Cal Football Notes: QB Jack Plummer good to go, LB shuffling and self scout

Cal quarterback Jack Plummer said if there was a game last week he thinks he would have been good to play in it, but as there wasn't he got some extra time to heal and rest over the bye week after appearing to injure his leg late in the loss to Washington State.

"I was a little limited in practice, still practiced a little bit, but just with the off week tried to get healthy, get all cleaned up. Yeah, I could have gone," he said. "... I'm full-go. Should be good."

Plummer was a full participant in practice to start the week, coach Justin Wilcox confirmed, and there is no limitation on him as the Golden Bears (3-2, 1-1 Pac-12) travel to play at winless Colorado (0-5, 0-2) this week.

"He got dinged up in the Washington State game but rebounded and we got him a bunch of treatment, and he should be good to go," Wilcox said.

Plummer has passed for 1,248 yards, 8 touchdowns and 2 interceptions while easily on track for a career-best season, after playing the last three years at Purdue.

And he wouldn't want to miss this game ...

Colorado ranks 129th out of 131 FBS teams defensively, giving up 508.8 yards per game overall. In fact, the Buffaloes have gotten worse each week, giving up more yards than the week prior in all five games, including 667 in a 43-20 loss at Arizona two weekends ago, as Wildcats QB Jayden de Laura passed for 484 yards and 6 touchdowns.

That resulted in the firing of head coach Karl Dorrell and defensive coordinator Chris Wilson, with offensive coordinator Mike Sanford taking over as interim head coach and defensive line coach Gerald Chatman elevating to defensive coordinator during Colorado's bye last week.

Plummer said facing a team coming off a mid-season coaching change can introduce some new wrinkles, as he's been through this situation before, playing against UConn right after the program mutually parted ways with Randy Edsall last September.

Then again, Plummer completed 16 of 20 passes for 245 yards, 4 TDs and 0 INTs in leading Purdue to a 49-0 win in that game.

"You expect them to run very similar style of things just because you can't put a whole new playbook in in two weeks, but you've got to be prepared for new wrinkles and newer things and we're going to have to make some in-game adjustments because I'm sure they're going to do something that is unscouted," Plummer said. "But yeah, you've just got to deal with what's on the table."

The Cal coaches did their best to talk up the winless Buffs, as opposing coaches always do when facing a reeling opponent.

"They have good schematics and they have good players. The season I'm sure hasn't gone like they've wanted to, but they have our full attention," Bears coach Justin Wilcox said. "We know how difficult it is in college football to win. We've got to play better, we've got to do what we do better. They will have wrinkles. They do a really good job offensively of formation motion shifts and Mike's a good coach, so I know they'll have wrinkles and I know they'll play with renewed energy. That's traditionally what happens in these scenarios. So we'll expect their best game."

Colorado has lost each of its games by 23 or more points, has the worst rush defense in college football (giving up 294.2 yards per game on the ground, which is 40 more than the next-worst defense), is not particularly good against the pass either, has used three starting quarterbacks before finally settling on true freshman Owen McCown and has scored just 8 touchdowns while also ranking 129th in scoring at 13.4 points per game.

The Buffs are without question the worst Power 5 football team in the country right now.

But, of course, that has not been the message from the Cal coaches to the team.

"I think offensively Mike Sanford's done a nice job of building it conceptually. There's always every week that we see different ideas, different ways they build their personnel, and then we take a significant amount of time trying to identify from that personnel what are they attempting to build," Bears defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon said. "... When you kind of deep dive into what Mike has done, it does provide some significant challenges in terms of what we want to align and attempt to defend it. ...

"We're expecting Colorado offensively to come out and be a well-coached team, take the bye week and come out and execute."

Said Cal offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave: "They've got probably the biggest front that we'll see this year, definitely to this date. Tall guys, well over 300 pounds, big fellas. So we'll have to be really big technique-wise to move these guys. ... We're girding for a big collision with these guys. ... We respected them a lot last year when we played them and we feel the same way this year."

Of course, that's not to say the Bears don't have their own issues.

Wilcox said last week was focused on improving from within and self-scouting the areas that needed the most focus over the bye based on the first five games.

On defense, it was to do better in limiting explosive passing plays.

"We have to get better everywhere. We did a heavy-duty self scout starting Sunday of last week throughout the week and then finished the week with the focus more toward Colorado. But we got four practices in and then a heavy workout on Friday, so it was not by any means a week off for anybody," Wilcox said.

"The biggest things are defensively, it's the explosive passes that have really hurt us, and that's not just on the secondary. Obviously, there are plays in the secondary that need to be made that we haven't made, but that's also underneath coverage from our linebackers, it's our rushers up front. So we need to do a better job of eliminating explosive passes on defense."

Looking back on the 28-9 loss to Washington State, defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon felt the game really turned when the Cougars struck for a 47-yard pass from Cam Ward to Renard Bell on the second play of the third quarter. That set up a touchdown two plays later as the Cougars pushed their lead to 14-3 in starting to pull away.

"They found a matchup, they took what we call a big box fade into the boundary, and I thought Cam Ward threw an excellent ball that was well defended by our defensive player and they came down with it. Subsequently after that we made an error in coverage -- we didn't space it out correctly. Unfortunately, that's kind of the dynamics of offense. You play and you hold them in check and it's all about the explosive plays," Sirmon said. "That's something that we have taken a significant amount of time talking about defensively. That was really the sole focus of our bye week study and meetings is try to minimize and negate some of the explosive pass plays that we've been a part of."

As for the offense, the main focus remains on finding more consistency along the offensive line, which has already undergone an overhaul personnel-wise since the start of the season.

The Bears were held to a season-low 9 points and 31 rushing yards on 24 attempts in that loss to Washington State.

Overall, despite some peaks from running back Jaydn Ott's breakout freshman season, the offense has remained a frustration overall.

"Offensively, the line of scrimmage has to continue to get better. Run game, pass game, we've given up too many hits, and ultimately that results in some negative plays. We've had too many negative plays -- we have to move forward on offense," Wilcox said. "As coaches and as a unit, we've got to do things that can move us in that direction. We've had moments where we've seen the glimpses of what we're capable of, but we need to do that much more consistently."

And that starts up front, as Plummer has been mostly effective while there is obvious talent at the skill positions.

Offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave didn't not get specific in terms of what his focus was during the bye week, though.

"We're looking to tweak a whole bunch so we can be much more productive," he said generally. "... We're counting on our best offensive days to be ahead of us here this season."

Sirmon talked about the decision to move Oluwafemi Oladejo from inside to outside linebacker, where he's mostly played the last two games.

The main beneficiary of that change last game was Muelu Iosefa, who returned to a full role with 65 defensive snaps after being away from the team during fall camp and being eased back in. He had only played on special teams the games prior to the Washington State game.

Meanwhile, vs. Arizona the week before, it was Ryan Puskas (season-high 38 snaps) and Nate Rutchena (season-high 36 snaps) who picked up work at inside linebacker. Puskas didn't play vs. Washington State while Rutchena played just 3 snaps, per PFF.

"There was a lot of considerations in terms of what we needed to do kind of long-term and short-term, and we felt that Femi making that move was somebody that could still handle inside linebacker and outside linebacker and still play quality football. We view Femi as kind of a versatile linebacker," Sirmon said. "I still think there's an opportunity for him to play both if necessary or needed. So we'll just continue down that path and see where the health and some of the other factors go from here."

On the depth chart Cal released this week, Puskas, Iosefa and Blake Antzoulatos were listed as "or" options at the one inside backer spot, while Rutchena is slotted behind stalward Jackson Sirmon at the other.

"We've challenged all those players that we want to continue to keep that competitive and let their play and their week of preparation determine who's going to get a significant amount of reps," Peter Sirmon said. "... That's been a position that I'd like to see more consistency and more productivity out of. I believe all those guys have the capacity of doing it -- what we're looking for from them is more consistency in practice and more consistency [in] games. I really do feel very confident that group can get it done."

Wilcox announced that redshirt sophomore wide receiver Mason Mangum and redshirt freshman defensive end Akili Calhoun will miss the rest of the season.

Mangum has played just 15 offensive snaps this year, while Calhoun has played 55 snaps along the defensive line.

Wilcox also said outside linebacker Odua Isibor and offensive guard Spencer Lovell remain week to week and are "questionable for this week."

He was hoping running back Chris Street and wide receiver Aidan Lee would be able to return to practice this week.