| Position | QB | RB | Rec. | Run B | Pass P | Run D | Pass R | Pass D | ST | Coach | Overall |
| Score | 1.406 | 2.188 | 1.969 |
0.677 | 0.531 | 1.469 | 0.896 |
0.302 | 0.875 |
0.708 | 0.490 |
| Grade | D+ |
C+ | C | D- | D- | D+ | D | D- | D |
D- | D- |
There are so many times I want to quit this blog. I ask myself is it worth it? Are risking many Hydrotech Face Punchings worth it? But the amazing community we have here usually inspires me to the do all the work. And working on the Report Card post is usually one of my most favorite posts to put together. Seeing what all you people have written is always a lot of fun.
Fun was not the word that came to mind doing the Report Card post this time. You guys certainly know how to express your opinion and, well, given how the game went, I'm sure you can imagine what went on. If you like positive, optimistic things like daisies riding unicorns and ponies snuggling with rainbows, I suggest you read NO further. But if you like pessimistic things and are full of self-loathing, well, then you are a Cal fan and probably added something to this Report Card. You may read on.
I think PolarBear91 hits the right note here in his "overall" thought:
Worst. Episode. Ever.
Tough to disagree, Mr. Bear91. Tough to disagree.
Gameday Experience
WTFFFFFFFF - I watched in front of my laptop and had to contain my anger from smashing my keyboard. WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. MY LAPTOP COST ME GOOD MONEY. I DON'T WANT TO BREAK ITTTTTTTTT.
OhioBear - I promped by daughter to do another "Go Bears." It's not "Goo Bay" anymore. It came out "Go Bars." After watching the game, that's what I wanted to do.
Kodiak - Well, the baby was squirrelly and just wouldn't settled down to let me watch the game in peace. Little did I know that the little angel had my best interests in mind and was only fussing in an attempt to preserve my sanity. I did sample our Xmas limoncello to make sure that it was fit to give out as gifts...and sort of briefly lost all feeling in my teeth. Unlike our team, it's more potent than it looks. I might be rambling now...Still can't feel my teeth. Damn. This would be the time to see if I could chew through a 2x4. Life is tough sometimes as a Cal fan.
Blackandoldgold - If you like hearing foghorn, this was your game. In other words, terrible.
Swamphunter - Why the fuck did we have to slouch on the job NOW? I'm so pissed that we had to lose to the fucking puppy dogs that I'm going against what I said earlier and doing a report card for this loss. We should have killed these mother fuckers and instead they run all over us.
c98 - sucked.
grinandbearit - Unfortunately, I go to UW for grad school now and made it to this game thinking "hey, it can't be worse than 2007, right?" The crowd was pumped. The whole UW team was pumped. It was the last home game for the seniors (and possibly Jake Locker), and it was probably a bit colder than most Cal players were accustomed to, but man ... what was that?
I guess I had seen this before against Oregon and USC. In fact, this was really just a blend of those two games. The saddest thing about this game was that, unlike 2007, I never got the feeling (whatever that's worth) that the players quit, and still, 42-10. What a beatdown.
Oh, and since we're talking about the gameday experience. A small minority of fans were woofing/barking when UW did something good. I mean, I get it, the Huskies, but really, you see Cal fans growling like a bear every time we get a first down or score?
Last thing, they kept on chanting "one more year" for Jake Locker. I think this was a good send-off for him since they're not playing in a bowl game. My guess is he's gone, but what do I know?beson - We went over to a friend's house to watch the game and barbeque. Our usual MO is to take shots after every Cal touchdown. Last year, I got obliterated. This year, my friend made blue jello shots. I was anticipating another rough Sunday morning. Unfortunately it was rough in other more horrible ways. The jello shots made for celebrating became jello shots of sadness and frustration.
ososdeoro - Auspiciously tweaked my back playing tennis in the morning.
Golden Rationality Award
| Commenter/alias name | Standard Deviation |
| osodeoro | 1.417 |
| polarbear91 | 1.722 |
| grinandbearit | 1.927 |
| Haas8388 | 2.007 |
| sec119 | 2.016 |
Old Blue Award
| Commenter/alias name | Average score (out of 4) |
| c98 | 0 |
| prd74 | 0.364 |
| blackandoldgold | 0.485 |
| WTFFFFFFFFFFFF | 0.545 |
| polarbear91 | 0.652 |
Golden Sunglasses Award
| Commenter/alias name | Average score (out of 4) |
| Kodiak | 1.758 |
| Manwich | 1.667 |
| socalbears | 1.500 |
| beson | 1.470 |
| grinandbearit | 1.348 |
QB
Kodiak - A few flickers, but mostly bad Riley. In his defense, the protection had something to do with that. And once the game got out of hand, the D could just tee off on him. Even so, it's really disappointing to see him regress and be inconsistent with his accuracy, decision-making, and ball security.
Swamphunter - Short-hops and wide throws. The only bright spots were when Riley was throwing the ball, though.
prd74 - If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything.
I have nothing to say.grinandbearit - I don't like to put too much blame on him since our OL sucks, but his throws were definitely off and sometimes he threw some scary passes to well-covered WRs. He did have a couple of nice runs, and I think he should continue to pull it down and run with it rather than sitting back in a collapsing pocket while loosely holding onto the ball.
That is one thing I really dislike about Riley is that he doesn't have a very good sense for ball security. Maybe he needs to sit down with Coach Gould and get a lesson or two on what the RBs do.Haas8338 - Riley seems like a good guy and has improved from last year, but, and this is a BIG BUT, he is not good enough to lead a top Pac10 team. I won't use the term "inconsistent" anymore, he just is not very good.
beson - Riley definitely had some pretty terrible throws but I think most of the blame has to go to the O line which just sucked. Sure Riley should have made the throws when he wasn't pressured, but I can't really blame him for having lack of confidence in his line.
RB
OhioBear - Vereen ran for 92 yards on 16 carries, but it was a fairly quiet 92 given the avalanche that poured over us. Vereen did a nice job, basically the only bright spot in an otherwise pathetic night.Haas8338 - Vereen did what he could do in the circumstances. Pass blocking needs work that is for sure.
grinandberait - The effort is consistently there, and I just feel bad when I see Vereen run towards the line and hesitate because he knows he has nowhere to run because of our ____ty OL.
WR
Kodiak - It's nice to have a former QB providing commentary. Apparently, some of Riley's struggles weren't just inaccuracy, but the receivers running sloppy routes. Which is pretty sad considering we really can't use the "young" excuse at this point in the season.
c98 - sucked.
grinandbearit - Marvin Jones is clearly our go-to guy. I was disappointed "they" didn't get Miller more involved. Everyone else is just a clone of a mediocre WR. Marvin is our #1 WR, and he gets open and makes catches more often ... I wonder what all the other WRs are doing differently. Running bad routes? I can't really say because I've never really sat down and followed the WRs on their routes during games, especially not on TV because you usually can't see this happening.
Good thing is that I didn't see too many huge drops except for one possible TD catch that looked to be fairly well defended.
Run blocking
WTFFFFFFFF - I walked past a Chinese restaurant that prominently displayed the sign "NO MSG". You speak truth Chinese restaurant - so much painful truth.
Kodiak - Inconsistent push. In fairness, UW rolled the dice and bet that Bad Riley wouldn't be able to beat them if they crowded the line and run blitzed frequently. Sadly enough, that's been a pretty safe bet all year.
Blackandoldgold - The only thing worse was the Great Stink of 1858.
Swamphunter - Fire Marshall. He's a virus that needs to be eradicated.
Haas8338 - Even with MSG this line is only mediocre. Schwartz can dominate at times, but Tepper is up and down and the center and two guards were aweful. The Mutts' 340 lb DT (Taamu?) just abused our 260 lb center (shocking) and the guards didn't help much. Cheadle looks pretty darn stout, but man does he get manhandled at times...WTF?
Pass protection
Kodiak - Up and down. Riley was under pressure a lot, but UW was blitzing multiple guys on obvious passing downs. Chess match win for the UW coaches because we never seemed to have the right call or protection.
Swamphunter - Fire Marshall. He's a virus that needs to be eradicated. I believe in this so much right now that it deserves to be said twice.
prd74 - If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything.
I have nothing to say.stevy - 5 sacks... much more pressures and knockdowns. And it wasn't like it was close. The D-line was coming straight through. Marshall needs to go, I think.
grinandbearit - This was softer than a baby's bottom and smelled like one, too. I really don't know if this was a matter of coaching or scheme or just a lack of talent (though I like Syd'Quan and Cattouse), but we always seemed out of position. Always chasing some guy down who slipped behind coverage, chasing some guy from behind on a slant. Just too many holes in the pass coverage that they exploited.
If I think about all the games this year, our pass defense only had one good game against a reasonably good offense and that was against Arizona at home. They were just good enough against Stanford, but I think we were mainly just fortunate to have our running game clicking and keeping our mediocre defense off the field.Haas8338 - Tepper better start working out at guard because the NFL just wrote him off at tackle. Guarnero is just overmatched physically, simple as that.
Horrible preformance.ososdeoro - sack, sack, sack. 3-step drop anyone. Oh yeah, that goes under coaching.
Run defense
OhioBear - Meh. We held Polk under a hundy but it seemed like we let him get away too much. We didn't have an answer for Locker's running, really.
Blackandoldgold - I can't do this anymore. Too depressing...
stevy - Washington never ran it that much. Defending locker on broken plays is tough, but they need to wrap up and not arm tackle.
Haas8338 - Take away Locker's running and it was a decent performance.
sec119 - I'm not sure if run defense counts the same as Locker scrambling for 15 yards at a time, but either way it was bad.
Pass rush
c98 - sucked.
beson - The pass rush seemed decent but Locker's escapability killed us. Everytime we got a good rush, it seemed like it was at the expense of containment and Locker made us pay.
sec119 - From snap to whistle, Locker had time to re-tie his shoes, drink some gatorade, and bake a souffle before the pass rush got within five yards of him.
Kodiak - Well, haven't really had one all year, so can't expect it to miraculously appear now. Even when we blitzed, they picked it up pretty easily. We could really use some playmakers who know how to put the QB in the grass.
stevy - Horrid. With this D-line, the 3-4 is ineffective in getting pressure. The outside linebackers almost never got pressure on Locker making it easy for him to dominate the game.
Pass Defense
Kodiak - Tough game for Nbufie. For all that people have been screaming all year for more aggressive D...More blitzing + man coverage = DB's getting burned for long gains/TD's. Maybe the coaches know that besides Syd, our coverage is a bit questionable and that's why they usually play zone. It'll be addition by subtraction when Johnson and Ezeff leave. It's really disappointing for two seniors to be non-factors, much less liabilities.
c98 - sucked.
ososdeoro - Good God. It seemed like the linebackers were told to: a) pick a receiver to cover; b) cover said receiver for five yards; c) stop and turn around to see if Locker is going to run while receiver goes on his merry way; d) "protect" the astroturf five yards downfield from any Huskies who might bother to venture in his general direction. The first TD pass coverage really wasn't that bad. That said, you give a guy a permanent 10-yard cushion and you're letting him receive the ball anywhere he wants to.
Haas8338 - Locker was on target, to his credit, but he was not pressured and our coverage seemed confused at times.
grinandbearit - This was softer than a baby's bottom and smelled like one, too. I really don't know if this was a matter of coaching or scheme or just a lack of talent (though I like Syd'Quan and Cattouse), but we always seemed out of position. Always chasing some guy down who slipped behind coverage, chasing some guy from behind on a slant. Just too many holes in the pass coverage that they exploited.
If I think about all the games this year, our pass defense only had one good game against a reasonably good offense and that was against Arizona at home. They were just good enough against Stanford, but I think we were mainly just fortunate to have our running game clicking and keeping our mediocre defense off the field.
Special Teams
prd74 - If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything.
I have nothing to say.c98 - sucked.
stevy - Goal for next year: GET A CONSISTENT KICKER. And Sofele was ineffective on returns. Once, he got a whole 5 yards on a short kick. Not good.
grinandbearit - Kick coverage is still pretty weak, and we missed a not-that-long FG in the first half. I wonder if Tedford will ever consider having someone else coach special teams.
Also, is it standard for college teams to send one guy to loop behind all the other kick coverage personnel acting as a trailer just in case everyone else fails to tackle the returner? I don't remember seeing any team play prevent on kickoffs.
Anger is still decent. Whew.Haas8338 - Alamar may be the worst coach in college football.
ososdeoro - Just Gawd-fucking-awful. Nice to see Anger finally get off some good punts when we didn't need them anymore. Kickoff coverage sucks(tm) and now punt coverage does too. Nice FG try by D'Amato, er, not.
Coaching
OhioBear - We were not ready to play. Credit to Washington, obvi, because they played well. But we had no answer. We seemingly had few, if any, adjustments to the offensive onslaught. And we had no answer to getting hit in the mouth by Washington. A lackluster performance from a team that didn't seem ready to play - coaches have to take some blame for that.
prd74 - If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything.
I have nothing to say.stevy - Ludwig is still undecided about what type of offense he wants for Cal. Will they do short pases? will they run the ball? will they do long every down? Cal's offense has no identity and that's a huge problem. If Ludwig is back next year, he MUST decide what type of offense he wants to run. This flip flopping from game to game is hurting offensive production.
grinandbearit - I don't know what to say here because I can't tell what the root causes are of the problems we have. So I guess I'll just list some questions:
1) Our run blocking is piss poor, so is it the coach's fault or the talent?
2) When in the WildBear formation, why do we fake the sweep with Sofele 95% of the time and then have Vereen pause for a few seconds and then run forward into our crappy OL?
3) Playcalling: we ran the ball on 3rd and 23 ... it must have taken UW off guard because who in his right mind would've thought we would make anywhere near 23 yards on a run play with our OL?
ososodeoro - Not a one of them earned their pay in this one. Every other team seemed to have answers for U-Dub (even the Dawg wins were close), why didn't ours?sec119 - I never would have thought there'd be a game I give the special teams the highest grade. Talk about damning by faint praise! At this point, 50/50 on field goals is on-par for field goals.
Overall
WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFf - Time to start drinking.
OhioBear - I haven't been this angry since Washington 2007. Giving up 42 points and getting blown out by the Pac-10 champion on the road is one thing. Giving up 42 points and getting blown out by a team that was 3-5 in the Pac-10 and 4-7 overall coming into the game is quite another. No excuse for a performance like this.
Maybe we left our heart at stanfurd stadium 2 weeks ago.Kodiak - Well, it stunk, but I can live with it if the game serves as a wake-up call. As nice as it would have been to finish tied for 2nd with a chance at a 10-win season, could we honestly have said that we've been happy with the team this year? Instead, there's no question that Tedford will have to take a long look at his coaching staff, player evaluations, and what's been done from spring through winter to get the guys ready to play.
prd74 - If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything.
I have nothing to say.c98 - sucked hard.
stevy - Horrid game. Where did the Cal team that played so well against Stanford go? The team needs some to do serious soul searching in the off season.
grinandbearit - Keys to winning given our current set of problems:
- recruit some good defensive players this coming offseason
- get our OL mad before games so that they spark our running game so that we can keep our defense off the field and control the clock.
- start kicking all kickoffs out of bounds until we find someone who can consistently kick it past the 15.
- perfect the fake FG, especially when the FG is longer than 35 yards
- maybe our OL is just 2-3 good guys away from being good ... wouldn't that be great?beson - Oh juju. Of course we lost after I celebrated USC and their all but assured poinsetta bowl berth.
Manwich - We can't get pumped up for big games other than the Big Game. I take back everything I said before, the optimism I had for containing Luck/Gerhart evaporated in a second. I'm beginning to think the PAC-10 has passed Tedford and Carroll by in terms of philosophy.
Before it was run the pro-style and the bend don't break and it worked. Now we're seeing our opponents run more option based attacks with mobile quarterbacks. It's time to change philosophies, otherwise, Tedford will become a Bobby Bowden, stuck with loyal assistants and doomed to middle of the PAC-10.sec119 - I have very little to say that might be positive about this stinker of a game. That it occurred at the end of the season tells me that maybe we didn't learn much from our prior losses, nor am I hopeful about next year.