Rating the Bears: Cal vs. UC Davis Football

Evaluating our annual Rorschach test of an FCS game

Photo credit: Rob Hwang

So much has changed this offseason. New assistant coaches, new players, new uniforms, new conference. But do you know what hasn’t changed? Our inevitable struggles against whichever FCS team is on the schedule. This is the first edition in our weekly Rating the Bears series, and what better way to start it off than with our annual 30-minute strugglefest against an FCS team followed by 30 minutes of “hey, maybe it isn’t going to be as bad as we had feared.” That kind of Jekyll and Hyde performance always produces an interesting set of ratings: those from people who took an hour to figure out what an ACC Extra is and who mostly judged the game based on the second half, those who suffered through the whole thing, and people like me who suffered through an agonizing first half before other obligations forced me to miss the only allegedly enjoyable part of the game. So ratings may be all over the place this week. Let’s have a look…

Rating the Bears

The table below provides the average and standard deviation (a larger standard deviation indicates wider variation in the ratings) for each of the categories.

Other than an unusually strong special teams rating, scores were unremarkable across the board. Not great, not terrible. In traditional Wilcoxian fashion, defensive ratings are higher than the offensive ratings. In untraditional Wilcoxian fashion, special teams earned a stellar score, the highest of the week. One of the more interesting ratings of the week is coaching. Typically these categories tend to have standard deviations around 15, but coaching earned a 21.8. This means scores were all over the place: some punished the coaches for allowing another slow start against an FCS team, some rewarded the coaches for helping the team regroup in the second half, and some split the two and gave a middling score.

Looking ahead to Saturday, our struggles against UC Davis and Auburn’s lack thereof against their FCS foe have greatly reduced our predictions of a win against the Tigers compared to our preseason predictions only a few weeks ago.

Ratings Comparison

Next we turn our attention to how these ratings compare to all our previous FCS games over the past fifteen seasons. The following boxplots compare Saturday’s ratings (gold) to all previous ratings for that category.

Gold dots represent Saturday’s ratings compared to all our previous ratings. The white box captures data between the 25th and 75th percentiles while the horizontal line represents the median rating.

Offense bad. Defense good. Coaches and overall bad. That all sounds like the usual recipe for FCS games under Wilcox.

Now how do these compare to all the other games we’ve seen under Wilcox?

Boxplots comparing Saturday’s ratings (gold) to all previous ratings in the Wilcox Era.

Surprisingly representative! Pass offense, pass defense, and overall all sit on their respective medians while run defense and coaching are not far from their medians. For those categories this was a typical Wilcox performance: uninspiring passing, mostly solid pass coverage, solid run defense, and a lingering postgame taste of disappointment and “at least we won.” Run offense, one of the consistent bright spots for Wilcox teams, fared much worse than usual while special teams fared much better than usual.

Awards

Now we have some (virtual) hardware to hand out: awards for the best, worst, and most reasonable ratings of the week.

Sunshine Pumpers

First, the highest ratings of the week.

Keeping her winning streak going since the 2010s, Calamo earns the top spot. Otherwise, things weren’t very sunny as no one else eclipsed the 80% mark.

Old Blues

Next, the worst grades of the week.

These aren’t that bad. Sometimes the lowest grades of the week feel like a harsh overreaction to a loss, but these seem reasonable. Then again, I only watched the first half…

The Voice of Reason

Next, those whose ratings were closest to the community average for each category.

Goldenone leads the way while Calboy76 and GlueAndBold round out the podium.

Now enough number, tables, and boxplots (always with the boxplots…), let’s see how you felt about the game in words.

Comments

Any comments on the gameday experience?

profmark6945@yahoo.com: Figured out how to get to ESPN+. I suspect many Cal ACC games will be there.

Willis Chong: Sparsely attended game. Way too many Aggie fans in section T. Looks like a bunch of season ticket holders sold their seats

Kj1980: Beautiful fall day. Great crowd.

Dougvanwyck@comcast.net: Great weather in a beautiful stadium. Lots of babies, tots and youth in section EE. I hope there is CAL football in 2040 when they are adults.

heyalumnigo: Glad to be back. Beautiful day mid-70s in Strawberry Canyon. Does it get any better than that?

SG Bear: Do you know how weird it is to be able to go into nearly any bar in North Carolina and watch a Cal game? I watched the game nearly by myself since UNC, NC State, and Duke already played. So it was nearly a perfect watching environment - dark, left nearly alone, and frequently asked if I wanted a fresh beer. And after each beer that I ordered, Cal would get either a 4th down stop or a turnover in our favor, so I kept that trend going. I'm not superstitious, but I wasn't willing to tempt fate.

OskiOfTarth: First ever football game I watched on streaming (ACCNX via the ESPN app on AppleTV), and hated it. No pause, no skip back or forward, no slo-mo, forced to sit through every ad. I'm a Tivo luddite and can watch a Cal game in about 90 minutes if I time shift, skipping ads, reviews, and halftime. Not cutting the cord any time soon.

1988goldenbear: Nice to have the team out of the sun and on the alumni side. I can't wait to see the chaos of the student section vs. the Stanford players...

CoBears: Love that football is back. Thoroughly enjoyed watching the second half (until the Ott injury), in which we looked like the stifling defense and moderate offense I expected of the team this year.

RollOnYouChairs/Alex Ghenis: I missed pregame festivities but otherwise it was great game day weather and at 32,275 announced attendance, an impressive turnout for an FCS game (there was a good collection of Davis alum in the stands too). Of course there were some negatives within the game, but in terms of game day experience this was solid for an FCS opponent.

What are your thoughts on Cal's passing game?

TKE Prytanis 79: I get that we wanted to give Rogers some reps but it should be Mendoza from here out

Rose Bowl Oski: Mendoza was clearly more confident, more accurate, and overall considerably better than Rogers.

Frisco Bear: 40 score is a tale of 2 QBs. With Mendoza on the field, it's deserving of about an 80. With Rodgers, unfortunately, there was nothing yet to rate him on, hence a zero. Wilcox needs to stick with Mendoza and hope he stays healthy, at least until week 6, whereby Rogers will hopefully see the game better. The offensive line unfortunately was just that, offensive. No protection and no rushing.

SG Bear: Mendoza looked solid when he had time to throw. I liked that he was quick, decisive and generally accurate. The three interior linemen were not great. While Mendoza only got sacked once, he was pressured out of rhythm more than he should have. And credit goes to UC Davis as they have a very good team for a FCS level team. Rogers performance was disappointing. He'll probably keep his "or" on the depth chart, but I think Mendoza locked up the starter title.

fuzzywuzzy: I think, for most of CFB, a QB battle - involving a sophomore and a senior transfer - carries a bit of foreboding for me, and there wasn't much to see that changed that. There were some decent throws, more by Mendoza, but I'm not this season may just be a toss-up.

Old Bear 71: Give me Mendoza! And Hunter!

jakewebs: Nando is QB1. Period. But, there will need to be a better performance to beat Auburn.

LiffeyBear: Mendoza is the guy. He was the one looking downfield to make a play. Rogers was too quick to pull the ball down and run. I like having an experienced backup who is a change of pace and I’m willing to pay 2 quarters of a warmup game to get that backup on the team. But aside from garbage time, Mendoza should be on the field.

BrooklynBear: Mikey Matthews looked nice. Hunter was a breath of fresh air. Where was Grizzell? And Mavin Anderson getting catches is exciting (he was always a jet sweep option last year). But boy Morrow's rating will be ... poor!

What are your thoughts on Cal's running game?

MBrew3: Couldn’t do much

Willis Chong: Ott was good. Doom now that he's banged up. Even worse that we didn't cover due to the scoop-n-score

Rose Bowl Oski: I hope it was a product of Cal just using vanilla blocking schemes, but even still, that was some weak sauce

sacman701: This is a real problem. Ott mostly had little to work with except on a couple of drives in the 3rd quarter, and we had some critical failures on 3rd down and of course the scoop and score. Either the OL has to improve, or the offense will struggle to sustain anything against almost anyone left on the schedule.

AKBear: Need to figure out how to get the ball to Ott in space where he can do more damage. If he’s out, next man up. Play to strengths. Avoid weaknesses.

Frisco Bear: The line needs time to gel. Unfortunately, they don't have it. Will be bleak until they get going.

GlueAndBold: Ott's health is our primary concern and we all desperately hope his injury isn't serious.

NeverQuitNeverDie: Hope Ott is all right, our other backs were effective in the 2nd half. Not convinced the line is doing what we need to be able to run the ball against serious competition

JP90: No big holes = no big plays

OskiOfTarth: Until his tweak, it seemed inevitable Ott was going to break off a long run at some point & go over 100. If Ott can't go, Cardwell seems ready to step up, our obvious next best option.

bearspot: I hope the OL locks in soon. Unbelievable what Calloway did. With the team right under my nose now, you could tell he was down about it, but this was the game work that out. I expect him to bust out against Auburn.

BrooklynBear: Cardwell really struggled in his first few carries and that was surprising. Calloway definitely did not get back in due to the fumble. I wonder if he's dropped on the depth chart due to that.

What are your thoughts on Cal's pass defense?

sacman701: This is where we won the game. Bent but mostly didn't break in the first half, and didn't even bend in the second. UCD averaged barely 4.5 yards per attempt and threw three picks. When you can force your opponent into that, you almost always win unless it's the Cheez-it bowl.

AKBear: It was a tale of two halves. First half, they were too passive playing too soft. Second half, they were more aggressive.

Frisco Bear: Tale of two halves. First half, with all of that zone, UC Davis was taking what was being given and splitting the seams time and time again. Cal made the appropriate adjustments to the tune of 3 picks, so that's a silver lining.

GlueAndBold: Absolutely carved up in the first half and tough as nails in the second. Guess keeping the playbook closed can affect both sides of the ball.

SG Bear: Oof. You could tell by all the pre-snap yelling and gesturing that Cal's secondary was in a bit of disarray in the first half. Miles Williams had a particularly rough game in coverage. Isaiah Crosby had a bad day tackling. Credit goes to Davis QB Hastings, who had a pretty good first half and didn't start having problems until he started pressing when Davis needed to come from behind. Cade was outstanding in dropping back. Nohl Williams also had a pretty good day in coverage (+ returning a KO for a TD)

NeverQuitNeverDie: The first half was maddeningly soft, then in the end of the first and into the second half the INTs started to fall for us and the passing lanes closed down.

fuzzywuzzy: Wait and see; they certainly improved in the 2nd half, and maybe they switched to a more aggressive stance, ro just started figuring things out, but there was plenty of room over the middle all day, and the Aggie QB made some bad throws as the game wore on.

1988goldenbear: Gashed in the first half, lockdown in the second half. Nice adjustments.

LiffeyBear: Sieve in the first half. Safety missing tackles all over the field.

Stone wall in the second half. Picks for everybody!

bearspot: Love our LBs. Was not impressed with the pass rush.

What are your thoughts on Cal's run defense?

Willis Chong: We got gashed in the beginning but got better

TKE Prytanis 79: Good when they were good

sacman701: Shaky in the first half, solid in the second.

AKBear: Run defense may have been their best unit outside of ST.

Frisco Bear: Most consistent part of the day. Against a lesser opponent, they looked good and did their job.

JP90: Bend but don't break seemed the theme of the day here too.

fuzzywuzzy: The D line got pushed around quite a bit. There won't be anymore games in which you can get outgained like that in the first half and win them.

Old Bear 71: I want to see another Teddy-Cade performance!

bearspot: In the first half I wondered if our guys were "too fast to tackle". Glad they figure that out in 2nd half.

BrooklynBear: pretty stout in the 2nd half.

What are your thoughts on Cal's special teams?

Willis Chong: Made all the kicks and KOs were generally good

TKE Prytanis 79: We have a kicking teams and made some good and one great return...thsi could win close games

Kj1980: Super. No missed kicks. Kick off return for a TD. Critical to the win over a FCS team, a sad commentary.

Rose Bowl Oski: Nice that special teams appear to be an asset in every phase

AKBear: They made their kicks and scored so keep this going.

heyalumnigo: No long FG attempts today, but the kicker seems competent. Has the leg to kick it into the endzone so that's a good sign. And how does Davis give up a kickoff return for a TD when going for a short kickoff.

GlueAndBold: Somehow the best unit on the field despite the near disastrous kickoff return. Nice to not be the team pooch-kicking.

JP90: Coe looks solid. I just need solid. Plus a great return by Williams!

1988goldenbear: Great punting, awesome return for Williams. I'm hoping that Coe has a great game vs. Auburn, because 1 for 4 last year sealed the loss.

LiffeyBear: We have a kicker! If UC Davis had one, it might have been a different game.

The kick return touchdown was the turning point of the game, especially since it was the return after a near disaster kickoff return. It was good to see an adjustment after 2 short kicks.

bearspot: Coe is a weapon. Expect him to play a big role at Auburn.

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

Bowlesman80: Was this whole thing meant to fool Auburn?

TKE Prytanis 79: Hard to say

Kj1980: It was a boneheaded call to have an inexperienced running back from the Cal 2. A quick fumble gave UC Davis a touchdown and kept it close throughout the first half

Rose Bowl Oski: I was impressed how they figured it what Davis was trying to do by half time, and they were able to impact that knowledge in the players

Frisco Bear: The 2 QB system has proven to be fatal. Time to ditch it and stick with Mendoza and hope he has matured and will turn the ball over less than his Freshman season.

I really like Wilcox, but this is his make or break year (part 3). As one of his biggest supporters, I was pretty surly at halftime and wouldn't have been upset if they replaced him at halftime. That being said, they played like they were supposed to in the 2nd half, so what do we make of that? Was it adjustments by the coaching staff, or the realization of the delta in talent between UC Davis and Cal? Not knowing the particulars of the Cal's NIL situation, it is apparent that the ROI is below expectations.

GlueAndBold: Classic inscrutable Wilcox FCS game. Tried to keep the playbook closed and it wasn't working, so we cracked it for a quarter to seal the game. At least, that's how I'd like to read it.

SG Bear: We knew that coaching was going to go plain vanilla in the first half and they did. I knew that it was going to be a fairly boring and close first half, and it was. I get it, it's the first game and one has to work on the basics first. And we were - for the most part - pretty predictable on offense and defense. I'd criticize more, but I'd probably do something pretty similar.

Old Bear 71: What have they been doing all summer?

Bloesch looks like there is more on his agenda than he can handle. O line was a hot mess, this will be a one win team if they play the rest of the season like they did Saturday. Why have we had so many horrendous offensive coordinators?

CoBears: Halftime adjustments were night and day. Let's find more daylight early, however, as the darkness was nearly overwhelming early.

LiffeyBear: The University of California had the team ready to play. They were hitting hard and setting the tone on defense. And on offense, well designed plays were getting receivers open. The quarterback was finding those receivers and delivering the ball on time. Unfortunately that was the UC team from Davis. The UC team from Berkeley came out unprepared and seemingly unready for a team playing physical football.

Halftime adjustments are where a coaching staff earns their pay, and adjustments were made that shut down UC Davis.

This is far from the 1st time a Wilcox coached team has shown up to a season unready to take a hit. I understand protecting players in practice but a team with less talent shouldn’t be able to dictate play because they are more physical.

What are your thoughts on Cal's overall performance?

Bowlesman80: I'm glad we made adjustments in the second half. I'm surprised with the IPads could not be used in-game to make adjustments, but I'm only a fan in need of cardiac help.

the townie: A win is a win. A lot of new faces. Probably need time to come together. Don’t have that time. The O line struggled with Davis. That doesn’t bode well for Auburn, Miami, and FSU.

Willis Chong: If we make it to 6-6, it will be by the skin of our teeth. I'm not convinced we are a better team than we were last year. Wilcox, prove me wrong!

TKE Prytanis 79: The slow start shit is really getting old...but kudos for pulling it together and showing the true team potential

Kj1980: It was not an impressive Cal performance. Most in the know predicted that Cal would beat the 20 point spread. Cal did not. UC Davis hung in there much too long. It may be that Cal if not as good as has been predicted and UC Davis is much better than predicted. Cal was flat for most of the game while it was the game of the year for UC Davis players. The difference in attitude showed. Sometimes I wonder why I am a Cal fan. At least UC Davis players, who do not get much in licensing, played like they cared. 31-13 may seem like a lopsided score but it was much closer than that.

Rose Bowl Oski: Happy for the win, but they have a lot of work to do if they want to win against FBS competition. There's no excuse for barely eking out 100 yards on the ground.

sacman701: We ultimately won comfortably, but the offense will have to improve a lot if we want to get back to a bowl. The defense was fine especially in the second half, but last year it looked fine against shaky offenses and then mostly got wrecked by good ones.

Mr. Octetter: I have never felt sadder after a Bears win and feel if they come out against Auburn like today, it will be a long, long day

Pierrezo: Players came out of the tunnel with less enthusiasm than I’d like to see. The coaches did not prepare the team well for this game. Also…boring.

GlueAndBold: Not inspiring. Hopefully our Tough New Conference won't be too mu- oh, what's that? We'll be fine then.

ABVidale: Looking at the statistics, you'd think Davis won. Cal sleptwalked through the first half, and against a good team--even a mediocre FBS team--they'd have lost. If they play like that next week, this could get quite ugly.

SG Bear: Injuries. Goodness, we went from fairly healthy team to walking wounded within two weeks. We were missing a bunch of guys before the game - Grayes, McDonald, Vatikani, and Merriweather. And the in-game injuries to Ott, Brady, Wykoff, Reese, and Calloway were upsetting. Fingers crossed that they get well soon. I used to be optimistic about beating Auburn, but now I might have to lower my expectation to just have a good time when I'm there.

NeverQuitNeverDie: A tale of two halves indeed. If Ott is okay I feel like we have a chance down south. Auburn destroyed their FCS opponent the way I would have like to see us against the Aggies. Every time we play Davis I wonder if its going to be the time we join Furd in ignominy - I feel like if we play them every year its inevitable. Not this year though.

jakewebs: A win is a win, even if the performance is lackluster. Hopefully they take some of the lessons around who performed well/what schemes worked to heart or the Auburn game will not be pretty.

CoBears: I'm thrilled to walk away with what was ultimately an easy win. But if we'd played the entire game like we played the second half, Ott could have been cheering on the team from the sideline instead of hobbling around on the sideline. Happy to be 1-0, and it's time for some revenge against Auburn. Go Bears!

bearspot: Nice scrimmage with the team down the street, now let's bring the A-game for Auburn.

Thanks for participating, all!