The Novel: Weber State

I. Intro

More than once, it’s been pointed out to me that my grading system is too harsh at times. In the classroom, for example, I rarely give A’s, because those signify that a piece of work is basically perfect.

Apply this mentality to the football field and these columns, and you get some tough, strange statements, like how a win can be disappointing, or unacceptable.

There are those who come from the school of survive and advance, a 33-20 win is a win, and those things are true – at this exact moment, the Bears have as much mathematical chance at a national championship or a Rose Bowl as basically any other team.

But I tend to grade games also for what they imply about the arc to come, and I also try to situate wins within the appropriate context. Did the team play up to its potential? Did the decision making process result in any flaws? Did we make avoidable mistakes? How close was this performance to our perceived and actual capabilities?

And when you think about it, needing to come back in the second half against a team you were projected to beat by four scores…is never great for the optics.

When an FCS team, ranked or not, averages 9 YPP in the first half and ends up leading, it is immensely troubling, and the comments justifying the struggle (bad matchup! they were motivated! we weren’t!) are reminiscent of how we defended our 2013 performance against Portland State, another closer than expected FCS grind-fest. That, if you recall, would end up being an omen of the 1-11 season to come.

Now, I do not think the Bears are destined to finish 2-10 -- there are too many winnable games left and the Pac-12 has looked oddly gettable up and down the board. The season outlook isn’t dramatically different because we didn’t beat the crap out of Weber.

Bit less rosy, though.

As I am writing this on Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon, I have to make clear that I am not mad. Just disappointed. All indications were that the Bears might exceed their station after week 1, and week 2 has reminded us that Cal might be who we thought they were -- a growing team that needs everything to go right if we want a bowl.

Saturday, not everything went right.

Lucky for them, Ole Miss has played maybe four good quarters of football against their cupcake FBS-actual FCS opponents. Maybe we just throw this one away and expect things’ll go more right then.

Vegas certainly thinks so.

II. Offense (Grade: Poor)

33 points or not, the offense was Patrick Laird and nobody else. Against FCS opponents, that may work, but I would be hardpressed to find another game on the schedule we could win if every other player averages 4.7 YPP between them. (Shout out to Nick at CGB for that statistic.)

Honestly, it was a little as I feared after last week – at the moment, they’re not doing enough to keep the ball moving consistently in big ways or small, and they’re relying so much on YAC that just wasn’t there on Saturday. Gains early in the downs were hard to find against Weber, they aren’t hitting passes deep with any consistency to force teams to respect them, they’re not getting any push in the run game, and when you add not being able to break tackles on top of that, the numbers spell mostly disaster. A lot will ride on how Ross Bowers develops – and on Saturday, he did a much better job of keeping the ball safe, but still lacking a bit in the intermediate ranges. The exact numbers, I’ll tally up for you in the charts post later this week.

The Tre Watson injury, based on what I’m hearing, might keep him out long-term – and all indications from the field kind of trended the same. Ugh. Heartbreaking if he misses most of, or all of this year – he’s been a delight when properly fed and healthy. Send all best wishes in his direction.

That being said, Laird has to, and I fully expect will be, be taking most of the carries in his absence. None of the young backs – Clark, Echols, Ali-Walsh – seem remotely close to ready to take the spot, and Vic Enwere continues to underwhelm despite all his fantastic measurables. He did again on Saturday.

One more shout out to Patrick Laird for becoming a serious contributor from out of nowhere. Dude just makes plays. I don’t know what else we could want. At least 8 times, he generated something out of nothing, and I don’t just mean large gains – I mean avoiding negative ones through slight shiftiness or general refusal to go down easily. The spirit of running through faces still lives on at Cal. It’s just not the back you think it’d be.

Prediction, Cal will throw playaction off of the D Rob jet sweep motion either next week or soon after. That’s the kind of thing you put on tape if you want other teams to worry about it. (They want teams to worry about it.)

Shout out to motioning D Rob into the backfield to line him up as a running back opposite Enwere.

Shout out to WildLaird where McMorris is split out as the inner most receiver in trips. Hilarious future looks.

The line already couldn’t afford any injuries. Then they lost Jake Curhan for a good while, forcing Daltoso out to tackle and Ryan Gibson to see his first playing time, to go with the snapping issues that killed a drive single-handedly…well, Steve Greatwood has his work cut out for him. It was always going to be growing pains with this unit given all the guys they had to replace, and then allowing 10 TFL to go along with it? Poor game from this group against a big, physical front, which will probably be one of the less talented ones we face when it’s all said and done this season.

The first sack was allowed off of a three man rush, when the guy was double teamed and still grabbed a scrambling Bowers.

The second sack was a five man rush after Curhan went out, although Bowers might have been able to get rid of the ball over the middle. Debatable.

The third sack ended a drive straight up and was a one on one loss by Mekari.

This is the second straight game the offense didn’t capitalize on chances inside opposing territory and went quiet for too long, too, although the second half way was generally better. They’re not talented enough to self-inflict injuries like dropped snaps or sacks.

Let’s just move on. They didn’t play well – at the moment, their 40% third down conversion rate is 63rd in the country, although their YPP is 29th, which is respectable.

III. Defense (Grade: Poor)

Having Cam Saffle and Jaylinn Hawkins out only explains part of the struggles, although their respective presences were missed greatly, particularly on the pass side of things.

An optimist might point out that Weber did not score in the second half and their YPP dropped to 5.2, down from 9. There’s some merit to that, and it’s proof of adjustments – again. For more proof, just take a look at how DeRuyter started to dial up the pressure very late by way of corner and multi-man blitzes, which helped do just enough in the 4th quarter because it threw a wrench in that Weber didn’t seem prepared for. We’ve had games where we’ve done just enough on defense to win, and this was another, but I think we’re all collectively a little let down by the performance this week simply because we thought that kind of first half football was already behind Cal. Instead, we’ll have to endure a little longer while the staff develops and finds more talent in the front seven.

Quietly, I wonder if they were planning to save some of the pass pressure stuff for Ole Miss.

Last week, Scotty and I were a little bit off-put by how little pressure we were able to generate with four man base, and even when we sprinkled in extra pressure against Weber, it wasn’t always getting there, or Cantwell hung in long enough to make several tough throws in the first half – the first 52 yarder was a good example of that against a six man package.

Looney flashed a few times early in my notes. Only credit for 1 TFL but was around the ball for a lot of good stuff.

Generally no standouts though. Struggles were everywhere, with the secondary playing better as the game continued. Just too many misreads in the back end early, and needing a little more pass rush help too.

The second breakdown early: 47 yard pass to Shaheed which was severely underthrown and then lost by Marlo in the air. Weber State got this one off clean by going to max pass protection and a rollout by Cantwell, and they’d do the same by flat out freezing Derron Brown in the middle of the field.

Their first touchdown was indicative of something we saw on both sides of the ball – just not getting enough push and failing to hold ground at the point of attack. This time it was Tevin Paul getting pushed back, Ray not being able to make a play, and the safety being a shade late coming down.

Again, the depth behind Looney and Mekari is incredibly concerning. Getting Zeandae Johnson back next season will help somewhat, but we aren’t getting enough disruption from up there.

Another play of note: Ude had to chase Vollert on at least one pass play – the one Vollert ended up fumbling – which was confusing and revealing of his ill-suitedness versus the pass, but we’ll take the outcome and the turnover anyway.

IV. Some Unofficially Calculated Stats

The sample size is still small, but the emergent patterns are troubling for this year’s Cal team, based on these key stats:

3rd Downs – Against competition they should be outpacing, the Bears struggled to stay on track and faced an average 3rd and long of nearly 7 yards, which means more often than not, Ross Bowers would be put into a passing situation. The raw numbers weren’t that awful – Bowers was 5 of 8 for 42 yards on 3rd down - but converted only three, and took a sack on another. Having him face passing situations, despite his relative efficiency this week, speaks to how awful they’ve been running the ball on early downs and could prove to be an issue later in the schedule. This is also the second straight week we averaged a lower 3rd down percentage than the other team, where we are giving up the conversion nearly 50% of the time, ranking 112nd in the country.

An optimist might be able to spin the 3rd down offensive struggles as the lack of our starting tight end, the hurting and inexperienced offensive line, and Bowers’ own inexperience. I am not that optimist. This must improve if the Bears are trying to exceed their station.

Points per trip inside 40 – Horrible. Awful. Horrid.

Cal's playing at a slower pace than they did under Sonny, which makes each possession far more valuable than they were under him, yet two came up empty completely (one on a turnover for the second straight week) and two more were field goals. Had Weber State been any more effective at converting theirs – and they played it correctly by being as aggressive as they were – an increase of two points per trip up to 4.3, the average mark, spread out over their six tries would have made this game far more uncomfortable than it was already.

Coaches work on 3rd down and red zone every single week, of course, but this is exasperating and also cannot hold.

Havoc – The good: 16.8% Havoc Rate. Forced fumbles are a skill, while recovering fumbles is not, so getting four in this game was some great work all around.

The really bad: 10 TFL given up by the offensive line. They’re already small and young up front already, and if they’re not getting it done against the Webers of the world, Stanford, UW, and company will remain terrible matchups for us. Not a whole lot you can do except keep coaching them up but this area may not totally improve until the lines on both sides are reloaded. Snapping also continues to be an issue.

V. Special Teams (Grade: Acceptable-/Poor+)

The games in which special teams turns out plays that are, well, special, are too few and far in-between. This week, we got:

2 out of 4 punts downed inside the 20 (no punt returns of consequence by Weber).

All FGs made. One missed kick due to snap.

Did not fall asleep on Weber’s surprise onside.

One long kickoff return given up versus no long kickoff returns of our own.

No punt returns whatsoever.

Middling, but not-exactly essential to victory.