Post-Game Thoughts: UC Davis Football

After sleepwalking through the first half, Cal runs away from the Aggies in the second half.

Full disclosure: I have not watched the entire game.

On Saturday I was in Berkeley for a wonderful tailgate full of enthusiasm and good cheer, and then it was time to go to a wedding, so I caught moments of the first half on my phone and listened to portions of the rest of the game on the radio in the car.

In an odd way it was kind of soothing to take in Cal’s annual “goofing off and scaring everybody against an FCS team” game from a distance. While I was similarly worried and annoyed in the first half, I was able to be a bit more zen than usual. Or maybe I’m just too used to this exact kind of Wilcox game.

Either way, the biggest takeaway from spending four hours at a tailgate and zero hours at the game is that Cal fans are ready to keep making Cal football fun, no matter the opponent, conference, finances, or administration. You can take away Washington and Arizona State, but you can never take away our right to party.

Offense

Efficiency Report

12 drives: 3 touchdowns, 6 punts, 2 turnovers (1 fumble, 1 downs), 2 points/drive

Look there’s just no way to get around it: 2 points/drive and 4.3 yards/play against an FCS defense (even, admittedly, a GOOD FCS defense) is not good enough. This was a bad collective offensive performance that was bailed out by big plays from the defense and special teams. Cal had enough opportunities and enough good field position that they were occasionally able to put together long drives. But they had zero explosiveness and as a result were reliant on long, multi-conversion drives, and the offense just didn’t have the polish necessary to string multiple long drives together.

So how much of this is on injuries?

Here is the list of named starters on offense who did not play:

WR Kyion Grayes
WR Tobias Merriweather
OL Sioape Vatikani
OL Will McDonald

Perhaps not coincidentally, Cal struggled with run blocking generally and cohesion and explosiveness in the passing game. The injury problems were hardly helped by in-game injuries to RBs Ott and Kadarius Calloway and OL Matthew Wykoff.

That’s a lot of injuries to two position groups that already entered the year with some degree of uncertainty due to roster turnover. And the results from game one are discouraging. Jaydn Ott is too talented a running back to be held to 3.5 yards/carry with a long of 7. And he draws too much attention and scheming from the opponent for Cal to have a 50% completion percentage as a team and average 4.6 yards per pass attempt . . . particularly when the line was generally providing solid pass protection.

Inevitable QB battle discussion

I don’t particularly think it’s fair to judge Chandler Rogers on his very limited set of snaps. Six throws and five rushing attempts is not a useful sample size. But it’s also true that Cal struggled to move the ball with Rogers behind center. Fernando Mendoza put up 7.2 yards/attempt to Rogers’ 3.5, and Rogers’ hypothetical advantage as a runner actually felt more like a hindrance as Rogers seemed a bit too eager to pull the ball down and run when the line just wasn’t providing the space to make that an effective choice.

And so based on what we saw on Saturday, you would have to conclude that Fernando Mendoza should be Cal’s starting QB, and should probably also be Cal’s full time QB. Rogers is almost certainly better than what the stat line showed, but you don’t sit down an effective returning starter unless you’re SURE that the replacement is better, and we don’t have any evidence that the replacement is clearly better.

Inevitable Jaydn Ott discussion

We will almost certainly not know Jaydn Ott’s status for Auburn until warm ups next Saturday (on which more below), but I feel obligated to state the obvious: Cal’s ability to reach whatever goal or expectation you have set for this season depends on his availability, and any missed time is going to hamper this team. UC Davis was pretty clearly game planning specifically to stop him, and other teams will do the same. If he’s not gliding through defenses he’s opening up time and space for everybody else. Please get and stay healthy #1.

Defense

Efficiency Report

12 drives: 1 touchdown, 1 FGA (0-1) , 4 punts, 6 turnovers (3 interceptions, 3 downs), 0.5 points/drive

A classic tale of two halves. For one half, Davis executed brilliantly to sustain a variety of long drives, only to fall just short in the red zone. In those first five drives the Aggies put up a pretty mediocre 5.2 yards/play, but when almost every play is a short chunk you can keep the chains moving and get the ball down the field. There were more than a few plays where Cal was close to a sack and/or had pretty solid coverage, or made early contact with a runner, but UCD managed to break a tackle and fall forward, or make a nice contested catch with a well placed throw.

But in the second half, Davis could not keep up that high wire act. And instead their runners were getting stoned at the line, their QB was bothered by pressure, and their receivers were getting their routes mirrored by Cal’s DBs. Davis put up an anemic 2.2 yards/play in the second half full of turnovers and botched drives.

Glass half full or glass half empty?

If you’re an optimist, you can take away lots of positives here. Without their best pass rusher in David Reese, Cal gave up exactly one touchdown in 12 possessions. They gave up almost zero explosive plays, forced a number of turnovers, and stiffened when it matters. We have every reason to respect the offensive mind on the other side of the ball who schemed up UCD’s game plan, the Aggies have veteran skill position talent, and yet Cal was able to adjust to some early challenges before exerting their will on the opponent in the second half. The Bears managed 11 passes broken up or intercepted, an indication of more disruptive DB play.

If you’re a pessimist, you can be forgiven for wondering if 2024 will be a replay of 2023 on defense. Cal recorded zero sacks and only three tackles for loss against an FCS team, and struggled mightily for one half to push the Aggies off schedule. UC Davis is indeed a top 25 FCS team, but they were much more a defensive focused team last year. And while Cal’s edge in talent and depth eventually wore UCD down, that’s not an advantage that will be of much help the rest of the way. Even if Cal is disciplined and can prevent big plays, is this going to be another Wilcox defense that’s going to die a death by 1,000 cuts as teams move down the field in 5-10 yard chunks all game long?

Special Teams

The biggest play of the game

In an effort to avoid handing touches to Jaydn Ott, UCD started the game pooch punting on kickoffs. It nearly resulted in disaster when they kicked the ball between two Cal players who couldn’t corral the loose ball. But to Cal’s credit they adjusted their formation, put more speed on the field, and were richly rewarded when Nohl Williams grabbed the short kick and sprinted down the sideline almost before UCD realized what had happened. It came at a point in the game when Cal really needed a big play to stabilize the situation, and it’s refreshing to have a unit that in recent history has been on the opposite side of plays like that come up big.

Sometimes you just need to get out of the way

UCD missed a field goal and an extra point when the game was in doubt, and those mistakes may have led the Aggies to go for it in spots later in the game when they could’ve just kicked a field goal in normal circumstances. It’s nice when the special teams struggles are on the other shoe.

Game Theory and Errata

On Secrecy and Gamesmanship

It isn’t the start of a college football season for some depth chart chicanery - to pick just one example, Cal’s opponent next week listed 37 defensive “starters” in the pre-season depth chart.

Justin Wilcox’s depth charts tend to be a bit more honest, and I think if Fernando Mendoza truly had won the QB battle outright in camp, there wouldn’t have been an ‘or’ on the depth chart. But a more common occurrence is arriving for game one only to find that multiple expected contributors aren’t in uniform due to injuries suffered in fall camp that haven’t been publicly disclosed.

We can also count on learning nothing more about any of those injuries other than what we learn when a game happens each week. We will not get any meaningful information about if Cal’s injured starters will be out days, weeks, or months.

I’m probably the wrong person to ask for an opinion about the practice, which is widespread across college football and hardly unique to Cal and Justin Wilcox. Just ask Cam Rising, who had a season ending injury last year that Utah never announced so that they could pretend he might return at any time.

But it annoys me as an analyst trying to understand and project this team, and it annoys me as a fan, who would like to have a better sense of what is going on with a team that we are being asked to invest time and money into.

Big Picture

Another year, another meh performance against an FCS team. Each year these games are early season exercises in trying to see signs that Cal is ready to take a step forward under Wilcox, and each time these games happen the game broadly indicates that no, this year’s team does not appear to be different than every prior approximately 6-6 team under Wilcox.

In fact, my immediate post-game reaction on twitter was that this team is identical to last year except with way more uncertainty on the offensive line. I think there’s reason to be hopeful that improved health and cohesion will allow this offensive line to match last year’s level of play, but there’s no guarantee that the line gets any healthier over the course of the season.

And so we move on to the first real test of the season. Auburn on the road, which represents probably the 3rd most talented team on the schedule, at least from a purely recruiting rankings perspective. Cal could easily lose the game next week and still leave me feeling optimistic about the season at large, but that very much depends on the exact circumstances of the game.

It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that to beat Auburn, Cal will have to get healthy quickly. Maybe Cal was ultra cautious in game one and held out guys that could have played if needed. The fact that Craig Woodson played on a snap limit makes me less optimistic about the players held out, but you never know.

But if Cal does beat Auburn, then suddenly the Bears are 2-0 with perhaps just one or two games on the schedule that are tougher to win, and the possibilities are suddenly vast and exciting.

I know what universe I’ll be dreaming about for the next week.