Rating the Bears: Cal vs. USC Football

Cal falls just short in the second-highest rated loss of the Wilcox Era

Photo credit: @cal_football

We are in the seventh season under Wilcox, so we are well past the time to claim moral victories. But after all the losing we have endured over the last several seasons, it’s nice to experience a loss where Cal 1) mostly overachieved against a superior opponent and 2) turned in a genuinely fun performance. Despite the loss, we all provided quite positive ratings this week; most of these are higher than ratings from the wins over ASU and Idaho. In fact, this is the second-highest rated loss of the Wilcox Era.

Rating the Bears

If you didn’t know the final score of the game, I wouldn’t blame for your looking at the ratings table and thinking that Saturday’s game was a win.

Once again Nando’s strong performance helped pass offense earn the highest grade of the week. Despite some second-half struggles, the ground game was explosive enough in the first half to earn the second-highest score of the week. Both defensive scores are decent, and probably graded on a curve given the caliber of USC’s offense. Special teams, coaching, and overall all fare quite well in the ratings. What has not fared well, however, are our predictions of a win over Oregon. They have dropped by about a third since preseason due to Oregon’s utter domination over all its non-UW conference opponents. Unless Dan Lanning starts attempting a bunch of ill-advised 4th downs like the Ducks did against UW, this weekend may be a difficult one…

Ratings Comparison

It has been a rough set of games against USC since we started this series back in 2010. As a result, this is clearly one of the better sets of ratings for a matchup against the Trojans.

Comparing Saturday’s ratings (gold) to boxplots of all our other ratings against USC in recent years.

Run defense sits on the median line; otherwise, every category was better than usual. More than half the ratings were at or above the 75th percentile (the top of the white box). Pass offense finished just below the best rating we’ve given for a USC matchup recently. That’s an impressive performance for Nando since the data includes three years of Goff performances and a Davis Webb performance.

The next plot compares those ratings to all games in the Wilcox Era.

Comparing Saturday’s ratings (gold) to all other ratings in the Wilcox Era

Offense was much, much better than usual while defense was slightly worse than usual. In a pleasant break from recent trends, coaching and overall earned better-than-usual ratings.

Awards

If you’ve been reading this series for a while, you know what’s next: awards!

Old Blues

First, the lowest ratings of the week. The numbers in parentheses next to the name note the number of times that participant has previously received that award.

There is a huge spread in scores among the Old Blues (35 percentage points!).

Sunshine Pumpers

Next, the most optimistic ratings of the week.

Oski of Tarth is the only winner this week who isn’t a repeat offender. And once again, we have a pretty sizeable gap between 1st and 5th (22 percentage points). With both awards categories having such large spreads, it looks like the rest of us were tucked into that gap between about 75% and 55%.

The Voice of Reason

Next, we have those whose ratings were closest to the community average.

Finally, comments of the week.

Comments

Any comments on the gameday experience?

RememberTheCalamo: Really sucks that I have to settle for $tanfurd on national television but Cal gets stuck on p12 networks

Willis Chong: Cal needs to invest in new speakers- none of the announcements are understandable

Calboy1976: Nice crowd and surprisingly Trojan fan behaved themselves

gigglingone: Such a great crowd, in to it into the end. Way too many turnovers though.

sacman701: I will not miss the Pac-12 network. My provider doesn't carry it.

GlueAndBold: It's been a while since I've felt actively sick after a game.

Bowlesman80: A bittersweet, long suffering ending in the same, but, at last, at an end.

heyalumnigo: Great last tailgate ever at the lower Dwinelle lot. Great breakfast burritos. Crowd was sparse at the beginning but really filled in as the game went on.

What are your thoughts on Cal's passing game?

MBrew3: Endries really emerged as a pass catcher.

Willis Chong: Mendoza is a player and makes quick passes. A few drops, but makes mostly intelligent throws. Frosh mistakes can be understood as experience should improve that

Old Bear 71: Nando can put it where he needs to. He’s making huge leaps weekly.

HaasBear: So close to being elite. A few barely missed deep balls and a dumb interception.

BearsWillEndMyLife: Mendoza was sharp all game, and you can see him improving in real time. His back-shoulder throws are well-placed, and the fourth TD to Grizzell was spectacular. I thought our o-line held up remarkably well, and Mendoza selected to run correctly every time. Sadly we had one too many drops in the fourth quarter that kept putting us behind the sticks. Not sure what Mendoza was thinking on the no-look interception.

Rose Bowl Oski: Fernando has gotten better every game, though he made one costly mistake today

1988goldenbear: I like Mendoza and think he will only get better. The INT was a killer (as were all of the turnovers) so he has to figure out how to handle pressure, but he played a really great game.

OskiOfTarth: The quick strikes took away the superior talent of USC's linebackers and DBs from closing and disrupting most passes

heyalumnigo: I gave it a 90 because it's the best it's looked all season by far so I'm grading on a curve (leaving a little room for a better game later in the season). Some of this is due to the $C D not being good. At all. Nando did miss some throws, but he was so accurate on slants. The one he missed that would've been great was the rollout on 4th down where he overthrew Trond(?) around the SC 10 or 15.

jakewebs: LOVE Mendoza. Sure, USC has a terrible defense, but he was impressive once again. A couple mistakes, sure, but he was able to make up for it with great throws and scrambles. Cal needs to keep him as they move to the ACC because this kid is special.

What are your thoughts on Cal's running game?

Willis Chong: Jaydn Ott was great... for 2 quarters. He lost a lot of juice and was hurt. Ifanse wasn't in for the last quarter, so he must be hurt. Would have liked it if our best offense was on the field for the last few drives.

Score would have been higher if not for the fumbles

Calboy1976: Sad #1 and #24 out for a time. Probably cost Cal that game

Old Bear 71: Drops off a lot when Ott and Ifanse are out.

Bug provided the threat to give Nando rooom to go to work.

HaasBear: Respect Bear Alexander. We run for 170 with him suspended and like 20 with him in the game.

BearsWillEndMyLife: A tale of two halves. Ott was a monster in the first half, but once he was pulled for concussion protocol, we completely collapsed. We became entirely one-dimensional, and it was one of two factors that cost us the game. Our blocking disappeared and Spavital had no choice but to put the game in Mendoza's hands.

Rose Bowl Oski: Electric when Ott and Ifanse were in -- hope they're okay for next week. Fumbles by the 3rd stringers we're painful

BTown85: 1st have was great; Ott could not be stopped. Then he got stopped……

heyalumnigo: Incredible in the 1st half. Not good in the 2nd half when $C stacked the box. Hopefully Ott and Ifanse are back next week, otherwise Oregon probably should blitz all game long. RB3-5 are very inexperienced.

jakewebs: Unbelievable start, but even before the injuries things were slowing down a bit. After Ott/Ifanse came out things got rough which can't be a surprise.

What are your thoughts on Cal's pass defense?

MBrew3: Gave up some big plays, but not bad.

Willis Chong: Heroic, but can only do so much when you can't sack the quarterback much

Old Bear 71: Against Mr. Heisman? Better than I thought they would be. Way better, Actually getting pressure and a few sacks was so satisfying.

sacman701: Pass rush was vastly improved. We got torched a bunch of times, but Williams does that to people.

GlueAndBold: Finally got some good pressure! Williams was good but the defense honestly hold off pretty decently.

1988goldenbear: Reasonable rush on Williams, but there is never much margin for error if he has time.

OskiOfTarth: USC exploited our weakness, a certain DB who couldn't keep up, and needs to learn to tackle vs going for the big hit.

heyalumnigo: We got a Pac-12 sack!! I guess 4 of them. Put pressure on $C with the blitz, which was a bit surprising. Caleb Williams missed a bunch of throws that I would think he should make. Oh look, as I type this, Lu-Magia is getting burned again.

What are your thoughts on Cal's run defense?

MBrew3: Overall passable.

Willis Chong: Got gassed by the end. We don't have the horses to keep up if we keep turning the ball over

sacman701: Mostly decent until the bust at the end.

BearsWillEndMyLife: Wore down as the game progressed, and gave up too many big plays. Losing KEO for a significant portion of the game was devastating. Their stats only look pedestrian because of the extended kneel downs to end the game.

1988goldenbear: Run defense was sketchy early and late, but pretty good in the middle.

OskiOfTarth: we settled down after a couple of series and did well until the last 5 minutes.

heyalumnigo: Was pretty good, other than that one last long run on their last scoring drive. By then the D was gassed.

What are your thoughts on Cal's special teams?

Willis Chong: Obvious fair catch was obvious.

At least we actually had a plan for kickoffs. Seemed to work

Old Bear 71: Well done overall. W/O the ko fumble, we win.

Xp’s 5/5. KO coverage was bueno. Branch was non factor.

BearsWillEndMyLife: The fumble obviously was killer, but not the single reason we lost. We were clearly winning the special teams phase of the game early, but the field flipped late. With Bhaghani and Wilson solid weapons for the team, I wonder if there were more opportunities to pin u$c deep and make them go on longer drives.

Rose Bowl Oski: Excellent for the first time in a long time

BTown85: How Dickensian; it was the best of times (1st half), it was the worst of times (2nd half). SO IMPRESSED with kickoff coverage which forced SC to start fair catching, then we fumbled the punt return in the 2nd. Dagger…..

BrooklynBear: Special Teams - at this level - for the entire season and what do we have? Another win or two? The kick offs and punt coverage was excellent. Hunter is a veteran and I can't understand what he thought to uncover from returning that punt that the OFFENSE did not have an equal or better chance at.

Bowlesman80: Much better overall; Wilson continues to be the star; Luckhurst kicks it deep, usually; and Boghani brings consistency to our PATs and medium FGs.

jakewebs: Would have been the best special teams performance of the season. I say would have because they was one of the most gut wrenching, typiCAL fumbles in the 4th. Game killer.

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

RememberTheCalamo: Hot take: I like going for it to win.

MBrew3: I thought it was a well coached game, if fine with the aggressive decisions.

Willis Chong: Dunno if we should save Spav because of the improvement or if we should clean house entirely. We seemed juiced, but then we had too many penalties. I know that some were BS like the unsportmanlike for an incidental contact, but discipline needs to be instilled. When you have no room for error, you can't keep shooting yourself in the foot

Calboy1976: Probably did as good as was possible. They didn't cause those 4 turnovers.

sacman701: Made some good adjustments after SC shredded us on their first 3 possessions. I think it was right to go for 2 at the end, our running game was depleted and our kickers are so unreliable that we are at a distinct disadvantage in overtime situations.

HaasBear: Wilcox and co for the first time this season our coached an opponent. Mistakes killed us.

GlueAndBold: Made all the right conversion decisions but didn't always execute well. Tackling continues to need work.

BTown85: I love the aggressiveness; can’t fault the 4th down plays or the 2-point conversion, just wish we’d converted. Fumbles are not on the coaches, even though they’ll take the blame.

Bowlesman80: Yeah, the elephant in the room. Why go for 2? I agree with the decision, although, clearly, one could make an argument for either way. Our run game was closed down; our defense was gassed; going for two would have narrowed $C to one 40+ second drive versus- do or die. We just got successfully disrupted on the 2 point play.

jakewebs: They prepared the boys well and had some great playcalls at times (a few smart blitzes and an AWESOME call on the first 2PC). However, I wasn't a fan of going for 2 at the end. Our best 2 point play has been used already, and if you are going to go for 2, don't burn a timeout and box yourself in even further.

What are your thoughts on Cal's overall performance?

no: i think it's fair for me to think as an employer that i should never hire from USC, ever.

Willis Chong: Still think 4 wins is our ceiling. We can't close out games if we keep turning the ball over. Too many missing pieces and below average coaching means that we can't keep up with a great Pac-12

Old Bear 71: On our own field with Unbiased refs. We win this game 10 out of 10.

The Bears' performance was excellent. Passion, fire, solid tackles and a whole lotta don’t quit. This team should have been playing at this level at the start of the season.

Still can steal 3 wins (somewhere).

HaasBear: Cal was the better team today but beat themselves with turnovers.

BearsWillEndMyLife: I sometimes marvel at ways Cal finds to lose games. Yes, still. This was a game we had no business winning, against a generational QB, and yet it wasn't decided by their superior talent finally just making one more play than our scrappy bunch. We so badly tried to gift them the game over and over, and u$c mostly said, no here you take it, until finally they said ok fine we've had enough of this nonsense. We're going to get absolutely blasted by Oregon next week, Wazzu now looks like a toss-up, we better beat furd, and we'll get blasted by UCLA to say goodbye to the Pac-12.

1988goldenbear: Having a chance to take the lead with a 2-point conversion try at the end of the game would ordinarily make me pretty happy. Losing two double-digit leads in the game is beyond frustrating.

BTown85: What a great f-ing game! But we’re Cal so we come up short….

Bowlesman80: I am so proud of this team. They fought and gave it a chance up to the last minute. If this trend of improvement continues, I might be more patient with WIlcox's tenure.

heyalumnigo: I mean I was just glad we were in the game at halftime. Before the game I thought for sure we'd be out of it by halftime. Players kept playing hard all game long. No quit, even after all the injuries. Too many to count. Ott, Ifanse, Vatikani, KEO.

jakewebs: In some senses this was the best performance of the season. The Dline had their best outing in conference play, frequently pressuring Williams, and the offense was obviously incredible. The Bears came out inspired and somehow almost won a game against a team with far superior talent even despite 4 back breaking turnovers in their own territory. But once again, the Wilcox era is defined by "almost".

Thanks for participating! Check back Saturday afternoon following the Oregon game for this week’s rating form. I’m doubtful our ratings will be this positive next week, but I am willing to be pleasantly surprised.