Rating the Bears: Cal at Florida State Football

Almost.

Photo credit: @cal_football

So close. So very close. Nando’s step clears a shoestring tackle. A couple passes (from either team) fly a few inches in another direction. A kick gets adjusted by a single degree. Any number of little things could have turn this from a narrow Cal loss to a narrow Cal win and an improbable 4-0 start to the year. Cal still sits in a favorable position with a 3-1 record and a conference schedule that looks increasingly manageable (did you see those Syracuse and NC State losses?). But frustrating losses are a part of life for a Cal team that can never quite make a step up into the next performance tier. And so we are quite accustomed to rating such games without succumbing to a death spiral of doom and gloom. We’ve seen so many games like this that we ought to be experts in objectively evaluating the team’s performance (well, most of us). So let’s see how we rated Saturday night’s loss in Tallahassee.

Rating the Bears

In classic Wilcox Rockfight fashion, defense earns the highest ratings of the week, although the offensive ratings were not too bad. Predictably, special teams earned the worst ratings of the week. Coaching and overall were middling, but better than we have seen in many losses.

Heading into the season we thought the Miami game would be a toss-up and the matchup against a top-5 Florida State team would be the unlikeliest win of the year. Those two have now flipped positions as our predictions of a win over a now-unranked FSU hovered near 50% last week and the predictions of a win over a now-top-10 Miami have dipped into the low 30s.

Ratings Comparison

This section’s first comparison will look a little different for the foreseeable future because we had up to fourteen years of ratings data for our conference opponents in the Pac-12. It was easy to see how the most recent game compared to a rich history of matchups against that team in recent years. Now we have a blank slate for many of these programs, and there’s no fun in looking at boxplot with one data point. On the other hand, is it actually fun to look at boxplots with many data points? You know what, don’t answer that.

Gold dots denote this week’s ratings while the boxplots capture ratings from all previous OOC P5 opponents. The box captures data between the 25th and 75th percentile while the horizontal line represents the median.

Instead of comparing Saturday’s ratings to a set of ratings capturing a long and storied of matchups with a specific conference foe, we’ll instead compare them to all our non-conference OOC matchups. And by the time we have enough data to have a meaningful comparison to all recent North Carolina games, for example, we will be in a new conference facing the likes of Hollywood Upstairs Medical College. Anyway, our comparison to OOC P5 teams shows that ratings were worse-than-usual across the board except for pass defense. Nothing was particularly egregious, except special teams, of course, but it’s not a good comparison.

Compared to all prior Wilcox games, it’s still not great.

Pass offense is slightly better than usual and pass defense is notably better than usual. One of the most depressing stats is that the overall rating sits right on the median. What does the typical Wilcox game feel like overall? This one—coming up just short of a win that would have helped the program make a big statement.

Awards

Next we have our usual triumvirate of awards (parentheses next to the name denote the number of previous awards in that category).

Old Blues

First, lowest ratings of the week.

First goose egg of the year!

Sunshine Pumpers

Next, our highest ratings of the week.

The sun never sets on Calamo.

The Voice of Reason

Finally, those whose ratings were closest to the group average.

I’m surprised that we are not seeing more repeat winners in the VoR category.

Comments

Next, let’s discuss the game. Today’s topics include field goals and the offensive line.

Any comments on the gameday experience?

KJ1980: It was a rock fight. But Cal missed field goals that changed the whole game. Team played well. It was nice being competitive. They made me proud.

MBrew3: I was dreading the game in a way. Seemed like such a dangerous spot, and alas.

jrrad58: We were in it all the way

1988goldenbear: Oaklandishbear was there… I hope he made it out intact.

Texashaterforlife: Before the season started, I had this as a probable loss. Then FSU went 0-3 and I let myself hope again. I made that mistake and I must be punished as I am (and forever will be) a masochistic Cal Fan.

fuzzywuzzy: If we're gonna poop ourselves like that, at least the game time allows me time to change my shorts afterwards...

What are your thoughts on Cal's passing game?

KJ1980: Good passing offense. Cal passing game was as good as it's been this season. The one int hurt but overall the passing game was solid.

MBrew3: I thought it was pretty good, Mendoza played well.

jrrad58: Terrible protection for Mendoza

1988goldenbear: Not good enough when it counted. The o-line was soundly dominated. So many penalties.

Texashaterforlife: bad. the bye week should be spent on getting the O-line healthy and pass protection.

CalvNavy1963: When Mendoza was given time, the passing game clicked. He was being chased out of a collapsing pocket too regularly though. FSU's defensive line was bigger, stronger, and faster than Cal's line, which was the deciding factor in the game.

What are your thoughts on Cal's running game?

MBrew3: Better than I thought it would be, but too inconsistent.

jrrad58: Too many negative plays

1988goldenbear: There were a few of signs of life, but too few to be effective.

Texashaterforlife: needs to be better. Offensive coaches need to plan now how to improve the offseason strength training program, especially for the offensive lineman.

CalvNavy1963: The Bears had a better blocking scheme to free up our backs this week. Much improved from the Auburn game. Good to see Ott used effectively, giving him room to run outside rather than continuing to jam him up the middle each carry.

TKE Pytanis: Wish we could have used it more

fuzzywuzzy: Not much of a run offense, but not too surprised, either. FSU obviously used their talent and fixed some of the holes, or whatever happened the past three games, and pretty much kept the run game to a few decent runs, but that was it.

What are your thoughts on Cal's pass defense?

KJ1980: Solid

MBrew3: Great except on third down.

jrrad58: Generally good but not great

1988goldenbear: So many long 3rd down conversions allowed. Again.

Texashaterforlife: It wasn't bad except for that one pass TD. Would have been good if not for that. and that was with Cal being lucky that FSU's DJ (something) is not NFL caliber.

CalvNavy1963: Solid performance. They gave up a few big plays, but largely stymied the FSU offense.

What are your thoughts on Cal's run defense?

KJ1980: Not so good today. The Noles HSI Ed more running than passing.

MBrew3: Sort of gashed st the start, but then improved.

Texashaterforlife: it looked to me that Cal got better against the run in the 2nd half.

CalvNavy1963: Also a solid performance. Holding any ACC team to 14 points in an away game is a win on a day when the Cal offense was struggling to score.

fuzzywuzzy: Pretty much mirrored FUS's defense...the stats were almost identical.

What are your thoughts on Cal's special teams?

KJ1980: Missed field goals cost us the game. We can't win rock fights with missed field goals.

MBrew3: We have to make kicks from inside 40. If they did that, they win.

jrrad58: FG misses players a role in the loss; punt returns were terrible

1988goldenbear: Punting was good. Kicking was tragic. Again.

Texashaterforlife: make the long FG but miss the 2 shorter FGs. The football demigods are cruel. And I am going to kick them in their sensitive parts when I get up there.

CalvNavy1963: The Bears and field goal attempts - sigh.

TKE Pytanis: One miss and one block arguably changed the game, but in point of fact we were unable to convert in the red zone which was the root cause of too many field goal tries, this the problem. but number don't lie...he has missed to many makeable ones

What are your thoughts on the coaching staff's performance?

KJ1980: Too many penalties. Including six false starts. Bad coaching.

jrrad58: A few questionable 4th down decisions; not aggresive enough overall

1988goldenbear: I guess the coaches get the blame if the scheme isn’t effective, right? No touchdowns and unreliable kicking? We totally blew a winnable game.

Texashaterforlife: it is a tough job to be a Cal coach.

CalvNavy1963: No complaints this game.

TKE Pytanis: They played the hand that was dealt...not sure how they could have done much better other than not allow penalties, but unclear how to coach that in real time.

fuzzywuzzy: I don't think the game plan was all that bad; they just couldn't block well enough to score in the redzone, where you really need a great QB to score in the air - I'm guessing crowd noise was the issue, so not being able to deal with that is on the coaches.

What are your thoughts on Cal's overall performance?

KJ1980: A gritty effort. S moral victory of sorts. But the loss stings. We could have won.

MBrew3: This was a very dissapointing loss. Too many penalties and obviously the missed field goals. It was disheartening.

jrrad58: A missed opportunity for a win; too many penalties; team not adequately disciplined and prepared

1988goldenbear: Felt like Auburn in 2023 - missed two easy FG’s and lost by 5. Converted a bunch of long 3rd downs and 4th downs but couldn’t score when it counted. So disappointing.

Texashaterforlife: Is it better to get grey hairs at a young-ish age; or just rip your hair out from frustration?

RememberTheCalamo: It's very Cal to be losing games where we out gained the other team by 130 yards, 6 first downs and have the same turnover statistics.

CalvNavy1963: Solid defensive performance in a stadium a long way from home. Unfortunately, FSU's defense was bigger, stronger, and faster than the Bears O line, which led to the outcome.

TKE Pytanis: I'm strangely OK with the outcome...it was a tough close game we could have won, but I'm not surprised FL State was super motivated to not go 0-4 and thus had the edge at home. I think we win this game at Memorial, so I remain optimistic about the team and its prospect this year. No one has run up a score on us and we have all the tools to win a lot more games, but then, I pump sunshine for breakfast, so who knows...

fuzzywuzzy: They could have won this one; aside from the missed kicks, that last red zone-penalties-for days trip was a gut punch. Credit to the FSU 'necks yippee-kay-ing loud enough (?) to create a truly horrendous episode of offensive ineptness. Red zone play needs to be fixed. Hope Sioape pulls through without any major issues.

Thanks to all who participated!