Post-Game Thoughts: Wake Forest Football

Cal holds on in a game that probably shouldn't have been nearly so close

Which attitude is more correct?

“Cal went all the way across the country on the road and got their first ever ACC win by 10 points. It’s HARD to win road games three time zones away, and the Bears even covered the spread! Let’s celebrate!”

“Cal should have blown out Wake Forest in the first half but thanks to continued red zone struggles and defensive busts they failed to put away one of the worst teams in the ACC, then nearly blew a 15 point 4th quarter lead. I’m annoyed.”

I can tell you what I was HOPING to see - I was hoping that Cal would build on their comprehensive performance against Oregon State. With a roster finally getting healthy at multiple positions on both sides of the ball, I was hoping that Cal would cruise to a comfortable win. In many ways, it almost happened, as the Bears were a play away from putting the game away at multiple points throughout.

But when all of that ends with Wake Forest taking possession with 2:16 remaining trailing by just three points, you’ll forgive me if all your mind can scream at you is “OH NO IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN!!!”

Thank goodness that Liam Johnson played shallow zone coverage perfectly for the game sealing interception, so that we can focus on the (many!) positives and not the (very nagging!) negatives.

Offense

Efficiency Report

14 drives: 4 touchdowns, 4 field goal attempts (4-4), 4 punts, 2 turnovers (2 interceptions), 2.8 points/drive

Should we be happy that Cal had 10 out of 14 drives enter Wake Forest territory, or annoyed that those 10 drives ‘only’ resulted in 39 points? I think, ultimately, the answer has to be happy about the final production line because when Cal scores that many points against any team on the schedule other than Miami (or SMU?) it should be enough for a comfortable win.

This ties with the Miami game for Cal’s 2nd best points/drive number of the season, though it trails Miami, SDSU, and Oregon State in yards/play after the Bears put up 5.7/play against Wake Forest. So in some sense, the Bears actually did a better job translating yards into points in this game, in part because of generally favorable field position throughout the game, on which more below.

This team will go as far as Fernando can throw them

Wake Forest is a very bad passing defense - they have been shredded by every power conference passing offense they have faced except for Stanford so far this year. Still, 40-56 (with two drops) for 385 yards PLUS 66 yards gained either on designed runs or scrambles is impressive production.

More relevantly, it’s vital production because Cal averaged less than 3 yards when handing the ball off to running backs. At this point it’s pretty clear that Cal’s offensive brain trust has figured out where the yards are. Fernando dropped back 60 times on 87 plays, or 69% of their plays. Consider that in 2016 under Sonny Dykes, Cal dropped back on 62% of their plays and you get a sense of what Cal did on Friday night - it was all but an Air Raid offense.

This is a Bear Raid of necessity rather than preference, because Cal’s running game has been so ineffective, because Cal’s line is better in pass protection than in run blocking. But how great is it that Fernando and Cal’s collective of WRs (finally healthy!) are such that Cal can make this kind of mid-season pivot and be largely successful?

A statement that guts me to even type out

Jaivian Thomas is currently Cal’s best running back and should be starting at that position until Jaydn Ott is healthy and can make plays like it’s 2023.

A reshuffled offensive line

Cal deployed a new-look offensive line that looked like this:

LT Nick Morrow, LG Sioape Vatikani, C Will McDonald, RG TJ Session, RT Frederick Williams (Note that Matthew Wykoff got 33 rotational snaps spelling Vatikani at LG)

I get the thinking - we have the bye week to install a completely new line set up. Left guard has been a problem spot all season, so let’s move the stable RG (Vatikani) over to the other side to fix that issue and hope that TJ Session can make the transition from RT to RG, and that new RT Williams can replicate his strong performance against OSU.

The reality is that the line still looked like they lacked cohesion as a run blocking unit, and while pass blocking was decent it wasn’t exactly a strength either. There probably isn’t a combination of players that is going to magically fix things in season. But I like that the coaches recognized a problem and are doing something to try to fix it.

A wrinkle I liked

Cal’s running game is not great, I think we can all agree on that at this point in the season. Cal’s offensive line just isn’t cohesive enough to win at the point of attack, though the Bears have had occasional success running outside of the tackle box. But I think opposing defenses are starting to key on that, a tendency that Cal took full advantage of late against Wake Forest in sort of an inverted zone read.

Cal ran the play twice on their touchdown drive at the end of the quarter, you can watch them back-to-back here:

The two plays are, as best I can tell, identical - four WRs and one running back, two WRs to each side, the slot WR runs a jet motion in the same direction that the running back runs sort of a pitch play motion to the outside. Meanwhile, Cal pulls the right guard (TJ Session) for an inside power run and Fernando keeps both times to run through GIGANTIC holes in the middle of the line because all of Cal’s motion pulls a ton of Wake defenders away from the point of attack.

Defense

Efficiency Report

13 drives: 5 touchdowns, 1 FGA (0-1), 5 punts, 2 turnovers (1 interception, 1 downs), 2.8 points/drive

(Removed: Wake’s final pointless drive down 10 with 1:10 left that ended in a deflected interception.)

2.8 points/drive represents Wake Forest’s 3rd best offensive performance of the season against FBS teams, only behind games against Louisiana Lafayette and NC State. It’s not great to let Wake score more efficiently than UConn, Virginia, and (ugh) STANFORD.

Granted, Wake’s 5.1 yards/play isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire. The problem is that Cal alternated between great defensive possessions (seven drives of 4 plays or fewer) and disastrous defensive possessions (five touchdown drives.

It was ultimately enough to win, but I think everybody expects that when the Cal offense scores into the 40s, it should mean an easy win against all but the most elite offenses.

A mixed day in the secondary

PFF tagged Harris with responsibility for 6 catches for 100 yards out of Wake Forest’s 19 catches for 274 yards. Granted, none of them were touchdowns, like the 45 yarder that Nohl Williams allowed or the 44 yard coverage/trick play bust in the first half. Generally, Cal spent the day alternating between solid plays and allowing chunk plays through the air, but ultimately made enough plays to win the game.

David Reese and Ryan McCulloch rounding into form?

Two of Cal’s main edge threats have been hampered by injuries to varying degrees this year, but Reese and McCulloch combined for three sacks and seven total pressures. Their ability to combine with Xavier Carlton to create more backfield havoc will be critical against Syracuse’s pass-happy offense and to give Cal solid upset odds against SMU.

Special Teams

A game winning performance

Three plays that were huge swings in Cal’s favor:

1. Hunter Barth forces ANOTHER kickoff fumble, Miles Williams picks it up and returns it for a touchdown.

2. Ryan Coe bangs two different 54 yard field goals through the uprights

3. T.J. Bollers blocks a field goal, denying Wake Forest 3 potential points and gaining Cal 34 yards of field position and setting up a key 2nd half touchdown

Add in two Derek Morris kicks of 29 and 38, plus typically good punting from Lachlan Wilson and you have a truly excellent complete special teams performance.

And for me, watching the team celebrate Ryan Coe’s 54 yarder to end the first half may have been my emotional highlight of the year

Coaching/Game Theory

Doomed to forever be haunted by any 2 point conversion decision

After choosing to go for 2 against Pittsburgh and missing, directly contributing to a loss, then FAILING to even attempt to go for 2 against NC State to then lose by a point, Cal again switched philosophies and went aggressive early . . . and missed again.

It’s hard to say how that lost point impacted the game. By halftime, it meant that Wake trailed by 15 points rather than 16 (if Cal had kicked the PAT) or 17 (if Cal had converted the 2 point try) and as a result Wake Forest attempted and converted a 2 point try of their own to cut a 15 point deficit to 7.

While I’m generally aggressive in concept, I didn’t like the decision to go for 2 that early for two main reasons:

1. It was a high scoring game, and it’s harder to predict the value of 1 point in the 2nd quarter when teams are likely to trade more scores.

2. Cal, as we have established, is a bad red zone team and as a result is less likely to convert 2 point tries than an average team.

Big Picture

Updated win probabilities, per SP+:

• Cal 71% win expectancy over Syracuse

• Cal 92% win expectancy over Stanford

• Cal 25% win expectancy over SMU

Add it up and you get 1.88 expected wins, and a 16% chance of winning out. 2-1 (and a 7-5 (3-5 ACC) final record) is pretty clearly the most likely outcome. Meanwhile, Cal’s chances of losing out sits at 1.7%, so while I understand that you may be a cynical Cal fan I give you full permission to start considering bowl possibilities, and if the (almost literally) 1-in-a-hundred chance hits you have my permission to yell at me.

The difference between 2-1 and 3-0 to finish the season feels big. 2-1 means another 7-5 season, another failure to even get to .500 in conference, another anonymous season ignored by all but the die-hard fans.

8-4 means some kind of tangible progress, a .500 conference record, a marquee upset road win against one of the best teams in the conference, and a 4-0 finish to the regular season that could build momentum into next year. And also probably a pretty good bowl game!

It’s weird to think that whether this is a ‘successful’ season or not may well come down to a post-thanksgiving road game against SMU. The Mustangs are by most measures the 2nd best team Cal will play all year, and one of just two legitimate top 25 caliber teams on the schedule.

Of course, that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Cal still needs to beat a flawed-but-dangerous Syracuse team, then take care of business against arguably the worst team on Cal’s entire schedule (congrats on the big win over Montana, Aggies buds!) to win The Axe before dreaming about an upset to go 8-4 in the regular season.

What we saw on the field against Wake Forest didn’t really suggest that this team has made any kind of major stride forward such that you could project a 4-0 run to end to the season. But it was still a win, which means 8-4 is still on the table. Hey, it’s something to root for!