The Novel: Oregon
I. Intro
A finally ranked Cal team was facing its biggest game in years, with every conceivable advantage in their favor: relative health, an extra week of gameplanning, and the benefit of a young opponent traveling after a tough loss.
By the halftime, they had already committed one turnover for each of those advantages.
...and I wish I could tell you it stopped there at three, which would have left it at an even playing field, but in the spirit of altruism and good hosting, they'd give the Ducks two more gifts to tilt what might have been a close game into a 42-24 blowout.
Despite the lack of quit this weekend -- there were many, many places for a lesser team to have folded -- it was about as discouraging a performance as you could have asked for, with poor quarterbacking from both guys, and an inability to even slightly inconvenience Justin Herbert whatsoever.
Worse still, was the adjustment of the season outlook. Keeping pace with the Ducks on Saturday would have signaled the presence of a rapidly improving team, raised its ceiling at a once-in-a-decade moment when most of the conference is eminently beatable. In that timeline, Cal keeps control of the game with a revived Patrick Laird. Takes advantage of the Oregon penalties, its missed field goal, the handful of punts they are able to force to eke out a fourth straight win.
I want to live in that timeline; the same one we dreamed about had Cal beat Utah in 2015, that we lived in the night they upset Texas, or Washington State.
Instead, we all get this one, counting up the bowl math instead of assuming it a given, again having crashed at the first sign of wind behind their sails.
II. Offense (Dreadful)
I give up trying to predict the Cal quarterback situation, and I have no thoughts on who should start next week. While I may have a small acumen for figuring out which receiver or linebacker may end up being productive, this QB1 shit is impossible, and beyond me -- something that goes all the way back to the original Klindergoff dilemma of the Dykes era.
Brandon McIlwain was unquestionably the "best" quarterback on Saturday, by way of a ground game that Oregon was not entirely prepared for. In past weeks, he had been most effective in getting small chunks of yardage, especially in short situations, but against the Ducks, he showcased an encouraging ability to grab explosive yards too. Yet, starting him in the future comes with the most risk -- the South Carolina transfer also handed the Ducks 14 points, and demonstrated the upper limits of his ability as a passer (nearly overthrowing a 6'7 receiver who was open!), the latter of which may get more exposed over time.
Chase Garbers, on the other hand, was coming off the best start of his life, only to put up a 4 of 9, 44 yards, 2 INT performance, essentially removed from the game after airmailing it to Jeremiah Hawkins in the slot. Don't know what was going on there.
Both played poorly enough for people to wonder -- again -- why Ross Bowers was not made available. (We've guessed that he was hurt, which is evidently not the case, not even allowing him to get snaps here is...telling. They must have planned not to play him anymore, for whatever reason. As someone who thought they went away from him too soon in the first place, this is deeply confusing, so I give up on any more prognostications in this regard.)
If there was a truly unblemished part of the offense, it had to be the return of Patrick Laird, who took the bye week to heart. He ran with great first level burst, didn't get stopped up on the first wave of defenders, and when space was available to him, he took it decisively. Is he all the way back? Probably not. Still really good to see him take advantage of RB1 carries with Dancy unavailable.
Also making his return this week was Vic Wharton, who paced the offense with 6 catches and 68 yards, but there was only so much the receiver group could do in general. More unconscionable was the inability to get any targets or touches for Jeremiah Hawkins, beyond that ill-fated interception. The sophomore might be the only gamebreaker on offense that isn't McIlwain, and his kick return at the end of the 4th was evidence of that.
The line blocked well enough for us to get nearly 2 100 yard rushers, but faltered at a few inopportune moments -- most memorably the 4th and goal, and a few tackles for loss given up. Where they struggled the most was to keep the QBs clean, really. The Ducks were in the face of McGarbers all evening, which led to some of the general discomfort.
Funny thing is we actually moved the ball pretty well in chunks, and averaged our best YPP against FBS at 5.9, and nearly 7 yards per first down. Not being able to stay clean or finish the actual drives was the bigger thing.
III. Defense (Poor)
Against Oregon, you absolutely cannot: give the QB (whoever it ends up being) time to throw, miss tackles, or fail to capitalize on their rare failures.
So of course, we did all those three things, never sacking Herbert all game and only getting to him on the rare occasions we sent 5 or 6 rushers, because the front three (plus whoever was playing as the 4th rusher) couldn't get free, especially on Passing Downs. The difference in speed in the front seven was glaring, outside of Weaver.
Surprisingly, I didn't think we did all that bad on the tackling front until the second half. We'd end up with 11 in total tallied on PFF: 2 each by Bynum, Drayden, and Davis, 1 for Hawkins, Kunaszyk, Weaver, Johnson, and Bequette.
The weird thing is, despite Oregon's 7.6 YPP, the defense overall forced enough stops to stay competitive -- they allowed only 28 points on their own, really, plus a turnover, three punts, and the missed field goal. Without the offense self destructing, this would have at least been close.
Kunaszyk, to his credit, played pretty well, and ended up as the top graded defender on PFF. We worried about how Oregon might try to attack him in the pass game, and that was not something that happened -- perhaps because they had time to try their outside matchups. He was also the only rusher to get home or create some pressure all evening too. Weaver was his usual productive self, but not with as much impact as we've come to expect.
The secondary, in turn, had a much tougher job already without the pass rush, and the statistics weren't all that pretty. Bynum had a particularly rough night, with the Ducks completing 5 of 5 for 69 yards and a touchdown against him. Dillon Mitchell was uncoverable by everyone though, so it didn't fall on any one player alone.
All of the tackling caveats are once again in play next week against Khalil Tate, who might not be able to run as much due to injury, but is still worthy of respect.
IV. Unofficial Advanced Stats
[1] – Out-explosived Oregon! That was pretty cool and unexpected, mostly thanks to the efforts of Brandon McIlwain. Had they hung onto the ball more, that might have really helped close things out. They even managed to keep the ball moving on first downs to face third and manageables, which was also a little encouraging.
[2] – There will be many people who thought Cal should kick the field goal to go down by two scores, but for the offense that has struggled as badly as ours has, and finally has momentum on its side, the Bears have consistently tried to press that advantage to keep things moving. They wanted to send a message to the team of belief, even though the actual playcall on that fourth down was bad. The first FG was also somewhat of a missed opportunity.
[3] – Well, when your opponent doubles you up in Havoc Rate, that’s generally not good enough to win. Oregon was better in all phases of the defense on Saturday. Especially Ugo Amadi.
V. Special Teams (Exceeds Expectations)
We’ll always remember the North Texas return by Vic Wharton, and then Jeremiah Hawkins broke a long one himself. Combine this with 2 of 2 Cal punts they placed inside the 20, no missed kicks, and the special teams did their part to keep the team close.
VI. Win Matrix
Two of three from the UCLA/Arizona/WSU is fine.
Splitting one of the USC/Colorado games would also be acceptable.
Bowl still on track. 7 wins possible.