2011 Cal vs. Presbyterian Post-Game Thoughts

for writing my reply for me..this big time..the line on UW is 1 to 3 in their favor, which is essentially a pick em game with home field advantage…I like our chances up there…this is a new Cal team with so many new looks on offense and defense…pumping sunshine as ever!

Also lets not forget with Washington looming there is no way Cal wanted to show much for UW to see on film. It was a very vanilla gameplan that still produced 63 points.

This is a good point. The gameplan was not amazing and it was mostly the simple plays Cal always runs. But what Hydro is most disturbed by is the execution of our vanilla formations rather than the scheme. If we pick up penalties, drop passes and miss blocks on our simplest plays against Presby, can we rapidly pick up our game against UW?

We are certainly capable, but until Cal starts executing the simple things, there’s absolutely cause for concern.

I agree with Bmore, to a point. I’m frustrated with the drops and penalties, the execution errors that would seem easy to fix, but haven’t. So there is some concern, but I think Hydro’s being a bit over the top with his assertion that we should have won this 105-0. It’s really hard to stay focused when your opponent is so lackluster. But I wanted 70, and both our errors bugged me.

But 6-6? You shouldn’t punish the Bears just because they disappointed you.

For me to say that the team should have scored a touchdown on every possession was a bit of an exaggeration, I’ll admit. But there should have been more touchdowns scored this game by Cal. And I do believe that the team could have destroyed Presby to the tune of 105-0 and NOT go 12-0 because Presby was that bad.

And in this vein, didn’t that cupcake actually score with their offense vs. Oregon with their first possession? That would have been worse than what did happen with Presby IMO.

Yes, I knew those two quotes didn’t quite mesh, but yet… they do. Presby is bad. Yes, that bad. Even if Cal isn’t perfect, which I don’t expect, there should have been more touchdowns in this game.

And I’m very chill.

That’s a rec. I don’t know how I’ve avoided this status all these years.

haha, I like this.

I like this.

Have I graduated to Old Blue yet? Where’s my membership card?

Thank you for your correction.

That is, what should’ve been an easy catch that Hagan missed.

Also, what’s missing from this criticism is our snapping. When the heck is that going to be fixed? It’s looked piss poor all three games and led to a botched play during this game. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of it and a possible turnover.

Perhaps my post was a little bit over the top. And yes, I did watch the game. Perhaps I even watched too closely than I should have, and hence why I am so concerned about things.

3. Our first team stayed in the game after halftime. This is standard procedure by pretty much every football team in the country. The purpose of leaving the first team in after halftime despite winning by so much is to give your starters a chance to implement the halftime changes. You can’t do that if you just throw in the second team.

4. Penalties. IMO, the first few minutes seemed really ticky-tack by the refs. In fact, I was telling my friends that the Pac-12 refs were trying to send him a message after last week’s criticism of them.

Penalties have not been a significant problem until the Presby game. Could be this was the issue, or could be that the team was just not that focused while playing an FCS opponent. Either way, I don’t see it as a problem likely to continue, just based on this game. Hydro obviously sees all problems as likely to continue based on this one game.

That’s how I felt reading this as well. Tedford is classy, so even without the execution errors in the first half, he would have pulled back as soon as it got out of hand, that’s what he does. Honestly I doubt he even wanted to put up 63. This was a learning session for our players, and I think that was accomplished. And they even got a lesson (or two) on being lazy on certain plays, because even Presby (ok, well their one long-shot, potential NFL player) can score (twice) if you don’t have your head in the game. The next time out, both Maynard and Anger corrected the lackadaisical approach and the Bears continued the route.

I actually wouldn’t have wanted Cal to win by 105-0 either, but they should have. And as for running up the score, Tedford hasn’t done that in the past, but this game he (or whomever was calling plays) decided to go for it on numerous fourth downs. So to me, that signaled Tedford’s intent or acquiescence of running up the score.

It looked to me that Miller had miscounted in his head. After a certain amount of time, the blockers release down field and let any defenders pass, knowing that there’s no way (unless they’re Jahvid Best) they could get to the punter in time. Still, a mistake nonetheless.

What is unsettling is that the same drops, penalties, and special teams errors we lamented in the Fresno State and Colorado games were just as bad during the Presbyterian game. I disagree with the notion that we cannot learn much from this game; but even if this is basically a controlled scrimmage, is it not concerning to see that some glaring problems continue to fester?

but if we start racking up 15 yard personals for tempers flairing and stupid pass interference and face mask penalties, then I’ll be pissed off,

Since you missed the game, one of the biggest problems was facemask penalties. There were two different facemasks called on Cal during the first half. Those penalties were really obnoxious and pissed me off.

I think you have your 80’s hair bands a bit mixed up.

wow!

there are definitely points to earn and games to win on ST.

I’d like to see all 4 starting LB’s, as well as or including McCain, Whiteside, Wilkerson, and Forbes be on both coverage units.

The FG/PAT unit should be the easiest one out there…block your man for about 5 seconds! Would love to know who is next to Rios (the LS) on either side, and who is next to these “guards”. I could see how the LS (a TE by trade typically) would have a hard time with the strong push of a bullish NT and a high-flying LB/DB. There we need incredibly awesome guard play to keep those SOB’s out of the way.

It is not an attempt to be overly pessimistic, but after seeing the way Cal played against Presbyterian it does not give me hope for the Pac-12 schedule regardless of how bad some of the other Pac-12 teams may appear to be.

I’m sorry you don’t like my post. It’s not like I get a rise saying that the team could lose a lot of upcoming games, but that’s the way I see things playing out based on this team’s performance last week. Regardless of how poorly the team may play, I’ll try harder to be more positive.

Very good points, I too am interested in knowing how much time is being spent developing the non-K/P/LS/holder, esp in regards to mentality and attitude

I think point 3 is the issue. #1 is almost certainly wrong (guys want to get on the field) and nobody uses a ton of first string guys, for reasons I mentioned above. 3, though might be the problem. Or we just have a shitty special teams coach. Or any number of things. But I think you might be onto something with point 3.

Agreed, but on the other hand, for every drop there are the catches made from poor passes. Bottom line, he still needs to improve his consistency, but I’ll feeling much more confident that we can convert 3rd downs, which is a much more relevant stat.

Poor Colorado. They’re even worse with 270 yards of penalties (good for 118th). Fun fact: Colorado has 270 yards in penalties and 270 rushing yards on the season.

Interesting statistics. Thank you for bringing this up. I didn’t realize that Cal was penalized so much more than other teams.

It’s funny they keep this list, but at least ASU and Colorado are worse than Cal.

Sure… but 10 teams in the Pac12 rank 72 or worse. Sounds like an officiating issue.

I hope I’m wrong too.

That’s about right, I think.

I have @Washington to be a little in our favor (70/30), and I have U$C and Utah to be slightly in their favor (40/60 for both), but other than that, we agree.

I sympathize with your post, man, but…

But you have learned not to ignore to give extra significance to the portents of doom

FTFY

and the blind sunshine pumpers will merely expect it that season, and probably feel bored soon after

I also don’t think that’s quite fair. I don’t think self-described “old blues” are blindly pessimistic, and I don’t think more optimistic Cal fans are blindly so either, and no Cal fan on earth is going to discount the profound gratification of a Rose Bowl.

(casual fan analysis like ‘we have a terrible record against UCLA on the road’ is so useless when their team has changed so much)

I really disagree with this. Just because the players are different does not mean that the result will be. To take my favorite example, $C absolutely obliterated us last year, yet they were a mediocre team themselves. Nobody else struggled nearly as much against $C as we did. Now, they are again mediocre (witness barely beating Minnesota), yet I think it would be foolish to expect a win against them this year. Tedford has been here long enough to demonstrate some trends, and I think struggling mightily with $C qualifies as one of them. We can take our special teams as another – though we have completely different players than we had 4 years ago (and a new coach!), our special teams still suck.

I do think we will win at ucla this year, but I would not be surprised if we lost, and I definitely expect a close game. Expecting a win in LA when we’re 1-8 down there is foolhardy, in my opinion.

Are you saying PC is a bad “very bad FCS school” because of what you saw on the field? Or because of their school size “!200 students” ? Or is it the game tape you reviewed of their solid play against a pretty good Wofford team? Wofford, incidentally, hung with Clemson pretty well during Week2. And who is Clemson? Well they’re an FBS team that is 3 and 0 and beat 2010 FBS champs, Auburn, last Saturday.

(to be honest, my intention of asking this is really bc of my irritation level of how many times folks keep talking about how baaaaad PC is as a team. Presbeterian is still a team full of grown ass men… ATHLETES actually. They were not just a bunch of blog commentors who that took the field that day. Actually, if it was Twist + Team, I bet Twist could still have score at least once… his fashion choices wouldve blinded our stout front 7 for at least a second …enough to take that oppty to score a TD. Mind you, that CGB commenting team probably wouldn’t have made the PAT.)

When we had 28 points in the first half and were still throwing downfield I felt guilty.

Tedford wasn’t throwing down field to run up the score. He was doing it because our offense needs work. Maynard is not exactly the most accurate or experienced qb, and calling passing plays against an opponent in a live game is about the best practice to improve in both areas. We also need practice our running plays (our offensive line is not great and Isi doesn’t see the holes very well), so we did that a lot too.

But to justify his post by stating that he watches Cal football games "differently" than other Cal fans slaps with heavy hand of condescension.

Dude I think he’s just saying that he pays more attention to the games. I do too… No need to make a federal case out of it…

I get what you’re saying about mistakes, but I disagree. I didn’t watch this game, but saw the first two. From what I’ve seen in the first two and read about this one, two areas where the team has been plagued the last few years have been committing untimely penalties and dropping simple catches. Either or both of these have the potential to be the key factor in losing a game or two down the stretch.

Regardless the opponent, the difference between 7-5 and 5-7 could be right here. Maybe it seems like an oversimplification, but I’m not seeing much evidence that either of these two “mistake” areas have been corrected. I’m not suggesting we’re doomed, but I won’t be surprised if we have a couple games this year where we say afterwards “if only we didn’t have the false start” or “if only he caught that 8 yard pass on 3rd-and-6”.

I can always count on you to call me out.

As for my comment about me watching games differently, I did a poor job explaining that in my previous comment so let me try again.

What I mean by that is I tend to not just watch the outcomes of plays. If there is an incompletion, I just don’t stop there and am satisfied with my recognition that the pass was incomplete. Instead, I try to understand why the pass was incomplete. Was it a bad pass? If it was a bad pass, was it due to pressure by the defense? If it was due to defensive pressure, was it due to blocking breakdowns or just a blitz? Or maybe there was a defender in the passing lane. Or maybe the receiver ran the wrong route? Did the receiver take his eyes off the ball before catching the ball? What was the defensive coverage? What routes were the WRs running? Did the QB make the right read?

I think a lot of casual fans watch games to see the results, but don’t pursue further to understand why the outcome was the way it was. I strive to understand why things came out the way they did, and I also strive to properly designate who is at fault for that play not working too (something I’ve learned from the 2007 season that a lot of Cal fans REALLY don’t do).

My experience with the team has given me great insight into understanding these things. I think I probably have a greater understanding of how the team runs and operates than 99.99% of Cal fans and probably most of the media members too. I’m not trying to brag, but I think that’s the truth. The only people whom I’ve met with an equal or greater insight into the program are other people who have worked for the team.

However, I do acknowledge that I’m certainly not an expert on things. There are plenty of people out there who know more about football than I do. There are certainly some people out there who know more about Cal Football than I do too. But for the most part, I haven’t seen many of those people step forward to prove or show that they do. Does anyone else do the X & O analysis that I do? Very few have. Why is that? Probably because most don’t have the time or knowledge. Does anybody else chart games as I do on occasion (and used to do every single game)? Very few have. Why is that? Probably because most don’t have the time or the knowledge to. But I do these things. And doing these things has led me to see some things which most Cal fans probably aren’t seeing since they aren’t doing the same thing. Again, I’m not trying to brag, but it’s just what happens when a person dedicates hours of their free time watching games over and over instead of just watching a game once.

Finally, in regards to die-hard fans… I know that a lot of die-hard Cal fans read this blog, but a person’s die-hardness doesn’t always correlate to their understanding of the game or the quality of their observations. I’ve read plenty of die-hard Cal fans say or write things which are 100% not true, and are often based on their complete misunderstanding of how the team operates or how football is played. Often, this stuff annoys me — as it also annoys Tedford. He and I both can do a better job not being annoyed by this stuff, but then again, if you were in our shoes and you had to constantly hear all the unwarranted or misguided criticism that the team and certain players get, then it’d drive you nutty and to the point of condescending too.

I’m with ryandrew here. Shoot, we all see the mistakes with this team – it isn’t as complex as say, the db playing 2deep coverage when he should’ve been in press. I know Hydro knows a lot more about football. However stuff like Miller missing the special teams block or any of the wideouts or TEs dropping passes – these are pretty obvious to me as well.

However – I have some hope that these are correctable. And those improvements over the course of a season would get us to 7 or 8 wins. Frankly I too see us as a six win team, but I think theres two swing games in there (UW and maybe Utah/ASU) where based on early season results we don’t know how good or bad those teams are either.

I guess the difference is you see mistakes and think we’re doomed, I see them and think oh thats bad – hopefully we can improve and not have as many of those in game 3 4 or down the line.

I’m generally a fan of all the writers here but, in this case, Hydro comes off as somewhat condescending.

I’m somewhere in between a die-hard and casual fan and everything I read here was pretty obvious analysis in my book. I think there are many fans (esp those here) who don’t just watch for the win but actually watch to see how we play.

It’s clear we were playing a real game the first half which is why we ran up the score so high. In the 3rd quarter, we were running our typical offense but with Bridg so he could get some time with the 1s. But half way through the 3rd, we cut down most of the plays to short yardage runs up the middle. Of course if you do that you’re not going to be scoring many TDs. Same goes for going it on 4th. Same goes for putting in your 4th string players and calling short-yardage passes.

To say we should’ve scored 105, even in hyperbole, seems to betray a lack of observation of this.

Also, our defense didn’t let them score. It was a pick 6 + blocked punt that led to scoring. Not that it’s excusable but it’s worth noting that our defense didn’t let them score. To say their score should’ve been 0 assumes that our offense would make no mistakes. Given Maynard’s record of throwing INTs in the first possession for the past 2 games, I think it’s fair to assume he would throw at least 1 INT even in this game.

The expectation that all the messiness from games 1 and 2 would be cleared up by game 3 is just unrealistic.

To me, the real story (which was glossed over) is 1) the emergence of Biggie as a potential force in KOR; 2) further play/development of CJA; 3) continued mistakes of our snapping that is getting worse per game (from high snaps to 1 that was almost lost).

What excites me is that with Maynard we have a true passing threat which we really lacked last year. With the development of our new RBs, we’re slowly building a running threat too. Even though we have a bunch of new players, we’re by far in a better position than last year considering our upside.

6-6 is somewhat conservative baring some bad injuries.

He certainly watches the game more closely than I do. I spend most of the time talking about myself to whichever lucky people happen to be within a 35 foot radius of myself.

Yes, a lot of people don’t want to extrapolate much from this game because “it’s just Presbyterian.” But if Cal should be treating every game as a competitive game that they stand to lose. If Cal can’t execute and concentrate against an opponent one week, then can we really assume that they are going to do better next week? I’m not so sure the answer is a definitive “yes.” And so that’s why I’m not exactly happy with how the team looked against Presbyterian.

If Sofele is running into walls up the middle, then that is either indicative of (1) poor OL blocking; or (2) Sofele’s not seeing right holes to hit. For the most part this season, I think the problem is the former.

Don’t!

I’m writing my 8 part treatise . .. the case for Mansion.

My favorite was the 50-comment subthread on which is more disrespectful: running on 4th and 8 or kicking a field goal.

There is undoubtedly enough material there for someone to write up a dissertation. Ted Miller would be proud.

I like Cal football victories a little bit more than 200 comments arguing semantics, but to each his own.