The Novel: North Carolina

I. Intro

I have never been more impressed with the marketing department at Cal than now, in their current efforts to make #EarnIt a fetch-level happening.

The Justin Wilcox-led Bears are beginning to play the phrase out on the field a tad too often for comfort, especially when it already fits well enough into the pressure cooker that is the number one public university.

Earning it is, in itself, not a bad thing – victories are all the more satisfying when the processes before it actually pay off. But games where you win the turnover margin 4-0 don’t often have to be earned, hard-fought, last-gasp, catch-that-damn-onside-kick-after-you-blow-a-three-possession-lead battles, and the fact that this ended up being one of them, signals trouble on the horizon amid all the earning.

Consider, if you will, the following from the Hawaii Novel a few seasons back:

“And yet, in front of the yet-to-kickoff college football world, the Bears managed to fumble on the pass into the next era by playing like the one they are so desperate to leave behind, for Friday had all the hallmarks of a 2014-ish Cal game, and of a team headed for fringe bowl contention...if that – a strong offensive performance and some individual skill player brilliance, both near prerequisite to fend off a litany of missed tackles and a non-existant pass rush.

In the lead-up to the season opener, I wrote often and stood by this line of thinking: that we could not feel too great about ourselves if we won big over Hawaii, but not winning big would also be serious cause for alarm.”

Save for a few game-specific phrases, you could argue that same narrative arc applicable right now -- team wins in a thoroughly flawed and unsatisfactory fashion, revealing flaws that would plague them all year. Those Bears ended up as frustratingly close as you can get to being bowl bound, blowing a winnable matchup to Oregon State, a late meltdown versus ASU, a late interception to seal a loss versus SDSU, all in coming up one win short of post-season play.

This team is returning too much experience on both sides of the ball to feel comfortable about such a fate, and they still may yet avoid it. Under Wilcox, the Bears have never exactly been outplanned, only outmanned, and some future conference opponents are already looking much worse than anticipated.

But the season opener is often about outlook. A glimpse into what is to come.

And a peek at the ceiling already looms.

II. Offense (Dreadful)

From the stands, I could tell the offensive performance was bad. Then I saw the stats, which…were even worse. My condolences to those of you watching at home, where you weren’t allowed to be distracted.

So, some unofficial numbers I tallied up by hand:

Bowers – 6 drives, 37 plays (none in 2H), 124 yards, 1 FG responsible– 3.35 YPP

Garbers – 6 drives, 34 plays, 139 yards, 2 TDs responsible – 4.08 YPP

McIlwain – 8 plays, 37 yards, in on one TD drive – 4.625 YPP

There’s a lot to unpack here, in regards to the quarterback situation, so I’m going to take these Q/A style, with myself asking the questions and providing the answers:

1) What happened with Ross Bowers?

I don’t have the benefit yet of watching the film – as of writing for the Monday deadline, anyway; I can review it for later in the week once it’s up on youtube – but after being told all offseason by the coaches and the reports, there was no improvement in the Ross Bowers run offense. To be clear, this isn’t to place blame on anyone for this, because it’s always logical for us to be optimistic that your returning quarterback makes a leap forward. (Often with the words “night and day”, which I heard often about a returning Zach Maynard, when I was on the beat myself.)

But Ross was more of the same…skittish. Inaccurate. Indecisive. Still didn’t complete anything in the intermediate to deep ranges. And also, not a full run threat. The offense was uninspiring under him, and only scored the three points on six drives.

Best case prognosis: it was a blip caused by a veteran UNC line that pressured him.

Worst case: he really didn’t get much better, which is absolutely stunning to me on all levels.

2) Was this really the plan?

I do believe that they planned to play multiple QBs on Saturday. The practice reports from the week indicated McIlwain would be a change of pace, which he was, and I think he has the weakest case to be the full time QB because we didn’t see enough evidence he could move the ball effectively as a passer. (I’m not saying he can’t, just that the coaches clearly know their skillsets and kept the ball on the ground the most for McIlwain. If he can’t throw much, that’s one less card in a deck that’s already lacking.)

I am not sure they planned to play Garbers this much, even though the splits worked out to nearly 50-50 in the end. My personal interpretation is that they decided to pull Ross for being ineffective, which is weird considering there were many times last year where they left him in for playing about the same level or worse.

In any case, Garbers played only marginally better, not decisively enough to take the job outright.

3) Which--

I’mma stop you right there. I’d still play Ross the most next week.

II.I Non QB stuff:

From what I could tell, they tried to simplify the game for Garbers as much as possible – leaning on Laird as a runner, having him read and run if the first read wasn’t there, spreading the field to let him pick a matchup to work from. But the staff will definitely have to keep tinkering going forward only because there’s no gamebreaker on offense. Just some really solid dudes who will, well, earn it.

Really disappointing performance from the returning OL across the board. UNC’s defensive line was full of veterans and an NFL pick in Malik Carney, if I recall correctly, but there were really no holes to speak of for the most part, and at least two of the long runs came from scheme – McIlwain’s bootleg and the toss left to Laird on 4th down. A third came off a scramble.

Wide receiver play…surprisingly ineffective, and man, any receiver coming in next year will have a chance to make their impact right away. With all offseason to be ready without Demetris, there still wasn’t any way to get separation for a lot of these guys, and on the few situations that they did, the QBs missed them. (One clear example was the deep pass that came up short to I believe Hawkins, but resulted in a thankful PI.)

Wharton only found four targets, Laird’s value as a receiver was accounted for, and Noa couldn’t snag some of those tough passes in the middle of the field that he became so famous for last year.

Duncan could prove useful as a third threat this year. I hadn’t been very high on him coming into the year.

Surprised that they still had Laird take 29 carries, considering Dancey had impressed in camp. Only Clark appeared otherwise, for a total of five plays. I don’t know.

III. Defense (Exceeds Expectations)

Four turnovers should be enough to make most games a blowout. That we did not have one falls moreso on the offense than anything else, because all statistical measures – up until we decided to let them grind their way down the field for the last two drives – indicated we played strongly across the board.

In the first game post James Looney, the middle of the line held up pretty well. UNC did not feel very good about that matchup, evidently, because they consistently attempted to rush off tackle or to the edge, where they were met by some very game perimeter players: Beck, Davis, Hawkins, Bynum, Hicks, Funches, Goode, with Weaver coming in for cleanup. So far, picking him for breakout was a good decision. All around a fantastic effort from those guys on the outside.

Another good thing about the gameplan that I noticed and liked: three man games on the edge with us flashing between blitzing Goode, Bynum, or Davis off left edge. Those looks definitely got them all free at one point or another.

They didn’t get a ton in the way of TFLs, but there was a significant amount of pressure and rallying to the ball. No major missed tackles, and only one really harmful explosive play. Not too concerned we didn’t get a sack, because Elliott was so inaccurate and getting the ball out quickly anyway.

At one point, Cam Bynum’s unofficial line read: 3 of 8, 61 yards, 3 PD. It was even better before that, and despite giving up the late PI and TD to make his afternoon look worse, I felt very good with him in the number one cornerback spot.

Elijah Hicks probably had even less action go his way, if you think about it. Don’t sleep on him either.

That combination will still be the best CB duo I’ve covered in my years, though. Easily. Here’s to hoping we get one more year out of each, and possibly two.

It is a travesty that none of my Receipt Guys are destined to get through a season healthy. Best case scenario for Goode, I would hope after the bye week…but as long as we’re able to still get games back from him, that would be tremendous. He was, as always, a playmaker, even if it only shows 3 tackles in the stat sheet. Ogunbanjo and Moos didn’t look glaringly out of place once he went down, though, so that may end up being a manageable situation.

IV. Unofficial Advanced Stats

Adjusted definition for explosives down to 15 yards per pass from 20 because then I can just tabulate them more quickly by pulling them from the stats sheet.

[1] - If you had told me they were going to have 8 yards in the fourth quarter, or that they would play lights out on defense but still be outgained per play, I could not have believed that they would have won. Such an occurrence doesn’t make this number digestible or acceptable, though – I suspect UNC isn’t actually a particularly good team, and they still barely moved the ball without penalty help throughout the first half.

[2] – Tough to also move the ball when no QB is that big of a threat and the receivers can’t find the time or way to get open. 3rd and 8.5+ signals an automatic passing down, so the whole thing compounds itself. If they can’t get ahead of the chains – and they didn’t on Saturday – early in downs, expect us to consistently stall out in this stat.

[3] – Two third and short carries stopped by Laird, which isn’t a great sign with the returning tight end group and Malik McMorris all available. No stops on the other side either. Survivable on Saturday, but probably not against the better offensive lines in the conference.

[4] – This is actually the most appalling stat of the afternoon for me, all else considered. Not even averaging a field goal per drive on attempts inside the 40? Having to punt twice from inside plus territory? Yuck. The game had a chance to never even be close, if they even get that much mediocrity. Particularly painful was the interception, six and out, because if they don’t get a sack on second down, at least that could be a field goal attempt.

[5] – Outhavoc-ed by UNC tells you a lot about the afternoon they had up front.

V. Special Teams (Poor)

No returns of value, one partially blocked kick, no major returns given up, and a lot of trouble in hauling in the onside kicks, so all in all, not a great game. Certainly not enough to be a positive difference-making performance.

VI. Win Matrix

[at least until I can think of a better thing to close the columns with.]