1) I think Minnesota will be the best passing attack we see all season. Weber is a great, experienced QB and Decker is a first day NFL draft pick. Hagan was terrible, yes, but it seemed like Minnesota was picking on him, which made him look even worse. Remember that Decker pass on the trick play? Who was covering that pass? Hagan. With Decker keeping an eye on how Hagan was defending yesterday, I’m not surprised he threw against him for the TD. I don’t fault Syd. He had some great pass breakups and was brilliant against the run. During the past two weeks, it looked like we had experienced QBs (each who had passed for over 6000 yards in their careers) picking apart a zone. I’m not sure why Gregory didn’t mix it up with man coverage, but I don’t think this can all be blamed on the secondary “regressing.” I find it very difficult to believe that our players could somehow get worse over the offseason. Facing upcoming QBs like Masoli, Corp, Craft, and so on (as well as teams that don’t rely exclusively on passing), I don’t think our secondary will have nearly as many issues as they did in the last couple weeks.

2) Will Cal struggle to run at times? Yes. But, unlike last season, will they have a solid passing game to bail them out? Absolutely. Riley may not be Aaron Rodgers, but he demonstrated yesterday that he can help us put points on the board when the running game stagnates. That was a key component missing from our offense last year.

3) If D’Amato isn’t going to take over as place-kicker or if he cannot consistently get it inside the 10, then I think our only serious option (pathetic as it is) is to kick the ball out of bounds on every kickoff. It’s ridiculous that the 6th-ranked team in the nation would have to resort to this, but it’s beginning to look like we have no other choice.

4) I don’t know. As long as our offense starts off strong, it doesn’t make much difference to me whether we run or pass. Passing would have its advantages in that it would prevent the opposing team from stacking 8-9 in the box, but running sucessfully gets them to fall for the play-fake.

I don’t know if this is Gregory’s specific plan, but Cal has done an excellent job of limiting long pass plays. I looked back at the play-by-play from our first two games and Cal has allowed the following pass plays longer than 20 yards:

vs. Maryland
M 2-7 M12 Turner slant pass complete to Smith for 29 yards to the MD41, 1ST DOWN
(This play was deep into garbage time when the score was 45-13)

vs. EWU
Matt Nichols SR pass complete to Aaron Boyce for 36 yards to the CAL23

vs. Minnesota
Weber, Adam pass complete to Decker, Eric for 26 yards to the CAL0
Weber, Adam pass complete to Decker, Eric for 23 yards to the CAL40
Weber, Adam pass complete to Decker, Eric for 24 yards to the CAL37

So other than All-American Eric Decker, Cal has hardly allowed any pass plays over 20 yards. And only one of these plays is over 30 yards, so even on the rare occasion that Cal does give up a big play, it doesn’t become a HUGE play like a 60 yarder. Granted, our competition hasn’t been great, but I still think this is impressive considering that we’ve faced 3 veteran QBs who have been playing from behind and forced to throw alot.

It especially makes sense to limit long gains and ‘allow’ shorter passes (for lack of a better way to phrase it) because:

1) Cal’s run defense is awesome, which frequently forces teams into 2nd/3rd and longs.
2) Cal’s pass rush is awesome, so drive killing sacks and interceptions caused by pressures are likely events on every drop back. Allowing occasional 10 yard dump passes is OK when your d-line can impact the game with so much frequency. It’s very hard to sustain a drive with our run defense and pass rush. This is why kickoffs need to get better. There will not be many 80 yard drives given up by our defenses. Minnesota needed short fields to have any chance against our defense, and we gave it to them.

1) There’s a poster on Bear Insider who’s a former Cal DB. I was really curious to read his thoughts on Hagan and the secondary. To sum up: The D was mixing up man and zone coverage. Of the three TD’s completed against him, he only blamed Hagan on the second one. (slant-go) There’s apparently plenty of film showing that Hagan likes to gamble and jump routes, so he’s susceptible to double moves. The 1st TD was a great play by Decker with a perfect throw from Weber. Hagan had the underneath coverage, but Cattouse was just a tad late coming over deep once the play broke down. Last one was a great play design by Minnesota, even more so because Decker is a lefty and you don’t expect a reverse + throw to that side of the field. Even so, he agreed that Hagan had a bad game and would have to fend off Josh Hill (who seems to be more sound and has a knack for being around the ball) in practice.

Syd got beat once last week when he fell for a double move. It happens and he responded by playing in God-mode against Minnesota. I don’t think a one-time lapse constitutes regression.

I’m more concerned about ball-skills from the safety spot and that our athletic but inexperienced LB’s are still learning to read routes and to drop the proper depth into coverage. I look at this as more of a work in progress.

Schematically, I think Gregory has been doing a pretty good job mixing up coverage with pressure. All defenses have weak spots. Considering that we’ve stopped the run and prevented big plays, I think we have to give credit to some veteran opposing QBs making good reads and throws.

2) No question, Cal is going to struggle with the run at times. Even with Riley’s improvement, if I were an opposing DC, I’d try to shut down our ground game by mixing up run blitzes and bringing up at least one safety. Everyone is going to try some variant of that…except maybe sc who usually has the athletes to play a base look and still control the LOS. One of the key lines in the sand between glory and oh-crap-not-again is going to be how our big guys handle the better D-lines when it’s straight-up mano on mano. It’s too early for me to call. The first two games really didn’t offer much of a benchmark. Against Minnesota, we seemed to do okay straight up against their beefy Dline except when they were crashing LB’s and DB’s and were really selling out to stop the run. Since our line features a number of younger guys, I’m hoping that we see continued growth and improvement. I don’t think we’re at the level yet like that Phillip/Cameron/OCallaghan line where we can just pound people regardless of how many they put in the box. But, we’re already showing a lot more promise than the past few years where we couldn’t get any push on 3rd and short or at the goal line.

3) Solution for the kicking game. Uh. Shots? With enough lubrication, the yard lines get kinda blurry, so it’s all good. Kicking-wise, D’amato and Seawright had good legs in high school, but haven’t been able to consistently use the proper technique at this level. Tavecchio just isn’t clutch. I’m sorry. I’d love for him to have that breakthrough moment and just “get it”, (a la Alexis Serna) but this ain’t the year, man. We’ve got too much at stake. Anger’s got a good leg and is much more consistent mentally. I’d give him a shot. For Tedford’s sake, it can’t be worse. If it’s too much of a new thing for him to learn on short notice, then I’d just sink or swim with D’Amato. Sadly enough, at 1 good kick per 3 bad ones, he’s already head and shoulders better than the other two. Coverage is another issue. We’re supposed to have better depth than in past year’s, which means better athletes…But discipline-wise, we’re like nerds at a gaming convention with scantily-clad game-babes – sort of an unruly drooling mob. Granted, it doesn’t help with filling lanes when the return is already starting at the 20. Maybe we need to mix-up personnel-wise and use more 1’s and 2’s. At least we don’t have the same ST coach who let Maurice Jones-Drew singlehandedly beat us with returns. Oh wait. Shots. I need shots.

4) I think the playcalling is going to vary based on the defenses we’ll see. We had long runs and deep throws against Maryland because they were playing aggressive and tight to the LOS. We had more of a meat and potatoes approach to EW because they were playing 6 in the box and kept their safeties back to guard against the big play. Against Minn, we mixed it up because they made some good adjustments to our initial game plan. I think Ludwig and Tedford are still being cautious with Riley. After last year, can you blame them? Considering that 1st quarter Riley is usually a little scary, I think it’s smart the way they’re focusing on safe, shorter passes to get him in rhythm with a long ball sprinkled in to keep the D honest. As Riley’s confidence grows and it translates into sharpness on the field, I think they’ll let him do more.