The Novel: Big Game 2020

I. The Intro

No season has so closely ever followed Murphy’s Law as this one – so it only made sense that the last possible thing in the 123rd Big Game that could go awry, would.

Cal’s special teams this season have committed almost every error imaginable now, save for allowing an actual return touchdown – although I bet you would have believed me if I wrote they had – and the last thing remaining before a desperate, heroic, 24-24 tie, was only the simplest thing: an extra point that Stanford was sure to try to block.

Never mind that such an attempt was already evident to everyone watching at home:

Let’s spend a moment lingering in the fashion of the miss – the agonizing, horrifyingly predictable fashion in which this type of heartbreak was to occur. Perhaps, as many have pointed out, this was merely the football gods putting their thumb back on the scale for Washington State in 2014, for Texas in 2015 – two games Cal was on the celebrating end, rather than the agonizing one. If so, they’ve got a helluva sense of humor, insisting that it had to come now, of all times, of all seasons, and all games.

I’ve certainly never found myself praying before a PAT until Friday.

To their credit, the team played hard again. Sloppy, to be sure, but there is no question they didn’t quit, regardless of how many bodies were down or how many backbreaking mistakes they self-inflicted.

I wish that, this long into Justin Wilcox’s tenure, that still felt like it was enough to take comfort in that. You can cut him immense amounts of slack for what the team has had to face just to get this far, and simultaneously recognize that these are unacceptable results for a program that talked boldly, daringly about contending for the conference this year. The games are still being played, and therefore, there is no way to make them mean nothing again, even though they certainly feel like nothing to all of us watching at home.

Someone still wins. All of the time, that hasn’t been Cal.

Jim Harbaugh – not a perfect comparison, I grant you – is not going to avoid the hot seat because this is a COVID year. Nor will James Franklin, or any one of a whole host of places that will fire coaches this year.

It is here that I want to re-iterate that I would be stunned if Cal fired Justin Wilcox at 0-6 this year, due to the financial straits of the institution, as well as its natural reticence to make moves in general. His seat is safe. I am speaking moreso of the longer-term implications of an unsuccessful season, which, in the best case 3-3 scenario, I think still leaves the fanbase unsatisfied with what could have been, while entering another impossible to project, possible rebuild next year (try drawing a depth chart out and guessing who leaves when no eligibilities counted in 2020!); in the worst, the dawn of the next era is approaching fast.

This dichotomy has been a nightmare to navigate the last few weeks as an analyst, because it is easy enough to make the case for either.

All I know is, I’m not really looking forward to working it out in the near future.

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Next week, the Bears will battle a more flawed-than-expected, should-have-been contender in the North. No, they’re not scrimmaging themselves – it’ll be Oregon, a team that Justin Wilcox has traditionally found a way to play fairly competitively. In the past, when the season felt like it was on the brink of being lost, Wilcox’s teams still showed up disciplined and prepared. Maybe that’s just not possible with how far behind the ball they’ve been, but I used to chalk that up to some sort of resilience at the top. Following that script would lead you to expect that this would be the same coming up next week.

A fourth loss in a row would equal the worst stretch in the Wilcox era.

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II. Grab Bag

It never serves anyone any good to do this, but we have all collected multiple Mount Rushmores worth of painful Cal losses this last decade:

- A hail mary in a game the Bears once led by multiple scores

- A 5 interception game from Jared Goff in Rice-Eccles, only to lose by one possession

- A 2 OT loss on a missed 2 point conversion thrown

- A Big Game lost on a 7 minute, clock-drainer drive from when Stanford could still produce things like that dependably

- Multiple games lost in 2018 entirely off of the decision to use Brandon McIlwain as much as they did (one of them on a fumble that bounced perfectly on the fat side of the football into the arms of an opponent for a touchdown!)

This is special, even among that group.

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III. The offense

At some point, I have to wonder when the coaches will realize Cal is better right now passing to run, rather than the other way around. Chase is more than good enough to attack down the field, if they spread it out and give him a chance to do so.

Sure, the pieces of an effective run game are there – look at Damien Moore’s 54 yard run, where the Bears simply got Stanford out-gapped and lined up incorrectly, or any of his . (To the user on our boards who mentioned the CJ Anderson comparison, I think that’s not far off. Not elite speed, but enough wiggle and quick through the hole.)

But the runs are not consistently productive enough to create short conversion situations, as evidenced by this damning figure: 8.4 yards to go on third down, after posting an 8.5 against UCLA and a marginally more manageable 6.7 against Oregon State. They have lost this stat all three games.

Moore’s median YPC, by the way, was: 4.5. 40% of his runs went for over 6 yards, albeit in a small sample size. He needs snaps, and if something is up with Chris, they might as well keep giving it to him. Chris Brown did not take a carry until the third quarter, and then not again until the last drive of the game. No, I don’t know why. Further -- I do not look at the 3rd and 10 run late, in which Brown was nearly tackled short of the sticks anyway, as inspired playcalling by any means.

A couple of new stuff they did this week: the speed option that became a fumble, the little hand off look with Nikko again (still just not looking right or impactful this season), and a few new motions/shifts. But, largely recognizable as before: jumbo 12 and 13 sets, under center stuff, trying to win at point of attack down three starters.

Chase was empowered to pull and run a little more frequently, to good success (13 attempts, 51 yards, plus 24 more taken away on sacks). The issue remains how often they have to lean on him to do that for productive offense, when only Kekoa Crawford and Makai Polk continue to make up most of the passing game.

They blitzed the crap out of Chase on early downs, and there was very little that they did to effectively counter it. Some of these just caught him completely unaware, in the case of the DB off the edge.

Hat off to Mike Saffell in particular for toughing out what must have been a tricky ankle injury to show up for this one.

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IV. Game Management Stuff

Another week of frustratingly conservative play in the third quarter, where the Bears posted two three and outs after a fumble and touchdown. Combine this with the punt on their first 4th quarter possession, and you have nearly 20 minutes of gametime (8:23 3Q to 4:28 4Q) where the Bears went 6 and out:

Run, run, run – 9 yards, punt from Cal 29

Run 3, pass, pass (sack) -8 - -5 yards, punt from Cal 17

Pass 0, pass 13, pass, rush by Chase for 6, rush by Chase for 0

Had Stanford opted not to punt twice from inside the Cal 40 in this stretch, on a day when they were converting 47.1% of their third downs by way of Michael Wilson and Conor Wedington, there’s a good chance the game is put away much, much earlier than the extra point.

Both of these first two drives reminded very much of last week’s attempt to strangle the game to death, prematurely – attempting to run from a close situation to stabilize, which works best when you have all your linemen – at least – and also, when you’re not playing a team equally willing to do the same thing back to you in a battle of who blinks first. These possessions, even if they were done in the name of trying to get the defense a breather, cost Cal extra chances at the end. (So, if you’re wondering if the staff changed their minds after the Oregon State disaster, the answer is no.)

Normally, winning YPP by 1.5 correlates with win rates of upwards of 90%. This, of course, is because over the course of 65 or so plays, 1.5 yards advantage suggests better, more frequent scoring opportunities. This was true on Friday again. They just didn’t capitalize, like when they went run-run-pass with three minutes left, indicating they did not plan on trying to score. Combine that with the two turnovers, and you have the story of how they ran out of time.

V. Defense

Good enough to win. 4.5 YPP, 9 Havoc plays on 67 Stanford snaps (13.4%), not including the pick taken back. Two scores came from short fields, and another began at the Stanford 43 off of a bad punt. Bend but don’t break to an absolute T.

The defensive line played, once again, gamely and admirably until they wore down in the second half. There wasn’t even Ethan Saunders available to spell Johnson, JOHNSON, and Tevis, but they combined for enough pressure out of base looks, enough disruptions, and enough third and longs – 3.5 TFL between them.

It’s been well known that Cam Goode might only show up with one play a game, but it will always be the biggest one. The only reason why we’re here complaining about a kick is because he got the sack preceding it.

Kuony Deng’s numbers look terrific on paper, but I would caution reading too much into activity versus production. If the edge setting is strong, and I felt it was on Friday personally, then he should be one of the guys arriving to clean things up. He needs to be more consistently disruptive to maximize production here, especially when the team has chosen to blitz so rarely this year.

This was the best game for Elijah Hicks from the safety position, where he was disruptive in the box. Unfortunately people might forget that in favor of his holding penalty.

Josh Drayden was memorably targeted against Michael Wilson for several key conversions, tallied an ultimately decent afternoon in the numbers: 5 catches on 10 targets for 35 yards, 16 of which came on one throw. Before the game, we made the point that Stanford was no longer as deadly at the skill positions at before, which largely held up.

Mo Iosefa took reps from Evan Tattersall (at least, I assume it was intentional, since Tattersall was not listed as a pre-game “OUT”), posting 5 tackles and a PD. There were also snaps for Blake Antzoulatos, who I do not remember seeing.

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VI. Special Teams:

Really not liking how many words have had to go in this section two weeks in a row.

This week, it was:

- A muffed punt that led to a Stanford touchdown, and subsequently, another shaky performance fielding the fair catches

- A blocked field goal before the half

- The blocked XP at the end.

Look, the Bears were on average 11th in five different special teams categories coming into the game. It's suboptimal. It has to change.