The Novel: Washington State
I. Intro
In the aftermath of such a loss, there are too many things to have opinions on and discuss, so here is this meme, in expanded form:
Small Brain Takes (include, but are not limited to): being angry at the result of the game; claiming Wilcox is over his head; attributing the QB carousel to be something Wilcox called for; not believing Chase Garbers was QB1 in the first damn place
Large Brain Takes: being satisfied that we played #8 toe to toe without Kanawai Noa or Cameron Goode, in the rain, on the road as double digit underdogs to start the week; the rest of the schedule is still winnable (but not guaranteed, as we established last week); realizing that if the Bears finish 5-7 the majority of the frustration should not come from tonight, but in how they used Brandon McIlwain this season
Enlightened Brain Takes: booking tickets and hotels tonight in Phoenix for the Cheez-It Bowl, Las Vegas, or Tempe for the Sun Bowl; packing your field-storming shoes for USC and making sure your will is in order because you don’t plan on returning alive when the Bears win; dusting off that nice Axe-shaped void in our hearts cause it’s coming home boys
Galaxy Brain Take: none of this matters anyway, as the accelerating threat of climate change will come for us all, meaning that the result of this 19-13 game, as well as our ultimate places in the cosmic entity are entirely irrelevant.
II.
In the past five years, Cal vs WSU has been decided by:
- A 60-59 score where the Cougars missed a 19 yard field goal at the buzzer, and the Bears were only in the game in the first place due to two Trevor Davis return touchdowns that got the special teams coach fired the next week
- A one possession game that I can’t be bothered to look up the score for at the moment won by Cal, who converted 3rd and 31 run by Rumbling Vic Enwere (34-28 in 2015).
- A 30 point blowout by underdog Cal, who played in air quality bad enough that they considered moving the game.
Which makes Saturday’s debacle – a grab-bag of horrors for both teams that will be reviewed over the course of this column -- surely worthy of its predecessors.
Welcome to the weird, 19-13. You won’t ever be any of our favorites, but you were truly fitting all the same.
III. Baldwin
As I’ve mentioned in the past, it’d be wildly irresponsible for me to use this space to advocate for anyone’s firing directly. So, what I’ll say instead is that if Baldwin is considering other opportunities, like he was at the end of last season, I encourage him to take them.
While Baldwin hasn’t had any sort of consistent gamebreaker available to him – and had his starting quarterback break a thumb right before the season – that excuse doesn’t fly for how he uses the actual personnel he does have, something that is directly his responsibility.
I watch football through a process oriented lens, rather than a product one, and I still haven’t figured out why they continue to use Brandon McIlwain so aggressively. The ideal deployment of the South Carolina transfer should be on “and-short” situations only, where the threat of run and pass are equally likely. That he comes out to start drives, takes 3 or 4 plays in a row, closes in the red zone – something that would be understandable if he wasn’t so turnover prone – is unconsciable.
Then, once being given a break and another chance at a game winning drive, Baldwin called for a run and two deep passes, not even forcing WSU to call timeout, left them too much on the clock to win the game.
And then the last play of the game was a checkdown drag with no attempt – laterals, trickeration, anything - to get it the remaining 80 yards.
That’s probably the last straw for many of us, and I find it hard not to share that sentiment. The offense last season didn’t do much in the way of variety. We forgave that. Couldn’t generate deep yardage. Forgave that too, thinking that perhaps a few years of recruiting and development – something he had a history of at EWU – would help things go forward.
Well, the Bears have retained a lot of the same personnel, and have only regressed deeply at the skill positions this year, not to mention all of questionable decision-making – the latest in a long run of questionable decision-making, since the offense was the primary well, offender for at least two losses this season, including Saturday.
That has to fall on him, since he was brought in to run the offense somewhat autonomously.
IV. Offense
4.2 YPP on a night where the leading rusher was the QB, who had to scramble for most of the yardage, rather than getting it in by design, plus 5 sacks and 10 TFLs allowed.
And they still did nearly enough to win, in spite of it.
Gentle Williams played some when the line was shifting around – part of the rotation here was due to Will Craig not getting it done at tackle (a sack, two hurries and a pressure allowed, not to mention a penalty that almost cost the Bears points), so they moved Mekari back to left, Daltoso to right guard, then Williams in for a few snaps.
Despite those above statistics given, all the linemen were still our top PFF graded players on Saturday, which tells you a lot about how things went from the skill position standpoint. No real standouts here. Moe Ways continues to grab a few first downs a game, but nobody really got open – so much so that on one of the Skycams, it revealed how Garbers basically had to scramble a few of those times. They tried to get the ball to Wharton in space a few times too, only to have him tripped up before he got too far down the field. Overall, a largely ho hum game from a team that could only kind of get the ball moving, then suffer a loss on the next play.
Speaking of Garbers, I thought played decently enough. A few throws he’d like to have back, and a few missed opportunities that were being generated open, but he largely kept the chains moving when necessary, and used his legs in a productive, but not overly predictable fashion. While being a similar type of player to Ross Bowers, he’s not likely to draw that much disappointment for it, probably because he’s still so young in the program.
No surprise, as myself and many others mentioned, but the Bears were horrible running the ball inside on zone versus their linemen and had mildly more success cutting outside, where Laird could use his patience to try to snag more yardage. Again, it speaks to how thoroughly we lost the trenches that we’re talking about the difference between two and three YPC (4 attempts, 6 yards into the A gap; 3 for 11 off left tackle or tight end).
V. Defense
Before the game, we worried about how the defense would get pressure on Minshew, who improved under blitz conditions, and what they would do against James Williams-slash-Max Borghi, who would test the LB depth and speed.
The gameplan, though, wasn’t to rush him much at all – we would occasionally bring an extra man late, but the idea was to flood the field in unconventional ways that would make Minshew pause to find the open body, taking advantage of the fact that our secondary is plenty capable of matching up with most teams’ receiver groups. WSU’s philosophy of “find the green” gets a lot harder when you never know where the bodies are disappearing, and with only one exception, the team did extremely well as a unit back there. They’ll get their yards regardless. Whether they get a win isn’t always guaranteed, and we did just about enough to give us a chance.
Generally speaking, they should have played conservatively when there was a lot of grass in front of them – something noted first in a conversation with HydroTech on twitter – and more aggressive once the field tightened up, and we did that to perfection. It took only a miracle catch from Winston to even prevent that last second field goal.
Shout out to Camryn Bynum, who didn’t even really get targeted this week. (One dump off, officially.)
Double shout out to Camryn Bynum who, while having a few lowlights this year, rates out incredibly overall:
#3 in passer rating allowed among conference CBs (#1 is Traveon Beck) at 55.7
#6 at snaps per reception at 17.7 (#3 is Elijah Hicks)
#5 at yards per snap at 0.62 (among guys who have played more than 100 snaps in coverage, Beck is 6, Hicks is 8)
ALL PAC 12 FIRST TEAM BABY
[Cam is not a true Nam Le receipts guy but I’ve been impressed with him ever since I saw him coming off redshirt so he’s adopted into my receipts gang.]
I don’t put too much blame on Drayden here, who did have a tough game overall. 7 catches on 8 targets for 113 and the TD -- but I’m kind of baffled as to why he got the outside work, when PFF had Elijah Hicks in for only 28 snaps. (Injury is my best guess, since Hicks hadn’t done that much to lose the actual job.)
Jordan Kunaszyk played about as anticipated. The Cougars tried him early there but he’s had worse games in pass coverage this year – tonight it was 6 of 6 for 50 yards -- and he’s still too valuable elsewhere to take off the field, even recording the only sack of the game on a QB who never gets sacked in the first place.
Funches was pretty solid on the plays he did flash, and picked up three hurries through his usual lunch-pail, hard hat rush style.
6.3 YPP is a shade more than you’d like, but remember that WSU excels at staying on schedule and in small chunk yardage. They did more than enough this week collectively, and I’m so, so excited at what this unit could be in the years to come, if they get some true difference makers at OLB and on DL. Thank god Weaver and Bynum might return.
VI. Unofficial Advanced Stats
Not much to mention here except that considering the massive gap in YPP and explosiveness, it was amazing to have bled the game out to that degree. That they ended up missing a FG into the wind, throwing an interception, and punting on a long 4th and 7 – which they definitely would have gone for if it was 4 or less – ended up making a huge difference.
Our opportunities are too few with the football to waste like that. (I left off the other field goal which was an acceptable result that was made possible by the fumble touchback. I believe though, we had a chance to score a TD here that was dropped by Bunting.)
WSU did do very well up front against the run, though.
VII. Special Teams
+ Made two kicks
- Missed a kick
= long return before half allowed WSU to take lead
- Hawkins return decision at end of game pinned Cal in own territory
- Only one of four punts pinned WSU inside their own 20