Washington told Cal: “Zrobię ci z dupy jesień średniowiecza”. Which roughly translates from Polish to a utter and complete beatdown. This was expected by me. We were facing a statistically superior team on 2 phases of the game. When Cal was down 28-20 I was actually surprised and thought the defense held-up better than expected. However, it was in the 3rd Q that the flood-gates opened.

Bill Connelly

The most telling statistic of this graph is this: last 43% of the game is considered garbage time. Which explains why some of the offensive failures and successes by both teams weren’t counted as heavily. Think about it this way:

• Cal had half the yards per possession and per drive that Washington had,
• The offense fluctuated heavily on efficiency depending on the quarter while Washington kept getting better and better,
• Neither the run or the pass game were able to generate enough plays to efficiently move the sticks,
• Cam Saffle emerges as a good DE. He had a great pressure on Jake Browning early in the game to force an “Intentional Grounding” penalty, and broke-up a screen pass.
• Chad Hansen’s return also lead to the return of the fact the tendency of over-targetting. He had 4 more targets than Robertson but his catch rate was only 42% (5 catches). Besides Bug Rivera, there were no Cal WRs with a +50% catch rate.

Some comparisons for context:

Tuesday was also a beatdown of a greater magnitude that is bringing yours truly to the depths of sadness.

But enough about that. Let’s look at the numbers for this saturday.

California Golden Bears 4-5 (2-4, Pac-12 North) S&P+ Overall Ranking: 54

Deeper we get into the season the lower the points scored per game goes and the higher the points allowed per game goes. Other numbers haven’t changed at all.

Due to the sheer volume of snaps Cal and other football teams have accrued we have the identity of the team more or less set. We’re a good offense that doesn’t do anything poorly from the Five Factor standpoint but doesn’t have anything an opponent has to game-plan against.

What is worrying is the defense. It is quite easy to hit Cal’s defense: focus on moving the sticks. Playing keep-away from Cal’s Offense by moving the sticks and eating up the clock is a good way to win vis-a-vis Cal.

Cal’s Offense and Defense

Passing

In this one I will focus on the receivers. Since we all know by now that Cal’s passing offense and defensive woes and strengths.

With the return of one Chad Hansen we finally have all of our top 5 WRs available. Each of our WRs now sports an uninspiring sub 65% catch-rate per target (with only Vic snatching 66.7% of his targets). It is understandable that Cal is trying to target its most explosive weapon (14.5 yards per catch). This however, means that nearly half of the passes to him get into his hands making each throw to him a high volatility proposition. This could be desirable play on 2nd and short. However, since I don’t have splits of targets per down I can only advise Spav to do so.

Rushing

I betcha you were not expecting Davis Webb having as many rushing TDs as our top three RBs (one of whom is out for the year). This is troubling since it indicates that once we get close enough to the end-zone the rushing game either stalls or our play-calling depends too much on passing and the read-option.

We can see that both Khalfani and Tre have basically have a 50/50 split in carries. As it stands now, the projected emergence of Tre Watson as our feature back has been put on hold due to Khalfani’s own emergence. Gaining over a yard per carry over his teammate with 2.6 more highlight yards on basically the same number of opportunities, the sprinter has shown to be a RB that Cal can rely on.

#23 Washington State University Cougars 7-2 (5-0, Pac-12 North) S&P+ Overall Ranking: 43

Cal Win Expectancy: 37%

Overall

WSU is a favorite in this match-up due to its... wait for it... very efficient offense that is perfectly tailored to attack Cal’s weakness in depending the “move the sticks” approach to offense. Defensively they are a mediocre defense that is about national avg. when it comes to all stats except for defending the big play.

HC Leach built in Pullman what we hoped HC Dykes would by now: combine a top notch offense with a mediocre defense.

Washington Offense and Defense

Cal’s Match-up with Wazzu’s Passing

I said last year in the Cal v. WSU Post-Game that Luke Falk is going to be a big deal. And a big deal he became. He leads a Goff-like efficient pass-game that converts 1st downs, and keeps the ball away from it’s opponents.

Unlike Cal’s defense, WSUs passing defense doesn’t have a good record: allowing both efficient and explosive plays with a poor adjusted sack rate. This means Cal’s passing offense can hit this weakness and give back Davis Webb his mojo after a terrible performance the previous week.

Cal’s Match-up with Wazzus’s Rushing

Wazzu doesn’t run a lot. We know that. Unless the mad Pirate decides to run the ball 100% of the plays like he promised. The offensive line for the Cougs is impressive: top 10 in Power Success rates and stuff rates. This means that they will give their RBs enough room to run for the first couple yards. The low explosive rate is a sign that the rushing production is mostly created by RBs.

Wazzu’s D-line might not be great in the pass-rush. Yet it is great at stopping the run in the backfield and holding RBs to short gain. However, once a while a run might break-out side of the D-line and that’s when they can gain a lot of yards. Running against this team will be a boom-bust proposition.

Concluding Thoughts

Last week Cal faced a team that we could’ve been if HC Peterson came to Strawberry Creek.

This week Cal is facing a team we hoped we could’ve had with HC Dykes. Cal and WSU will have good ol’ shoot-out between the two of them. Cal has a clear match--up advantage in the passing game. With WSU capable of exploiting the injured Cal secondary and D-line Spavital will have to call another great game to keep-up with WSU. Chances that Cal can keep-up with WSU will be hard, WSU is more than capable of stopping Cal one or two more times than Cal can stop WSU.

However, I do believe that we can win.

We have to win... because I need it so badly these days.

GO BEARS.