Cal - Colorado Report Card

Wow!  Another great game!  Another great Cal victory!  What more could you want?

Well, when it came to our readers, surprisingly a lot.  Cal fans are a needy bunch!  The Report Card this game ran the gamut from people raving about our run defense to saying prayers for our run offense.  It was great to see the amount of people who commented.  We had 79 report cards filled out!  Thanks to all of you.  I tried to get at least one comment from each person.  Some people wrote great comments, but failed to include a handle.  We can't use your comments in that situation, sorry.  We still count your grades, though!

Join me after the jump to see the grades (helpfully crunched by Berkelium97) and the comments of you, the CGB Commentarriat!  GO BEARS!

Category	Mean Score	Standard Deviation
Pass Offense	.775	.100
Rush Offense	.617	.155
Pass Defense	.889	.077
Rush Defense	.872	.096
Special Teams	.863	.092
Coaching	.871	.080
Overall	.844	.077
Win likelihood at Nevada	.809(+.09)	.124

People were generally positive about defense, special teams, and coaching.  On offense opinions were notably lower and more mixed (hence the higher standard deviation).  In strong contrast to recent years, fans haven't been to impressed by the running game this year.

Fans are quite optimistic heading into Friday's matchup.  In the fall predictions the mean prediction for win percentage at Nevada was 72%.  After the first two weeks of the season, readers estimate Cal will by 9% more likely to defeat the Wolfpack! 

With the numbers crunched and analyzed, let's hand out some awards to the voters!

 

First up we have some editor's choice awards:

Chauncey Pendergast Fan Club: Thoroughbred
Every comment read "CHAUNCEY!!!" and every score was 1.  Because every score was 1, we threw out the ballot.  We at CGB pump the sunshine, but not that much sunshine!

Keenan Allen Fan Club: harmonpreservationsociety
Every score was "KEENAN ALLEN" and most of the comments praised Keenan in some lofty, metaphorical way.

Haters Gonna Hate: <nameless>
This ballot had no name but was worthy of mention.  Every score was 0 and nearly every comment read "sucked."  The only comment that differed was gameday experience, which read "library sucked."  Good luck on that O-Chem midterm buddy!

Next up we have awards for the closest voters to the average votes:

CGB Hivemind:

GoldenBear 77 (.022), Oaklandish Bear (.038), omnizzle (.039), WilderThanGene (.042), HydroTech (.046)

Finally, we have the awards for most positive and least positive voters.

Tedford's Sunshine Pumpers	Net Score, Percentage
1. CoBears	6.5, 92.9%
2. TrumanHugh	6.48, 92.5%
3. Sean Crosby	6.4, 91.4%
4. blackandoldgold	6.35, 90.7%
5. swamphunter	6.35, 90.7%

Super Critics	Net Score, Percentage
1. Haas8388	4.4, 62.9%
2. calbeers05753	4.95, 70.7%
3. Kodiak	5, 71.4%
4. d	5.02, 71.7%
5. haas_sitter	5.1, 72.9%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, let's take a look at what you all thought about Saturday's game

Gameday Experience

IMG_2350 (via Monica's Dad)

 

TKE Pryantis 79 - Started the day in my seats in the Gold Zone, surrounded by the usual cohort of screamers...my people! I came with a friend who usually sits in HH,so in the second half we moved over there...silence, or near silence...Old Blue purgatory...blech.

royrules22 - My first game of the season and I'm glad I picked this game instead of UC Davis! Nice warm (maybe too warm) day at Memorial and a great game. It was nice seeing y'all at the CGB tailgate and I even managed to sneak into the actual student section!

sec119 - Props to the CGB crew for putting together the tailgate! I really enjoyed meeting all of you!

Ursa Major - The mic men are disappointing. I feel like they always call for two more repetitions of cheers than they should when we are on offense.

Cugel  -Hot Hot hot. 1. Its so great on the west side to have the concourse cleared out and open, makes everything so much nicer. 2. we finally got some the Old Blues that I complained about to start yelling a bit, we bargained with them, and at least got them to yell on third down. Hey, its a start.

ososdeoro  -Now that the construction is going on, there are some really nice views of the whole bay through the archways in the concourse. Nice to see my band alum friends and thankful beyond belief that you can still go to the ABD reception if you don't march!

beson - My bison meatballs were a big hit. I'm pretty sure they were the direct cause of at least one buffalo turnover.

LoudBear - Surprisingly small crowd considering the situation, seemed smaller than the UC Davis game. Band still does not quite seem into the games and cheers seem disorganized. team is doing better than the crowd right now.

VandyImport - CU's fans (in proximity to the Alumni Band) resembled nothing so much as a student section designed by Ed Hardy, and by that, I mean they dress like harlots. Seriously, one girl's skirt, if she'd bent over I could have seen her soul from where I was. And one guy was basically yelling straight-up racial slurs at the usher. Ah well, we can always use some more hippie hayseeds, and Boulder makes Berkeley look like Birmingham...at least that's what they tell me...

oskiwow1 - in Thailand

PlayClassyBears - Colorado fans were loud. For about the first 5 minutes. It will be great having them in the Pac-12 once Hawkins is gone.

Also, I was embarrassed to say that Cal fans WAY WAY outnumbered Colorado fans on the douchebag scale. When the hell did we become so obnoxious!?!? WTF. I guess winning will do that to you.

PlanetXerox - for being a "bigger" game than uc davis, it was disappointing to see less people there this week. Wish we were a little louder, but at least the mic men improved from last week.

drub12 - The Buffs fans were very passionate, but I was very impressed with how loud the Cal fans were. My section (Top of U) were up and yelling on every third down. It was a solid atmosphere.

bearsNephs - PRD is the best

Oaklandish Bear - Forgot my parking pass at the house, so had to run home. Didn't have time for ritual shots of rum before the game. Got from Oakland to my seats in 30 minutes, though!!!

yorzepol - I have to thank my baby for waking me up. Game started at 4:30 am where I am and I got up at 6:30 am to the second half. Did I mention I love JustinTV? Cause I do.

JrBear - Buffs traveled well and were polite in my experience. A nice breather on our future Pac-12 schedule.

CalBeers05753 - Got ham-sauced at the Bear's Lair. Arrived there at 10:15 to a sparse crowd, but by the time I moved to a tailgate at 11:30, it was packed.

Lots of Buff people at the Lair (the Lair consistently has the most visiting fans, which I guess makes sense considering its proximity to the Stadium and location on Bancroft). I always make a point to talk to OOC fans because I think it's interesting to hear about another team's culture, so I chatted up a number of Buffs. Quickly found out that almost all of the ones who came to the game are California natives. I don't know if it was a self-selection thing because the game was in Berkeley, but man Boulder seems overrun with Californians. For the most part, they seem like a good crew; a lot more enjoyable than Ducks fans, SC bandwagoneers, or the 35 Stanford fans out there. Not as unintentionally hilarious as the fat Tennessee jailbreakers in their bright orange jumpsuits, but still good people.

It was hot in the stadium. The metal bleachers stung my legs! Ouch! Fortunately, I spent a lot of time standing to celebrate Cal sacks, pick 6 TDs, tackles for losses, and occasional 35-yard touchdown drives.

Gotta love September home games. The weather rocks, sorority girls are classing it up in skimpy clothes, and Cal always wins!

Incredibly nervous and pessimistic about our chances on Friday...

 

Pass Offense

IMG_2684 (via Monica's Dad)

 

 

BTown85 - Riley needs to hit the open receivers across the middle. We've got guys who can get open, but they're not 9 feet tall. If he didn't have those overthrows I'd be feeling better about this season.

For God's sake, why didn't we have Sweeny throw some passess? NOW is a good time to get him ready for a REAL game situation.

I miss Loggy ! That man can catch a ball.

WilderThenGene - The medium passing game was lacking and contributed to our inability to sustain drives. Not sure if this was play calling, Riley holding on to the ball too long at times and/or being risk averse, or if it was just decent coverage over the middle of the field by the CU secondary..

Pass blocking was bad early but settled down and was decent overall.

It's become apparent that the receiving corps is the strength of the offense, so perhaps some adjustments will remedy the situation.

At least one thing is for sure: It would be wise to get the ball in Jeremy Ross' hands more often. Also, we have more than one good tight end who should be getting more involved.

4EverGolden - I tried to count all of Riley's horribly overthrown/ just plain bad passes, but only counted 2, although one would have been a 3rd down completion to Allen. Overall I think they did good, also is the media is completely unaware of Marvin Jones? Keenan has been great in 2 games, but Marv is a stud and shouldn't ever be overlooked he almost manhandled 2 players on that 61 yard play before going out of bounds, I feel as if he isn't going to get the rec' he should get.

abbadon - Still a bit inconsistent, with flashes of brilliance. KR looks good to me (not perfect... good).  With a bit more experience for KA and more time for KA and KR to get on the same page... we have a chance to be very good.  Marvin was Marvin but even he had an inexplicable drop of a very easy pass to catch in the flats.  Vereen had that beautiful catch in the back corner of the endzone.

yorzepol - Are you kidding me!?! ~70% completion for Riley? When did we get receivers? Sure we have the next Jebbus-in-cleats (KEENAN ALLEN!) but the rest of these guys were here last year right? I hope it carries through the rest of the games. Colorado was supposed to have a wicked pass D do I am hopeful this will not be an early season only phenomenon. Oh and I think the only approved spelling should be: KEENAN ALLEN!

 

Run Offense

IMG_2876 (via Monica's Dad)

PlayClassyBears - I'm VERY worried about the rush offense. I'm not happy with much of anything as far as run D goes. I do understand that the box has been STACKED the last two games, but it has OFTEN been stacked in years past. Our guards aren't getting much of a push and I saw Linebackers disengaging very easily to make tackles as Vereen was hitting his holes. Which brings me to my biggest concern. I haven't seen Shane reading his lanes or sticking his cuts as sharply as in years past. I wonder if he is still hurt. He looks good. He looks Pac-10 good I would even say. But not Cal good. Cal has consistently had the best running backs in the Pac-10. And his performances have not been up to snuff. I'm very very worried about this year's rush O.

d - very poor running lanes.  going to be a long year

SoCalOski - What Rush Offense? You mean the first-team rush offense that never managed to open holes for Vereen? Or the second team rush offense that gained as many yards with three DeBo carries as three quarters of Vereen carries?

JustBear - Not sure if Vereen is still rusty from sitting out the camp, or this is how he really is. Hoping Vereen picks it up 100 yards in the next game. Also the No2 back, Sofele, is not being used at all.
I kept reading throughout the camp that this year is no different from any other year, in that the No2 RB will get a lot of carries. So far, it disappoints me that maybe Sofele is not as good as advertised, and there is still a huge dropoff from Vereen to the rest of the RBs.

rushil - Blocking and running were solid

Cugel - As a lot of people noted, some concern about the O-line, but I have full confidence in Vereen & Sofele. They stacked the box, but we were still able to move the ball.

TKE Pryantis70 - Need help from my colleagues here...was their run D that good or are we looking meh at RB so far...I can't tell...and as I was telling a friend of mine at the game, maybe the issue is that we are so conditioned to 50 yard gains by Jahvid, a workman like performance looks a bit weak...I also have to wonder if the run game has the umpf and urgency when we stake ourselves to big leads...there did not seem to be much passion in the 3rd quarter..felt like we were gliding to a victory

whiskyrick - Once again the o-line looked weak. We were in no way opening holes for Vareen. Anything he did all day was on improv runs and cutbacks.

 

 

Pass Defense

IMG_2688 (via Monica's Dad)

 

ben - There seemed to be good pressure on Hansen throughout the game. In particular, Owusu, Holt, Kendricks, and Jordan should be singled out for being in the backfield all day long. Aside from a couple of coverage breakdowns that CU couldn't take advantage of, the secondary seemed to play well also. That interception by Williams was sick.

omizzle - Steve Williams was in the game for only a few plays after Marc Anthony came out, and came up with that MONSTER pick. I like our depth at corner now.

SeanCrosby - Pass defense was solid. It covered receivers well, and gave time for the defensive line to get to the quarterback on coverage sacks. The Bears picked up 3 interceptions on the day, and when you have a stat like that, you're never going to lose.

Hansen threw a lot of balls, but most of his completions were short, as Cal's secondary prevented the long ball almost all game long.

beson - There were some definite holes in coverage due to blitzes but in general, I thought the pass defense in general was awesome. Great coverage on the outside one on one with the corners. Great pressure from our front seven.

Matthu11 - I've been impressed. Then again, with the front 7 playing the way they have, the secondary hasn't had to do too much. The front 7 has clearly done a great job of getting pressure on opposing QBs. But, I'm not so sure they will be as consistent against quality o-lines.

chowder - I thought it was great overall. We brought pressure and the Colorado QB looked like he wanted to quit after the third possession of getting tossed around. Unfortunately, they started taking advantage of the pressure with QB runs and scrambling. Just remember that when we play Locker and Luck.

Wanugee - This was a huge improvement. The aggressive blitz packages confused their OL and caused a lot of panic and poor decisions, and resulted in several TOs. I think some improvement in the deep coverage when blitzing is still needed, as with a better team we could have been burned big.

OaklandishBear - Great team pass defense. When the DBs got beat, the pressure was there to force inaccurate throws. Nice to see Hagan have a good game, and Williams got a pick in his first significant action of the year.

Only time Cal got "beat" deep was at the end of the game on the bomb down the middle that was dropped. Otherwise, good, sound work out there!

 

Run Defense

IMG_2752 (via Monica's Dad)

 

PlayClassyBears - Maybe it's the weak interior that Colorado has....but I am *LOVING* our NTs ability to disrupt just about everything. Also did anyone else catch Price zipping around their supposed first round NFLer? When did he get so shifty?

Also, with one game DJ Holt has officially acquitted himself of "weakest" link title. The dude was BADASS on all plays in his direction. Watch him next week, he's going to be CRITICAL to our success at stopping the Pistol

ben -Ownage.

Haas8338 - Mostly very good. That little dude squeezed out a lot of short yardage plays, but other than that, the run defense was solid.

CoBears - Excellent, though I thought we missed a few tackles that would have stopped drives on third and short. Of course, that would have given us less chances for turnovers via the air.

Ursa Major - There were a couple of drives where Colorado was able to move the ball on the ground, but we mostly bottled them up pretty effectively. We forgot about guarding against their QB running a few times, most frustratingly on the drive when they scored, especially since they had been doing it all drive.

Lucky1715 - Again, really solid. It was such a relief to see the Bears in the backfield on almost every play. However, the Buffs were able to convert most of their 3rd and 1 situations.
We need to improve the goal line D - no doubt about it.

Oaklandish Bear - Nice job of containing Stewart. No big gains and overall bottled up the inside against the Buffalo beef!

 

Special Teams

IMG_2741 (via Monica's Dad)

ososdeoro - So now that the kickoffs are going the desired distance, it would be nice to cover the runbacks a bit better. Kickoff returns themselves were meh, Anger is ridiculously good, the punt coverage and returns are good.

SeanCrosby - WE KICKED A BALL INTO THE END ZONE.

ANGER ALMOST HIT A PASSING AIRCRAFT.

WE COVERED KICKOFFS AND PUNTS.

WE HAD SOLID RETURNS.

YAY SPECIAL TEAMS!

dagster - no more ALAMAR!!!!!!!!!!!

Bah'ai Men - Giorgio has been inconsistent in the best way - that is, not always kicking short of the five-yard line - but he lost steam toward the end, which is the best side effect of scoring so often. Still.

GoldenBear77 - Anger was great. There was a kickoff into the endzone, and several others inside the 10. Ross can return punts. Except for a couple kickoff returns that went to the 35-40, a big improvement over 2009.

swamphunter - ANGER DOUBLE SHOT ESPRESSO.

Seriously though, much better than anything else we've had in recent years.

CoBears - Stellar. Genyk has the special teams doing wonders. Still a short kickoff or two in there, but otherwise nearly flawless. How about the coverage on 60+ yard punts by Anger? Not to mention the 60+ yard punts themselves. The special teams will win us games this year that it lost us last year. Wow.

BTown85 - KICKOFFS WENT PAST THE 10 YARD LINE !!!!! I didn't want to believe it til I saw it, and now I've seen it. Thank GOODNESS we've got that figured out.

I'm going to miss Brian Anger next year. Talk about BeastMode !!!!

 

Coaching

IMG_3322 (via Monica's Dad)

 

 

CalJeff - Methodical capitalization on Colorado's mistakes. Very solid performance. I was happy to realize half-way through the game "hey, Colorado is playing how Cal used to like before Tedford..thank God we're not that team anymore..." Feel bad for Colorado players...I see why Dan Hawkins is on the hot seat

abbaddon - LOVED the coaching.  Loved it.  Could have been 72-0 like our floater friends if the execution was better.  Hope we see this kind of variety on both offense and defense for the rest of the year.

yg - Hawkinses, Hagans, Tedfords. Have there ever been more sons of coaches in the same game?

bearsNephs - One of Tedford's best coached games. Few penalties, very disciplined. Team came out of the gate well and finished strong with a slight lull in the middle.

drubs12  - I like the playcalling a lot. Some nice calls to throw the deep ball to Jones, great call on the play action pass to Isi. I also loved the blitz schemes, they really got a lot of pressure on Hansen, which was huge.

GB4188 - Didn't like the conservative play calling in the 3rd quarter. Put 'em away and put 'em away good.

 

Overall

IMG_3139 (via Monica's Dad)

 

 

sec119 - This game never felt in doubt. From the first time we saw the defense take the field, we saw a dominant defense have its way with Colorado. Of course, this means that Nevada will be the ultimate trap game, and the game will be uglier than a 45 year old cocktail waitress at the Peppermill Casino.

swamphunter - Truth be told, I kinda felt bad for Colorado after Hagan ran back the air-fumble near the end of the game. These are our future Pac-12 buddies and we didn't exactly give them a kind introduction to the Conference.

Well, hopefully they understand that this conference is going into overdrive come 2011 and 2012. As for us, we played another good game. Let's see what Nevada and their pistol offense have in store for us next week!

 

Lucky1715 - Pretty good. It's so early in the season, we're simply not going to see much creativity yet. The defense came to play. The offense was good, but still a bit rusty. I would have also liked to see more of Sweeney (especially throwing) or Mansion in the 4th. While I realize KR needs more reps, too, I just think we need to better develop our 2nd and 3rd string players in these blowouts.

LoudBear - Amazing to prove what they could do to a larger program, even more impressive than the UC Davis game. Coaches had the team pumped up correctly. Still need improvement in running game and in overall consistency but still a great game.

4EverGolden - I love Jarred Price's Sack celebration. Just love it.

PlanetXerox - it's hard to judge some facets of this game because maybe colorado was just that bad. our offense wasn't spectacular yet they scored 38. our defense obviously played very well but i still don't think they've seen enough to prove they can hang with the likes of oregon or even nevada maybe. That being said it's much easier to be optimistic amount our team except for the run game

TrumanHugh - Cal has the #1 defense in the country! We are #2 in the Pac-10 for both points scored and allowed (5th in the country). Our total offense is 5th in the conference (39th in NCAA), which, I suppose, isn't too worrisome seeing how we're doing so well with scoring so many--and allowing so few--points

Cugel  -Except for the 3rd quarter let down, a complete performance, in all 3 phases of the game. I think the Buffs were good on defense, so our performance on offense did indicate they we will be good this year. On defense Cal looked awesome, but I think that was partly because the Buffs offense kinda sucks, and they are clearly not well coached.

My son says its the Dan Hawkins farewell tour, I feel sorry for them.