I just re-read your Larry Berroya tribute post from 2020 this am. I never met him, but love his dedication to Cal sports and am glad you all were good friends. Thank you (I know, off-topic, but I'm sure he would have shared my football season excitement right now.....).
Larry had a complicated relationship to football - in that he appreciated the way it can bring Cal family together (and he attended every tailgate I went to plus several bowl games) but it also has one of the larger exploitative deals between athletes, our entertainment and future bodily and mind harm. He always wrestled with being a football fan - especially in recent years.
One of the best things about Larry is that he was always challenging assumptions - even as you drifted along comfortably and quietly in your life. It made for some uncomfortable back and forth - but you were never worse off for having participated in the conversation.
It's a joke, but also an observation - once Alamar went to Stanford, their special teams were just fine. I've never played or coached college football - but the general wisdom is that special teams quality & success is a combination of special players (DeSean Jackson) and also without that, a direct result of amount of practice time spent on drilling everything. Frank Beamer famously spent a lot of time on special teams, thus Beamer ball could be counted on to turn 2-3 games a year for VTech.
Thanks for this, Nick. I'm definitely worried about special teams, but I'm not worried about the specialists. My concerns are completely centered around blocking, coverage, and not committing penalties. It seems like units were impacted by some of the players held out for covid, but it's really hard to have transparency into how much of a contributor that was. Anyone seen work in the fall or spring camps to focus on that? Are they focusing any more on those units than normal?
Speaking of which, Geep Chryst is a real analytics maven, so much so that he started a college analytics company in 2015. I hope Wilcox uses some of his expertise to sharpen things up in this area.
We outrushed Furd as I recall and somewhat controlled the line of scrimmage, so it was unfortunate (and kind of bone-headed) that we ended up losing the game.
Well, should have done that. I could tell it was going to be blocked once Furd lined up in an unbalanced line. Anyway, I thought at the time that we should have gone for the 2-pt conversation with Garbers faking a pass and then running into the endzone.
I just re-read your Larry Berroya tribute post from 2020 this am. I never met him, but love his dedication to Cal sports and am glad you all were good friends. Thank you (I know, off-topic, but I'm sure he would have shared my football season excitement right now.....).
Larry had a complicated relationship to football - in that he appreciated the way it can bring Cal family together (and he attended every tailgate I went to plus several bowl games) but it also has one of the larger exploitative deals between athletes, our entertainment and future bodily and mind harm. He always wrestled with being a football fan - especially in recent years.
One of the best things about Larry is that he was always challenging assumptions - even as you drifted along comfortably and quietly in your life. It made for some uncomfortable back and forth - but you were never worse off for having participated in the conversation.
Alaammmmmaaarrrrr!!!!!
It's a joke, but also an observation - once Alamar went to Stanford, their special teams were just fine. I've never played or coached college football - but the general wisdom is that special teams quality & success is a combination of special players (DeSean Jackson) and also without that, a direct result of amount of practice time spent on drilling everything. Frank Beamer famously spent a lot of time on special teams, thus Beamer ball could be counted on to turn 2-3 games a year for VTech.
Thanks for this, Nick. I'm definitely worried about special teams, but I'm not worried about the specialists. My concerns are completely centered around blocking, coverage, and not committing penalties. It seems like units were impacted by some of the players held out for covid, but it's really hard to have transparency into how much of a contributor that was. Anyone seen work in the fall or spring camps to focus on that? Are they focusing any more on those units than normal?
Yes, pretty basic game mismanagement.
Speaking of which, Geep Chryst is a real analytics maven, so much so that he started a college analytics company in 2015. I hope Wilcox uses some of his expertise to sharpen things up in this area.
We outrushed Furd as I recall and somewhat controlled the line of scrimmage, so it was unfortunate (and kind of bone-headed) that we ended up losing the game.
Head coach or any player on the field can call timeout.
Well, should have done that. I could tell it was going to be blocked once Furd lined up in an unbalanced line. Anyway, I thought at the time that we should have gone for the 2-pt conversation with Garbers faking a pass and then running into the endzone.
ummm...conversion, not conversation. Spell check?
It sounds like the solution they came up with is set the ball farther back.