Rating the Bears: Cal vs. Arizona State Football

An uneven performance closes out the manageable part of the schedule

Image credit: @cal_football

Despite the hand-wringing about the quarterback play and some complaints about explosive plays surrendered on defense, Cal managed to secure a rather ugly win on Saturday. Enjoy it while you can, Cal fans, as we may be on the verge of a five-game losing streak (vs. #15 OSU, at #18 Utah, vs. #9 USC, at #8 Oregon, vs. #13 Wazzu). But before suffering through a potential month-long period of malaise, let’s look back on our ratings for the ASU game.

Rating the Bears

As usual, the fanbase rated the Bears across seven different categories and offered predictions of a Cal victory for the upcoming game.

Per tradition for Wilcox, pass offense earns the lowest score of the week (by a large margin this time). At the opposite end of the scale, run offense and defense earned the highest ratings of the week. In a welcome break from recent results, special teams earned a respectable 70.6. The rest—pass defense, coaching, and overall—were all fine. Not great, not terrible. That pretty much sums up Saturday’s game. Looking ahead to this Saturday, OSU’s strong start has cut out predictions of a win nearly in half compared to our preseason predictions.

Ratings Comparison

We do not have much data on recent games with Arizona State as we have played them less frequently in the Pac-12 era. Comparing Saturday’s ratings (gold) to all previous ASU games in the boxplots below, every category was either 1) great, 2) terrible, or 3) surprisingly middling.

Pass offense and pass defense were both around the 25th percentile, while coaching and overall sit exactly at the median. The remaining categories—run offense, run defense, and special teams) each posted the highest or second-highest rating we’ve seen against the Sun Devils (again, we only have seven games of data here).

The same pattern from above largely holds when comparing these ratings to the rest of the Wilcox Era.

Pass offense and pass defense fare considerably worse than normal while run offense, run defense, and special teams earned better-than-usual scores. Overall and coaching ratings sit almost exactly at their median ratings. Given the hand-wringing about this win, it’s not a ringing endorsement of Wilcox that this was a very typical outcome at the coaching and overall levels.

Awards!

Sunshine Pumpers

First, the best grades of the week (parentheses denote the number of previous awards).

For the fifth straight week Calamo and Bowlesman are first and second. While Calamo is typically guaranteed a spot at the top, it’s impressive that Bowlesman always manages a modest increase over third place rather than earning second by posting a wildly inflated score.

Old Blues

Next, the lowest scores of the week.

Many repeat award-winners in this tightly contested category (separated by only 53 points!)

The Voice of Reason

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

Not only has sacman701 won more of these than anyone, but he finished in first place this week by a huge margin.

Finally, we have your comments from Saturday’s uncomfortably close win.

Comments

Any comments on the gameday experience?

MBrew3: Family was at the game, they were happy to see a win.

KJ1980: A perfect day to watch football. The crowd did get to see a bit of football. Two evenly matched teams that played unevenly for most of the day. Some marginal officiating.

RememberTheCalamo: Was one of the (announced) 34353 people there.... I don't think there were that many there.

Frisco Bear: Need new microphone people. After three years, you'd think they'd get better. The promotions during time outs and quarter breaks sound like I'm at a 7 year old's birthday party.

Rose Bowl Oski: Beautiful day in Strawberry Canyon! Nice to have a noon kickoff

BearsWillEndMyLife: Got to bring the whole fam for the first time this season. Great activities for the kids on Goldman Plaza. Weather was perfect, but the stadium audio desperately needs to get fixed. Were there supposed to be card stunts at halftime?

Oski Disciple: Good football weather. Like afternoon starts but noon is a tad early. Less annoying diversions during the interminable time outs. The Golden Bear Growl contest should be re-named Which of these kids is the cutest? Since that's the way people "vote." Band in good form, as always. The crowd was thin but that's reflective of the team's performance this year. Not likely to get better except for the U$C game.

What are your thoughts on Cal's passing game?

Willis Chong: Less than 50 percent against a bad defense? That's really bad. Since Finley didn't win the job from SJV, I'm tempted to just ask that we put Mendoza in for a couple of games. At least he can get game experience.

KJ1980: Not very good. SJV did not hit much of any length and a lucky pass interference call sealed the game.(almost anyway).

RememberTheCalamo: Really uninspiring. It struck me a couple of times that there were catchable balls but the WR didn't want to take the hit.

sacman701: No picks and a few good moments, but mostly ineffective. It's hard to sustain drives when you complete less than half your passes and average 4.5 yards per attempt before accounting for sacks. Would Finley have been better? Who knows, the number of picks in any game is high-variance.

Frisco Bear: What pass offense? Jackson still doesn't look like a quarterback when he's handling the ball. After 7 yards, he has no accuracy on his throws. Miraculously he didn't have any turnovers. He was able to scramble for some gains that other QBs wouldn't have made (but that's not really passing).

jakewebs: When Jackson plays, I want Finley to come in. When Finley plays, I want Jackson to come in. Looks like our offseason concerns about the QB room were founded.

BrooklynBear: Hunter is so great. No other receiver seems to get separation and Grizzell showed fear in the crossing route early.

Goldenone: Need to get Sam more snaps so he can get comfortable. We also must develop receivers not named Jeremiah Hunter

What are your thoughts on Cal's running game?

Willis Chong: Ott was good. Ifanse did his job. SJV had a few runs that were called back. But we didn't get the TD to ice the game. At this point, do we just blame everyone?

KJ1980: Very, very good. Both Ott and Infanse are gamers. A solid passing game would make the run game unstoppable.

RememberTheCalamo: Ott and Ifanse find holes and yards after contact. Jackson needs to not run east-west so much a definitely needs to learn how to throw the ball away.

Frisco Bear: Stellar. The last drive was great from a run offense perspective (coaching and time control SUCKED on that drive)

Oski Disciple: Ott is a beast. Imagine if we had a better O Line and a passing game that would open things up more for the run.

Goldenone: Ott was a beast and led us to victory - Ifanse and Thomas also contributed. We are second in rushing offense in the PAC 12 behind Oregon

What are your thoughts on Cal's pass defense?

Willis Chong: Kept letting them get back into the game. Did have a pick so that's good

MBrew3: A few too many big plays, but acceptable

RememberTheCalamo: Really frustrating that we left 4 open for big gains again and again and again

sacman701: A lot of breakdowns, but fortunately none of them resulted in a TD: holding ASU to field goals on those two 3rd quarter possessions where they broke a huge play (plus the interception at ASU's end) turned out to be the difference in the game. Still, 362 yards to ASU's wet noodle attack is not a good day.

Frisco Bear: Not bad against a bad team. Don't know what that means, but there is room for improvement.

jakewebs: Pretty bad performance against a backup's backup and overall very weak offense. They were getting torched for huge yards after catch and getting beat in coverage by a QB is embarrassing. That pick did save the game though so it wasn't all bad for the takers.

BearsWillEndMyLife: ASU's passing offense does not present much of a challenge, but giving up over 300 yards to a third stringer is not a good look. Kind of a sleep walk effort, despite having to carry pur inept offense to a win.

Tangtpt: Disappointing. They were gashed, especially underneath in the soft spots of the zone. Don't know what we can do about that, but it's definitely disappointing.

Goldenone: Giving up too much YAC and still getting toasted from time to time

What are your thoughts on Cal's run defense?

Willis Chong: Okay, but when they put their RB in at QB on 4th down, keep a spy on that RB please

MBrew3: Played well, stuffed Skattebo frequently

sacman701: Very solid. ASU had 68 yards on 29 carries, nuff said.

Old Bear 71: Stifling. But nobody expected ASU to do much.

sacalum: When ASU wasn't torching our defense with passes, our run D was performing pretty well.

BearsWillEndMyLife: Skattebo brings a lot to the table, so we bottled him up pretty well. A great effort overall, but ASU is one of the few teams with a less functional offense than us. I mean, they benched Baldwin as a playcaller.

Oski Disciple: It seems like this is been a strength of ours forever (with a brief interruption during the Dykes years). We consistently stuffed ASU forcing them into passing situations.

Tangtpt: Linebackers are studs. Really good against the run.

What are your thoughts on Cal's special teams?

MBrew3: Kicking game was better and punting was good, kick coverage could be better

sacman701: Decent for once. No missed FGs or XPs, and the punting was good. The only negative was the long kickoff return.

HaasBear: Outside of the one blown kickoff coverage they were excellent. Punting won us this game.

Frisco Bear: Other than the 50 yard KO return in the 4th quarter, the Special Teams were great. Wilson's punting was phenomenal and kept A State in the shadow of their goal posts for most of the game. Lachlan Wilson was MVP!!!

jakewebs: Best special teams performance of the year, though that was an ugly kick return in the fourth. Great punting and kicking all game.

sacalum: Great punting from Lachlan Wilson and, oh yeah, we finally converted all of our extra points and made a FG, to boot). But returning a kickoff a paltry 14 yards reduces ST's overall score.

BearsWillEndMyLife: More indictment on the coaching staff that Bhaghani sat for this long. But, see what happens in close games when you have a functional special teams performance? You WIN!

Oski Disciple: Made a field goal and all our PATs! The punting was superb. However we gave up a big KO return and haven't done anything interesting (a block or a big return) on opposing punts in years.

Tangtpt: Our punter is a beast. He put up some really, really good punts that changed field position in a really positive way. Kick/punt coverage is still a big problem.

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

Willis Chong: Typical Wilcox game in that we played down to the competition. I guess ASU is not completely awful, but we should have run away with that game with average QB play. This is on the coaches to recruit better and coach up who you have.

Bowlesman80: Wish I could say our team is better prepared for our opponents. I feel we ended up playing to the level of our opponent. But somebody on staff caught the illegal man on the field. That's something, right? I want to say something positive, just in cause it's my last opportunity this season.

sacman701: Throwing so much when the passing game was clearly less effective than the running game was questionable, but requesting the review on the play where ASU had 12 men arguably won the game for us.

Townie: Spavital’s play calling the last series at the goal line was atrocious. The Jackson keeper was baffling. The fourth down call never stood a chance.

Old Bear 71: As unimaginative as ever. Wilcox looks like he eats tranquilizers for his pre game meal.

Spav still on the sidelines wondering what just happened instead of in the booth calling lethal crossing routes that Jackson V could actually hit.

Penalties. Ugh.

Frisco Bear: Great time out to get the A State TD overturned and the 4 point differential turned out to be the difference in the game.

That last drive Cal made that stalled on the one was great from a running perspective, but Cal left WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON THE CLOCK!!, particularly at the beginning of that drive. Seemed that A State was having an injured player every other play (Tosh anyone?) and each time, Cal snapped the ball with more than 35 seconds on the clock. It wasn't until they were within the 20 that they started running the clock near or below 10 seconds left. Gave ASU the ball with 3:20 +/- on the clock. Should have been close to nothing left. That's leaving money on the table and WILL bite us another time.

Rose Bowl Oski: Defense was well coached to get in position quickly to prevent easy 4th down conversations

BTown85: A timeout on an extra point? Gamechanger!!!!!! Not sure why I didn’t see the 12 men on the field….great job there coaches!

Oski Disciple: Deserved kudos to Wilcox for catching 12 men on the field for the Sun Devil TD. We got a win, the team was ready to play so on the day it was fine. But my goodness the penalties, the lack of an innovation on offense and the breakdowns on special teams. It's not good enough. How I long for regime change.

BrooklynBear: GREAT JOB on counting 12 players there. And then the 4th and 1, well a naked bootleg is definitely the right call there.

What are your thoughts on Cal's overall performance?

Willis Chong: 4-8 is the ceiling. Given what we saw here, I don't see another winnable game aside from Stanford and that's questionable

KJ1980: This was Cal football at its typical -- a nailbiter against a team we were supposed to beat handily. Expect we will do the same versus Furd. The rest will be very tough. And Oregon State next week. After the Beavers W versus Utah, all I can say is YIKES

sacman701: Winning ugly beats losing ugly. There were some positives today in the run offense, run defense, and special teams, but the passing game needs to improve a lot if we are going to pose much threat to most of the remaining teams on the schedule especially if the pass defense continues to leak.

Old Bear 71: A win, savor it. I’m afraid it will be a while before the next one comes around.

Frisco Bear: A win is a win is a win. Let's enjoy it. Not sure we are going to get 3 more...

BearsWillEndMyLife: We did what we had to to win. But squeaking by ASU reinforces that 4-8 is this season's best-case scenario. Knowing that Christ is on her way out, and that we don't have any money to buy Wilcox out means this movie will play itself out for the next couple of seasons.

Oski Disciple: Wins are fun (especially as they have become so rare and we might not see another for awhile). The performance was reflective of where the program is: not terrible ala ASU or Furd, but not good enough to go bowling. It's where Cal has been for most of the past 70 years.

Tangtpt: A win is a win is a win. That's obviously good, and there were good performances by parts of the team, but we still have not seen a complete team performance. Going into this part of the schedule, we need to see more.

Thanks for participating, and make sure to submit your ratings late Saturday night after the OSU game!