SB Nation - Sean Young

Roll On: How Cal's Offense Can Attack Oregon's Defense

Avinash — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:41:29 -0000

I'm so relieved Pac-10 season is here.

It's not that I don't like the OOC schedule; it's always fun to face new teams, and gauge ourselves to other teams around the country. But it makes things easier for me in terms of figuring out offenses and defenses. There's a familiarity with breaking down Arizona that isn't there with Minnesota or even Maryland. Figuring out what type of coverage packages UCLA will throw your way with their excellent secondary, or whether Oregon State is going to gap-cancel the shit out of you, or how many times Oregon will hit you over and over again with their zone read--these things I can deal with, I've seen them before.

Plus speculating about what an offense or defense might or might not do sucks, since there's a good chance you're going to look real stupid by the end of the game. At least here, there's a much better chance of nailing the general gameplan.

Let's get the ball rolling, shall we? We start with Andy Ludwig's Cal offense versus Oregon and Nick Allioti's hard-hitting, ball-hawking, tackle-missing defense.

(Major thanks to ieeebear for cutting videos for this post, you can see them after the jump! He deserves half the credit for the post.)

Oregon's run defense versus Best, Vereen, and Cal's O-line

I can't really dissect this properly, because one player could be the difference between Cal getting bottled up or taking the Ducks to task. You should see him plenty in the reels after the jump.

Hydro mentioned after last year's game how Allotti loved to bring a defensive back to take out the running back. You can see several times the defensive back (usually the free safety, which usually meant TJ Ward) sizing up the hole, then at the moment he senses run, starts targeting like a heat-seeking missile. One of the times the safety missed was when Best broke free for that long gain, albeit it ended in a fumble.

TJ Ward's health is crucial to Oregon's success at containing the run. You can see from this clip above how crucial Ward was in containing Best and Vereen; his ability to sniff out the run and quickly plug the gap kept the running backs from breaking into space. The dropoff is considerable after Ward, and I don't know exactly how the Ducks safeties stack up behind Ward.

You can also see that Oregon hits hard, so Cal's runners have got to be ready to maintain control of that football. Three rushing turnovers last season nearly cost the Bears dearly.

Although Riley appears to be a much better passer than he was a few seasons ago, I expect Oregon to, at least at the outset, play to contain Best and Vereen I doubt we'll see much difference in strategy from last season, especially on 1st and 2nd downs when the probability of run and pass are approximately equal. For all their struggles this season in various areas, one place the Ducks have remained consistent is guarding the run, and you can see from the video that their front seven has been equal to the task of pushing around Cal's usually solid offensive line.

This season there hasn't been a big dropoff. Yes, Boise State gashed them for 164 yards, but they needed FIFTY NINE CARRIES to get there. Utah, Boise State and Purdue are all upper tier schools in rushing yards per carry, and Oregon held them well under their respective averages.

Oregon has held Cal the last two seasons to an average of 3.38 rushing yards per carry, well below our general rushing average. So they've pulled all the stops to contain Forsett in 2007 and Best in 2008. If the Ducks are expected to pull out the stops against the run, the Bears will have to strip them will have to be won through the air.

Cal pass protection versus Oregon pass rush (or How I Am So Fucking Relieved Nick Reed is in the pros).

Reed was a one man wrecking crew in last year's game. Mitchell Schwartz did well for us in relief last year at left tackle, and Reed just chowed him down like moo goo gai pan.

1) First clip, :11-Reed blows by Schwartz, forces Riley to throw the football like a Thanksgiving turkey. I'm not sure whether Riley's trying the Tim Tebow leap pass here. It's close though.
2) :35--Cameron Morrah probably should've blocked a little bit better on that play before moving into receiving mode, Schwartz didn't seem like he had any chance of taking him up and can only manage a few weak arm shoves before Reed targets Riley.
3) :52--Right side completely collapses. Three defenders get untouched to the quarterback, it's a miracle Longshore even got that pass to Tucker.
4) 1:17--Perfect spin technique by Reed to blow by Schwartz, breaks up what might've been a touchdown to Morrah (although a safety was coming in fast).
5) 1:55--Reed lined up to the bottom against Edwards, and he absolutely smokes him. Plus there was a holding call. Safe to say the O-line was scrambling at this point.
6) 2:12--Mitchell is again caught looking with the spin move. GRAPPLE HIM Mitchell.
7) 2:41--"Sorry Mr. Schwartz, I do not want to participate in this tango." Gets up, screen pass broken out.
8) 3:00--Next play, lines up on Edwards, gets in unimpeded, even if a second too late. Longshore gets twirled like a Twizzler.

Nate Longshore and Kevin Riley were dinged around plenty, as they forced bad throws into traffic, or took sacks they shouldn't have taken. He'll make his mark with the Seahawks soon enough.

This year, the roles are reversed. With Reed gone, the responsibility for pass rush was supposed to fall to Will Tukuafu. So far he's been quiet, with fifteen tackles, but none for a loss. Oregon's pass rush this season has been non-existent. The Ducks averaged nearly 3 sacks a game last season, tied for 9th in the country. This year, they only have four through the first three games, along with only three quarterback hurries. Opposing quarterbacks have had their time to throw so far.

Cal's pass protection, however, has only been slightly better than it was last season (on average in terms of sacks, giving up five sacks and several hurries early on. Hopefully with Tepper and a maturing Schwartz, they can protect damaging sacks on the edge. Kenny Rowe (who has 2.5 of Oregon's sacks from the defensive end slot) seems the likeliest to get pressure, so watch what he does against the tackles.

Oregon's pass defense vs. Kevin Riley and his receivers

Defensive coordinator Nick Allotti is not a favorite of Oregon fans. He didn't look exceptionally good after USC's 44-10 trouncing of the Ducks, where Sanchez burned Oregon for 332 yards, 3 touchdowns on 68% completion rate. Although some of it was cover packages, it was also a case of corners cheating to stop the runs, biting on the play-fakes and getting burned for only putting one free safety in deep coverage.

Luckily, neither quarterback for the Bears could throw that well last season. Against Cal you saw a lot of soft zones, a lot of coverage packages determined to keep Best or Vereen from breaking into the screen. On one occasion when Oregon played close up man coverage they were scorched for a touchdown.

(Note: Understand I'm not an expert on defense. If I made any errors in formation or strategy please correct me and I'll edit them in, and attribute you for the help.)

1) (0:05) I think this is a Cover 4 deep (corners are playing back, safeties too). Best way to attack this is the outside flats (between the hash marks and the sideline), and Riley finds a wide-open Tucker along the out of bounds line. This could also be zone coverage (much like what Gregory runs on passing downs), since the corner seems to be playing a particular zone, trying to make the quarterback complete the throw. Also he could be trying to prevent a long run from the quarterback.

2) (0:36) Again, Riley targets the sideline to Tucker, who makes a great adjustment on the ball

3) (1:02) I believe this is Cover 1 Free (free safety is back to watch both sides of the field, see the replay at 1:19). Oregon stacks. Riley checks off the receiver on the strong side, freezes the free safety (notice him trailing to the top, where Riley's eyes are focused), then goes back and find Ross with a perfect strike. It helps that Wlater Thurmond was slow in recovering to Ross's original move.

4) (1:32) Iffy interference call on Thurmond, who seemed to play Tucker very well on the play, but it does show the benefit of having a receiver who can elevate on a dime and make it tough for the ref to judge whether the defender came too early or not.

5) (1:56) 3-2 Dime package. Six defensive backs and Longshore routinely completes a 4th and 14 on man-to-man? Talmadge Jackson III had some real passive coverage on this one. This play surprised me the most. (Note: Jackson will be Oregon's other corner in this game).

6) (2:23) 4-1 Dime package. Again another great pass to the sidelines to Sean Young, as Oregon's defense seems determined to play their zones and dare Cal's quarterbacks to make that throw to the sidelines. So far Riley and Longshore have converted three crucial 3rd downs aiming at the outside flats, two that broke down the zones in the right places (one was just a great adjustment and catch by Tucker).

7) (3:02) This should be noted for all Nate-haters out there, but Longshore KILLED Oregon. He didn't have achieve greatness by any means (13 for 27, 1 TD), but over his career he threw for a solid 57% completion rate, 6 touchdowns and 1 interception. You can get a sense of how he did it from plays like this; his ability to break down zone defenses and read coverages was impeccable. Danzig has more on his 2006-2007 exploits here.

8) (3:50) Another break down of the zone coverage at the sidelines to Tucker. I'm guessing we might see this play a bit.

Note to self: Watch Verran Tucker (who I assume will be the #1 receiver) versus Walter Thurmond, who I'm guessing will be assigned to him. This is a critical assignment for Thurmond, who must bottle up Tucker on man packages so the rest of the coverage can focus more on Marvin Jones and Ross.

The Ducks have played aggressive, breaking up 19 passes (top 10 in the nation!), including four interceptions, but I'd be very surprised to see Aliotti utilize a man-on-man strategy and not go back to deep coverage zones. Riley isn't Sanchez 2008, but he has been capable of throwing the deep ball properly this season. Expect plenty of cover schemes on obvious passing downs, in addition to the base 4-3 Oregon runs.

If Ludwig can show the multiplicity that he displayed in last week, will Oregon's secondary be able to read and react? The last three seasons the Ducks have lost the Bears game in spite of slowing the run game. It's been their touted corners and safeties who haven't been able to finish off Cal's receivers.

If Kevin Riley can throw a precise, 63-65% completion rate against Oregon's zone coverages, or open up the deep routes, which will in turn force more defensive backs into the game, which will in turn allow the offensive line easier blocking...it's Duck season.

Coming soon: Breaking down Oregon's zone read.

Poll

Who has to be the best offensive performer for the Bears to beat Oregon?

Kevin Riley

145 votes

Jahvid Best and Shane Vereen

81 votes

The receivers (Tucker, Jones and Ross)

32 votes

The offensive line

111 votes

369 votes | Poll has closed

Michigan State Post Game Thoughts

HydroTech — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:18:49 -0000

This is second (hopefully) in a 13 part series, this is my not so quicky summary of a few keys to the game.

via imgs.sfgate.com

So my day started off great. Before the game even started, as I was walking up the metal stairs in the student section, my shoes (with no traction) slipped on the metal seats and my right shin smashed against the metal seat of the higher row as I slipped forward. Within minutes, the whole shin was a bloody mess from a puncture and three inch laceration but the game was about to start so I figured I'd wait until I got home 6 hours later to clean myself up. Like any good Cal fan, my health is secondary to being at Memorial and supporting the team.

Anyways, here are my thoughts from the game. But be sure to check out the wonderful thoughts of CBKWit and Danzig. (Note, these are my thoughts post-game without rewatching the game on my tivo).

(1) First play of the game. Remember the last time Tedford tried a play like the first play of the game? That last time was against Baylor in 2002 for Tedford's first play as a head coach. By calling a halfback pass today, I think Tedford wanted to start the 2008 season with a similar bang and let Cal fans know that this was a new team compared to last year's team. Unfortunately, the pass was wobbly and underthrown and led to an incompletion when it possibly could have been a touchdown or at least a big gain.

(2) Javon Ringer is dead Ringer. I think CBKWit said that he doubted Ringer broke 100 yards. Well, he didn't. Ringer ran for only 81 yards. Of course, the yards per attempt is a much better indicator of a runningback's performance than total yardage. So what was Ringer's average? 3.0 yards per carry which is pretty sad by college football standards. I mean, that's talking like triple bogey in golf terminology. It's pretty ugly for a player of his caliber let alone any player in college football.

(3) No sacks on Hoyer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we didn't sack Hoyer once. I guess some credit is due to MSU's OL but it also makes me wonder if we're ever going to see some sacks from anyone on defense.

(4) Riley. Kid looked good out there. As Danzig said, he only made one "hero" throw and it was complete. He made a bunch of good throws, some great ones, and a few slightly off-target passes too. He did complete 17/24 of his passes, one of which was a purposeful throw-away so I suppose we can say he was 17/23 which is about a 74% completion percentage - that's VERY good. And as Danzig noted, if you adjust Riley's completion percentage for drops he would have been around the 85% completion rate. Overall, I'd say Riley did darn good. He wasn't perfect - a few passes were slightly off the mark (but still catchable). Nevertheless, I think this was pretty much an A- performance.

via imgs.sfgate.com

(5) Longshore. The first thing I noticed when Longshore took the field, was he seemed to have a sort of swagger. Like a "I'm a 5th year senior, I know what I'm doing, and I've got something to prove." Perhaps I'm making something out of nothing and perhaps I'm drawing upon my personal experiences watching Longshore for a year in in-season practices, but that's the way I felt he carried himself. I say he seemed like that because of the way he walked up under center and because he was very quick to get under center his entire first drive. Overall, I say again, it just seemed like he had something to prove. Indeed, I'm sure he thinks he does. And I think because of that, that's why he threw those two INTs. I haven't reviewed those plays on the tivo, but I just remember thinking, "wow, he really tried to thread the needle on those passes." And of course, if you have to thread the needle that much for a throw, you perhaps maybe shouldn't be quite throwing to that receiver - perhaps somebody else was open. I'm not going to second guess Longshore's decisions now because I haven't seen the replay yet, but upon first impression, I felt like Longshore was forcing things, and was playing like he had something to prove. In the end, I feel that Longshore definitely left a "reckless" impression both on Tedford and the fans.

(6) Booing. Okay, I know not everyone likes Longshore as a QB but I don't think we need to boo the guy. I'm not saying you have to applaud him or even cheer him, but at least not boo him.

via imgs.sfgate.com

(7) Cal's offensive playcalling. Perhaps it's just me, and perhaps I need to review the game film first, but it seemed like the playcalling with Riley was fairly conservative. Lots of easy swing passes, screens, and few straight dropbacks with downfield passing. In contrast, I felt like the playcalling changed with Longshore. I felt like the 6 plays when Longshore was in attacked deep. Was this only me? I'll need to see the tapes again but this is just my initial perception. Of course, the logic behind such playcalling is obvious; Longshore has more experience and Riley doesn't. Perhaps Cignetti was trying to ease Riley into the season with easier (but not necessarily easy themselves) playcalls.

(8) Best. Need I say much? He has good vision. He hits the hole fast. He's fast. He's shifty. We saw him more around the field and decoy a little bit. On kickoffs he was GREAT. I think I need not say much more.

(9) Boateng. First he doesn't make the starting lineup, then in his opening debut he drops two catchable passes. In his defense though, both of those passes could have been better. As the cliche goes though, if you get both your hands on the ball you have to catch it. In the end, the passes could have been better and the catch should have been a catch.

(10) Sean Young. It's hard not to like a guy who is a hard worker and is a 6th year senior seeing his first significant playing time EVER. All I have to say here, is that I'm rooting for Young. I remember working with him on scout team back in my heyday. He was always such a hard worker and gave 100% even though he was on scout. I was always very impressed with his effort. I'm sooo glad he's finally seeing all his hard work pay off into real playing time.

via imgs.sfgate.com

(11) New Cignetti offense. Frankly, I don't think I can say much until I see the game tape but I didn't see much of the "new" stuff that I saw in spring camp. We only saw some slightly new shotgun formations and a few plays of single-movement shifting. Perhaps Cignetti is keeping the fancy stuff for later in the season? I think so.

(12) Cal's 3-4 defense and defense in general. Well, aside from not sacking Hoyer, I'm pleased with how it performed against the run. As I already stated, Ringer was held to 3.0 yards per carry which is fairly poor by college standards. Hoyer only completed 41.6% of his passes which is craptacular. MSU did pick on Hagan instead of going towards Syd's side of the field, and that was to be expected. Nevertheless, Hagan did very well for his first career start.

(13) MSU offense. So MSU's offense was pretty different than from what I scouted in their game against Penn State last year. They didn't use the Maryland-I formation, they used different blocking schemes up front to counter our 3-4 defense. Nevertheless, I think we saw the fairly typical MSU style offense: run a lot then playaction.

(14) Hagan. I really thought Hagan was going to win the starting job over Conte last year. Of course, he didn't but now this year Hagan beat out Conte. Frankly, what I saw from Hagan today didn't surprise me. Even when Hagan was on scout team a few years ago, I was always impressed with his gaminess. Today, aside from giving up outside passes 3-4 times, which I must say is understandable considering our CBs were mostly playing inside leverage (they are playing inside of the WRs forcing the WRs to towards the sidelines), he played very well and better than Conte ever did last year (yes, I truly do think so). This isn't a knock against Conte and saying that Conte is bad, but what I saw from Hagan today was much better than anything I've seen from Conte last year. Hagan has two years under his belt and it showed today with his resilience despite giving up completions and being picked on, his tackling (again, superior than Conte) and having INTs overturned. I think by the end of the game, we were all rooting for Hagan to FINALLY nab that elusive INT. I mean, he had 2 taken away (more or less). He had like 4 deflected balls land within fingertip reach of him. He had an INT go right off his hands in the 4th quarter. It's amazing how many times he almost intercepted Hoyer's balls (Ed Note: HydroTech was totes obsessed with Hoyer's balls throughout the game).

via imgs.sfgate.com

(15) Syd. Well, isn't it ironic that the red-shirt freshman CB who got picked on by Tennessee in 2006 is now the feared CB on the Cal defense? MSU went towards Hagan all day long. I think they threw towards Syd only 4-5 times and perhaps only completed two pass on Syd. Syd also had a handful of GREAT pass breakups. If Hagan and Syd keep getting better, we could have a great pair of corners next year.

(16) Anger. Dude got some kicks. CBKWit has a huge man-crush on him... and I do too now. 48 yard per punt average!!!

(17) Morrah. Prior to this game, most of us here at the CGB were thinking he was going to have a huge year. After this game, I think all of us here at the CGB are still thinking he's going to have a huge year. Morrah had 5 catches for 93 yards and has proved to be a great option in the center of the field. I think things will only get better.

(18) Final thoughts. MSU fans should be concerned. Frankly, Cal kept MSU in the game. Cal had a bunch of crappy plays (roughing the punter, bobbled punt-snap) and turnovers (2 INTs) which kept MSU in the game. If Cal had not committed those errors, this game would have been over in the 3rd quarter with a score along the lines of 35ish to 7 or so. Cal was only a few mistakes, and a few bad calls (PI on Mohammed & perhaps a reverse of a Hagan INT) away from TOTAL domination of MSU.

Cal fans, I think we can be happy with today's game. Yes, it was a bit too close for comfort but we saw positive answers to our two biggest questions:

(a) How is our 3-4 defense going to fair? Answer: pretty good

(b) Is Riley going to continue to play like an all-star? Answer: yes.

Poll

Who was the MVP for the MSU game?

Kevin Riley (17/24, 202 yds., 2 TDs)

126 votes

Jahvid Best (289 all-purpose yds. 1 TD)

174 votes

Cameron Morrah (5 rec. 93 yards 1 TD)

14 votes

Sean Young (4 rec. 81 yards)

4 votes

Anthony Felder (12 total tackles; 1 TFL)

9 votes

Marcus Ezeff (9 total tackles; 2 PBU)

3 votes

Me (Watching the game through pain!)

14 votes

344 votes | Poll has closed