I hate being wrong. It comes from my upbringing where being wrong was tantamount to being a failure. I didn’t see this scenario, of all scenarios in the world, to play out like it did on Friday. Yet, it never felt so good being this wrong, especially about our Golden Bears.

Before the game I was against having it played in the air conditions present. Even after the game, knowing what we know now, I am not a fan of the decision. Yet, the win, how it was won, surpassed any of my expectations. Wow.

What a game. Look at the WSU’s Success Rate, shutting down a normally efficient WSU offense was a huge surprise considering the struggles the Cal D has had in that department. Interesting note: Cal pass rush got to Falk whether or not it was an obvious passing down or not.

Another note, Cal got more efficient on offense after the 1st Quarter. It might’ve have something to do with the designed roll-outs for Bowers allowing the routes to develop more. Lots of side-ways movement can be exploited by savvy defenses by preventing running lanes and keeping coverage on WRs.

See: Steelers v. Chiefs last week where the athletic Steelers D was able to shut down the Smith roll out game by being able to both seal-off QB rushing lanes and keep in front of the Chiefs WRs on roll outs.

California Golden Bears, 4-3 (1-3 Pac-12 North): S&P+ Overall Ranking: #87 (up 9)

Overall

This is the first time this season where Cal’s overall S&P+ ranking went up! This is due to the offense, hopefully and finally, hitting its nadir at the 100s, with the defense trending up we can expect Cal to bounce to ~60s/70s in overall ranking.

Offense

The offense as a whole needs to find consistency in getting the “move the sticks” yards. With a national low in efficiency we cannot depend on big plays to get the offense out of the muck.

Many of the rushing yards that Cal is generating come from the RBs creating something out of nothing rather than the OL creating the space for the RBs to operate. With Cal down to one experienced RB, it will continue to be a struggle to find yards on the ground. To be fair, Vic Enwere seemed to have found his groove late in the game, churning out one good run after another. Hopefully he can carry this groove throughout the season.

This stat is the mirror image of the one from last season where Cal would start each half cold and only heat-up by the 4th quarter. Here we can see a clear boost in the offensive performance of the team after half-time and throughout the game, which means that the team continues to be coached and schemes adjusted as the game goes by.

Defense

Cal defense motto for 2017: Take the yards, we’ll still hold you to a FG or a turnover.

This defense allows teams to gain efficient “move the sticks” yards but is exceptionally stingy in giving away big plays. This is true both through the air and on the ground, which will pose an intriguing match-up next week with the 3rd most explosive rushing offense in Arizona.

One thing that Cal has to do is to force opponents commit penalties, or stuff the run on 1st downs... and on passing downs it becomes a top 15 defense. This is ridiculous from a football standpoint. Without the threat of the run, the Cal defense can clamp down on a passing offense’s capacity to make a big play.

This is the biggest change in the Cal defense in my opinion. Why?

Cal passing down defense in 2016 was 122nd in the FBs.

Cal passing down defense in 2017 was 13th(?!?!?!?!?!!!!!) in the FBS. With the passing defense against explosive plays going from 123rd to... 5th! 5th! PEOPLE THIS IS LIKE GETTING AN A IN ECON 10! AFTER FAILING THE FIRST MIDTERM (this happened to me).

Arizona Wildcats, 4-2 (2-1 Pac-12 North): S&P+ Overall Ranking: #36

Overall

Cal defense, meet the toughest S&P+ offense by this week. The closest opponent per S&P+ is USC, the same team Cal was able to stymie. However, the reason the two are so highly rated is very different.

Offense

Arizona is a run first team in the truest form of the word. 70% of their standard downs are running downs. The reason they run it is due to the fact that they are the 3rd most explosive rushing offense.

The battle between the Zona rushing game and Cal rushing defense will be epic and THE deciding factor of the game.

If Cal can force Khalil Tate to beat Cal with his arm, game over. However, after watching Cal struggle against the rushing game decreases the chances of this scenario happening. However, as last week has shown... I tend to be quite wrong on this front.

Defense

If there is a game where the Cal offense can find for itself an efficient game, it is this one. Especially on the ground, one way to keep an explosive player in check is to keep the ball away from them. Cal can do this with a rushing game based on bruising runs by Vic Enwere with Ross Bowers taking some read-zone plays.

One thing that Zona struggles with is LB/DL tackling (Sans DE Kyle Wilborn and LB Tony Fields II, they are FR so that should be fun for the next few years! [not]).

This is due to the fact that Zona’s 4 of the top 5 tacklers are DBs, which means that Cal might be able to exploit between the tackles and LBs. Another note is that CBs get a lot of runs stuffs from Dane Cruikshank and Scottie Young Jr. This can be due to the fact that they snuff outside-zones and screens well.

Final Thoughts

Cal can win this if it can keep the ball away from Khalil Tate by either dominating the TOP with its offense or it can stuff Tate to small gains and having him beat Cal with his arm. It is a pretty simple calculus.