Aced It! Cal-UCLA Report Card

I almost forgot what it felt like to be pleased after a Cal win. After all, it's been over 10 months since we last won in an exciting, uplifting manner. Clearly I am not alone because y'all posted some solid grades for the Bears.

Category	Average Score	Standard Deviation
Pass offense	.837	.109
Rush offense	.761	.135
Pass defense	.778	.129
Rush defense	.702	.158
Special teams	.567	.178
Coaching	.788	.152
Overall	.839	.109
Win probability vs. Washington St.	72.6% (+3.7%)	.177

Look at that--everyone passed! Well, almost everyone. Genyk is stuck in detention again. Fortunately it's a place he knows well, so he has his favorite seat and everything. I'm starting to think he's trying not to succeed. Great defense, consistent offense? You better believe special teams will find some way to take the wind out the our sails. Fortunately the blocked PATs played no impact in the outcome.

Coaching earned passing marks for the first time all season. It's amazing how a solid offensive gameplan and some clearly prepared players will do that...

And for the first time all season, we're actually more optimistic about the next matchup. Some of that can be credited to Wazzu's continued incompetence, but it's nice to see some optimism. If we lose next week, however, we're probably going to cancel the report cards and give the season an "Incomplete."

Now let's ride this gravy train into the awards!

Editor's Choice Awards:

None this week. Hopefully we'll have some to give out next week. Whoever includes the most pirate references/puns will win my eternal gratitude.

Although we do not have any Editor's Choice awards, we have our trusty troika of usual awards:

Tedford's Sunshine Pumpers:

Tedford's Sunshine Pumpers	Total Score	Percentage
1. glodbloode	7.00	100.00%
1. PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP	7.00	100.00%
3. Oski4Heisman	6.70	95.71%
4. GuMiBears	6.25	89.29%
5. bearwarg	6.14	87.71%

I'm guessing that first entry was a very drunk goldblooded, who undoubtedly reveled into the wee hours of the night (this submission came in at 3:44am). I appreciate the dedication of making sure to check CGB even after partying late into the night.

Old Blues:

Old Blues	Total Score	Precentage
1. calfan4ever	2.00	28.57%
2. puresilence	3.67	52.43%
3. rollonyoubears111	4.20	60.00%
4. Bear in Chicago	4.30	61.43%
5. Willis Chong	4.31	61.57%

I'm not sure why calfan4ever was so unhappy with the outcome. The rest of you gave the best set of Old Blues scores we've seen this season. rollonyoubears111 has now become the winningest participant this season with three awards. rollon has appeared twice in the Voice of Reason awards and now once in the Old Blues awards. Keep up the good work!

Finally we have The Voice of Reason, which goes to those whose grades were closest to the community average.

The Voice of Reason:

The Voice of Reason	Deviation
1. GoldenBear8933	0.040
2. 1988goldenbear	0.041
3. 85 cal bear	0.049
4. Cannonbear	0.049
5. BTown85	0.061

There must be something about graduating in the 80s that makes someone extra reasonable.

Now let's move onto the comments:

Comments:

And now, onto the comments:

Gameday Experiences

neuropsychbear: wish fios had the PAC-12 network

GuMiBears: I had a family dinner at the start of the game, so an hour later, I rushed back to my computer and found we were winning. I am so giddydyyyydy.

Whit of ‘96: Great to see Cal finally come out and put a complete game together. Despite the two big screwups in the 3rd, the defense and offense rallied and got their act together to make it a blowout.

Torrey's Tacos: Couldn't attend this one, nor do I have the Pac-12 network, but the radio tells me that they looked pretty good. Hopefully this is the big turnaround, and not just a deviation from the norm.

bearwarg: Great Game! The usually apathetic Cal fans in the Gold Zone actually stood up cheered a couple times on big plays.

CruzinBears: Loved it all. Got to accomplish some family stuff before the game in Moraga, then all out Cal fun starting at 3pm.

PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP: PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP PUMP

CELEBRATORY CHAMPAGNE: I can't believe we won! I can't believe we won!!! I had gotten back to Berkeley from an all day long field trip right around the kickoff time, and I debated so long and hard with myself if I should have gone to the game. Thank you, Cal Football, for justifying my decision and making my Saturday night one of the best ones. It was awesome. The stadium was bumpin and the crowd was energetic, you couldn't even tell this crowd was supporting a 1-4 team. It was awesome. Hopefully it'll get louder and more energetic from this point forward!

TheYarnways: Gotta say, more than any of the individual components mentioned above it was the team's intensity that was the most encouraging to see. Especially on defense, they played with passion and were clearly pumped up. Just gotta bring that intensity every week...maybe it was the yellows and the night game...but yeah, so much energy in the stadium and on the sideline, really fun to watch.

Swamphunter: That card stunt was awesome. The crowd was awesome. The entire game was awesome.

Prd74: Watched the game on Firstrow stream in Rhode Island on my Nook. Not bad.
I was thinking the whole game " The fucla fans must be eating shit right now". What a great evening, even though it started at 10 PM and ended after 1 AM. Yay for Cal!

rollonyoubears111: Ok, I'm gonna sound like a grouch, well, because I iz. A little constructive criticism, I wish that the Micmen don't point out to individual players. "We love Keenan". It's nice to give love, but it's a team effort. Perhaps give love to the whole team when he's back there as PR. "Touchdown bears!" Don't sing "Hey good bye" when there's 6:37 left in the 4th quarter. Maybe when there's 1:23 left on the clock, we have the ball, there's no time outs, we're up by 4 scores...but I've seen some major, flukey comebacks that made the home crowd look just silly. (remember the Arizona v Oregon game a few years ago? Anyhoos, it was a nice night! The crowd was pumped when we started to see daylight (when we we up by 2 scores), and Memorial Stadium looks glorious at night!

FiatLux: Spectacular. Memorial is spectacular at night. It was spectacular seeing Twist, Mrs. Twist (wow did he marry up), AndBears, Rags, Sec119. Cal played spectacularly. UCLA was a spectacular failure again in Berkeley. Spectacular. Spectacular. Spectacular.

classof2015: Student section was so pumped. definitely like these night games.

calfan4ever: It was friggin awesome being there at night.

mk27: fUcla

Pass Offense

Thetravesty: They played the game that Maynard needed to succeed. Lots of short passes that led to receivers making plays, like Rodgers and Bigelow. It was so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. Or something like that

texashaterforlife: So last week was the worst for Maynard, This game may be his absolute best. O-line showed improvement, but could still improve quite a bit in pass blocking. Nice to see someone included Rich Rodgers.

dbromon: Wow, short quick passes to bears on the run! A couple long balls nicely thrown and caught! The OL holding the line for at least a couple seconds!

Berliner Bear: There aren't many nits to pick. Zach made a bad choice on the int. Otherwise, there are only good things to say about Maynard after the best game of his career. On the TD to Keenan and the big gainer to Rodgers, he hit both receivers in stride. The coaches called a great game reminiscent of the tOSU game with lots of quick slants and 3 step drops to counter the pressure. Speaking of Rodgers, Tedford/Arroyo/Coach M deserve props for getting him involved in a big way tonight. But... would a little game-to-game consistency from Maynard (and consistent playcalling from the coaches) be too much to ask?

Keenan Allen Crabbe People: The quick pass was perfect in two ways: (1) distributing the ball to playmakers early (2) putting doubts in the heads of UCLA's pass rushers. "If ASU and USC could do it, why can't I?" That's turning a weakness into a strength.

rollonyoubears111: When Maynard threw into double/trip coverage for an INT, I'm sure we were all thinking the same thing. But what made a difference was the O-line, Stevens, Richard Rodgers, and RB blocking, giving Maynard more time to throw quick outs. We were lucky that UCLA wasn't playing tighter on the receivers because there were some balls that looked like it could've gone the other way. This was possibly due to Rodgers being a major factor, making 2 guys on defense to account for him.

Terdford: Quick short passing game. Quick short passes on first down. Where has this been the last three years.

bobsyerunkle: Aside from that first throw Maynard looked great. He took another real beating and kept jumping up and coming back for more.

Cannonbear: When did Aaron Rodgers decide he wanted to come back to school? Also, Richard Rogers finally arrived (with some thanks to the UCLA defense). GO BEARS!

Bearclawz: Great gameplan, get rid of the ball, get the tight ends involved.
25 of 30, Almost like a real Pac 12 QB, now if Zach can clean up those continued bad turnovers at terrible points of the game that typically kill us, things may actually get sunshiny.

lowerBPbear: Using the tight end opened everything else up, and Bigelow will force teams to adjust. This is the pass offense we have been waiting for.

Run Offense

hateford: Who is RB #5? That kid is something. Did he play against ASU?

EECS_bear: Overall, pretty solid. I think we gained strength as the game wore on, and the CJ Anderson back-breaker at the end of the game (not that the Bruin's back wasn't already broken by then) was the cherry on top. All in all, the offense was great.

BTown85: CJ was a beast (!), but I was hoping for more Isi. Hey, whoever can get the job done works for me and Saturday it was CJ. Bigelow starting??? Well done, young man; well done.......

Bearacious: CJ (aside from the fumble) is now getting used to maximize his gifts-not being in 3rd and long gifts him chances to shine. DUDE can BLAST. Bigelow change of past complements him better than Isi-this O line (and maybe our second level blocking) isn't favoring ISI this year. I am ready to see Bigs juke the Furd's Skov out of his red jock.

MJB: Run, run, run. There should still be more emphasis on the run, even with the passing successes against UCLA. Oh, and let's work on the QB-RB handoff exchange over and over in practice this week, plz.

Pass Defense

Swamphunter: Improved, but not perfect, per se. Definitely the best so far this year, though.

TruffleShuffle: McCain was in the backfield all evening putting pressure on the QB. Was refreshing to see the team getting consistent pressure on QB.

justbear: Mostly good. But we keep giving up big gains on 3rd downs. We were fortunate with all their turnovers, but if not for that, they were moving down the field at will.

BoggyB: 5.4 YPA from Hundley and 4 INTs? That is about as good as pass defense can be. While I cannot recall off the top of my head any sacks that one would consider coverage sacks, the pass defense deserves some partial credit for the 5 sacks the defense had because blitzing requires leaving areas open or players single covered which requires the DBs to be very good.

Oski4Heisman: Reminded me of the Hit Squad days. Players swarming the ball and looking for turnovers; players wrapping up one-on-one on screens; getting pressure on Hundley. It was an overall great performance by our entire defense against the pass.

Willis Chong: Too many coverage problems. Too many 3rd and longs completed. The soft cover from our secondary is starting to look like be 5 yards away when the receiver makes his catch. The 3 INTs were nice, but that's not going to happen every game.

BleedinBlue: Maddening! There were a handful of plays where UCLA would set a receiver in motion towards a side of the field with few defenders, or recently vacated by defenders, and end up in open space, moving at full speed, receive the ball and make our DBs miss for huge gains. Then there were numerous plays where our DBs took poor angles and missed tackles, or just whiffed completely (Williams!). There were also a handful of plays where we were bailed out by UCLA drops.

Then there were the brilliant plays, of which I don't remember many. Of note, I saw Sebastian read run plays perfectly before the snap and come up to the line for run support. Kam Jackson's trifecta of INTs, along with Michael Lowe's own were fantastic.

1988goldenbear: We got torched again at times, especially on 3rd-and-longs. And we still fail to cover the TE across the middle. In all honesty, we were pretty much bailed out on many occasions by Hundley's inexperience and bad penalties. It felt like ucla took over the role that Cal has been playing this season.

Another case of our little brother emulating us?

A couple of our penalties were dumb, but that one on Sebastian was BS.

Anyone else watching on tv catch this? When Hundley threw behind his open receiver coming across the middle, the announcer said, "Oh Maynard... I mean Hundley." Got a good chuckle out of that.
Great open field tackling by Steve Williams (AGAIN) and great overall play by Jackson too.

Nice pressure on the QB - maybe having faster guys instead of down lineman is a good thing? So glad that Pendergast figured out how to get heat on the QB, that is a welcome change.

Oaklandishbear: STILL problems defending the TE. Yeah, Fauria is good, but UW and the Furd have good TEs, too. Yikes. Bonus points for the INTs and sacks. Super happy for Kam for stepping in for Anthony and getting the picks instead of getting picked on. I like the effort, but does anyone else notice he has the biggest mouth on the field? Act like you've been there! I guess you can take the kid out of Poly, but you can't take the Poly out of the kid.

Run Defense

Jacobs.: Ok, so Franklin got more than a hundred yards. Ok, so Hundley ran for a few first downs... And yet, I never felt that UCLA managed to establish a convincing running threat. Too many sacks, too many stops for a loss.

boomtho: Did a nice job getting into the backfield for some negative plays, but they did have some success on the ground. Glad they went away from it.

cjwethers: Good job of generally stuffing the capable Johnathan Franklin, but of course it started up front with our rotation of defensive linemen blowing UCLA's OL off the ball. The LB corps looked good in closing some holes quickly, but also has the tendency to overpursue the ball carrier, which allowed some big cutbacks by Franklin.

TooUsedToGapage: I'm glad that Mora didn't keep feeding Franklin the ball, because that guy was averaging almost 7 yards per carry. Also, we manged to contain Hundley very well. I was absolutely expecting him to get at least 100 yards and a TD on the ground. Shows what I know...

Special Teams

neuropsychbear: at least it was only missed extra points

BandAlum: TWO blocked extra points. "gunners" on kickoffs kept missing. really good play on the muff. we blocked their guy into the returner, leading to the muff. good that we got away with it, I mean.

boomtho: 2 blocked PAT's? Seriously, if somehow Tedford survives, Genynk needs to be gone (hell, maybe even now). Keenan with a HUGE punt return to set us up in great field position.

hardtobecalfan: nice punt return by keenan and muffed punt recovery is always good. bad blocked PATs -- 2 of them :(

koalaballa: I know everyone is going to point to the blocked PAT's to bitch about, but really on the 2nd blocked PAT we were down TWO offensive lineman already (from what I remember). I'd rather we not risk injuring more offensive lineman by trying to get meaningless PAT's (since we were looking good from a points perspective) but there probably will be a situation where a missed extra point haunt us. I'm sure the coaches are fully aware that this may be the case, but overall the special teams coverage on kickoffs and punts is decent. We don't regularly try to go for a blocked punt or kick, and I suspect that has something to do with our personnel than scheme.

Coaching

c98: Is Tedford forgiven? No. One thing I worry about is the team having enough games like this scattered through the derpfest that he barely hangs on for another year. However, if this is the team that shows up for the rest of the year and the results are like this I'll carve the statue myself.

rileyslaststand: Finally, a well-around team effort, with a great game plan. whatever fire was burned under their asses, keep it up

triplectz: Liked how Tedford got Rogers involved. We seemed to be able to manufacture pass-pressure despite having a young line, and not getting burned through the air. Props to Pendergast for that. We need more pass protection though. Maynard can't get hit on every play and make it through the season in one piece. Put some TE on the line for blocking help? Or maybe more sets with our FB?

VermontBear : Game plan for both side was really good as were the adjustments.

Nor-Cal SCott: Tedford obviously did reasess. The game plan and play calling was the best of the season. Same with defensive schemes, man coverage, etc

Overall Performance

CALumbus Bear: We needed this game like:

-Twist needs a chest-shaving kit

-stanfurd needs stanfurdium

-Kodiak needed to sleep on the couch afterward

-An ASU coed needs implants

AND WE GOT IT!! PRAISE OSKI!!!

BeastMode: I am so happy for Jeff Tedford, the rest of the coaching staff, and the players. Berkeley has been a negative and depressing place the last few weeks. None of them deserve that. It's a game. It's OUR university. I still believe in our Golden Bears.

CruzinBears: What a day! Bears win, people continued to bruin their lives, and we keep on keepin on. Go Bears and Go Whiskey Wee Wee.

texashaterforlife: The way we won this game reminded me of how we lost last year at UCLA. Bruins seemed deflated only to fight with purpose and heart. Cal showed ssome fight. If Cal can win at Pullman then upset Stanford at home, Tedford can stay another year. At least I see hope of going 6-6 for the season.

Oski Disciple: It's about time! I'm still reveling in the victory, beating our So Cal cousins is always satisfying. Yes they played badly, but we were able to take advantage of their mistakes and create our own big plays. Proud of the way Zach played and excited to see more of CJ and Kam. Also, Eric Stevens is a stud, more of him please.

This was a win for the players, I'm happy for them and us faithful fans, I still believe that Tedford's days are numbered but my focus is on the fact that, at least in Berkeley, we own UcLa!!!

EECS_bear: Great, great, GREAT day to be a bear. We were firing on all cylinders. If nothing else, this will be a VERY bright spot for a poor season so far, and hopefully a turning point as the California Golden Bears make themselves heard in the Pac-12.

andDrive Drive DRIVE: Combination of tradition, innovation, cooperation, and the joy of the win made today pretty flippin' amazing. The mic men (particularly Aaron) were on their game and I LOVED bringing in the old yell leaders, they have a lot to teach us. Perhaps we needed to rededicate to get the ghosts back into memorial. Overall just an AWESOME day.

dbromon: Amazing what we can do with an OL that move the line in the right direction on run plays and gives the QB a few seconds to throw the ball. Amazing what we can do with a QB that can hit a receiver running open down field and on the run.

Berliner Bear: After dropping the season opener, the team came together on homecoming and came out with its most inspiring effort since 2009. This game does not erase the bad memories of this season and leaves me expecting more, but they dominated a ranked team on both sides of the ball, as well as on the sidelines. With all the negativity surrounding the program, it was great to see this much fight from the coaches and players after many fans had given up on them. Keep it up! There are still too many penalties!

slaphancock: The biggest thing, in my opinion, are the adjustments to cope with the offensive line's inabilities. We threw out most of the drop-back passes, and went with a lot of quick hitters, screens, and roll-outs. The offensive line missed plenty of blocks, and Maynard was on his back all night, but he could at least get the ball away.

Bear in Chicago: Conflicted. I would love to run the table and to 6-0 for the rest of the season, but if we can't, well, 0-6 doesn't sound bad. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled at the outcome, but I've been saying "better late than never" for seven years and I'm tired of it. This team should beat Wazzu and Utah, and is capable of beating Stanford, Washington and Oregon State. Oregon is Oregon. So if we go 2 for 2 on the should beats, and 2 for 3 on the can beats, we are 5-7...probably not bad enough for Tedford to be fired (especially if we win the Big Game).

cjwethers: This game reminded me a lot of the 2011 Fresno State game. Early pick leads to a gift TD, blocked XPs cause special teams headaches, and we eventually pull away. The difference, of course, is that this game came against a far better squad. I'm really happy with many aspects of this performance, but the penalty issues and the turnover bug may come back to bite us. We were lucky that UCLA wasn't able to capitalize because they were penalized almost equally and turned the ball over even more than we did.

GoldenBear8933: Everything that has hurt us all season was still present (turnovers, penalties, wtf special teams), but the difference was that we finally got to see everything we thought could get us the Ws (big plays to KA21, solid running, solid D)

sacman701: Obviously UCLA was ragged, but if Cal can play 80-90% as well as this from here on out, all the games but Oregon are winnable.

npyoung35: FIRE EVERYONE WHO WANTED TO FIRE TEDFORD.