"If you multiply Tha1 by any integer, you get that integer."  via www.fearthebeard.org

Well, we've taken a look at many teams' stats over the past few weeks.  With the bye week, it seemed prudent to take a moment and actually LOOK at Cal's numbers.  There's been a lot of perception of stats, so let's see what the stats actually are. 

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So last week against ASU I saw something which caught my eye.  In the past 4 years or so that I've really started to study and analyze the Cal offense I saw the QB do something I've never seen them do before.  I saw a Cal QB create-a-play at the line of scrimmage.

You see, I've said many times before, Cal QBs cannot do their best Peyton Manning impressions (meaning they call any play they want at the LOS or create-a-play at the LOS).  QBs in the Cal offense are allowed to change the direction of runs, allowed to choose between the run or pass play on option plays (where the offense goes to the LOS with two plays in mind), and is allowed to audible to pre-selected plays which are packaged jointly with the personnel and formation on the field. 

But on Saturday against ASU, I am pretty sure we witnessed Longshore doing a Peyton Manning-esque create-a-play at the LOS. 

Let's have a look.

Above is the pre-snap look.  Cal has 11 personnel on the field (3 WRs, 1 TE, 1 RB).  Longshore is in shotgun with twin WRs to the open side of the field along with the TE ("open side" = the side of the offense with more field).

[Author addition post-publishing:

dballisloose asked a very good question in the comments:

Why do you always start off by saying “Cal has 11 personnel on the field”? How many did you expect them to have? I say, if there are 10 or 12, go ahead and mention it ;-)

I’m sorry, I guess I haven’t explained this before, but when I say “11 personnel” I don’t mean 11 people on the field.

Personnel packages are given numbers which correspond to how many RBs, TEs, or WRs, are on the field.

The first digit corresponds to how many RBs are on the field. The second digit corresponds to how many TEs are on the field. The number of WRs is implied. Thus 11 personnel = 1 RB (first digit), 1 TE (second digit), (3 WRs implied). 12 personnel = 1 RB, 2 TEs, (2 WRs implied). And so on…

When Cal is on defense, you can see the coaching assistant on the east sideline put up a yellow card with such numbers alerting the defensive players on the field of the offensive substitutions and what offensive personnel package the offense has on the field.]

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"Praise Be To Tedford!"  -  Image via www.bcemba06.org

HydroTech:  Before we start on the actual discussion, let's look at the depth chart.

QB: Riley; Longshore; Mansion
RB: Best; Vereen or Slocum
FB: Tau'ufo'ou
SE: Calvin, Cunningham,
WR: Young (it's unknown if Young is SE or FL so I'll list him as WR, he's probably FL though)
TE: Morrah; (who else? Tad Smith or Anthony Miller? or the other TE?)
LT: Teofilo; Tepper
LG: Guarnero; (who else?)
C: Mack; Guarnero
RG: Malele; (who else?)
RT: Schwartz(who else?)

TwistNHook:  Didn't Okanes do a depth chart?  Is that where you are getting this from?

HydroTech:  Yes, but he only lists the starters.  We could talk a lot about who will be key reserves if we know the two-deep.

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Part I

After meeting the white Joe Montana himself, Kevin Riley, star of Jesus In Cleats II:  The Cleatening, we headed over to the defense table.  They had two big tables next to each other, defense and offense.  We went with defense first.  And you know, for being raging sons of bitches out there on the field, they are incredibly nice in person.

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On Tuesday night I went to Gordon Biersch in San Francisco to attend the Coaches Tour event.  There was a much smaller turnout than Monday's event in Pleasant Hill.  Only about 150 people were probably in attendance despite the 250 or so who had registered. 

Here are my notes from the night:

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