SCENE: A HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM. AT THE FRONT, A TEACHER, LARGELY INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE STUDENTS SAVE FOR THE FACT THAT HE IS THE ONLY ONE STANDING UP, IS FINISHING UP A LECTURE ON THE STATE OF AMERICAN PRISONS.
Mr. Le: “…so, as Alexander argues, a result of all of these factors, people who leave the prison system get placed into suboptimal situations – situations that, whether intentionally or unintentionally designed – certainly make them more likely to return to those same prisons. Now, before we break up for you guys to discuss your reactions with your tables, does everyone know what suboptimal means?”
UCLA-fan student, shaking head: “No. Can I have the definition?”
Mr. Le: “Ah. Suboptimal is an adjective that means when something is less than ideal, not preferred. It’s one of my favorite words in the English language.”
UCLA-fan student: “Can you use it in a series of sentences?”
Mr Le: “Of course! Here’s the first example: Evan Weaver’s unsportsmanlike conduct was a suboptimal event for the Bears, as it allowed UCLA to eventually score their second touchdown of the day. Also, with a PFF-tallied 15 missed tackles on Saturday, the Bears performed suboptimally for most of the evening in that category.”
Now, for something that relates more closely to your school: UCLA’s pass blocking, missing two starters, could also be described as suboptimal on Saturday, as they gave up six sacks in the official tally.
The opposite of suboptimal is optimal, which means most favorable, or best. You use it like this: the Bears’ 28-18 victory brought their record to 7-5, which is short of the 8-4, or 9-3 they might have been optimally. However, given the fact that they missed their starting quarterback for a month, and dealt with a whole rash of injuries to both sides of the ball, plus won 2 out of 3 against their in-state rivals, this is an acceptable, even encouraging season all the same.”
UCLA-fan student: “I’m still not getting it.”
Mr. Le, sighing: “Alright, let’s check in after class. Everyone else, let’s discuss the Alexander.”
SCENE.
II. Grab Bag
To be honest, this was not the opening for the column I planned on. The Intro was almost, almost Jeff Goldblum themed, as we spotted him on the sidelines pre-game. Not sure why he was there, but I was going to do a thing about how the Bears uh…find a way.
But, for those who have sat in the stands with me, you may notice I often have taken to yelling the word suboptimal when bad things happen instead of cursing or anything like that during games, especially as I’ve gotten older, when a baby blue clad woman behind me insisted that this was racist. I was planning to talk to her and ask why she felt this, but Nick Kranz and the company around me felt that I was in the right, so we resorted to just needling them instead.
(She left mid-way through the 4th, after DTR was sacked by Maldonado to end that drive. Thank God, because that was going to get uncomfortable at the end of the day.)
There will be some discussion of Wilcox’s decision to go for it on 4th and 8, which breaks down like this:
10 points – UCLA needs TD + FG in 9:47 to tie
13 points – UCLA needs TD + TD in 9:47 to win
17 points – UCLA needs TD + TD + FG in 9:47 at minimum to tie
To the staff, they’re thinking that the difference between 13 and 10 is not that much – it changes the points that UCLA needs, yes, but not the number of possessions, because on each of those upcoming possessions, they are aiming to score a touchdown regardless. In other words, Cal played to seal the game right there, which is the right decision in the process, and would have been worth the largest net gain in win probability. Unfortunately, just nobody open on the call, in part because they ran one of those sideways handoffs with Nikko earlier in the downs for a loss. At 4th and 4, it’s a lot easier than 8.
It’s not the season anyone wanted, especially after a 4-0 start, but it’s hard not to feel somewhat satisfied. A month ago, a bowl looked like it was in serious trouble. Then, the team rallies, goes 3-1 down the stretch, beats both in-state rivals – which, regardless of what state they’re both in, hasn’t always been a guarantee in program history…the optics for the program are looking up, especially with what’s coming back next year. More on that later.
The people smarter than me have said we’re going to the Redbox Bowl, it’s sounding like, with an outside possibility of Holiday if Utah goes to playoffs.
Stanford has had its field stormed in consecutive weeks, leading to the possibility of visiting fans just continually prancing around there for the hilarity of it, knowing there aren’t enough engaged attenders to do anything about to stop them. I’m here for it.
III. Offense
Back in October, following the Oregon State loss, I thought the team was certainly headed toward some massive offensive changes, and wrote as much: “Games like these, losses like these usually involve the inevitable conclusion that some changes need to be made, whether now or at the end of the season…Wilcox – if he’s as smart of a coach as he’s proven to be on the defensive side of the ball – must know for sure now too…
Something has to give on the offense.”
Something, appears to have given, however slightly: the Bears recorded 7, 6.33, 4.31, 6.3 YPPs in November, with the 4.31 figure obviously coming against USC. Granted, these statistics were are all recorded against the bottom tier defenses in the Pac-12, but consider the fact that they didn’t succeed this much against bad defenses earlier in the year or last, and you can point to some semblance of progress. For a coach that appears to be pretty conservative about making staff changes like Wilcox, perhaps this, along with the eye-test on the field, is enough rationale for him to not make any more of them. (I think after this month, some of the fanbase could be pretty lukewarm or accepting of a Beau Baldwin extension for similar reasons, while those who were already dug in on a non-extension probably won’t change their mind. Regardless, I would start steeling myself for the possibility he’ll return, and I’m willing to be content with it for the sake of continuity in a season next year that could really benefit from it.)
As far as eye test goes, I’d like to point to a few positive things:
· UCLA was extremely aggressive early in flowing left to right, so we adjusted with this with a few misdirection runs, zone read, stuff to just get them hesitating a bit. I thought they might do a bit more north/south hitters early, but when they did, got some good value there. The Makai Polk TD was another example of this.
· We can at least see a coherent gameplan and adjustments forming now, which, again, while not ideal for it to take this long, could at least be used as evidence of improvement.
· I think, even more than last week, this is the game that showed the full depth of Chase Garbers’ evolution as a quarterback under Beau Baldwin. At least twice that I can recall – one was a short completion to one of the tight ends -- he made the right call to check out of plays at the line of scrimmage, which we hadn’t seen him do a lot of before.
· He ran the ball with a bit more judiciousness, remembering to slide (although you’d prefer them to use more runs to get him away from bodies. Will never be comfortable with having him QB sneak for this reason.)
· A lot more jumbo in recent weeks, including two in the backfield (think Full House but with both guys set to the right side, rather than balanced). That play didn’t net much, just wanted to point out it happened.
Still some problems in closing or finishing drives. Still some problems in making routine plays, but the margin of error feels wider than it’s been recently. Plus, they scored over 24 points, which usually means Cal’s gonna win.
Garbers on 20+ yard passes: 3 of 6, 78 yards (1 INT).
Under pressure only 6 of his 32 dropbacks, which was really good by the offensive line in that half of the game. Cool and generally efficient. Felt like he threw for more yards than he actually did live.
Chris Brown’s night: 17, 0, 2, 5, 1, 11, 2, 8, 5, 2, 1, 1, 38, 4, 10, -2, 5, 1
Median: 3, 50% of yards on 2 carries.
To be clear, I think Chris is immensely physically talented. I’m using this more to say that we have a lot of room to improve around him in the blocking game, to put him in better positions to succeed. It might be worth looking closer later this offseason to see how much of that is on him, and how much on that is just us needing to get better at the general point of attack.
Do not try to slander Nikko Remigio in front of me. I won’t stand for it.
Obligatory Makai Polk is exceeding my original projections note. Another long touchdown catch and run from him, and the interception thrown in his direction was a horribly overthrown ball he had no chance to make a play on. Coming along nicely.
IV. Defense
Congratulations to Evan Weaver, who is now the single-season record holder for tackles. I don’t know what else you can say about him that you haven’t already read, and we have been so lucky to see him for the last three years. One game left in a legendary, unforgettable career here. Man.
Not a great tackling night overall, though. They made it a lot harder on themselves than they had to in that regard.
Deng (despite PFF hating him and his obvious struggles this year playing out of position and underweight) and Goode will be the leaders of this defense next year, and they, along with members of the secondary, had tons of issues wrapping up in one on one situations. Some of this can be excused due to the grass, which was miserable, and at one point, tackled Joshua Kelley for a loss alone. (Kelley ran for 76 yards on 4YPC. So much better than last year.)
Some of it, though, was their guys:
#1 priority for 2021: finding or developing a guy who can run with big tight ends, which feels like it’s been that way for a decade. But it’s true -- the Washington game was nearly lost because of Hunter Bryant, to say nothing about Stanford traditionally, and relying on our guys to play bigger than they are all the time is, well…not ideal. You hope that Deng becomes that guy, but he was giving up way too much weight compared to them. Still was a general nightmare with his length, just not big yet. If they can find a way to play him more at OLB next year, it might benefit him more.
BRETT JOHNSON! That’s it. That’s the note. There’ll be many of these to come the next 2-3 seasons.
Gotta feel good for Aaron Maldonado (1 sack), who has not only worked his way back onto the field, but also came into this one with a little extra juice after being dropped at the last minute by Jerry Azzinaro and UCLA. Atonio Mafi, the guy he was dropped for and former Cal commit, played only 16 or 17 snaps according to PFF.
Gotta also feel good for Joey Ogunbanjo, who is back with the team and played on ST. Trace reminded me that while he can’t redshirt this season, having played 7 games, there’s still possibility for it in the future. This team could use him.
I would be very surprised if Cam Goode doesn’t return next year, so #GoodePlays is the hashtag when he does something tremendous. Like Saturday, when he effectively contained DTR, created good chaos off the edge, and recorded two sacks on his way to having the second best sack season of the decade. (The Bowl game might get him into double digits, which hasn’t happened here in a long time.)
Chigozie Anusiem has seen increasing snaps following the Utah game, and tonight saw his most extensive action, with 43 snaps -- 7 targets and only 4 receptions given up for 38 yards. He also broke up a couple of those. Think he’s gonna be in the lead to replace one of the departed corner spots. Drayden might be the other.
Two fun numbers on DTR’s night:
0 passes attempts of 20+ yards, which tells you they either didn’t get open or, likely, didn’t have a ton of time because…
DTR was pressured on 15 of 46 dropbacks; 7-9 passing during pressure situations, but 5 sacks taken.
Between Burton and DTR, they passed for 343 yards, 271 of which (80%!) were YAC yards. Not the best performance, but a passable one, considering the result. The troubling trend of this team in closing, or against backup quarterbacks does continue though.
V. Unofficial Advanced Stats
The rare week where Cal won yards on third down, despite only really gaining 3 yards on first down most of the time.
Huge YPP disparity of 1.5 yards would usually result in a blowout, but UCLA being gifted a couple of opportunities to extend drives and poor tackling closed the gap a bit. Teams were even in turnovers.
Field position gap was dramatically larger than this in the first half, then normalized some.
VI. Special Teams
The less said, the better.
