Cal vs. Oregon State Advanced stats in our Evans Hall Edition Week 10

Post-Game Impressions

I was brought up in a Polish tradition. This means I am both used to things not going my way, but I am also passionate to the point of being a living caricature of a sports fan. So my expectations going into this game were low. Our offense has yet to finds its mojo (maybe Michael Jordan can share some of his secret stuff with us). There were moments, especially when we lined up to run with Vic Enwere or Daniel Lasco in the big bone (1 RB way back with 2 RBs/TEs in the backfield as FBs), when we were able to effectively move the chains. During those moments we were able to give Jared Goff a viable running threat. This wasn't to be for long since Cal decided to pass the ball 41 times and run it only 22 times. I understand the constraint of having to play catch-up with Oregon that scored 28 points in the 2nd quarter, yet while Oregon scored 31 unanswered points Cal had 26 plays of 113 yards (with the last drive being good for 9 plays and 63 yards).

On the defense I can say that with two turn-overs they tried their best to redeem themselves for allowing 777 yards to the Ducks. 477 of which came from the ground game. Oregon was 6 Kani Benoit yards short from allowing 3 100+ yard rushers in the game. This can be attributed to the surge of injuries on our D-line throughout and before the game.

Special team shined in this game with 2 great blocked punts giving the Bears 2 short fields on which we scored 10 points.

Overall, the game was like a Polish forest in the winter: embodies sadness.

Post-Week 9 Numbers for Cal (5-4, 2-4 Pac-12 North)

As it was requested earlier, this is the primer I wrote on S&P+ stats that I will be using throughout the year.

As we can see the bad performance in the game relative to Oregon's previous opponents has made the overall rankings take a hit. I think that we have finally settled in a low-variance phase of the season. Kinda like a senior year GPA where the last two semester barely move the needle.

Last week I said:

"Again we can see the flaws and strength of Cal football continuing. The offense struggling with trying to find a way to make big plays despite being able to make good progress with yeoman yards. Our field position begins to comeback down to earth once defense's high take-away numbers regressed to the mean."

This will become my final conclusion for Cal football come December. The inability to provide explosive plays will prove to be the bane of Cal football. Coaches and players looking at this statistic should take a look on how teams have been able to lock down our deep threats and our YAC generating plays. I can imagine it is by forcing our outside receivers to take an inside release on deep balls and secure tackling up the middle where the Tony Franklin System makes its money.

The ball distribution is still heavily weighted towards the top 4 that gathered 59.8% of the targets. From the Oregon game we saw both an inability to deliver the ball in catchable areas and a baffling inability to catch the balls that were on target. Furthermore, we see here the trend of a low rate of catches by the top targets continues and actually takes a dip from the numbers from last week:

These two trends of a continuous reliance on the top 4 targets despite the drop rate shows that Goff still trusts his playmakers and his own arm in these situations. What is interesting is the high catch rate by Powe, Harris and Davis. Each of them are catch ~75% of the passes while being targeted only 29.8% of the time. We know that initially (August 25th) on the depth chart both Davis and Harris are the X receivers with Powe being the second strong H receiver. Is it because the plays do not have them high on the progression chart? If so maybe the scheme ought to feature these players more prominently to alleviate the pressure from out top targets.

Post-Week 9 Numbers for Oregon State (2-6, 0-6 Pac-12 North)

Oregon State is one of the 25 worst teams in college football. Not happening. https://t.co/tTRmktwLjn

— Avinash Kunnath (@avinashkunnath) November 2, 2015

Avinash is right. Statistically speaking OSU is hot garbage especially since their starting QB Seth Collins is out with an injury. There isn't much that can be said about the OSU team. It definitely has strong vibes of Cal football from the canceled 2013 season with freshmen at QB, a new coach, and a team that hasn't been able to produce on either side of the ball. According to S&P+ this will be the worst team Cal will face all year long. With their only saving grace being a run defense that doesn't concede big plays, but concedes all else.

One of the characteristics of OSU is the reliance on the running game in passing situations.

This could be due to the fact that the OC doesn't trust the arm of the QB in passing situations and is more inclined to roll the dice with the run. In these situations we should hope that Art Kaufman keeps LBs in between the line of scrimmage and the sticks to prevent any long runs on passing downs. The OC for the OSU Beavers has a very good reason to do so, the QBs that play for him are combine for 5 TDs and 9 INTs. We can see the Beavers rely on the run game heavily against Cal since the two QBs left on the roster have combined for 1 TD and 5 INTs.

The Beaver passing game should not be a large concern for the Bears, and with the sidelining of their leading rusher QB Seth Collins the run game will also lose a lot of its potency. Their leading rushing weapons are Storm Woods and Ryan Nall who have relatively unimpressive statistics.

Two statistics they the OSU team really shines in is the ability to prevent explosive rushing plays and generating running lanes for RBs.

The former suggests that OSU will try to keep the ball away from Goff and in the belly of their RBs to win the game while hoping that Cal will not run the ball at them to for the same aim. I think this game should be put in Goff's hands to win, maybe this will allow him and our WRs to gain confidence in the scheme and in their skills.

Conclusion

There isn't a lot I was able to say about the Beavers due to the fact that across the board they have been a horrible team. Cal ought to win comfortable but being a Berkeley alumn and Cal fan I know to expect the unexpected. I was told by the President of the DC Alumn club that despite the Vegas odds I should keep in mind 2007 and Kevin Riley. So I will go into the game filled with cautious optimism that Cal can finally walk away from this game with a much needed win to secure an at least .500 season (my first since I became a hardcore Cal fan in 2013).

GO BEARS!