Takeaways from Cal's Double OT Loss to Arizona, 45-44
It's tough, it really is. There's many ways that you can slice up the decision to go for it on fourth down. It was probably the right decision, with the defense struggling to not give up four yards a pop on the ground and a third overtime looming. Justin Wilcox has a bit of his old boss in him, and the Chris Petersen came out to go for two after Vic Enwere gave a tremendous second effort to get into the endzone on 4th and goal from the 1. Wilcox said they were going for it all the way, even with the timeout called
The call had a couple of key aspects to it, and there was a matchup to like on the inside, a true freshman linebacker on a receiver. Ross Bowers described it as a pump and go with Duncan, and Wilcox noted that Bowers had a couple more options. Colin Schooler made a great play to deflect it, or Bowers threw it late to Duncan, or he had an open lane to run on the outside as Kylan Wilborn spun inside right as the throw was released. There's a ton of second guessing that will go on, which is warranted. The play didn't work, so the coaching staff has to figure out a new one to work. That's how it goes in football, and now Cal is back at .500, looking to get to a bowl, going on the road against Colorado next week, a tough place to play at any point.
- To be clear, the defensive line struggled mightily again. Arizona's line ran inside zone, almost every time. Green, who was in because Nick Wilson was injured, cut back off the blockers, getting a solid 4 yards a pop. The defensive line couldn't get penetration, and it's difficult to know if Devante Downs would've made a massive difference because of that. It's still a relatively small group up front, and the Bears will need more horses in that regard.
- To be fair, Cal held Arizona to 68 yards rushing in the second half, after getting destroyed with long runs in the first half. Khalil Tate rushed for 14 yards in the second half after a big first half, highlighted by a 76 yard run that will be sure to make a number of top play videos, deserving so.
- Patrick Laird returned from an apparent concussion, with a big game in him, despite to his admission getting the wind knocked out of him in the fourth quarter. Laird finished with 28 carries for 130 yards and two touchdowns, one coming on an effort play from 18 yards out, while the other came on a well designed statue of liberty play.
- As shown by the struggles at every position during the year, games like this show you who's going to make an impact in years to come. The fact that Cal gets another year of Kanawai Noa is fantastic, as the Hawaiian wideout has 13 catches on 3rd down that have been a conversion. Noa gets open, makes plays, and has been a bit of a revelation in that regard. It's a problem though, when Bowers locks onto him on third down, which appeared to be the cause of his second interception.
- In generally, Cal converted extraordinarily well on 3rd downs, converting 13 of 19, with an average of 5.4 yards to gain. The Bears were good even on 3rd and long (9+) converting 3 of 5. Drives are starting to get strung together, it just didn't continue.
- Malik McMorris was in deeper pass patterns on the evening, leading to his touchdown reception in the third quarter. McMorris got his hands on a pass in overtime as well, as the Bears didn't use the rollout like they did last week. Despite Patrick Mekari being out, Cal allowed one sack, so the protection worked well enough to not necessarily need the rollout.
- Matt Anderson hit a 52 yarder without a problem to tie things up in the 4th quarter. That's the version of Anderson that we saw in camp, who hit a couple kicks longer than that during open practices. He's past whatever hampered him early. He now sits in second place on Cal's all-time points list.
- Enwere's touchdown, now overshadowed by the missed conversion, was equally impressive, ad the big back had to make an effort play to get to the goal line, pushing a yard and a half after getting stopped behind the line of scrimmage initially. Enwere, who's not having the greatest season in terms of yards per carry (3.5), has been a little more energized over the past two weeks.
- There's still room to work on the tackling front, as Tate's elusiveness proved not to be a fluke, getting out of a number of tackles. The inexperience showed, Gerran Brown got too deep on a couple plays where the Bears got burned. It's a very teachable game from that perspective, in that a lot of it comes from the run fits and discipline, but luckily the effort is there.
It's hard to accept that this is a team that's still growing, with some of the early returns, especially after last week's win over Washington State. The coaching staff is still getting into it as well, and there are obvious improvements to make and growths to be had in every phase of the game. This one will burn for a while, more than many others, but there's faith from the coach in his players, and the team came back from their biggest deficit since 2015 against Arizona State. Drive are starting to string together. They just have to finish the product, and it's not hard to see that it's getting incrementally closer in that regard.