style offenses can be complex and difficult to master due to the lack of practice time and the constant churn of a college football roster.
2. You need a lot of talent to run it successfully and Cal just can’t recruit at the level needed to make it work.
3. Most high school recruits no longer play in pro style offenses in high school. Most high schools have adopted the spread so how many HS players want to go from spread to pro style. The players that do come, you’re often trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
4. You can see even teams like Bama, ND, and just about everyone has moved away from the pro style, college football is evolving. We need to evolve with it.
I love the pro style, but I agree with all of your points against it. Much too complicated for college. Like you said, there is almost always too much churn in college. If you have Aaron Rodgers, it's great, but he's going to graduate or leave for the draft. If he gets hurt, you better hope his understudy has been learning the system for a while and is pretty smart. As Rugbear pointed out, if your tackles aren't top-notch, your QB has no time to set up for his throws. Contrast this with Mike Leach. I don't necessarily want to go all Air Raid, but every single quarterback he puts in his system throws for 500 yards a game. The blocking schemes in the Air Raid also help to compensate if you don't have near-NFL level of talent on the o-line. Whatever system you use has to be more plug-and-play than the pro style.
I liked the spread offense Cal ran around 2006-2007.
As did I. One of Tedfords biggest mistakes was letting OC Dunbar leave.
Although those teams did have awesome RBs, WRs who had speed to separate, and QB who could complete a pass downfield.
ST's were bad, really bad IMO. The punter was under duress on each punt, we were fortunate a punt wasn't blocked. How STs continues to be such a liability does not bode well. Hell our punt coverage sucked, how difficult is it to maintain lane assignment?
It appears, to me, that Garbers has no self confidence. Either he himself knows he can't make the throws necessary or he has such a mental block about it that his body won't allow him to make the throws. If we see him pressing in the next game than it is time for a new QB. Simple.
At the very least Cal needs to "see" another QB on the field. At some point this season, Wilcox will need to choose if his livelihood boils down to CG. I'd like to think Wilcox is smart enough to know that he needs to look at other "options". Cuz 4 years w/ the same QB hasn't produced different results.
Agree on all accounts. Garbers has some serious flaws that I hoped Musgrave would correct and didn’t. The ST are so poorly coached that a few high school teams could put play. Our offensive line for all of their size and “experience” failed to decently protect the QB in pass protection.
Then the bonehead strategy mistakes throughout the game.
This is a HUGE coaching issue at a number of critical senior staff positions. I believe we have strong players who have the ability to be a very competitive team; however, the coaching level at this point is simply not good enough.
Agree. We need to block and hold for a second instead of just letting guys run through. And on pass return we MUST put some pressure on the opposing team punter so that he doesn't have all day to move around and do a rugby style punt, thereby letting his coverage get downfield. ST's are an ongoing issue and Wilcox needs to be unmerciful about fixing it.
College football is dictated by offense nowadays. Its obvious in the CFP with those teams putting up 40 every week, but even at Cal’s level its much easier to be consistent on offense than it is to try to hold opponents to less than 20 and win. Wilcox needs to figure out the QB position this season or his tenure is gonna be as limited as the Bears passing game.
Great article Nick. I have calmed down a bit since Saturday night thinking maybe, just maybe Wilcox can turn it around. The defense was OK after all, not great but adequate enough to win the game. We have to be able to score more than 22 points. I don't know if there is the time and/or the inclination to modify the passing game but that surely must happen. Chase is not a pure pocket passer like Goff or Davis Webb, and we were spoiled with their ability to deliver all of the throws. Musgrave has to let Chase improvise, roll out, and throw on the run if need be, or run it himself - that's his strength. Otherwise it's going to be a very long season for the Cal offense.
If he's going to turn it around, it has to happen next Saturday. If Cal loses to TCU, it will require them to have a winning season in the Pac 12 just to finish 6-6 (assuming they can beat my alma mater, Sac State). We all know that Cal has not had a winning record in the Pac since 2009. Tedford couldn't do in his last three years, Sonny couldn't do it in his four years, and Wilcox appears not likely to do it in his fifth year.
I just had an epiphany and a way to get revenge on a Nevada team that has put the whammy on Cal three straight times. Let's say Wilcox takes a header this year and does not turn the offense around. It would then become apparent his ceiling was never a head coach, but a always good defensive coordinator. The Cal administration and boosters pony up and go after Jay Norvell as the next head coach. He would be the first African American head coach at Cal with the bonafides to turn the offense around pretty quickly. He has been a successful offensive mind at places like Nebraska, Oklahama, Texas and Arizona State. And now he has one of the best offenses on the West Coast at Nevada after finding and developing NFL level talent like Strong, Doubs, Cooks, and Turner.
I only dare bring this up because five straight three and outs against a team you should beat at home is just too painful to consider for the short term and long term future.
Norvell will have sooooo many better offers than Cal if he wins the conference.
THAT is a great idea! We should take a page from Oregon. When we beat them last year with a great defense they decided to hire 'Root and one of our other coaches and I'm afraid it is going to have an impact when we meet them in a few weeks. I really like Wilcox but if he can't turn things around, then I hope that his replacement will bring good offense AND defense to the program. Ever since Tedford was fired, we are either all offense (Dykes) or all defense (Wilcox). Why can't we get it right?
how about we just get a bunch of coaches from Oregon?
Tell me why we were supposed to beat UNR at home. Because they are a Mountain West school? That's unreasonable thinking. As a P5 school we should be a solid matchup against Mountain West schools. But UNR is a preseason favorite to win their conference. They have a QB who has been touted as a to 3 draft pick. They have two WR's and a tight end who will probably play on Sundays. They are a GOOD team and we should not fool ourselves into thinking we're a better team just because we are in the PAC12 and a P5 conference.
Let's start with Cal was not supposed to be just any Pac 12 team. They were picked by the experts and fellow coaches to finish third behind Washington and Oregon in the North Division. And they were named 3.5 point favorites by Vegas. And then you add in a returning 4-year quarterback in Garbers who had the rep - last year notwithstanding - of winning games he started and finished. Lots of experience behind him, too. Then you add in the size advantage in the trenches. Cal proved it by running the ball down Nevada's throat and going up by 14 points before you could blink.
So yes, Cal should have won on paper. But what was not calculated was player development during the off season and game planning by the coaches. It was pretty clear from watching the game that Nevada wanted it more and had coaches that made better adjustments. I will just go right out and say it now...they have better coaches with better schemes that fit the talent they have. For that program to have four or five NFL ready guys on their offense when probably none of them received much attention from Pac 12 programs is pretty remarkable.
I don't know if any of you read my prediction of the game outcome: I said we would either win big going away (like the 1st quarter) or we would lose close in the final minutes. Lastly, I understand everything you are saying, but go back to what I said about UNR having a potential TOP 3 DRAFT PICK at QB, two WR's and a tight end that will play on Sundays, they ARE a good team, probably better than TCU. As to adjustments, we made them, but we DID NOT EXECUTE. And we did not have any explosive plays, unlike UNR. Lastly, in 2010 UNR had Colin Kaepernick at QB and they ended the season ranked 15th in the December 5th BCS poll. This year's UNR team could be better than the pundits realize.
We can't make explosive plays when our fastest receivers are on the bench. Honestly, our best receivers all transferred and now we're sitting here relying on who would have been their backups while the freshmen sit. I don't get it. I know playbooks can be hard to pick up in your first year, but we're instead deciding to just rely on a roster that hasn't worked for 3 years.
We will find out how good of a team Nevada is when they go on the road to play Kansas State, the team that just knocked off Stanford. I predict they lose that game. I agree with you they are a very good Mountain West team, but they do not play particularly well on the road (until Saturday night, that is). They got beat in Hawaii last year. They will have a nice little 10-2 regular season and beat Tulane in the Captain Crunch Bowl. And I am thinking that record would be 6-6 if they played Cal's schedule.
I think the comparison to the 2010 Nevada team is a much different animal. Kaepernick was a player that college football had never seen before. He was also perfectly suited for Chris Ault's pistol offense. He remains the only college quarterback in history who had over 9,000 passing yards and 3,000 yards rushing. No wait a minute....I'm wrong there. There was another quarterback who did that. His name was Cody Fajardo. He also played for Nevada and was the guy who ruined Cal's new stadium opening in 2012.
We had a few explosive running plays but we had no explosive passing plays. That’s a big part of the problem and why Nevada had a much better passing game than us despite similar passing attempts and completions.
Lastly, I agree that on offense they have talent but that defense is not talented enough to hold a decent Pac 12 team to only 17 points.
Our defense played well enough to win the game and held a talented and explosive offense in check. Our offense couldn’t exploit an average MWC defense. Which isn’t a good sign when we will be facing teams with more talent on defense.
I agree with your first premise and would hope to agree with your second one, but if you watch the film, it's pretty clear where we got beat...and for a PAC12 team, it should not have happened.
Yes the Nevada offense is good and has some talent at QB and WR. Our defense did a good job of holding all that offensive talent to 22 points. We didn’t lose this game because we couldn’t stop Nevada.
Nevada lacks talent on defense. How many of those defenders do you think get drafted? The issue is our offense was shut down for 3 quarters against a defense that is probably below average in terms of Pac 12 talent.
Watch the tape. It tells the truth.
It does, it shows Garber missing passes both short and long, thus why he only threw for 177 yards.
I don't know the whole picture. How many were dropped (I counted at least 5). Even with these he had a decent pass completion percentage. And how many misses and the int were obvious throws? The int at the end was an obvious late 4th quarter with no time outs left play. Where do you go in that situation? The sideline. While I wasn't super impressed with Chase's game, from the limited film I watched, he wasn't bad either. He had a better efficiency than Strong, he just didn't have the deep throws. And that leads to the question of why. The film tells me that it's not all on Chase. The o-line did not give him the time to set up in the pocket and throw the deep ball. And that's on the film and the film doesn't lie.
Just take I-80 West until he gets to Berkeley. This would be a great hire.
That would be an informed hire. I have always liked Wilcox and he plays the coach at Cal role very well. The problem is the results and the under .500 conference performance as you suggest.
No one ever has looked better in Cal gear on the sidelines.
I wonder if the executive search firm AD will hire would be smart enough to contact him. And if Norvell has a successful season someone lease will probably offer him more than we would be able.