I'm going into this with zero expectations of success. Expect doom. If so, the off season hand wringing will be at a fever pitch and yet we know Wilcox is going nowhere next year. If we win, and I hope we do, of course, there will be less hand wringing and yet nothing changes with the ceiling Wilcox has established. He has shown he is not a Kyle Wittingham who can take mediocre talent to the Rose Bowl. Granted, Wittingham has many advantages not often mentioned with the Mormon connection, missionary age players and home games at altitude. But still. Wilcox would have to bring in a top 5 class for next year, and that isn't shaping up to happen. The Pac is taking steps forward with coaches, and we will fall further behind if nothing changes.
Yes - I floated the idea of perhaps doing a season-in-review and highlighting Cal players that did very well, and it was because I noticed Marqez Bimage is actually the top rated defender against the run in the Pac-12, and #2 in the FBS.
It's hard to compare the Cal inside linebackers, because they have so few snaps relatively speaking (because they rotate through so many LBs, e.g. Iosefa, Tattersall, Rutchena, Paster, Oladejo, Puskas, Patu, etc), so no one meets e.g. 50% of pass rushing or 50% of rush defense snaps, and without that filter, there's a lot of players who played just a handful of snaps and did well or poorly cluttering up the data-- it's not that useful to know that someone did will on 3 of their 4 snaps, etc.
That said, Cal's ILBs are middle of the Pac-12, according to PFF. Iosefa, Rutchena, and Tattersall are graded near the middle of the pack in rush defense, and Rutchena, Puskas, and Tattersall are graded in the top third in pass rush. Oladejo, Rutchena, and Paster are middle of the pack in coverage grades.
I wouldn't take too much stock in these grades (I'm highly skeptical of their overall grades in the first place, but stats like #missed tackles, #targets, #yards after catch, etc I do find useful), because grades like that are more of a reflection of what the staff is asking them to do. ASU has a linebacker who is more of an edge rusher, and they gave him the worst run defense grade but the highest pass rush grade. But if that ASU player is supposed to rush the passer, does he really really deserve to be dinged for something on a run play? Things like that.
The Cal players with really high grades are the secondary and the edge defenders. As mentioned Marquez Bimage is #1 in the conference (overall, not just positionally) in run defense, Cam Goode is top third by position. Cam Goode is #4 in pass rush, Deng, Patu, and Bimage are top quarter in pass rush. Cam Goode is #6 in coverage, Bimage is top third. "Coverage" is probably a meaningless stat for an edge defender, with Goode having 37 such snaps in coverage and Bimage with 32 coverage snaps (for comparison, Goode has 343 pass rush snaps and 243 rush defense snaps).
Thanks, appreciated, much more than I asked for or expected. I mostly was interested in missed tackles, since there seemed to be so many as I watched the game.
I waited until halftime of Oregon-Utah since the low snap count makes the data muddy so I had to do some Excel magic. If I select all linebackers from the Pac-12 conference that have at least 100 rush defense snaps, there are 38 such Pac-12 linebackers. Sorted by missed tackle percentage according to PFF, Tattersall is #17, Oladejo is #19, Rutchena is #29, and Iosefa is #33.
Yes, that is correct, #1 being the best. The missed tackle rate alone might be misleading, because there's a difference between missing a tackle because you got steamrolled by a running back, and missing a tackle because you dove into the backfield to trip up a running back and which allowed a teammate to clean up the tackle. I think most of Cal's linebackers are reliable tacklers. Iosefa struggled early in the season with tackles, but improved in later games. According to PFF's tackle grades: Rutchena (#18), Oladejo (#19), Tattersall (#21), Iosefa (#38).
I think the grades roughly line up with what we've seen: Cal's inside linebackers struggling early, but improving a lot over the course of the season, moving them to middle of the conference (playing below average and then above average to make up for it, and then everyone playing terrible last week).
I mean, the perfect counterexample is Evan Weaver. Evan Weaver was an all-world linebacker at Cal, played out of his mind at all times, but still only got drafted in the 6th round of the NFL Draft. What makes a good college player doesn't necessarily make a good NFL player.
I'm going into this with zero expectations of success. Expect doom. If so, the off season hand wringing will be at a fever pitch and yet we know Wilcox is going nowhere next year. If we win, and I hope we do, of course, there will be less hand wringing and yet nothing changes with the ceiling Wilcox has established. He has shown he is not a Kyle Wittingham who can take mediocre talent to the Rose Bowl. Granted, Wittingham has many advantages not often mentioned with the Mormon connection, missionary age players and home games at altitude. But still. Wilcox would have to bring in a top 5 class for next year, and that isn't shaping up to happen. The Pac is taking steps forward with coaches, and we will fall further behind if nothing changes.
Is there a WFC tailgate for tonight’s game???
Now that we've been sufficiently jinxed, I'm fully expecting Kana’i Mauga to show up looking like Rey Maualuga
'Bad' defenses have a tendency to get awfully good when they play Cal.
Someone was saying ucla D was bad too last week
It is. We just made it look great.
So maybe Bimage and Goode get drafted?
Thanks for the report. Curious where Cal’s linebackers rank in the PFF metrics - do you have that info?
Yes - I floated the idea of perhaps doing a season-in-review and highlighting Cal players that did very well, and it was because I noticed Marqez Bimage is actually the top rated defender against the run in the Pac-12, and #2 in the FBS.
It's hard to compare the Cal inside linebackers, because they have so few snaps relatively speaking (because they rotate through so many LBs, e.g. Iosefa, Tattersall, Rutchena, Paster, Oladejo, Puskas, Patu, etc), so no one meets e.g. 50% of pass rushing or 50% of rush defense snaps, and without that filter, there's a lot of players who played just a handful of snaps and did well or poorly cluttering up the data-- it's not that useful to know that someone did will on 3 of their 4 snaps, etc.
That said, Cal's ILBs are middle of the Pac-12, according to PFF. Iosefa, Rutchena, and Tattersall are graded near the middle of the pack in rush defense, and Rutchena, Puskas, and Tattersall are graded in the top third in pass rush. Oladejo, Rutchena, and Paster are middle of the pack in coverage grades.
I wouldn't take too much stock in these grades (I'm highly skeptical of their overall grades in the first place, but stats like #missed tackles, #targets, #yards after catch, etc I do find useful), because grades like that are more of a reflection of what the staff is asking them to do. ASU has a linebacker who is more of an edge rusher, and they gave him the worst run defense grade but the highest pass rush grade. But if that ASU player is supposed to rush the passer, does he really really deserve to be dinged for something on a run play? Things like that.
The Cal players with really high grades are the secondary and the edge defenders. As mentioned Marquez Bimage is #1 in the conference (overall, not just positionally) in run defense, Cam Goode is top third by position. Cam Goode is #4 in pass rush, Deng, Patu, and Bimage are top quarter in pass rush. Cam Goode is #6 in coverage, Bimage is top third. "Coverage" is probably a meaningless stat for an edge defender, with Goode having 37 such snaps in coverage and Bimage with 32 coverage snaps (for comparison, Goode has 343 pass rush snaps and 243 rush defense snaps).
Thanks, appreciated, much more than I asked for or expected. I mostly was interested in missed tackles, since there seemed to be so many as I watched the game.
I waited until halftime of Oregon-Utah since the low snap count makes the data muddy so I had to do some Excel magic. If I select all linebackers from the Pac-12 conference that have at least 100 rush defense snaps, there are 38 such Pac-12 linebackers. Sorted by missed tackle percentage according to PFF, Tattersall is #17, Oladejo is #19, Rutchena is #29, and Iosefa is #33.
Thanks again, your sorting is #1 worst and #38 is best? If so that more or less matches what I’d expect.
Yes, that is correct, #1 being the best. The missed tackle rate alone might be misleading, because there's a difference between missing a tackle because you got steamrolled by a running back, and missing a tackle because you dove into the backfield to trip up a running back and which allowed a teammate to clean up the tackle. I think most of Cal's linebackers are reliable tacklers. Iosefa struggled early in the season with tackles, but improved in later games. According to PFF's tackle grades: Rutchena (#18), Oladejo (#19), Tattersall (#21), Iosefa (#38).
I think the grades roughly line up with what we've seen: Cal's inside linebackers struggling early, but improving a lot over the course of the season, moving them to middle of the conference (playing below average and then above average to make up for it, and then everyone playing terrible last week).
If by low draft choice you mean late round pick, then yes, I think Bimage has a shot at being drafted in later rounds.
I mean, the perfect counterexample is Evan Weaver. Evan Weaver was an all-world linebacker at Cal, played out of his mind at all times, but still only got drafted in the 6th round of the NFL Draft. What makes a good college player doesn't necessarily make a good NFL player.
Nice report and I hope we can exploit the weaknesses of the LBs and Secondary.