A long time ago, over 27 years ago, before I got married, I bought some stocks. Some of those stocks, including Blockbuster, ended up penny stocks, and then, nothing. One, Corning GLW, held it's value and I hung on to it, because the original prospect was that Corning GLW was tied to a breakthrough in touchscreen glass and would explode....eventually. So far, it has middled and basically is worth about the same as I paid nearly 30 years ago. Middling is a loss, since inflation has surely grown more than that stock.
Six years ago, we invested our emotions and expectations in a new and promising coach and we are middling at best. I am keeping faith, because that's what we Bear fans do, but it's increasingly hard to ignore the stats. While I don't think Cal football is headed for a penny stock, it's definitely on track to middle us to death. IMHO, it's like someone is trying to kill Cal football slowly, by attrition, so, maybe, not entirely JW's fault. Just some thoughts as we continue to mourn, not so much the loss, but how we lost and our continuous middling.
Film write up. My first statement is going to be laughed at by some, but if you watch the film, the O-line did not play that bad. For the first 55 minutes of the game, they did a fair job against a 4 man WASU pass rush in normal situations. And, they did a decent job on run plays.
Let's talk run plays, then pass plays, blitz packages, penalties and Plummer (who played terrible IMHO).
We did a good job on the front four on run plays. Where we broke down was with our 2nd level assignments. The WASU linebackers were fast and often times our guys just didn't know who to pick up when it became 5 vs. 6 or 7. The reads were not working against their fast LB's. But, we still had a number of plays that worked, when we weren't running into an 8 man box.
On pass protection WASU's front four were much better than AZ, but we still did a solid job for the first 54 minutes. Then Coleman got beat twice in a row by going after his guy rather than sitting and being patient. This is when Plummer got hurt. Our O-line gave Plummer 3+ seconds to throw the ball as long as we weren't in third and long or WASU didn't bring 6 in the rush. Also, on a couple of pass plays Jermaine Terry got beat and Keleki Latu got beat like bongo drums with their pass protection.
WASU did bring pressure. When Jack audibled into obvious running plays, WASU brought 8 guys into the box. He did this in one hurry up situation on a 3rd and short and completely fucked the dog. WASU's delayed blitzes were obvious to spot, but Plummer has not been able to pick them up all season. Likewise, when speedy defensive ends line up outside on third and longs, he has to see this and know to check down to a very quick pass.
We had some critical penalties at key times. One was where Plummer scrambled for a big gain and a first down and Coleman was busted for holding. It was a drive killer.
Plummer: In my mind Jack had a tough day and most of the reason why is because he put the team in a tough place with poor field management. He would throw the long ball when his receiver wasn't open. Why? He missed easy throws at critical times. Why? He would put himself in third and longs and not realize blitzes were coming and or speedy defensive ends line up outside were pinning their ears back to come after him. I have heard that Jack is a very smart student of the game. You could have fooled me with his performance against WASU. One thing I noticed about Jack is that he is slow to go through his progressions and he tries to force the ball downfield instead of quickly checking down his reads and delivering the ball to where the defense allows the bast opportunity for success. There was one situation where he had an opportunity to throw a screen and pulled the ball down, turned to run the other way and was sacked for an 11 yard loss by a guy he should have known was coming. Next down was 2nd and 21 and WASU brought the house and he never saw it. He had some easy short throws he missed because he didn't set his feet. Plummer ain't no Jared Goff who would stand in the pocket and wait to the last second to deliver the ball and take the hit. From very early on it was clear that Plummer was running for his life when he didn't need to be. He wasn't setting his feet and as a result he had some bad throws at key times.
In the end, between a couple of key penalties that were drive killers, some bad throws that put us behind the chains, and Jack's inability to see the pressure coming and get rid of the ball, we could not sustain drives. But in the end, Plummer had chances to be a game changer by just managing the game better and he didn't get it done.
I think the o-line has to practice their 2nd level blocking on run plays, TE's need to really practice their pas blocking and Plummer needs to calm down, make his reads, set his feet and deliver the ball. Often times when he waited to pass the ball, defenders followed his eyes and locked onto receivers only to blow up the play. When he completed longer passes he seemed to get rid of the ball quicker. I can solve O-line problems, but I don't know what to do about our QB situation.
Its soooo frustrating to me that my son, Ashton Hayes, has had ONE SINGLE PLAY since the beginning of the year??? He ran for 14 yards! If anyone took a look at his highschool stats and being the most recruited RB in the history of NV football! His highlight reels show his talent and WHY he isn't being utilized on this team is BS!!! EVERY OTHER FRESHMAN PLAY AND AREN'T EVEN AS GOOD?!? I totally believe he's being punished for choosing Nebraska over Cal at first and then he decommits from Nebraska to go to Cal but nothing has been the same since his choice of going to Nebraska over Cal... It's completely obvious. My son single handedly took teams to state championships???? Has an abundance of national and state recognition... Awards kids dream of receiving?!? He has an actual huge fan base that is no longer supporting Cal bc they are so mad he isn't being utilized on the team when he is an incredible athlete! I'm NOT just saying this bc he's my son. His stats since he was SEVEN YEARS OLD proves this! He didn't work so hard his entire life, eating only healthy food since age 12, never went to patties or stayed at friends houses bc he was training 7 days a week, worked so hard in school to having literally NEVER a B on a report card... EVER... Put his entire life aside and Sacrifice his entire childhood and teen years TO SIT ON A BENCH!!!!! When sports illustrated follows you and does articles on you as a hs student... You're doing something right, right???? He had sooooooooo many other offers from top schools and in the big 10 too and chose this school due to the "prior relationships " he made with the coaches and players... When the other schools would have LOVED to have him and PLAY HIM LIKE CAL "MADE HIM THINK" WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! *** One single play***
Unbelievable... And not fair to him... Especially as stated before that all the other freshmans have been able to play?!?! And stats don't even compare to Ashton's!!!? I'm not going to listen to anyone's bs on why he isn't playing... Bc I know and so does everyone else. With that being said I hope my son chooses to go somewhere else next year bc Cal is NOT where he belongs...
Agreed. And while it may be true that Musgrave couldn't scheme his way out of it, he sure as hell didn't have to retain Angus in the offseason or call 3rd and 9 pass plays for 2 yards. Leadership means you are responsible for what happens. Wilcox is responsible for everything on offense. Musgrave is responsible for everything on offense.
Thanks for the article, Nick! Rough to read, though.
Anyone else notice that Tulane won at Houston Friday night with a 3rd string QB throwing the ball all around? F-ing Tulane…a 3rd stringer…TULANE. It IS possible.
We’re then treated to THAT offensive mess on the Palouse, in year 6, where Cal went 3 and out 5 of 12 drives and turned a winnable performance by the D into yet another loss.
I am having a harder and harder time seeing a path to Wilcox being the answer at Cal, people. Great guy, good coordinator…but the excuses grow tiresome.
This was a total bummer, but sometimes you have a crap game on the road in conference play. Especially when the other team has a D as good as Wazzu’s. It totally blows, but I am not ready to write the season off yet. We have seen really good Cal teams lay an egg in conference road games before. It does happen.
Would like to see more of Milner if we are in a blowout either way…
Last week seemed encouraging, then we get the usual comedown that's happened under Wilcox: a dispiriting loss in which Cal can't move the ball at all. Sigh.
Catching up this evening on all the post game comments, etc. from various sources. Been camping/fishing all week.
Listened from car's Sirius XM whilst I sat in camp chair Clicked it off at half time, muttering to myself and went fishing with no desire to check final score until Sunday morning.
I think it's time to stop saying that Wilcox should be supported because he is a good person and an upstanding citizen. The way I see it, you can carve out about 20% of his salary, or a million bucks a year, to be there for your players and make there they go to class. He is undoubtedly winning there. The other 80%, or 4 mil, has to be devoted to the business side of the equation. That part is hiring competent and relevant coaches and devising schemes that that will make your team fun to watch, put butts in the seats and win often enough to satisfy the fan base. In season 6, Wilcox is taking a 16-26 conference record into the rest of the season with very little chance of going to bowl game while most of the teams in the conference are on the rise and playing entertaining football.
Viewed in that context, Wilcox' contract extension last year was unforgiveable, and I said so in many posts when it happened. He should have been sitting on a very warm seat this year. If so, he might have shown more motivation to change the program instead of trotting the same ol' team that gets you one or two feel good wins (Arizona this year, Oregon State last year, USC and Washington in 18) but a lot more dispiriting losses like last week.
Ok, my Monday take. Who else here believes what we will hear tomorrow from Wilcox and Musgrave is that they have had good practices and are doing good work to address the problems on Saturday? I realize that is normal, but I'm to the point where little else from some dramatic news is going to satisfy me. I watched the 2nd half of the game again, and it's appalling how lame our Oline play was, and the play calling and schemes given the poor Oline play. At this point, even wins over CO and Furd will do nothing for me. It's beat someone good, on the road, or it's truly just the same old.
Thanks for ruining my Monday morning, despite (to quote My Cousin Vinny) being "dead-on balls accurate".
A long time ago, over 27 years ago, before I got married, I bought some stocks. Some of those stocks, including Blockbuster, ended up penny stocks, and then, nothing. One, Corning GLW, held it's value and I hung on to it, because the original prospect was that Corning GLW was tied to a breakthrough in touchscreen glass and would explode....eventually. So far, it has middled and basically is worth about the same as I paid nearly 30 years ago. Middling is a loss, since inflation has surely grown more than that stock.
Six years ago, we invested our emotions and expectations in a new and promising coach and we are middling at best. I am keeping faith, because that's what we Bear fans do, but it's increasingly hard to ignore the stats. While I don't think Cal football is headed for a penny stock, it's definitely on track to middle us to death. IMHO, it's like someone is trying to kill Cal football slowly, by attrition, so, maybe, not entirely JW's fault. Just some thoughts as we continue to mourn, not so much the loss, but how we lost and our continuous middling.
Get rid of Musgrave and the OL coach. Find some young, inspiring, intelligent coaches from smaller schools/lower divisions.
Film write up. My first statement is going to be laughed at by some, but if you watch the film, the O-line did not play that bad. For the first 55 minutes of the game, they did a fair job against a 4 man WASU pass rush in normal situations. And, they did a decent job on run plays.
Let's talk run plays, then pass plays, blitz packages, penalties and Plummer (who played terrible IMHO).
We did a good job on the front four on run plays. Where we broke down was with our 2nd level assignments. The WASU linebackers were fast and often times our guys just didn't know who to pick up when it became 5 vs. 6 or 7. The reads were not working against their fast LB's. But, we still had a number of plays that worked, when we weren't running into an 8 man box.
On pass protection WASU's front four were much better than AZ, but we still did a solid job for the first 54 minutes. Then Coleman got beat twice in a row by going after his guy rather than sitting and being patient. This is when Plummer got hurt. Our O-line gave Plummer 3+ seconds to throw the ball as long as we weren't in third and long or WASU didn't bring 6 in the rush. Also, on a couple of pass plays Jermaine Terry got beat and Keleki Latu got beat like bongo drums with their pass protection.
WASU did bring pressure. When Jack audibled into obvious running plays, WASU brought 8 guys into the box. He did this in one hurry up situation on a 3rd and short and completely fucked the dog. WASU's delayed blitzes were obvious to spot, but Plummer has not been able to pick them up all season. Likewise, when speedy defensive ends line up outside on third and longs, he has to see this and know to check down to a very quick pass.
We had some critical penalties at key times. One was where Plummer scrambled for a big gain and a first down and Coleman was busted for holding. It was a drive killer.
Plummer: In my mind Jack had a tough day and most of the reason why is because he put the team in a tough place with poor field management. He would throw the long ball when his receiver wasn't open. Why? He missed easy throws at critical times. Why? He would put himself in third and longs and not realize blitzes were coming and or speedy defensive ends line up outside were pinning their ears back to come after him. I have heard that Jack is a very smart student of the game. You could have fooled me with his performance against WASU. One thing I noticed about Jack is that he is slow to go through his progressions and he tries to force the ball downfield instead of quickly checking down his reads and delivering the ball to where the defense allows the bast opportunity for success. There was one situation where he had an opportunity to throw a screen and pulled the ball down, turned to run the other way and was sacked for an 11 yard loss by a guy he should have known was coming. Next down was 2nd and 21 and WASU brought the house and he never saw it. He had some easy short throws he missed because he didn't set his feet. Plummer ain't no Jared Goff who would stand in the pocket and wait to the last second to deliver the ball and take the hit. From very early on it was clear that Plummer was running for his life when he didn't need to be. He wasn't setting his feet and as a result he had some bad throws at key times.
In the end, between a couple of key penalties that were drive killers, some bad throws that put us behind the chains, and Jack's inability to see the pressure coming and get rid of the ball, we could not sustain drives. But in the end, Plummer had chances to be a game changer by just managing the game better and he didn't get it done.
I think the o-line has to practice their 2nd level blocking on run plays, TE's need to really practice their pas blocking and Plummer needs to calm down, make his reads, set his feet and deliver the ball. Often times when he waited to pass the ball, defenders followed his eyes and locked onto receivers only to blow up the play. When he completed longer passes he seemed to get rid of the ball quicker. I can solve O-line problems, but I don't know what to do about our QB situation.
Its soooo frustrating to me that my son, Ashton Hayes, has had ONE SINGLE PLAY since the beginning of the year??? He ran for 14 yards! If anyone took a look at his highschool stats and being the most recruited RB in the history of NV football! His highlight reels show his talent and WHY he isn't being utilized on this team is BS!!! EVERY OTHER FRESHMAN PLAY AND AREN'T EVEN AS GOOD?!? I totally believe he's being punished for choosing Nebraska over Cal at first and then he decommits from Nebraska to go to Cal but nothing has been the same since his choice of going to Nebraska over Cal... It's completely obvious. My son single handedly took teams to state championships???? Has an abundance of national and state recognition... Awards kids dream of receiving?!? He has an actual huge fan base that is no longer supporting Cal bc they are so mad he isn't being utilized on the team when he is an incredible athlete! I'm NOT just saying this bc he's my son. His stats since he was SEVEN YEARS OLD proves this! He didn't work so hard his entire life, eating only healthy food since age 12, never went to patties or stayed at friends houses bc he was training 7 days a week, worked so hard in school to having literally NEVER a B on a report card... EVER... Put his entire life aside and Sacrifice his entire childhood and teen years TO SIT ON A BENCH!!!!! When sports illustrated follows you and does articles on you as a hs student... You're doing something right, right???? He had sooooooooo many other offers from top schools and in the big 10 too and chose this school due to the "prior relationships " he made with the coaches and players... When the other schools would have LOVED to have him and PLAY HIM LIKE CAL "MADE HIM THINK" WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! *** One single play***
Unbelievable... And not fair to him... Especially as stated before that all the other freshmans have been able to play?!?! And stats don't even compare to Ashton's!!!? I'm not going to listen to anyone's bs on why he isn't playing... Bc I know and so does everyone else. With that being said I hope my son chooses to go somewhere else next year bc Cal is NOT where he belongs...
Agreed. And while it may be true that Musgrave couldn't scheme his way out of it, he sure as hell didn't have to retain Angus in the offseason or call 3rd and 9 pass plays for 2 yards. Leadership means you are responsible for what happens. Wilcox is responsible for everything on offense. Musgrave is responsible for everything on offense.
Thanks for the article, Nick! Rough to read, though.
Anyone else notice that Tulane won at Houston Friday night with a 3rd string QB throwing the ball all around? F-ing Tulane…a 3rd stringer…TULANE. It IS possible.
We’re then treated to THAT offensive mess on the Palouse, in year 6, where Cal went 3 and out 5 of 12 drives and turned a winnable performance by the D into yet another loss.
I am having a harder and harder time seeing a path to Wilcox being the answer at Cal, people. Great guy, good coordinator…but the excuses grow tiresome.
This was a total bummer, but sometimes you have a crap game on the road in conference play. Especially when the other team has a D as good as Wazzu’s. It totally blows, but I am not ready to write the season off yet. We have seen really good Cal teams lay an egg in conference road games before. It does happen.
Would like to see more of Milner if we are in a blowout either way…
Last week seemed encouraging, then we get the usual comedown that's happened under Wilcox: a dispiriting loss in which Cal can't move the ball at all. Sigh.
Now for the hot takes: did we give McClure the O-line job strictly due to his impressive first name?! It wasn’t due to the coaching…
Certainly seemed like the game went almost exactly as one would expect.
Catching up this evening on all the post game comments, etc. from various sources. Been camping/fishing all week.
Listened from car's Sirius XM whilst I sat in camp chair Clicked it off at half time, muttering to myself and went fishing with no desire to check final score until Sunday morning.
I think it's time to stop saying that Wilcox should be supported because he is a good person and an upstanding citizen. The way I see it, you can carve out about 20% of his salary, or a million bucks a year, to be there for your players and make there they go to class. He is undoubtedly winning there. The other 80%, or 4 mil, has to be devoted to the business side of the equation. That part is hiring competent and relevant coaches and devising schemes that that will make your team fun to watch, put butts in the seats and win often enough to satisfy the fan base. In season 6, Wilcox is taking a 16-26 conference record into the rest of the season with very little chance of going to bowl game while most of the teams in the conference are on the rise and playing entertaining football.
Viewed in that context, Wilcox' contract extension last year was unforgiveable, and I said so in many posts when it happened. He should have been sitting on a very warm seat this year. If so, he might have shown more motivation to change the program instead of trotting the same ol' team that gets you one or two feel good wins (Arizona this year, Oregon State last year, USC and Washington in 18) but a lot more dispiriting losses like last week.
5-7 here we come
Ok, my Monday take. Who else here believes what we will hear tomorrow from Wilcox and Musgrave is that they have had good practices and are doing good work to address the problems on Saturday? I realize that is normal, but I'm to the point where little else from some dramatic news is going to satisfy me. I watched the 2nd half of the game again, and it's appalling how lame our Oline play was, and the play calling and schemes given the poor Oline play. At this point, even wins over CO and Furd will do nothing for me. It's beat someone good, on the road, or it's truly just the same old.