The Novel: Oregon State

I. Intro

Unless you’re Nick Saban, it is generally pretty difficult to find dissatisfaction from a 49-7 win – and if you take Cal’s victory over Oregon State this weekend simply at face value, this adage seems to hold.

The Bears more than doubled up their opponents in yards per play (7.8 to 3.3), explosive play percentage (18.8 to 9.4%), and did even better by nearly tripling them in Havoc (21.6% to 8.6%) too. They got Patrick Laird going again, they found snaps and opportunities for the young skill players, they won the turnover battle.

They won the way bowl hopefuls do, over inferior conference opponents, and they did it on the road for the first time since Jared Goff rolled out on 4th and 5 in Seattle.

All of the above, along with candy corn, are objectively good and true things.

Only when you move past face value, zooming out far enough to see both what preceded this blowout win and what lies ahead after it, do we feel differently about it - beginning, as it has too often this season, in how the Bears swapped plans again at quarterback.

To be clear, that is not a criticism on Chase Garbers, who played coolly, efficiently, and safely - save for a fumble at the goalline that wasn’t entirely on him – but rather, one on the coaches going back to what many argued they should have done in the first place, deploying Brandon McIlwain strictly in subpackage work. Minimal credit should be awarded for that decision to a staff stubborn enough to give McIlwain 2.5 games and nearly double digit turnovers of worth of slack, but evidently not stubborn enough to see if he deserved a fourth chance to be outscored by opposing defenses.

And this, ultimately, is where dissatisfaction can be found in a 49-7 win – at the edges of this blowout are the massive implications of the UCLA and Arizona losses, coming largely, but not entirely because of those same quarterback decisions. Seeing the Bruins and Wildcats slapfight to a 31-30 decision was an equally grim reminder of that fact, and that’s before remembering this could end up being the difference between vacation plans in December, or securing 15 more invaluable practices.

As it stands, beating Oregon State still doesn’t move the needle, because 2018 is currently in line to join other recent bowlless ignominities such as:

- 2014, where the 5-7 Bears lost one game on a Hail Mary, another when a game-winning drive attempt was ended by Marcus Rios’ interception, and had their final attempt for 6th win -- at home vs BYU missing its top QB, RB, and WR – result in a 42-35 loss.

- 2016, where the 5-7 Bears had a game-winning drive attempt ended by Damontae Kazee’s interception, allowed 31 4th quarter points to give up a comeback to Arizona State, and fell to a 4-8 Oregon State in OT.

- 2017, where the 5-7 Bears dropped a 2 OT game to Khalil Tate, and then fell to in-state rivals Stanford and UCLA by a field goal to end the season, the latter of which was played against Josh Rosen’s backup.

If you’re sensing a common theme here, it’s probably one of missed opportunities, coming closes, and what could have been. And amid the free flow of touchdowns scored against the Beavers on Saturday afternoon, it’s hard not to wonder exactly that.

Where was this team a week ago?

II. Bowl Math

Can the Bears conceivably still reach 6 wins? Sure. Anything’s possible until there’s a 7 in the loss column.

The problem is the difficulty of finding those last two wins:

- Washington is unlikely – while this Huskies team isn’t their best or scariest group compared to recent seasons, the Bears didn’t have enough talent to even crack 3 YPP against them last year, and it’d be unwise to assume they’ll be that much better this one, considering the regression of our personnel. That the game is at home is of only little help, when it figures to be sparsely attended. (There were exactly zero tweets this week in advance of the game on Cal Twitter, which, while not exactly a formal metric, is a good gauge of the fan base’s temperature at the moment.)

- Colorado is a solid group that, while 5-2, hasn’t delivered against the top tier of the conference, falling by two touchdowns to the aforementioned Huskies, and by 11 to the Trojans. Seated firmly atop the conference’s second tier, the Buffaloes would have the edge over Cal on the road to close the season.

- Washington State is also firmly in that second tier of conference teams, and might even be in the Washington tier, after having just beaten Oregon fairly handily. Any hope that the Bears can repeat an upset against a ranked Cougar squad – and there is some, based on how well Wilcox and DeRuyter dismantled the Air Raid attack -- should be dimmed by the reality of a road visit, where the team plays considerably worse. Then you factor in how they haven’t lost a beat without Alex Grinch, Luke Falk, or any one of the billion receivers they graduated, and it’s at best, a toss up.

- Stanford is Stanford. The team will play hard against them and USC both, simply because those are rivalries that matter to the players. Matching their physicality and maximizing scoring opportunities will be the same points of emphasis they’ve ever been, and both are certainly possible based on last year. Bryce Love not looking right helps too.

- Look, you know I say this all the time, but USC is gettable once again, as freshman wunderkind JT Daniels struggled mightily before leaving with concussion symptoms against Utah. Truth is, the Trojans are at risk of being out-physicalled lately – as was the case in all three losses – and they’re currently in the middle of what might be a full blown meltdown by next month.

If I had a chance to bet on Cal getting a win in one of these games, I’d probably take that. Two feels too uncomfortable to count on, at the moment.

In order, from most likely to least likely: Stanford, USC, Colorado, WSU, and Washington.

III. General

It only took one play to tell Evan Weaver was healthier than recent weeks – watch the burst he used to chase the ball carrier on Oregon State’s first snap told us that they were in for a long, long day. This defense needs his speed to accompany Jordan Kunaszyk’s dirty work.

The same was true for Patrick Laird, who opened by hitting the hole immediately and bursting into daylight as early as 3rd and 4 on the first drive, getting better as the game continued by making men miss.

Wheel route TD for Laird was a master class in route running too – the PBP analysts gave credit to the post route for holding the safeties, but Laird really sells the flat route before turning his shoulders quickly up field. Great stuff by him.

The Bears ran on 6 of their first 8 snaps to keep things comfortable for Garbers, then got in a fantastic rhythm, averaging 4.6, 6.2, 9.7, and 6.8 YPC over the course of four quarters, in part due to their dominating offensive line performance, and in part because the OSU linebackers were incredibly slow and vulnerable to misdirection stuff.

Perhaps Trace had it right when he mentioned that it would take more time for Greatwood’s group to gel, since the Cal offensive line got significantly better once they reached around game 7 last year. Anyone have the numbers for which game of the year this one was?

(Trace has more on changes they made, but essentially with Saffell out, they shuffled some guys around to get Craig at LT, Mekari inside, and Ryan Gibson inside.)

Jeremiah Hawkins continued to get looks from orbit motion and select 2 RB packages, which you know I adore. All he has to do is keep his hands on the ball more often. Next year should bring some big things for him, if he can be more consistent. As it stands, no reason not to keep using him.

Tevin Paul’s stat sheet says plenty on its own, but he flashed a ton even before the actual TFLs by way of pressure forced.

Look, Garbers didn’t play perfectly: early on there’s a risky decision to throw the slant on an RPO to Ways, he should have kept the ensuing zone read, but then hits the subsequent RPO slant to Noa for a first down. None of these plays are particularly sexy or exciting, but all that matters is that he’s making them and keeping the ball safe. It was a very 2017 Cal Bears type of game.

Love the designed draw with Ooms in front. They run this with Garbers pretty often and he looks great in the open field, while protecting himself and the ball at the same time.

Traveon Beck had one of the easiest interceptions of his life when Blount threw backwards and across his body with very little zip behind it. The rest was just hanging onto it.

Give credit to the Beavers who did not quit on the game, though – they used the trademark Nam Le surprise onside kick to try to get into it, recovering it fairly easily. That’s gonna be something to fix on the tape going forward.

IV. Unofficial Advanced Stats

[1] It’s really nice to not have to face Power Situations whatsoever – a luxury made possible when you’re advancing well on first and second downs in the first place, it makes third or fourth and short non-existent.

[2 & 3] Cal got out of their own end and scored on almost every possession. Oregon State did not. Sometimes, it’s that simple.

[4] Best game for them in this regard in awhile – particularly up front on the line of scrimmage. Many of Cal’s best efforts this year in Havoc involved domination by the secondary, picking off passes and such. Yet, with Davis and Hawkins down for parts of the game, they were able to generate more disruption up front, a collective effort from the down linemen that allowed Weaver, Kunaszyk and Paul to get work done behind them. Turner, in particular, was excellent in sub work.