Wilcox in his post-game presser stated that he declined because per reports 50 yards was the kickers max and he didn't want to risk a DPI on a fade route. We forget that the drive after the kicker missed a 49 yarder. Wilcox played the probability game with the kicking and bet of #collegeKickers being college kickers.
I hear you, but when you’re a defensive minded head coach with a defensive coordinator that you hired & an experienced secondary, you take the penalty and set them up 3rd & long, outside of FG range and play for the stop.
This is a somewhat alarming red flag, tho with Garbers at the helm, this team’s ceiling is somewhat limited.
Not sure he "feared" that but it was a possible outcome ~ of several ~ that were part of the decision process. I don't think giving Strong another opportunity is a good idea so the sooner he's off the field the better. I feel the more important factor was the kicker's range. He made it and missed one later.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Your postgame thoughts are the highlight of this season so far! I know, low bar, but thanks for reminding me how much I enjoy this article every week! I hope we start to have more happy endings to them as the season goes on!
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.
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..)
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.
Wilcox in his post-game presser stated that he declined because per reports 50 yards was the kickers max and he didn't want to risk a DPI on a fade route. We forget that the drive after the kicker missed a 49 yarder. Wilcox played the probability game with the kicking and bet of #collegeKickers being college kickers.
^^^^^^ THIS. Strategically I'm fine with the decision. Other coaching decisions, not so much.
Agreed, tho fear that your kids will commit a PI on 3rd & literally forever is a troubling indictment of your D, the supposed backbone of your team.
Not if the opposing WR have 6” over your CBs. And Pac 12 refs had already called a couple BS interference penalties.
I hear you, but when you’re a defensive minded head coach with a defensive coordinator that you hired & an experienced secondary, you take the penalty and set them up 3rd & long, outside of FG range and play for the stop.
This is a somewhat alarming red flag, tho with Garbers at the helm, this team’s ceiling is somewhat limited.
Not sure he "feared" that but it was a possible outcome ~ of several ~ that were part of the decision process. I don't think giving Strong another opportunity is a good idea so the sooner he's off the field the better. I feel the more important factor was the kicker's range. He made it and missed one later.
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.
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.
Does all of this mean that we aren't going to the Rose Bowl?
Non conference game
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)
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
This article is dead on…Thanks Nick!
Your postgame thoughts are the highlight of this season so far! I know, low bar, but thanks for reminding me how much I enjoy this article every week! I hope we start to have more happy endings to them as the season goes on!
At least we're not Washington #woof
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.
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.
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..)
What's actually sad was that Wilcox did not trust the defense and instead relied on Nevada to miss FG.
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.
Excellent write up! Thanks for doing this each game.
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