I’ve had a convo with Tedford about run/pass balance and imo, he would prefer to run the ball and if it were up to him, he would have the QB pass to keep the defense honest and take shots downfield and would lean away from the passing game if he could. He emphasized that if you throw an incompletion on first down, then you are behind the chains already with a 2nd and 10. If the run game is not effective, than you almost certainly have to pass on 3rd down which opens the doors for defenses to throw the kitchen sink at you, puts more pressure on the offense to convert, and ups the risk of interceptions and dreaded Pick 6s.

The problem the past few years and this year is that Cal has not been able to consistently get yardage running the ball AND there have been lots of penalties that puts the offense behind the chains and puts Cal into a position to throw. Going back to the fucla game, there were so many offensive penalities that aided in killing drives.

OSU and Wazzu had below average run Ds so Cal was able to consistently run the ball which directly affected the need to pass the ball. Against fucla and the conference’s worst run defense, Cal left it’s run blocking on the plane and committed stupid penalties so Cal had no choice but to lean more on the passing game.

I would say the biggest step forward the past few games is that it appears that Cal has identified and has gotten alot better at a number of “bread and butter” type of plays (tosses to Sofele on the outside and of course, the roll QB left pass plays), have incorporated different formations and motions that window dress them, and they run them repeatedly. Cal has run those plays from the beginning of the season but to me, they have gotten a lot better at executing them to the point where they get positive and good chunks of yardage 80% of the time. Sadly, that’s a big step forward from previous years but it’s something to build on.

Hopefully, Cal can squeak out at least 2 more wins this season. I have substantial doubts about a W down on the farm this weekend but ASU is a winnable game so as long as they aren’t playing out of their minds and Cal doesn’t have a major letdown a la UW in 2009 post Big Game. ASU has a defense that is middle of the conference and while their passing game is pretty good, I think Cal’s run defense is well suited to stop their run, which would lead to ASU having to rely on their passing game against the #1 pass D in the conference. Should be a good game, but I’ve been wrong plenty of times before :)

No sour grapes here but he wasn’t the guy I had my eyes on