CH for OC! As always, and especially given the trajectory of this season, I am most grateful for the time and effort the WFC staff puts into these articles.
I do my best to judge quarterbacks based on their play alone, without regard to the relative strength(s) of their team. There are checkboxes you want to tick-- how well they throw under pressure, how well they throw without pressure -- and you may just end up with too large or too small of sample sizes sometimes, so I try to be fair (for example, it's a lot easier to do well on 3/4 passes under pressure than it is to go 30/50 under pressure). I don't really compare stats because that's really a function of team effort more than anything else, and it's easy to use stats to compare players if you're just looking to compare performance.
My biggest mistake in rating QBs last time was undervaluing Bo Nix. He felt like he filled the same archetype as some of the other QBs (e.g. de Laura, Ward), but the other QBs had some more heroic individual effort plays at the time. However, they've sputtered occasionally, and Nix has maintained a really high level of play (albeit with the cleanest pocket in the entire FBS).
So my revised rankings:
1. Caleb Williams (USC)
2. Tanner McKee (Stanford)
3. Bo Nix (Oregon)
4. Dorian Thompson-Robinson (UCLA)
5. Cam Ward (Wazzu)
6. Jayden de Laura (Arizona)
7. Michael Penix Jr (UW)
8. Cam Rising (Utah)
9. Jack Plummer (Cal)
10. Emory Jones /Trenton Bourguet (ASU)
11. Ben Gulbranson (OSU)
12. JT Shrout (Colorado)
The biggest movers, besides Nix, are Cam Rising and Michael Penix Jr. Cam Riding is great at running the ball, but it's hard to ignore that his accuracy has suffered this year. It would not surprise me that a mobile quarterback that loves to run the ball and hit people may be playing through some sort of shoulder injury or something that would affect his accuracy. Similarly, with really high stakes in Eugene, Penix showed that he is a lot more mobile than he let on, although I can't fault him for trying to stay a pocket passer with his injury history running the ball. Caleb Williams hasn't been playing as lights out throwing the ball in recent weeks, but not enough for me to drop him any lower. I also really want to put Plummer higher (maybe up to #5), but perhaps he can show off some more of his skills with better play calling (i.e. not being asked to make deep hole shots every other play).
Your observations on both McKee and Plummer might explain why Plummer is not consistent. What's more game winning offense calls we can hope for in the remaining games in a post-Musgraves team?
I have no idea what the play calling will be like the rest of the way, but they'll still be using Musgrave's playbook, as it's not like you can install a new offense in a week. My biggest issue with the play calling was just how ridiculously predictable the offense was. At some point on the off-season I'll rewatch these games and see if I'm right (does Cal always run the ball on the opening play of the game?), but you could pretty much guess the play call Cal would run by their offensive formation (and if I could guess what's coming, you could be damn sure the opposing team definitely knew what was coming). Establishing tendencies is fine, but usually the idea behind it is that you'll break these tendencies at some point when you catch the defense overcommitting to defend whatever play it was (e.g. the fake screen pass against USC where the nickel crashed down to stop it and let the "blocking" receiver slip right by him to get wide open for a TD). I don't have the solution for the offense, I'm just hoping we see something different.
Yeah, witness the fact that as a Purdue QB he beat Oregon State, but did not nearly match that success last Saturday. Purdue had a better coached Oline than us and it makes a difference.
8-4 does sound much better than the inverse or worse. We'll see this Saturday.
I feel badly for Plummer, whose seems as abused as a Timex watch. But this abuse is not new, it goes all the way back to Goff, who usually had 3 seconds or less to get off a pass and, even when he did, he would often still get creamed.
Scheme definitely helped Goff. The whole point was to get the ball out quickly in space, but the Oline was still weak regardless of scheme. We could hardly rely on the Oline to convert 3rd and short yardage run plays and the thought of having a possession on offense run more than 3 minutes of clock was an absolute joke.
I’m all about the interim staff
"Can the passing offense really blame all their struggles on their sieve of an offensive line?"
Musgrave and McClure can tell you their thoughts...
CH for OC! As always, and especially given the trajectory of this season, I am most grateful for the time and effort the WFC staff puts into these articles.
125th out of 131 in turnover margin negatively will lose a team most of its games no matter anything else.
Let’s see if the new, temp OC will start Kai for the Big Game.
Inject a little danger and excitement into the offense.
I think they will probably wait until the 2nd quarter to play Kai, after Cal has established a 77-0 lead.
Thanks for the detailed breakdown. Definitely makes me more optimistic for Saturday. Love to send Joe Starkey out with a win. Grrrrah, Go Bears!!!
Thanks. Let's keep the axe.
I do my best to judge quarterbacks based on their play alone, without regard to the relative strength(s) of their team. There are checkboxes you want to tick-- how well they throw under pressure, how well they throw without pressure -- and you may just end up with too large or too small of sample sizes sometimes, so I try to be fair (for example, it's a lot easier to do well on 3/4 passes under pressure than it is to go 30/50 under pressure). I don't really compare stats because that's really a function of team effort more than anything else, and it's easy to use stats to compare players if you're just looking to compare performance.
My biggest mistake in rating QBs last time was undervaluing Bo Nix. He felt like he filled the same archetype as some of the other QBs (e.g. de Laura, Ward), but the other QBs had some more heroic individual effort plays at the time. However, they've sputtered occasionally, and Nix has maintained a really high level of play (albeit with the cleanest pocket in the entire FBS).
So my revised rankings:
1. Caleb Williams (USC)
2. Tanner McKee (Stanford)
3. Bo Nix (Oregon)
4. Dorian Thompson-Robinson (UCLA)
5. Cam Ward (Wazzu)
6. Jayden de Laura (Arizona)
7. Michael Penix Jr (UW)
8. Cam Rising (Utah)
9. Jack Plummer (Cal)
10. Emory Jones /Trenton Bourguet (ASU)
11. Ben Gulbranson (OSU)
12. JT Shrout (Colorado)
The biggest movers, besides Nix, are Cam Rising and Michael Penix Jr. Cam Riding is great at running the ball, but it's hard to ignore that his accuracy has suffered this year. It would not surprise me that a mobile quarterback that loves to run the ball and hit people may be playing through some sort of shoulder injury or something that would affect his accuracy. Similarly, with really high stakes in Eugene, Penix showed that he is a lot more mobile than he let on, although I can't fault him for trying to stay a pocket passer with his injury history running the ball. Caleb Williams hasn't been playing as lights out throwing the ball in recent weeks, but not enough for me to drop him any lower. I also really want to put Plummer higher (maybe up to #5), but perhaps he can show off some more of his skills with better play calling (i.e. not being asked to make deep hole shots every other play).
Thanks, again, Christopher.
Your observations on both McKee and Plummer might explain why Plummer is not consistent. What's more game winning offense calls we can hope for in the remaining games in a post-Musgraves team?
I have no idea what the play calling will be like the rest of the way, but they'll still be using Musgrave's playbook, as it's not like you can install a new offense in a week. My biggest issue with the play calling was just how ridiculously predictable the offense was. At some point on the off-season I'll rewatch these games and see if I'm right (does Cal always run the ball on the opening play of the game?), but you could pretty much guess the play call Cal would run by their offensive formation (and if I could guess what's coming, you could be damn sure the opposing team definitely knew what was coming). Establishing tendencies is fine, but usually the idea behind it is that you'll break these tendencies at some point when you catch the defense overcommitting to defend whatever play it was (e.g. the fake screen pass against USC where the nickel crashed down to stop it and let the "blocking" receiver slip right by him to get wide open for a TD). I don't have the solution for the offense, I'm just hoping we see something different.
Yeah, witness the fact that as a Purdue QB he beat Oregon State, but did not nearly match that success last Saturday. Purdue had a better coached Oline than us and it makes a difference.
8-4 does sound much better than the inverse or worse. We'll see this Saturday.
I feel badly for Plummer, whose seems as abused as a Timex watch. But this abuse is not new, it goes all the way back to Goff, who usually had 3 seconds or less to get off a pass and, even when he did, he would often still get creamed.
It's "ridiculous protection offense"
Scheme definitely helped Goff. The whole point was to get the ball out quickly in space, but the Oline was still weak regardless of scheme. We could hardly rely on the Oline to convert 3rd and short yardage run plays and the thought of having a possession on offense run more than 3 minutes of clock was an absolute joke.