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The Novel: Ole Miss

Will you remember, the 21st (afternoon) of September?

You should, and finally, for more than the Earth, Wind and Fire song or the accompanying @electrolemon meme videos – because if this story of the 2019 Cal Bears becomes truly special, it will have begun right here.

Sure, there was an inkling before this – Trace called the UW game a possible “inflection point” in the program’s trajectory, but as impressive and gutsy as it was, at least some of it could written off as fluky; the longer the lightning delay went, the less Washington’s home field advantage, and after all that, Cal scrapped their way to a win in a fashion that wouldn’t be sustainable most weeks. We said that much in this space, and right on cue, it nearly wasn’t against the next one!

But against Ole Miss, in which the Bears headed east, early in the morning, short-handed, and then slowly exerted their will anyway, hinted at much more, especially with the open pecking order atop the Conference of Cannibals. These were by far the finest quarters of Chase Garbers’ career, and the first ones that suggested a crack in the seven win ceiling.

We’ve known for awhile that a defense as good as the Bears have only needs to be backed by a consistent 21, maybe 24 points to have a good shot at winning a lot of games, and this week, Garbers led a group capable of providing exactly that, then some. Granted, the Rebels might be a lower tier team in the land where It Means More, but it’s not like that’s a gimme, either – there’s a reason no Pac-12 team had won on the road in SEC territory since 2010.

Some fun numbers for you on Garbers’ day:

Garbers' Stats
Previous High vs. P5 Competition vs. Ole Miss

Yardage

234 - Oregon State '18

357

Touchdowns

3 - Oregon State '18

4

YPA

9 - Oregon State '18

10.2

QB Rating (Standard)

179.1 - Oregon State '18*

183.4

QBR (ESPN)

64.3 - UW '18

85.9

Offense Rating (PFF)

82.2 - Oregon State '18

68.7**

Passing Rating (PFF)

82.3 - Oregon State '18

73.7

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*- Worth noting that that OSU team ranked 115th in overall passing SP+.

** - Assuming some of this was due to the sacks and what not.

That being said, and I cannot emphasize this enough, but there is still a lot of season left. Most of the chatter I’ve seen from the Ole Miss side insists that the team is bad, and it’s true that the Rebels did themselves no favors all afternoon between the self-inflicted incompletions, the poor clock management, and the baffling decision to let Garbers settle and throw.

But it was still convincing enough of a performance to start some whispers – and certainly convincing enough to get this analyst to book a surprise flight for this week’s matchup against Arizona State.

Beat the Sun Devils, and those whispers become murmurs, and…I’m going to conveniently become deaf at this point in the column to anything beyond that.

Instead, let’s go live to Evan Weaver for his thoughts on the late Friday kickoff.

What’s that? He says Bears in 4?

Back to you at home, readers.

Regarding the non-replays:

1) Emily Van Buskirk’s sideline video shows fairly clearly that Moore didn’t get into the end zone with the ball – he’s down at the 1 and the ball never crosses the goalline, which is the angle the refs saw -- so I can understand why he was not moved to call for a replay based on that.

2) Ole Miss could have bought themselves a replay if they had a timeout. Whoops.

3) Ole Miss ran a 4th down play anyway, which would have made a replay impossible at that point.

4) And this is the most important one – Ole Miss was stuffed on said 4th down play. It’s ultimately a moot point. Maybe a replay puts you in the same situation and you don’t run a keeper, but that’s not a universe that exists,. Be thankful it wasn’t conference play, which for you guys *checks notes* starts with Bama next week.

(Editor's note: The Pac-12 conference released a statement Sunday night that said the refs made the right call, but it should've been reviewed)

Do I regret my decision to go to Seattle? Absolutely not.

Do I think the Bears will win the Pac-12 right now? …also no. (but keep winning anyway!)

But, based on the reports out of Memphis and what I’ve seen this utterly thrilling, unpredictable, and memorable season, will I be going to as many games as humanly possible? Yes.

Look, the Bears are nothing if not exciting right now. Even when it’s bad, it’s a particularly thrilling kind of bad, and while it’s not sustainable to win one possession games every week in the way that they keep winning, the guys have some momentum behind them. It’d be dope if we could support that.

Anyway, I’ll be in town Friday all day. Come say hi if you’re so inclined. (This and USC will be my only two trips to CMS this year.)

II. Offense

Chase Garbers played the absolute game of his (collegiate) life (to date). Why that is can be traced to a few factors, which undoubtedly include the availability of Modster, a week of hard tape review and practice, Ole Miss’ decision not to pressure him more early and sit back to let him throw, which let him get into rhythm, and a gameplan that focused on spreading guys out against the Rebels, them winning, and Chase simply taking what’s there, unlike last week.

Kudos to him for rebounding.

Kudos to his wizardry that, even though he was sacked multiple times, allowed him to minimize damage and slip out of several others. The legs are real.

Kudos to the staff for putting some confidence into him, because regardless of how good Ole Miss might or might not be, it’s not like he was destroying the bad defenses so far this or last year period. That’s a step forward, and as long as he can be about this threatening, the Bears get a lot more threatening.

That doesn’t mean he played perfectly – you could easily see that he underthrew in the 40 yard range, which is not the ideal depth to have him throw into. But at least he was willing, which changes a ton.

I think they should have tried to pressure him more early to rattle him. I’ll take it.

Giving some credit to Modster too, who came in for a play and got the Bears out of a pretty bad situation.

Someone, please get me a clip of Jake Tonges’ TD set to Yakety Sax.

Not a strong game this week from the rushing standpoint, although some of it was simply due to Chase rolling, and some of it was not having Chris Brown at full strength. He did have strength enough to absolutely embarrass Willie Hibler on a wheel route though, and Marcel Dancy continues to be fantastic in making something out of nothing. They’ll need to get more going again though, because part of why the game tightened up late was their inability to really put it on ice.

Not much more to say about the state of the offensive line, which is what it is. They played gamely, gave Chase enough time to get settled early. Daltoso should hopefully be good to go next week, and I know he’ll certainly try to give it his best to play at Oregon if he’s not already out for the year. (You never know with Wilcox.)

I’m pretty sure Makai Polk and Vic Wharton’s paths never crossed at Berkeley, but damned if they aren’t gridiron soulmates, since Polk has inherited the latter’s uncanny penchant to draw penalties.

Great moment for Jordan Duncan to score in his home state. Reported 51 family members/friends at the game, kept the chains moving with a game high 4 first downs through the air.

III. Defense

Nam, you idiot. You absolutely buffoon. You moron. How dare you say Evan Weaver against UW was probably the finest of his career. This man still has levels left to go, and I’m excited to see whatever’s left ahead of him.

He will almost certainly end up breaking Hardy Nickerson’s tackles record (for a season), and I can’t think of a better guy to do it for this generation.

This is a week where I do not care if he graded well by Pro Football Focus, but I am surprised that Weaver turned in an “average” defensive performance of 64.2 in their eyes. Whatever.

Second good game by Kuony Deng, who snatched a couple sacks by rushing up the middle. Still a work in progress, but every week so far, we see a little more. PFF had him allowing 4 of 4 targets for 47 yards. Did also end up saving some points by tackling I believe it was Moore, short of the first down too.

The matchup against Elijah Moore in general was fine. Yes, he went 9 for 95, but the coverage responsibilities were shared by a bunch of guys. Traveon Beck, before he went out, went 2 of 4 against Moore, and had the second lowest passer rating thrown at on the day at 60.4.

This is the first time in two years the Bears have had to really go into the depth chart, between Alftin, Croteau, Turner, and Smith. Of this bunch, Turner popped off the most with his disruption in the pass game, and Alftin and Croteau were frequently tested in space or off read options, filling in gamely, even if not perfectly. Should Goode and Paul not be available again next week – they’ll be most necessary against Oregon, if they’re going to miss more time – then I expect them to grow a ton from this, Alftin particularly.

Less Ogunbanjo than I expected, though. Only 12 snaps.

Crazy to think the Bears are undefeated and they’ve only played one truly great game on defense. Some uncharacteristic missed tackles early – partly due to depth and what not with the body clocks – and a couple of times the guys got burned downfield, 3but the second and third quarters were dominant performances once they settled in, in which Ole Miss went: Punt, FG, Punt, Punt, Punt, Touchdown, turnover on downs. I can forgive the drives to Rhys Plumlee somewhat, since they weren’t expecting to see him and played fairly soft as a result.

Didn’t really have to pressure Corral too much. He was erratic enough on his own, really. His mechanics are really, really odd looking, which more closely resemble pushing the ball than actually throwing it – at least to me.

IV. Unofficial Advanced Stats

Yards Per Play:

Cal by quarter: 5.3, 5, 8.5, 5

Ole Miss by quarter: 6.9, 3.5, 5.5, 6.8

No mistake that Rhys Plumlee gave them a big boost at the end, but I expect that he gained a lot of advantage by being an unforseen variable for the Bears. A bit concerning that they were unable to get many first downs (only two) after getting the last TD, as they got conservative and turtled up a bit.

3rd downs:

Another week, another column where I beg the Bears to get better at first and second down, because going 6 of 12!!! on third and extremely longs of almost 10! is not sustainable. This week, I’ll take it all the same. The plan worked to perfection against the Rebels, though – get Corral behind the chains, tackle fairly well, make him throw. (He did not.)

Havoc:

For the first two plus quarters or so, the Bears had 1 Havoc Play on 41 Ole Miss Snaps, and that did end up picking up as the game continued. It’s a shade harder to generate those plays when you’re playing an offense with the speed and tempo of Ole Miss’s – they get the ball out quick before the rush can get there, and they’re constantly reading you to try to put you in the wrong places. Most of those Havoc opportunities will come in the back-end, where the Bears recorded 8 TFLs.

Some of the sacks granted against Chase Garbers by Ole Miss were scrambles once again, and I felt that especially in the first half, the line did a great job limiting Havoc plays until he could settle in.

V. Special Teams

Dario Longhetto was way better than Steven Coutts today, and nearly made them move the full length of the field on the final drive.

No kickoff returns of note, no PR of note.

No field goals necessary either!

VI. Win Matrix

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