Cal-Washington State Report Card: Prelude to DOOOOOOOM

One week we dispatch an opponent with ease, and another week we turn Kevin Prince into a Heisman Candidate.  It hasn't been easy being a Cal fan this year (or most years between 1959 and 2002), but this week happened to be one of the good weeks.  Saturday was one of those rare days when the offense and defense were great, while the special teams units managed to avert disaster.  Unfortunately, not too many people were able to see it due to rainy weather, disinterest, or lack of widespread television coverage.  As a result, we have a season-low 37 report cards.  But those of you who participated certainly were pleased with Saturday's outing.   Soak it in and enjoy it, Cal fans, because you know Oregon State is about to ruin our season once again.  James Rodgers will return to All-American form, Joe Halahuni will score 5 TDs, and Sean Mannion will look like Andrew Luck.  Yep, we're doomed.

But let's not yet fret over Saturday's inevitable disaster.  I've put together the numbers and Twist put together the best and brightest comments, so let's look back and enjoy the good times at AT&T Park on Saturday afternoon.

 

Category	Average Score	Standard Deviation
Pass Offense	.617	.134
Rush Offense	.848	.085
Pass Defense	.802	.107
Rush Defense	.824	.110
Special Teams	.631	.122
Coaching	.755	.125
Overall	.759	.101
Win likelihood vs Oregon State	.641 (+6.1%)	.176

Great scores, all around!  Everyone's happy!  Am I the only one tired of brilliant weeks followed by abysmal ones?  Let us hope we break that streak with a win over those pesky Beavs.

The defense and rush offense did exceptionally well on Saturday.  Special teams and passing were both good but not spectacular.

We're feeling a bit better about facing Oregon State--that perpetual thorn in our side--next week.  In fact, our chance of winning has gone up by 6% according to our beloved readers.  Of course, I don't think any of us expected the Beavs would be 2-7 when they came to town.

Editor's Choice Awards:

Alanis Morissette Award for Unintentional Irony:

Our lone editor's choice award goes to hardtobeacalfan, who accidentally put her username into the "pass offense" category.

Next up we have the usual set of awards, the Old Blues and Tedford's Sunshine Pumpers.

Our usual leader of the Old Blues, SoCal Oski, did not fill out a report card this week, so we welcome a new curmudgeon this week!  Thankfully the Old Blues didn't have too much to complain about, as their scores are respectable considering the win.  Four of the five Sunshine Pumpers have the words "bear" or "Cal" in their usernames.  Does that mean anything?

Tedford's Sunshine Pumpers	Net Score, Percentage
1. crystallograbear	6.20, 88.6%
2. Organometalicbear	5.93, 84.7%
3. rurata	5.80, 82.9%
4. miniCal	5.77, 82.4%
5. Californication	5.70, 81.4%

Old Blues	Net Score, Percentage
1. storky	4.45, 63.6%
2. JABear	4.55, 65.0%
3. rollonyoubears111	4.57, 65.3%
4. UncleSam22	4.65, 66.4%
4. Darkwind	4.65, 66.4%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Voice of Reason	Total Deviation
1. Swamphunter	.040
2. koalaballa	.045
3. ronp_sf	.049
4. MaximillinaT	.051
5. bigdruid	.052

 

Next up we have The Voice of Reason for those whose scores most accurately reflect the group scores.

Some of our usuals, prd74 and FromCtoShining(Blue)C just barely missed the cut this week.   Meanwhile Swamphunter enjoys his position as most level-headed in all of CGB!

 

 

 

Let's hear your thoughts on the game.  Was it as cold, empty, and unpleasant (winning aside) as it looked on television?

 

Gameday Experience

storky - It's nice to play a bad team like Wazzu.

yg - Better than the Alabama-LSU snoozefest.

swamphunter - "Arriving: Eh, it ain't too bad!
End of first quarter: Oh look, it's starting to rain.
End of game: Oh dear lord it's cold and wet here."

minesweeper - I wish more folks turned out for the game, but attendance actually wasn't that bad considering the opponent, the weather, and the faceplant in LA. I hope we can get a decent crowd for Senior Day next week.

fuzzywuzzy - "KAPP!

We brought Desert Eagle .50, left the replicas (and interceptions)at Witter, and clocked the cougs by 23 points, but my cack n' bulls still shrank. Brrrrrrrrrrrr
On the plus side, I got to see a quarter of Cal football at ATT from the promenade deck, cause' so many had left."

golden oso - I was praying that it wouldn't be an "early drinking/drunk and pissed off by halftime" kind of game. Good thing we won because I hat being hungover on sunday.

prd74 - Long week. I'm all typed out. Glad we won.

Californication -It was a wet, boring game in a very empty stadium. Besides that, it was awesome! Good to get a win in any weather...

MaximillianT - Pretty good experience. Very wet in the 2nd half! Everyone left in the 4th!

JABear - And the rain rain rain came down down down and washed out poor old Cougars.

heyalumnigo -Thanks PRD.

organometallicbear - Watched the game on the couch warm and dry. After seeing the redshirt freshmen in the dugout chomping garlic fries I couldn't have been happier.

UncleSam22 - Spent the first half worried we'd all get kicked in the collective nuts and then spent the second half with one eye on the first half of the LSU/Bama game...Both were unwise pursuits.

JerrotWillard45 - Wow it rained a lot. We moved down from the upper deck to the lower deck under the overhand in the 3rd quarter. It was easy because all you fair weather fans stayed home! Losers!!!! Tons of seats on the freakin' 50 yard line. Considering...everything, we have one of the weakest fan bases in the country, and that pisses me off. Get out there for OSU!

oskiwow - Having a rain poncho was key. Once it started raining, we moved down to the empty field level seats, right behind the team. That was way better than the nosebleeds we were in.

rollonubears1111 - It was cold, rainy, and the student section was sadly empty. The yell leader came to the nosebleeds instead- which was pretty refreshing. He/she should've done this every game this season.

 

 

Pass Offense

bamboobanga - I wish we could have seen Bridgeford do something other than drop the snap.

UncleSam22 - Maynard is best when making short to medium throws. He missed both Allen and Jones wide open down field and just does not have that throw in his arsenal. He looked more comfortable in the pocket day and did well enough to win, which is to say he did not turn the ball over and kept Cal in a position to score points. Bridgeford, looked suspect at best on his attempts.

storky - It's nice to play a bad team like Wazzu.

rollonubears1111 - "Much like the season, inconsistent. But unlike most of the season, successful this time.
DOwn the middle not a problem, rolling out-not a problem, pocket passing-major problem."

organometallicbear - Torn on this one. The same problems that have been there all season are still there, WSU just wasn't able to feast on them like UCLA and USC. But KA21 goes over 1000 yards so it can't be all bad.

crystallograbear -I think now we see why Tedford has been keeping Maynard in the game. As woeful as he looked last week against UCLA, I can now imagine that Bridgford could have been worse. Against Washington St., Maynard looked for the most part good while Bridgford seemed incapable of even handling a snap.

bigdruid - "Not spectacular (especially given how well we were running the ball - I would have hoped for even better passing stats), but solid against a lackluster defense. Also a few dropped balls (including one right through KA's hands), although I suspect the ball was pretty slippery out there.

A couple of tough passes by Maynard, one of which (across his body for a completion to KA) was pretty much up for grabs. On the other hand, his TD pass to Miller was pretty astounding.

Also, it must be said: ZOMG BRIDGFORD HOLD ON TO THE BALL."

 

Run Offense

bigdruid - "WILL KAPP!!!!

Great work by Sofele and the OL gashing the Cougs over and over. Clearly the coaches felt we could get outside on them, and we did, repeatedly.

I've come to terms with what Sofele can give us in the running game - if we could have gotten similar consistently solid but not spectacular play out of our passing game, we'd be an 8-9 win team this year.

Good to see Manuel out there again, but I'm not sure why we didn't get Bigelow more reps. Maybe Bigelow isn't giving the effort at practice?
"

koallaballa - Our team finally learned that if you run the ball consistently, you have a balanced attack and a chance at victory.

hardtobeacalfan - some great run blocking... don't know if it's because the line is getting better or if wsu is that bad. isi, anderson, and manuel all had some nice runs. and kapp!!! fumbles were a problem, but i'll forgive it because of the rain.

alameda-bear - successful, lots of east-west. more cj anderson would be nice as a north-south change of pace

storky - It's nice to play a bad team like Wazzu.

organometallicbear - The oline has got its swagger back. For all the talk of who should back up Isi the answer seems to be it doesn't matter when there are running lanes big enough for even WSU's oversize kicker to lumber through.

yg - Isi got both his signature game and his signature run. He's definitely better when he's not running into people. And props to Mike Manuel .

miniCal - Good job of spreading the runs out to different players. Sofele is proving his worth.

 

 

Pass Defense

fuzzywuzzy - Almost a pick six, but dropped it. Pass D made lobbelstael look like the worst in the confernence, except....no interceptions. Oh well. Lobbie didn't have a lot of targets today.

UncleSam22 - They looked pretty suspect to me. Some pass interference calls and some long plays allowed in the second half. Worries me for the ASU/furd games.

heyalumnigo - For the most part did a good job. The couple long passes were good throws. Subtracted .1 for the dropped Pick-6.

FromCToShining(Blue)C - At first glance it seems like it was very good. But unfortunately a lot of it was Washington St. receivers just dropping well thrown and catchable passes. A lot of the coverage was also borderline pass interference, which scares me a bit for the future.
sacman701 - Outstanding. This has grown into the team's biggest strength after getting lit up by Colorado and Washington. The pass rush was excellent, and DBs broke up a lot of passes.

BTown85 - We benefitted from numerous dropped balls. Pass rush was awesome.

Californication -Well played game by our DBs!!! WSU had some great plays in the second half against good coverage, but they did little else.

 

 

Run Defense

UncleSam22 - They looked really good until the second half when it seems like they lost interest. But they kept their edges, got their assignments, and avoided the big play. Definitely a good improvement over last weeks debacle.

yg - Getting burned by Kevin Prince may prove to be the ultimate motivator.

golden oso - We were camped out in their backfield all day long. The only things missing were tents and and a campfire. If we'd had been there any longer, I think Wulff would have been obligated to provide s'mores.

storky - It's nice to play a bad team like Wazzu.

Californication -Great run defense again, but we've come to expect that. The UCLA game set us back, but we've righted the ship.

MaximillianT - Stone Wall

 

 

Special Teams

 

rurata - Another missed PAT. Has there been a game this year where there wasn't a missed PAT? Some of them were sort of understandable, because the responsible player was like 6'8". But that argument can't be made for every team we've gone up against. Something else I was curious about was if changing the holder from Mansion to Anger has anything to do with some of the issues. Is there a reason why Mansion isn't the holder anymore?

crystallograbear - 5 PATs this season...really?

FromCToShining(Blue)C - Something needs to be done about our PAT protection. I'm tired of the adventure that extra points have become. Punt returns leave a LOT to be desired. Jones makes terrible decisions and might need to be replaced for returns. Tavecchio continues to look like he's outkicking the coverage. On the other hand, Anger did a great job on most of his punts.

hardtobeacalfan - another block pat? seriously?

golden oso - I'd be updating my CV if I were a ST coach whose name rhymed with GEEEENNNNNYYYKKK!

BTown85 - Good teams don't get PATs blocked. What's up with that? I also don't like KA on punt returns; he's too valuable on offense and too gangly on punt returns.

JerrotWillard45- The XP thing is killing me - I have a new policy - I don't watch us kick anymore. I just wait to hear the result. After I stopped watching - we made all our kicks the rest of the game.

 

 

Coaching

 

FromCToShining(Blue)C - "Can't really get a good read on the coaches based on this game. Playcalling looked creative and appropriate but overall, it concerns me how inconsistent this team is from game-to-game. Will they continue to motivate the team and keep them from making boneheaded mistakes? We can only hope.

One other thing, I know it was raining but what the hell was with all the fumbles?! Completely unacceptable. Tedford and Co. better find ways to clean that up if we want to do well in the rest of our games."

alameda-bear - nothing questionable from Tedford

storky - It's nice to play a bad team like Wazzu.

miniCal - Good job of calling a conservative pass offense, so Maynard is less likely to screw up. I don't know if we can get away with this against stronger competititon..

Californication -Besides special teams, our coaching staff had the team ready to go. We did not play down to the opponent and took charge early. Great job mixing things up on offense and keeping Zach comfortable back there.

 

 

Overall Performance

 

koallaballa - Way to turn the boat around again. I just wish all our defensive mojo could be offensive mojo instead - I think in college football the best defense is a potent offense.

oskiwow - First off, it's nice to get the win (particularly after last week's disaster). But, the game won't make any Cal fan feel confident about our passing game - the strong running game today masked the struggles of the passing game. Oh well. That's a problem for another week. Go Bears!

sacman701 - Solid win. This team has played much better at home than on the road. If you take out the interceptions, they even played pretty well against USC. As I type this UCLA is about to beat ASU...eh, we still played a stinko game against them and will lose to OSU if we play like that. I think it's far more likely that the Bears will play like they did against Utah and WSU, and take OSU to the woodshed.

alameda-bear - good performance in a game we should win every time. hoping we beat osu and then at least split the last two

cjwethers - We are a different team at home. Which will be good in our must-win next week.

golden oso - I expected a win but didn't think it would be this easy. Much more exciting than Field Goal Fest 2011, er...'Game of the Century,' LSU-Alabama. OSU and ASU look like they could be wins (doooooom). I'm hoping for a good showing against the furd, then finishing it up right at the Kraft Fight Emerald DEEZ Nuts County Credit Union Vegas Bowl. Yep, pumpin' a little sunshine today.