Rating the Bears: Cal vs. Texas Tech
The Bears close the season with the second-worst set of ratings of the year...
Well that was…something. In this brave new world of college football, it feels less and less like these minor bowl games have any meaningful effect on the team’s long-term trajectory. Cal was already likely to lose some players to the portal. But the Bears have performed quite well in the portal historically, and this loss does not seem to have hurt their recruiting momentum among transfers. Unless the game becomes an instant classic (even if, for all the wrong reasons) or unless you personally attended the game, it’s hard to have much of a lasting reaction to these minor bowl games. Although I am perhaps overly jaded about the postseason (although I am looking forward to the amusing possibilities of Cal playing a bowl in bizarre locations like Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium under the ACC bowl tie-ins).
The ratings were not great, but they have two elements of statistical intrigue: the range between the best and worst ratings was only 16.2 and the standard deviations were huge in all these categories. So our individual ratings were all over the place, but collectively we converged on a narrow set of ratings across all the categories. This high variance in individual ratings is likely due to to the wild inconsistency in Cal’s performance. The first-quarter Bears looked ready to run to an easy victory, but after that the offense ground to a halt and the defense allowed Behren Morton to have one of the best days of his young career. Some raters probable emphasized the early success in the grades while others watched the entire thing before putting a grim set of ratings (and things must have been even worse for those who traveled all the way out there to suffer in the cold for 3+ hours).
As a result of the disappointing season finale and some coaching turnover (or lack thereof on the defensive side), our win total predictions have dropped from 7.6 after the UCLA game to 6.3 now. We’ll have to see how those change again by the time we run our annual preseason predictions piece (interestingly, we were spot on with our 6-win predictions this year).
Ratings Comparison
Compared to our other non-confernece games against Power 5 teams, this one was not great.
The boxes in the boxplot capture the middle 50% of the data, with the lines above and below the boxes representing the top and bottom 25% of the ratings, respectively. This tells us that every single category was rated in the bottom-25% for non-conference P5 opponents. Not good.
Things look a little better when we compare them to the rest of the Wilcox Era, but it was still a disappointing performance.
This was a bottom-third game in the Wilcox Era, and no single category fared comparatively well.
Awards
One final time, we will hand out awards recognizing our highest, lowest, and most reasonable ratings of the week.
First, the lowest ratings of the week.
Old Blues
As a reminder, the number in parentheses denotes the number of times that person has received this award in recent weeks.
BearsWillEndMyLife leads the way once again as our most consistent recipient of the Old Blues award this season. The good news is that Cal football will not be able to disappoint you (at least, not on the field) for another 8 months, so enjoy the offseason!
Sunshine Pumpers
Next, the highest ratings of the week.
Calamo finishes the season with another perfect record of appearing among the Sunshine Pumpers, a streak that goes back to the 2018 season (if I’m remembering correctly). And as we have seen so many times previously this season, Bowlesman80 finishes in the number two spot.
The Voice of Reason
Next, the ratings that were closest to the average for each of the categories.
Yours truly earns the top spot this week, but sacman701 earned the most VoR awards this season.
Finally, let’s have a look at the top comments of the week.
Comments
Any comments on the gameday experience?
KJ1980: Wonderful to see Cal on ESPN in the Independence Bowl. Disappointing to see the team have such a poor outing on national television.
Calboy1976: Great start! But when Mendo went down with the knee/ankle sprain things changed. TT's D-line gets props. They came to play.
Bobe: Damn it was cold.
BearsWillEndMyLife: I really should have listened to my gut and muted the TV and listened to Justin Allegri and Mike Pawlawski. What a useless homer broadcast, but I guess what do you expect from a third-tier bowl kickoff at 9:15pm ET. I fully turned the game off in the third quarter once TT went up 31-14. What a crap ending to the season.
CAL69: Embarrassed, frustrated, tempted to switch to some real housewives show but self-flagellated to the end, typical Cal football-watching experience.
Rose Bowl Oski: Glad I was at home. It looked cold out there
What are your thoughts on Cal's passing game?
59rosebowl: Mendoza's worst game. Rattled.
MBrew3: Mendoza struggled late.
Old Bear 71: For 10 minutes it was other worldly. They it was from somewhere else. The last ten minutes were agony.
Bobe: Started out great—TT was on its heels. They they put pressure on Nando forcing him to make terrible decisions. O Line continues to be a huge concern.
BearsWillEndMyLife: I guess Mendoza was bound to play like a freshman at some point, although the first INT was not his fault, and he clearly was hampered by the lack of offensive coaching continuity. It says a lot about Spavital and Wilcox that they couldn't agree to have Spavital stay for the bowl game, and it's not like this was one of the super late ones. It also says a lot about the continued hypocrisy in college football that coaches can do whatever they want whenever they want but athletes are held to archaic holdout standards. The stats also don't make any sense - we out-passed them in every way? Did we really accumulate that much in garbage time?
OskiOfTarth: Without pass protection, there is no passing game
sacman701: Some good moments, but four hideous turnovers and six sacks make for a very bad day. Mendoza just needs to make better decisions, although judgment usually improves with experience.
Rose Bowl Oski: Too little time to throw, too many errands throws
What are your thoughts on Cal's running game?
KJ1980: Tech bottled up Ott. That was surprising.
HaasBear: Zero push. Our line got dominated by TTU’s second team.
MBrew3: We couldn’t block whatsoever.
1988goldenbear: Defensive scheme worked to perfection vs Ott because the Mendoza couldn’t make them pay. O-line was dominated.
Bobe: I’m surprised Jaden Ott decided to stay, rather yhsn go to a school with an O Line that can create holes for him. It would improve his draft stock
CAL69: Coaches should have encouraged runners to not run into the backs of offensive linemen.
OskiOfTarth: When it becomes obvious that your line is not blasting open holes, it's time to start mixing up your run plays
sacman701: Mostly nonexistent. Ott's first carry went for 26 yards, his last 14 went for a total of 16. The line just didn't give him any room at all.
What are your thoughts on Cal's pass defense?
KJ1980: Did't give up that many yards but got picked apart.
CalvsNavy63: The epitome of being burnt so much earning the nickname "Toast".
LiffeyBear: 2 interceptions and nearly a third, well make that one interception after an offsides penalty…. The pass defense played hard and contested a lot of throws. The Texas Tech quarterback just made some precision passes. I was disappointed that Cal didn’t bring more pressure to disrupt the quarterback.
Calboy1976: Morton had a career day. He looked super so props to him
1988goldenbear: This kid had the game of his life. He had all day to throw, but still it was an exceptional night. Our secondary was a sieve - Tight Ends running free all game long.
Old Bear 71: Same story every year, tight ends are our kryptonite. Repeat. repeat. No rinse. Just ignore those big, rangey dudes and watch them play catch. Touchdown! Repeat….
CAL69: Couldn't figure out if so many red passes were caught because of bad DB decisions or lousy coaching.
sacman701: Awful on Tech's first four drives, very solid on the last nine drives although the rush wasn't very effective. For all the announcers' raving about Morton, he ended up completing less than 60% of his passes and averaged less than 6 yards per attempt.
Rose Bowl Oski: Other than the Hearns pick there was nothing to cheer for
What are your thoughts on Cal's run defense?
LiffeyBear: They played hard against a running back that is difficult to tackle. There was a cool run blitz concept at the end of the game.
Calboy1976: Solid job. Brooks was held down all game.
1988goldenbear: Not as bad as the pass defense, but YAC seemed to be pretty huge when they needed them
Bobe: Their running back seemed to get 4-8 yards on every run. I know we were short handed at linebacker, but the D line got pushed around pretty badly.
BearsWillEndMyLife: Their stats aren't stellar, but again it was poor tackling and technique, and a complete inability to get even one third down stop that sealed the game. And this all goes back to Sirmon and Wilcox, again.
OskiOfTarth: The guy is tough to tackle, no question. He's going to get his yards. At least he didn't break one.
sacman701: Some good, some bad. Tech's backs ended up with almost exactly 4 yards a carry, which is eh.
Rose Bowl Oski: Here their big back to under 100 yards, but there were far too many missed tackles
What are your thoughts on Cal's special teams?
KJ1980: The fumble recovery on the opening kick off by (Un)Luckhurst was a high pointing the game. But punting seemed off.
Bobe: Came close blocking a two punts at least. Punts were shorter than the have been all year. Maybe it was the cold, but TT punter seemed to out kick our guy.
BearsWillEndMyLife: Wilson picked a very bad time to have his worst game of the season, and our coverage was horrendous to boot. Not really the main reason we lost, but also didn't do our defense any favors.
OskiOfTarth: What was up with Lachlan Wilson? Did he have a pulled groin or something? He must have been injured, his punts were going nowhere.
sacman701: Luckhurst (!?) recovered another fumble on a kickoff, but punting was uncharacteristically poor all night.
Sacalum: WTF happened to Lachlan Wilson's booming punts? Throughout the season, he was Mr. Reliable.
What are your thoughts on the coaching staff's performance?
KJ1980: Cal was out coached. The Tech staff had a defensive plan. Ours did not with so well.
LiffeyBear: Classic Tim DeRuyter defense: pressure on the passer, stingy run defense and lots of forced turnovers. Oh, but he was coaching for the other team.
Jake Spavital was missed as play caller. As a preview of next year’s offense, this was disappointing.
On defense we continued to fail to pressure the passer, which ultimately allowed Texas Tech to take apart the coverage.
It was a very Justin Wilcox game: the team played hard until the end. They just made costly penalties and were not put in a position to succeed by their coordinators.
MBrew3: There seemed to be a lack of adjustments. I’m ready for Sirmon to go.
1988goldenbear: Offense was totally out-coached by DeRuyter. Defense wasn’t as bad but we were dominated in the lines. Not a great effort.
BearsWillEndMyLife: I guess this was to be expected with so much turnover so quickly between the end of the season and the bowl game. We should probably expect more of this too, as Wilcox I guess does well enough to set his staff up to perform well enough that they quickly get poached by other programs, only to (usually) suck it up once they leave. So I guess he's the Belichick of college football, right?
CAL69: Coaching could have been worse though I can't think of how
sacman701: The defense made adjustments, the offense didn't. It was particularly frustrating to see the offense keep lighting downs on fire by trying to run between the tackles long after it was clear that there was nothing there. It looks like Bloesch understandably was not up to being both OL coach and coordinator, as the OL was dreadful and the playcalling questionable. One positive is that the players (especially on defense) played hard for 60 minutes. For all the setbacks this season, the coaches clearly haven't lost the team.
What are your thoughts on Cal's overall performance?
KJ1980: Sad. Disappointing. Cal had sports on for 5-6 hours on national television and looked outmatched in both.
HaasBear: I know there were changes to the staff but the team regressed to Musgrave levels of offense but with a Sirmon defense. That will win us 2 games next year if it’s not fixed.
LiffeyBear: Maybe the players shouldn’t take their finals the day before the game
Calboy1976: Cal got beat by a better team but the fact they won their last 3 games (convincly) says a lot going into ACC, act 1.
1988goldenbear: Work to do in the off-season, that’s for sure. But if we can improve the lines, we should be fine. But it wasn’t our finest performance.
BearsWillEndMyLife: Depressing, lackluster, not surprising given the circumstances. It felt like the entire game turned when Mendoza got temporarily hurt on that early third down run and we couldn't get the TD to go up 14-0 (the fourth down playcall was still trash). Would we have played better had we been closer to home in the Gronk Bowl? With the lack of coaching continuity, key contributors leaving, and the insane travel schedule next year, I see much of the same - fighting and clawing to barely make a crappy bowl game in the far east or southeast. How much longer do we have to wait for Knowlton and Wilcox to be gone?
OskiOfTarth: Mid & low-level bowl games are going to be a crapshoot going forward. Thanks to the portal, the team that earned the spot in the regular season it not the team that shows up in the bowl.
sacman701: This was basically the UCLA game, but we were the Ruins and Tech was us. The defense played almost well enough to win even notwithstanding the bad start, but the offense was a sloppy, self-destructive mess. Mendoza is capable of playing much better and smarter than that, but turnovers were a problem all season (28 in 13 games, only 3 of 132 teams were worse) and he'll have to cut the turnovers way down to be an effective starter.
Rose Bowl Oski: This was Fernando's first subpar performance. I'm sure having to take finals this week didn't help with preparation. They say you learn more from your failures than your mistakes, so the staff and the whole roster has plenty to learn from in the of season. I'm still very bullish on next season.
Thanks to all who participated this season! Check back on August 31st around 5pm for the next opportunity to Rate the Bears after they take on UC Davis! It sounds far away, but it will be here sooner than you think…Go Bears!
I am not going to ruin this for the seniors and any players who graciously participated, even though they may be moving on. I can only say thank you for pulling out a bowl game in a season that was fated to be much less than we got. You players found the steel and made it happen. Thank you for never dying, never quitting, even when fans, such as ourselves, for the length of the season, threw out hurtful criticisms and harsh judgements. Win or lose, we love our Bears and their courage and character, on and off the field, makes us proud.
Some real troubling signs…