SB Nation User Blog: HydroTech

Cal vs. Stanfurd, Post-112th Big Game Thoughts

HydroTech — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:09:50 -0000

More photos » by Marcio Jose Sanchez - AP

18 days ago: California players celebrate an interception by Mike Mohammed (18) late in the fourth quarter against Stanford during a NCAA college football game in Stanford, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009. California won 34-28. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

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(1) Tedford's decision to center the ball on 3rd and 8 was a conservative decision but not a wrong decision. Let's get something out of the way first. Tedford centered the ball. He didn't take a knee. I see a lot of people, and newspaper writers who seem to think the only point of that play was to not stop the clock and make Stanfurd use their last timeout. If those were the only reasons, then Tedford would have just called a run play. But Tedford centered the ball. Centering the ball places the ball directly between the hash marks to give the kicker a straight-line kick. As we all know, the further you move left or right from directly between the hash marks, the smaller the width of the uprights become due to the angle. Thus, centering the ball is more crucial in college football than the NFL because the hash marks in college football are wider than the NFL. And centering the ball is also more crucial the closer you get to the goalline because the angle of the kick is harsher from the 10 yard line right hash (for example) as opposed to the 30 yard line right hash. In short, Tedford centered the ball. He did not just "take a knee."

This decision to center the ball was clearly a conservative decision. I personally would have run the ball left (because Cal was on the right hash). Running the ball left serves two purposes: (1) it keeps the clock running; and (2) it can potentially center the ball. Of course the runningback might take the ball outside one of the hashes rather than keeping the ball between the hashes and thus the ball is no more centered than it was earlier, but the benefit of actually running the ball is that there is a potential to score a touchdown. By centering the ball, Tedford gave up any chance that Cal might score a touchdown. At the time of that 3rd and 8, Cal was up 31-28 with about 2:45 left on the clock in the 4th quarter. A touchdown would have made the game 38-28 (assuming Cal goes for the PAT and makes it). That would have made the game a two-score game and essentially would have iced the game - or at least made it very difficult for Stanfurd to come back. On the other hand, centering the ball and kicking the field goal merely assured that Stanfurd needed a touchdown to win, as opposed to 10 points to tie or 11 points to win (if Cal had scored a touchdown on the 3rd and 8 with a play).

I suppose it's possible that the team could have executed a run play to the left and told Vereen to directly between the hashes as much as possible. Such a play preserves the chances of getting a touchdown (although those chances are probably reduced because Vereen is restricted to his running space), but it also serves the purpose of centering the ball (although the centering probably won't be as accurate as a QB-centering).

I do believe that centering the ball is more important than most critics of Tedford's decision realize. This should not be confused with saying that centering the ball is extremely important. However, critics of Tedford's decision don't even mention the lowered chances of a successful field goal kick from a far hash at extremely close range. To them, it appears, as if there is no difference between kicking a field goal from the 11 yard line far hash, and from the 11 yard line center. This is where they are wrong. Clearly there is a difference and kicking from a far hash is harder. How much of a difference does it make? It's a small one. Small enough that many coaches will just ignore the diminished percentage, and essentially trade a slightly bigger chance at missing the field goal for a chance at scoring a touchdown by running a play on 3rd down instead of centering the ball. Using numbers, it might sound like this: a kicker has a 95% chance at making a field from the 11 yard line center; a kicker has a 90% chance at making a field goal from the 11 yard line far hash; and the team has a 15% chance at scoring a touchdown on a run play from the 11 yard line. Most coaches will gladly take a 5% less chance at a field goal to keep that 15% chance of scoring a touchdown. Obviously Tedford isn't one of those coaches.

Was Tedford's decision wrong? No. I don't think so. There are two ways to win the game in Cal's situation. You go for a touchdown on third down, and if you get it, you ice the game with a 10 point lead. Or you kick the field goal, go up 6 points, and force the offense to score a touchdown. Both ways are valid ways to win. Of course one is more conservative than the other, or one is more aggressive than the other, but neither way is wrong. What is a wrong decision in football? Had Tedford passed the ball on the 3rd down to get a touchdown, I think that would be a wrong decision. You clearly want to run the ball on the 3rd down to make the offense use its last timeout. Even if Tedford passed the ball and Cal scored a touchdown, I would still criticize the decision as being wrong. Anyways, I don't think Tedford's decision is "wrong" as so many of his critics suggest. Conservative? Sure.

If you want to talk about "wrong" decisions, then let's talk about Stanfurd Head Coach Jim Harbaugh's decision to go for it on 4th and 8 on his own 23 yard line with 3 timeouts remaining. That was wrong. That decision pretty much gave Cal a very good chance at scoring a touchdown that would have put Stanfurd into a 10 point hole, and at the very least it gave Cal an extremely good chance at a field goal which would put Stanfurd into a 6 point hole. The 6 point hole now required that Stanfurd get a touchdown to at least tie the game or win it. On the other hand, if Stanfurd had punted the ball on the 4th down and subsequently forced Cal's offense to punt on Cal's next possession, then Stanfurd would only need a field goal to tie the game. If Stanfurd scored a touchdown, they would have gone up 35-31 which then would have required Cal to get a touchdown to win the game.

Clearly, Tedford's decision to center the ball on 3rd down was conservative, but it was nowhere near as "wrong" as Harbaugh's decision to go for it on 4th and 8 from his own 23. That decision was clearly wrong (no quotes).

Addendum:

Coincidentally, Cal's first field goal of the game, was from the 11 yardline right hash - the very same position that Cal was in during the 4th quarter with just under three minutes remaining. Tedford had no problem kicking the field goal from the far hash then. On their face, these situations seem the same, and people might suggest that Tedford's actions were inconsistent. But the situations were slightly different. The first field goal kick was early in the game and Cal had tons of time left in the game to score again even if the field goal was missed. But the second situation was near the end of the game. Cal needed points and knew that they might not get the ball back this game. Thus, the added risk of a far hash kick may be less acceptable, hence why Tedford centered the ball.

And, of course, CGB did delve even further into these decisions last week, which you can read about here.

(2) Tedford should have gone for it on 4th and less than one yard. Another conservative decision. I personally would have gone for it. It's hard for the defense to prevent the offense from gaining less than a yard. That first down which never occurred could have led to a touchdown drive or perhaps another field goal.

(3) Gregory kept the 3-4 defense on the field on most third downs. When Cal forces opponent offense into 3rd downs, Cal usually brings out its 3-3 defense. However, in Big Game, the first thing I noticed was Gregory keeping the 3-4 defense out on the field for third downs, even third and longs. Why? He clearly wanted greater run support against Stanfurd runningback Tony Gearhart. Cal's pass rushing linebackers, and nickleback are less effective in run support than Cal's bigger 3-4 linebackers. I liked this decision by Gregory. It did concern me though because this decision also allows Stanfurd to put a slot WR against LBs. That is a huge mismatch that Stanfurd tried to exploit, but believe it or not, Cal's linebackers played very well and didn't allow too many easy completions against them.

(4) The wildcat might be better served if it handed the ball off to Sofele on the fly sweep more often. When Cal uses wildcat, the runningback will usually keep the ball. Usually may be an understatement. I think that perhaps 95% of the time, the RB will keep the ball. Stanfurd's defense was clearly not respecting the fly sweep action much during Big Game and was just hitting their interior gaps to stop Vereen. They were pretty successful too, as since Vereen was mostly limited to tough 2-4 yard gains. If Cal handed the ball off about as equally as the RB kept the ball, it would get the defense into more of a read-and-react mode allowing the offensive line to push back the DL with more ease, and freeze outside defenders who are responsible for outside containment of the fly sweep allowing Sofele to gain an advantage. But since Ludwig has the RB keep the ball a very high percentage of the time, the defense is less likely to be read-and-react, and will just play the RB as opposed to the fly sweep.

(5) Cal's offensive line shows up for once! The run blocking clearly wasn't the best we'd ever seen, and perhaps it wasn't even "great" but it was better than we have seen for a couple of months now. I don't know what Marshall did during the week to motivate the guys, but it seemed to work.

(6) Trick plays; the flea flicker. When they work, everyone heaps praise on the coaches. When they don't work, everyone always says something like "that was a wasted play, why'd they get fancy when they didn't need to?" The announcers said pretty much exactly that after Cal tried to run a flea flicker. Cal's intended WR (Boateng?) was open deep too and had beaten the deep defender. That could have been a touchdown if Riley had space to step up into the pocket. But instead, Cal's LG (Summers-Gavin) got beat very badly on the play. The LG lost his individual battle and his defender was the one who pressured Riley to scramble and throw the ball away. Again, it takes 10 men winning their individual position battles and executing for plays to work.

(7) Cal throws in a new blocking scheme! Cal's past power running scheme has utilized a backside pulling guard. There have always been just one pulling blocker. But against Stanfurd we saw the revealing of a new scheme where Cal had two pulling blockers. This occurred out of the 12 personnel set (1 RB, 2 TEs, 2 WRs). Cal would put two TEs to one side of the formation. One TE would be on the LOS in their normal position just outside of the offensive tackle, and the second TE (sometimes called H-back) would be just back and outside of the first TE. The side that the two TEs are lined up on is the strong side. Cal would actually run to the weakside and pull the strongside guard (the backside guard), and the second TE. This play works well theoretically for two reasons: (1) it breaks Cal's tendency to run strongside; and (2) it makes it riskier for the defense to overload on the strong side of the offensive formation in anticipation of a strongside run. Cal also ran this same scheme with 21 personnel (2 backs, 1 TE, 2 WRs) from the Weak-I formation using the fullback on a pull in lieu of the second TE.

(8) The outside zone returns! I'm not really sure why Big Game was the game that it made a reappearance. But in the 4th quarter we saw it run a few times. Perhaps Ludwig saw something schematically that he wanted to exploit, but that doesn't quite explain why we didn't see the outside zone earlier on in the game. Or, perhaps Ludwig felt that the Stanfurd defense was getting tired and would be too slow to stop the outside zone. He did use a new wrinkle in that he used some pre-snap motion to the playside with the fullback. This pre-snap motion gives the fullback a head start on his block, and allows him to get further outside.

(9) Cal covered up the TEs a lot. This was actually something that I did notice slightly during the game but had forgotten about by the time I got home. Commenter Missing Barry asked me about this, and despite his questioning I still didn't recall these plays. But after watching the game again, yes, I did finally remember some of these plays.

Cal rarely covers up their TEs. By "covering" or "covering up" I mean that the TEs become ineligible receivers and thus cannot go downfield for a pass. Cal rarely does this because it removes the TE as a passing threat to the defense. Why does Cal do it then? Well, if covering up the TE removes it as a passing threat to the defense, then the TE becomes a blocking threat to the defense. Because of this, the defense has to respect the run a little more. And that's just what Cal wanted the defense to do. Cal, in formations where the TE was covered up, would mostly playaction pass. In other words, Cal purposely used formations where the TE was covered up to cause the defense to bite harder on the run-fake (because the defense expected run due to a covered TE), to open up the pass.

When Cal covers up the TEs, it's usually out of the I-formation with twin WRs to the side of the TE (the strong side). Because the rules requires that the offense have at least seven men on the line of scrimmage (LOS), one of the WRs has to be on the LOS. 5 OL guys, plus 1 TE, plus 1 WR, equals 7 men on the LOS. However, in these formations that Missing Barry noticed, Cal was covering the TE up with 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TEs, 2 WRs) rather than the usual 21 personnel (2 backs, 1 TE, 2 WRs) for I-formation.

(10) Cal's punt which was blocked was due to a player not winning his individual battle. I know we all love to hat ("hate" for all you CGBers, or non-CGBers who are unfamiliar with our slang) on Alamar but I'm not sure we can blame that blocked punt on him. Cal's long snapper, Rios, missed his block pretty bad and thus his defender got into the backfield for the block. I know lots of people might be thinking, "well, It's Alamar's job to prepare his players so if they mess up then its the coach's fault." My response is that the players play the game and not the coaches. At some point, you have to stop blindly blaming the coaches and you have to start looking at the individual players. Does this mean I don't think Alamar is on the proverbial hot seat? No. He definitely is. Not for this blocked punt, but for many years of sub-par kick return and especially kickoff coverage.

My point here is that there isn't a lot or any blame to be placed on Alamar for this blown play. It wasn't a scheme issue or confusion between players on who to block. All the Cal blockers knew who to block, it was just a matter of the defender beating the long snapper. Rios just got beat bad. He knew it too. Despite him recovering the blocked punt, after the play he had his head down and slowly walked off the field. He knew he was responsible for that block.

(11) The 112th Big Game was perhaps Riley's most clutch game. I don't know if I would say it was his best game. That was probably the Maryland game earlier this year where Riley finished with a 65.4% completion rate, four touchdowns, and zero interceptions. But Riley sure was clutch towards the second half of the game. He got yardage when nobody was open, and he threw some great balls too.

I sort of hate using that whole cliche "maturity" line, but after the Arizona State game and this game, I do feel like Riley's matured. Matured not in the sense that he's been messing around and now he's finally decided to get his head in the game, but matured in that he's seasoned. He's seen it all. He's been through lots. He's played in a variety of situations to the point where it's nothing new and he's more familiar with things. He's probably less rattled about the situations than before. And I hate making these kind of statements based off of snippets of TV coverage, but he did just seem more calm, poised, and "in the zone" than ever before.

In the podcast this week, some of my fellow Marshawnthusaists expressed the idea that perhaps Riley is now the second best QB of the Tedford era. I whole-heartedly disagree with such a notion (imo, at least two other QBs come to mind before Riley), but I do admit that this game has inched him up the ladder a little bit. If he really turns things around in 2010, perhaps he can take the title of the second best QB of the Tedford era, but that's going to take a lot of work.

(13) Empty set is killer. I love empty (when Cal spreads out the defense with five receivers - and not necessarily wide receivers). I love it for two reasons: (1) Cal seems to be fairly successful out of it; (2) if nobody is open Riley seemingly is always able to run for a few yards of gain. I'm glad that we've seen the use of empty formation increase over the past few weeks. I've been advocating for it quite a bit as since Cal usually runs seam routes, and vertical routes out of this formation and those routes are routes that Riley is pretty good at hitting.

In previous post-game thoughts against Arizona, I've noted how Ludwig had been using 5 WRs in the empty set. Such an observation was significant because Cal used to only use 11 personnel (3 WRs, 1 TE, 1 RB) out of empty. So the switch to 5 WRs out of empty was a surprise. But in Big Game, Cal went back to using 11 personnel. Why this special change? Well, first of all, using 11 personnel helps disguise the empty set. Cal uses 11 personnel in other formations, so when Cal sends 11 personnel into the huddle the defense doesn't really know if Cal is going to line up in empty or another regular formation. But when Cal was using 5 WRs for empty (and Cal only uses 5 WRs for empty and nothing else), the opposing defenses knew they would be seeing an empty formation. Because the defense knows this prior to the defense breaking the huddle, the defense can call a play in response to not only just the personnel group, but the formation too; whereas with using 11 personnel, the defense can only call a defensive play in response to the personnel grouping and not formation.

Side Note: The defense can call a play in response to the offense's formation without seeing the formation post breaking of the huddle based on tendencies. For example, Cal usually passes from shotgun on 3rd and long. Defenses, can extrapolate from this and can make the (generally correct) assumption that if Cal sends 11 personnel on the field, that they are going to see a shotgun formation too.

Cal was also using a little neat trick with the empty sets to get player mis-matches. Specifically, Ludwig would put the TE and RB out as the widest receivers leaving the slot receivers (the WRs) inside and lined up against safeties and linebackers. This is a very simple tactic to get mismatches. I will cover this in-depth in a frame by frame analysis later on.

(14) Luck's ill-fated pass. So Mohamed did a great job reading Luck's eyes and getting the perfect depth. Even if Mohamed wasn't there, I think Cattouse might have INTed the ball anyways. Cattouse was on the intended receiver like white on rice. If Cattouse hadn't intercepted the ball, he definitely would have at least defended the ball. I can see why Luck thought his receiver was open, because his guy definitely was for a moment. But by the time that Luck threw the ball, and by the time the ball would have gotten to the intended receiver, Cattouse had cut in front of the intended receiver to defend the pass. What Luck needed was to put more air under the ball to get it over Mohamed. But more air under the ball might not have helped anyways actually because Cattouse was there to pick anything thrown near him. So I guess what I'm saying is Luck was screwed even if Mohamed wasn't there and even if Luck had put more air under the ball like he had wanted to.

(15) Vereen rushes 42 times! Not much to say here but Vereen was beastly. Sure he's a bit slower than Best, but what he lacks in pure speed, he makes up for in his uncanny ability to gain a few extra yards when surrounded by four defenders and having no business getting any additional yards. He just has that subtle elusiveness to intricately weave through the defenders and trash to get those yards nobody really thinks he'd get. I suppose this is a bit surprising because Cal really hasn't had a RB like him before. Previous RBs just brutally powered their way through the trash and defenders (Lynch, Arrington, Echemandu). Best sort of puts his head down and runs through them but without tons of power. But Vereen just kind of slips through them - like magic.

(16) Cal owns the time of possession 39 minutes to 21 minutes. Stanfurd's defense had to have been tired. Being on the field for that long, having to defend 88 offensive plays!!! Geez. Cal has been averaging 65.2 plays per game prior to Big Game with a 4.87 standard deviation. It's been a while since done statistics, but doesn't that mean something like 95% of the data points will be within two standard deviations greater than and less than the mean? So that means 95% of the time Cal will run anywhere from 55.46 to 74.94 plays per game. Running 88 plays in a game put Cal 4.68 standard deviations above the mean! That's ridic. Straight ridic. Perhaps this is why Ludwig wanted to try some outside zone late in the game; he wanted to see if the Furd defense had the energy in them to defend the outside.

(17) Cool story, Hansel. So my parents' neighbor went to Big Game. He apparently knew some big Furd donor and got to go with him to the game or got his tickets or something. The Furd donor has luxury box suites. The neighbor got to the stadium early before most of the fans got there. In the luxury boxes, there was tons of free food around. My neighbor, taking advantage of the situation, began gorging himself on all the food set out for the rich Furd donors who hadn't arrived yet - everything from fancy burgers to monster sized hotdogs. When the Furd donors arrived, they were quite stereotypically, old and white. Stanfurd, quite intelligently, had a coffee bar in the luxury suite area so the old fogies could stimulate themselves to an awake state to watch the game. Also, quite intelligently, the luxury suite area had a full bar where the rich donors could then drink themselves into a stupor after the loss. Some famous people that were in attendance in the luxury suites: Condoleezza Rice, and Jim Plunkett. Best part of this story: the old Furd donors did not appreciate the loud cheers of the neighbor. Quite literally, when the neighbor would cheer, the old Furd donors would turn around to him and say for him to not cheer so loud. Something about the cheering overloading their hearing aids or something. How rude of the neighbor. Doesn't he know that he's at a football game? You're not supposed to make noise!

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Bonus Thoughts from college football games from the weekend of Friday, November 27th, to Saturday, November 28th.

Texas vs. Texas A&M - Exciting game. Texas A&M got risky and frisky with some blitzes and man coverage. They got burned. Perfect examples of what can happen when you roll the dice. I'm not saying Cal shouldn't be more aggressive (sending more pass rushers) on defense because this is what happens, but this certainly is what can happen. We should all be aware of the risks. Also, if I recall correctly, Texas A&M missed a short field goal from far hash that could have made a difference in the game. Just another reason why perhaps Tedford isn't completely crazy for centering the ball on that 3rd and 8.....

Alabama vs. Auburn - Auburn really showed some 2-minute drill ineptitude at the end of the game. They needed to drive the field in about a minute, and ended up calling about 3 plays in all that time. Their QB was confused. The coaches weren't getting playcalls into the game quickly. It was one ugly hot mess. That is what happens when you don't practice the 2-minute drill and you don't have a system to get playcalls into the game quickly. Thankfully, you'll never really see Cal do the epic failure that Auburn did. First of all, Cal practices its two-minute drill every practice. Every single day, they practice scoring in under two minutes.

Second, and I've talked about this before, but Ludwig has installed a great two-minute drill system. In previous years, the sideline QBs would signal in the playcall to the starting QB. The signals would take a few seconds to signal in, and then the starting QB would spend another 15 seconds telling the play to the players - in actual team language. Meaning, the defense can hear what the offense's playcall is. Sometimes, you can figure out what parts of the play will be based on the terminology (some of the terminology was too closely tied to the words/routes that they were meant to represent). But now, the sideline QB just signals in a number, one through nine. This takes about half a second. The QB will then yell out the number to the offense. All the offense players have those 9 plays memorized. The players need only to merely line up and run their play. This takes less time than the previous system. The additional benefit of the new system is that the actual playcall terminology isn't being yelled out by the QB so the defense can't hear it, thus further protecting the playcall.

To Center the Ball? Or to Not Center the Ball?

Texas vs. Texas A&M - aTm doesn't center the ball and misses a short field goal that would have made a difference in the game.

Arkansas vs. LSU - Arkansas doesn't center the ball and misses a short game-tying overtime field goal.

Arizona vs. Arizona State - Stoops centers the ball for a game winning field goal and the kick is good.

It's like the football gods are talking to us and telling us to center the football. This weekend might be the undeniable proof that so many center-the-ball haters need to finally appreciate Tedford's decision.

Cal vs. Arizona Post-Game Thoughts

HydroTech — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:32:47 -0000

More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

25 days ago: Arizona quarterback Nick Foles (8) signals a touchdown after teammate Keola Antonin scored against California during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009, in Berkeley, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

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(1) Cal won. Yay. I'll admit, I wasn't optimistic going into the game. I figured the safe bet was a Cal loss - a big loss. So when the game stayed close, and the fourth quarter came around, I felt like me and the entire stadium started believing - believing that we really could win the game. I mean, not in the theoretical sense that every game is winnable. But the sense that yeah, if we really stuck it out, got loud, played tough, that we would will a win. I can't remembered the stadium being that into the game in a long time. Memorial does get loud in key situations during your typical game but last Saturday there was energy in the air, and not just noise.

(2) Cal won thanks to its defense but Gregory still needs to go. Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass that Cal won because of the defense. Gregory needs to go. The dude was still only rushing four pass rushers most downs. Doesn't he understand that you have to pressure the QB? Let's not forget that we only sacked their QB three times. That is unacceptable. I'd be willing to have anyone, even TwistNHook as our defensive coordinator. Anybody but Gregory, please.

(3) I was kidding about #2. Did I fool anyone?

(4) Cal having deep coverage issues? I want to talk about that play where the Arizona was driving north and the Arizona QB rolled out right and threw a floater into the endzone towards an undefended WR. The play was broken up by Mohamed but still... something didn't go right that play. I think it's safe to assume that something didn't go right on that play when there is an undefended receiver 40 yards down the field... and the closest defender to that receiver is a.... linebacker. This play was in the first quarter with 6:25 remaining (for those of you who want to look at it).

I watched over that play a few times and in reminded me of something. Oh yeah, it reminded me of that play against Arizona State where the ASU QB threw an 80 yard touchdown on the defense because we lost our backside safety on the deep half coverage. There are a few differences between the plays. ASU's intended WR was located in the slot formation to the opposite side of the field prior to the snap, and against Arizona the intended WR was located in nearside slot lined up directly on Cal's left safety (defense's left). But on both plays, the offense's right most WR, the one to the side of Cal's left safety (defense's left), ran curl routes. On both plays it appears as if Cal's left safety (against Arizona that was Johnson) jumped down on that outside curl route vacating his deep coverage (assuming Cal's defense was in a two-deep, which I think it was).

I think opposing offensive coordinators are onto something. They must be seeing that Johnson is quick to bite on underneath routes. In fact, I think Arizona specifically designed this play to attack Cal's left deep safety. From the very start of the snap, Foles is looking at the intended WR straight down the field. Arizona's decoy WR, the one running the curl, was very lazy in his route running. He didn't put forth the effort which a WR would when he knows the ball might be coming to him. In other words, that WR knew the ball wasn't coming to him.

Attacking Johnson makes sense. Of him and Cattouse, he seems to be the more aggressive of the two when it comes to reacting on the ball. Furthermore, his range (ability to cover ground) is less than that of Cattouse. The lesser range makes it harder for him to compensate for a blown coverage - like the one Arizona was hoping he'd blow.

Anyways, it's hard to tell exactly what happened on that play because Versus was zooming in their cameras too much, but I'll just recap what I think happened one last time. Cal defense in two-deep zone with underneath zones too. Arizona wants to attack Cal's left safety. Arizona right-most WR runs curl hoping to get Cal left safety to bite. Cal left safety bites vacating his deep 1/2 of the field. Arizona slow WR runs right up into the vacated zone for an easy touchdown pass. Praise be to ~~Gregory~~ (Gregory is an idiot and needs to be fired) any idol except for Gregory that Mohamed got enough depth on his original coverage to make a play on the ball, and did not vacate his zone to assist in QB pursuit.

(5) What did Gregory do?!?! So Cal's defense goes from le suck to dope like a click of the switch. Why? Was I completely wrong in saying that I think Cal's defense just isn't that talented? No, I don't think so. I still think the defense as a whole, isn't that great, but last Saturday they just played really really well. Players were timely to the ball - something we really haven't seen a lot. Our pass rush was getting through on frequently enough occasion - even with just four pass rushers!!! Oh noes! Hell hath frozen over!

I wish I could give more of a detailed answer, but I'm not entirely sure what Gregory did differently this week if anything at all. I just pulled an all-nighter practicing a new mango chicken mole recipe and I'm like half asleep and drooling on my keyboard right now, and I haven't had much time to go through the defense game film to see what's up. So I can't really say what he did differently.

And actually, I don't think that Gregory actually did much differently. We played our usual zones, or so it seemed to my amateur eye seated on the 50 yard line. We pass rushed four pass rushers. They would twist (stunt) occasionally. The defense seemed focus on bringing the pressure right up into Foles' face rather than from the edges. Two-deeps. Cover 3 with Syd in center field - nothing new there. But other than that, the gameplan seemed pretty normal. I didn't happen to notice any corner or safety blitzes. And for the record, we still use these blitzes. We just don't notice them because our blitz is getting picked up instead of resulting in sacks.

A good friend of mine, whom I brainstorm Cal Football with, did have the time to give the defensive film more of a look. He noted that Gregory was bringing a linebacker pass rushers through the A-gaps quite frequently. My friend noted that the linebacker would line up behind the Cal NT prior to the snap so the offense's two guards and center wouldn't know which gaps the two defenders would hit, thus causing confusion and hesitation along the Arizona OL. I went back and looked at the film for a little bit while my chicken mole was cooking, and indeed, that seemed to be one of the strategies.

(6) Vereen is the better trash and poor-blocking running back of our two RBs. By trash, I mean strewn and downed defenders, as well as the offense's own blockers. When there is a lot of trash in the runningback's way or vicinity, or there is poor blocking, I think Vereen is a little more adept at getting the yards than Best. Vereen has a subtle elusiveness to him that makes guys miss. Not in the Sportscenter type of huge stutter step or juke stick (for you NCAA College Football kids) kind of way, but he just gives a little stop, shimmy, or shake to make a guy miss just enough so he can push forward for another few yards. Best on the other hand, he's more of a big play guy that needs space. He's more prone to pause to wait and see how the trash sorts itself out in an attempt to get that huge gain, rather than pushing forward for those few yards. And when he does push forward, he just barrels through.

(7) Riley had his typical try-too-hard game. Like I've said in previous posts, the kid means well and is a competitor and blah blah blah and he's trying to win. But he's got to learn that in some situations he just has to get control over his overwhelming desire to make a play, and just be safe with the ball so the offense can try again on the next down. I'm talking about that cross field bomb to Boateng that was INTed. Just run with. He could have run for a few yards of gain. And his second INT, I get he was trying to throw it away, but sometimes you just have to take the sack too. On the positive side, Riley did have a few good throws here and there.

(8) I liked the opening drive playcalling.

1st play - 21 personnel, crackback toss. We haven't seen these crackback tosses in a while. We used them a ton against Miami in the Emerald Bowl with a large amount of success. Although our OL doesn't seem to be the most athletic OL in past years, I like this play because it moves the point of attack away from the center of the field which is where we've been concentrating our attack for the past few games.

2nd play - 21 personnel, zone run to the weakside. Haven't really ran weakside too much all year. Ludwig is letting the defense know that he'll run weakside so they shouldn't be too aggressive to the strong side.

3rd play - empty set, seam pass. Seam passes are one of Riley's best passes. Seam routes and four verticals should be staple plays in the Cal playbook. We have seen these plays a fair amount this season, but perhaps maybe not enough.

4th play - 12 personnel, playaction QB boot. Nice way to move the QB, and get the ball to Marvin Jones for an easy completion.

5th play - 12 personnel, masked inside zone using a TE in the slot, motion the TE back to center to cut the backside defender. We added this play a few weeks ago.

Anyways, I like these plays because these plays are all staple plays that Cal has used frequently in the past. The team is familiar with them and can probably execute them very well.

(9) A little old and a little new. Ludwig brought back a little bit of old stuff by using the crackback toss run play that we saw so much in 2008 and especially during the Emerald Bowl. We also utilized a backside tackle pull on another play. We haven't seen those types of blocking schemes since Dunbar was our offensive coordinator in 2006. I liked seeing these plays getting dusted off and used because it adds some diversity to the offense.

As for the new, Cal is now using 5 WRs in its empty set. In previous years, Cal has used primarily 11 personnel out of empty (3 WRs, 1 TE, 1 RB). Why has there been this change? Perhaps Ludwig feels that the receiving threat posed by the fourth and fifth WRs is greater than that of the TE and RB that would normally be in with 11 personnel. Such reasoning seems very plausible considering that Alex Lagemann comes in as one of the 4th and 5th WRs, and is often targeted on those plays too.

(10) Ludwig seems to be attacking the middle of the field a bit more. In the past, Cal has frequently shied away from passes over the middle of the field. If you imagine the 3 by 3 grid of a phone dialing pad, Cal has shied away from the number 5 and number 8 - those numbers representing the short middle and mid-range middle of the field. But it seems like in Cal has been a bit more willing to make some passes over the center. We've seen a few slants this year in an attempt to get the ball over the short middle. Alex Lagemann, as one of the 5 WRs in our empty sets has frequently made short and medium catches over the middle. I like this development. Ideally, you'd really like to be able to attack all over the field (all over the 3 x 3 grid) and not regulate yourselves, or let the defense regulate you to passes only in certain sectors.

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Sorry for the tardiness of this post and any weirdness in it. It's been a long day.

Cal vs. Oregon State Post-Game Thoughts

HydroTech — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:19:29 -0000

by Ben Margot - AP

about 1 month ago: Oregon State's Jacquizz Rodgers, right, outruns California defense to score during the fourth quarter of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009, in Berkeley, Calif. Oregon State won 31-14. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

View full size photo »

(1) To send more pass rushers or to not send more pass rushers? For most of the game Gregory was sending 4 pass rushers. Sometimes he'd send 5 if he was feeling a little frisky. But for the most part, only 4 pass rushers were devoted to pressuring Canfield. I agree with this strategy. I do not think more pass rushers should have been sent to pressure Canfield.

I'm sure that last sentence is quite shocking to a lot of Cal fans - especially the ones advocating for a more aggressive defense that sends more than just three or four pass rushers. Even I, initially, in the CGB podcast last week, suggested that perhaps this is the game where Gregory just needs to get crazy ultra aggressive and send lots of pass rushers because Canfield is so good that he can pick apart 7 and 8 man zones anyways.

I made that statement prior to seeing film on Canfield. Subsequently (but still prior to the game), I was directed to some video of Canfield's completions against USC's defense over at Trojanfootballanalysis.com. After seeing that film, I decided that blitzing Canfield was not really the correct strategy. Why? Canfield gets the ball out so quickly and efficiently. He hits his TEs and RBs on short check-downs to neutralize the blitz. When an offense's QB can get the ball out quickly against a blitzing defense, it just neutralizes the blitz and allows the offense to gain big yardage (see the final Cal drive of the 2009 Cal vs. Arizona State game for a pretty good Cal example of this). Blitzing against an offense that can get the ball out that quickly and efficiently is extremely risky, and has much less reward than normal blitzing strategies. Canfield was getting the ball out extremely quick - and against USC's very fast pass rush too! USC's pass rush is much faster than Cal's pass rush, yet Canfield neutralized them. It doesn't matter if Cal was sending five or six pass rushers per down to get a quicker pass rush, Canfield still probably would have been able to get the ball out. He did it against USC's faster defense and I have little doubt he would have done it to Cal's defense.

So what do you do? How do you defend such an efficient QB? Play really good coverage. Tighten up those zones. Make Canfield hold onto the ball longer and pray that your pass rush gets to him. Perhaps man up, play man coverage, and a little bump and run to knock the QB/WR timing off.

But I'm sure most of us are thinking that Cal is no good at playing coverage. That is true. But Cal is pretty bad at pass rushing the QB too. Essentially Gregory is presented with two evils: (1) Blitz Canfield with a poor pass rushers in hopes that pressure does get to him and open yourself up to big gains; (2) cover the field with some poor coverage defenders, and hope that Canfield makes a mistake or your pass rush gets to him. Gregory had to choose the lesser of two evils.

Both strategies have their pros and cons. But I think that option #2 is the safer option that gives Cal a better chance to win. Option #2 would force Canfield and the OSU offense to drive the field for longer increasing the chances they'd make a mistake. Option #1 could lead Canfield to drive the field in only a few plays leaving little chance for them to make mistakes.

But Option #1 comes with greater possibility of sacks, say you! True. But did you watch that film of Canfield? Did you see how quickly he got that ball out against a USC defense that is faster than Cal's defense? I'm sure Gregory had little doubt that Canfield could repeat that performance against us. Thus, Gregory opted for option #2: cover the field with some poor coverage defenders, and hope that Canfield makes a mistake or your pass rush gets to him.

FYI, Canfield's was only sacked by USC 3 times on 47 pass attempts against USC (43 pass attempts + 1 positive rush gain + 3 sacks) for a percentage of 6.4%. That's a pretty low success percentage. A very low success percentage. It's just about not even worth it to blitz when the success rate is that low.

In summary, our pass rush sucks. Our coverage sucks. OSU's passing offense is great at neutralizing blitzes. Gregory was presented with two options: (1) blitz and get defeated quickly; or (2) not-blitz and get defeated slowly. He opted for option #2 in hopes that the slow death might result in OSU mistakes which would kill drives (penalties, turnovers). I can't blame Gregory for his decision. I think it was the right one. It was the lesser of the two evils.

Tedford understands this concept of not being overly aggressive against great offenses that can get the ball out quickly. In yesterday's press luncheon he said:

On how to pressure Arizona's quarterback against a line that has only yielded four sacks so far this season and whether that is a concern
"There's no question. I don't know that you're [going to get to Wildcats QB Nick Foles]. You can try to get to him, but they get the ball out so fast, that I don't know. [Even] if they just let a guy run free off the edge, they probably get the ball off. So there's a lot of times where they get the ball out very quickly. But that doesn't mean you just abandon the rush. There's going to have to be times that we mix it up and we pressure and we cover. So that's how we're going to have to go into it."

Clearly, Tedford is conflicted. Of course he wants to pressure the Arizona QB, but he's afraid that it would be futile in some instances. Nevertheless, he does surrender to the idea that you're just going to have to roll the dice some times and bring the pressure - although he seems to imply that the use of added pressure via additional pass rushers is something very strategic and something that will happen judiciously.

(2) It's even harder to sack Canfield because he takes really deep drops even from shotgun. Most teams don't have their QBs drop back much more when the QB is in shotgun, but not Oregon State. Canfield, while in shotgun will still perform a pretty deep three or five step drop, dropping back up to an additional 6 yards from the shotgun location (so he's 11 yards from the LOS) to pass. That makes it especially hard for your pass rush to get to him as since they have to cover more yardage.

(3) My Sunday Morning Couch QB advice for the defense. (Please take this advice with more than a couple of grains of salt, or perhaps more appropriately just ignore it as since I'm not a coach) Clearly, Cal lacks the pass rushers to merely rely on three or four pass rushers to get pressure. Clearly, Cal lacks superior zone coverage players both at the linebacker, cornerback, and safety positions. Despite Arizona's ability to get the ball out quickly on offense to neutralize the blitz, one of the few remaining options I see for the defense is to play tight bump and run man coverage with the cornerbacks, and send five to six pass rushers at the QB fairly often. While blitzing does open yourself up to bigger completions down the field, this should hopefully be minimized with this strategy by the tighter man coverage and applying a quicker pass rush. The quicker pass rush will force the QB to hopefully throw the ball earlier than he wants causing more inaccurate throws, or for him to throw the lower percentage throws. Alternatively the tighter coverage on the receivers may cause him to see nobody as open and hold onto the ball longer thus allowing the pass rush to get to the QB.

Using various pre-snap looks and disguising the coverage and pass rushers can help cause confusion for the offense. The defense already does this, but it should continue to show more pass rushers than it actually pass rushes, and vice versa. Throw in some defensive line stunts for some added spice. Overload blitzes, maybe. Some of these strategies can achieve pressure without actually sending more pass rushers.

I think such a strategy might come as a welcome relief to Cal fans. Of course, it is not guaranteed to work at all. But just the mere fact that Gregory is trying something else will be a relief to fans. It seems as if many fans are desperate for change. Any sort of change. Anything. But even something that perhaps is even worse than Cal's current strategy? Many fans who advocate for a more aggressive offense seem to assume that the results will be better than the current results. Such an assumption may not be true. I understand that when X isn't working, it seems like there is no harm in trying Y. But it is possible that X > Y, and that Y will be more harm than X.

(4) Our offensive line kinda sucks. Against Oregon State, it was pretty bad in the interior positions, namely at LG, C, and RG. I think in general, that is where we are the weakest from week to week.

In the podcast, CBKWit makes the argument that this is one of our highest star rated offensive lines perhaps ever during the Tedford era. CBKWit made this comment in response to my remark suggesting that the OL's poor performance could be a talent issue. It seems that CBKWit might have been disagreeing with me. If that is so, CBKWit is clearly making the assumption that the higher the star rating of the player, the more talented they are. Such a notion is generally true, but not always. CBKWit seems to make it a forgone conclusion that is always true and thus this year's highly rated OL suckage cannot be due to lack of talent; hence obviously a coaching problem. I disagree. I think it's possible that there is a talent issue here, perhaps as well as a coaching issue. I have not discounted the talent issue, whereas CBKWit seems to have done so. CBKWit points to last year's OL which started Guarnero (prior to injury), Cheadle, and Boskovich (after Guarnero's injury) as evidence that this OL shouldn't be this bad due to the fact that so many of this year's starters saw playing time last year and were fairly productive. Last year, I personally thought Guarnero was doing fine at guard. However, I was not that impressed with Cheadle or Boskovich. Furthermore, last year's line was anchored by Alex Mack and Norris Malele who were both three year starters or so. Thus, I am not convinced that just because he have players from last year's OL, which performed decently well although not great, means that this year's OL cannot be suffering from lack of talent.

To summarize my position, I do think we are lacking in talent at the offensive line. However, I am not adverse to the idea that the problems could also be a coaching problem too. Last year, Tedford stated that Cignetti didn't focus on technique with the QBs because as an NFL coach, he was more interested in schemes rather than technique (NFL teams usually assume you have the requisite technique to perform in the NFL already). Marshall is an NFL guy too, and perhaps he's having this same problem.

Prior to this season, I didn't think the entire OL as a whole would be this bad. Although I knew nothing about Marshall, I had hopes that he was proficient enough to sustain an offensive line that can give Best and Vereen 5+ yards per carry even against some of the tougher defenses of the Pac-10 just like the OL seemingly did under Coach Michalczik. But things are pretty bad. The run blocking isn't there. The OL has little explosion off of the line. Power schemes aren't working. Inside zones aren't working. We don't use outside zones any more. Pass blocking is probably the better of the two but still nothing to brag about.

So is it time to fire Marshall? I don't know. I think it's a bit early for that kind of talk. I don't know what he's teaching the kids so I am going to refrain from saying he should be fired. Many Cal fans who want him fired are pointing at the on-field results as evidence of his incompetence. Perhaps that is indicative. Or perhaps we're just lacking talent.

In the past, Cal has had been pretty lucky to have diamond in the rough NFL guys on our OLs. Cal seemingly has always had one or two NFL guys on the offensive lines for most years. But this year, do we have NFL players on the line? Nope. Doubtful. As of now, I don't really see NFL futures for any of these guys. It's possible that one or two could break through and make it big on Sundays, but they sure as hell aren't playing well right now for the 2009 team.

So what do you do when the offensive line sucks? You work around it. You use more deception. Hence the fly sweep fakes - although those have disappeared quite a bit in the past few weeks. You use the wildbear (more flysweep fakes). You use playaction deception to buy the QB time. You don't do a lot of 7 step drops because it requires your OL to pass block longer. You get the ball out quickly. You call short passing plays.

Basically, with the OL not doing that well, you have to limit what you do. Not a lot of deep drops and long developing plays. No straight dropbacks without some sort of deception to buy the QB some time. In other words, our passing game has been limited in its diversity due to the lack of superior offensive line blocking.

(5) Missed tackles still a problem. Missed tackles have been a pretty big problem all year. I guess that's one thing I personally took for granted with having Follett, and especially Felder and Williams around, was that those guys squared up on the ball carriers, and dropped them cleanly. But the current set of guys, they're not quite squaring up perfectly. They're nicking the ball carriers who then squirm away for a few more yards of gain. They're reaching and arm tackling. Have we really seen any of those big square-up hits that Williams and Felder used to always deliver? Nope.

Why is this a problem? Probably due to inexperience, but also because they're not reacting on the ball quick enough. If they were getting there on time then squaring up shouldn't be a problem. But these guys are getting there a bit late, reaching, and arm tackling.

(6) The key to winning this game was through the passing game. Here's the gameplan for the opponents that Cal plays: shut down Cal's running game and force Cal to pass. It's that simple. Cal's passing game has to be clicking for it to win. But Riley and the passing offense were only successful 55.9% of the time today (completion percentage).

Cal's running game was averaging 2.53 yards a rush between Best, Vereen, and Holley. Cal's passing game was averaging 5.9 yards per pass attempt. Game theory says that Cal should have passed more. On the day, Cal ran the ball 24 times, but some of those were sacks so we'll say 22 times. Cal passed the ball 34 times. That's a passing 60.7% of the time, and rushing 39.3% of the time. That's markedly different from usual Cal gameplans that involve rushing the ball anywhere from 55%-65% of the time. Nevertheless, I don't think Cal was passing enough.

I know Tedford and Ludwig like to establish the run first to open up the pass. But it because quite clear early on that OSU was looking to stop the run, and they were being successful in their attempts. You have to just give up on the runs when they're not working at all that early on. You have to use the pass to open up the run, instead of vice versa. So, I am being a bit critical of Ludwig for not pass enough; however, I do understand that when the offense as a whole kind of sucks, no matter what you call you might be screwed six ways to Sunday anyways.

(7) A little slide protection. Cal's first play of the game featured what looked to be a little slide protection. This is something that we have rarely seen in the past 4 years or so. This scheme put Best on the end blocking a defensive end. Best quickly lost this battle which resulted in Riley getting rushed, Riley shoveling off the ball to Best, and Best running for a loss of 4 yards or so.

(8) Magic Numbers revisited. Well, a long time ago I made a prediction on Cal's season based on how well the QB's completion percentage would be. Basically, my reasoning was that Cal's success would be very closely correlated with Cal's passing game success which can more or less be measured via the QB completion percentage.

Here's what I predicted:

If Cal's starting QB can complete greater than 65% of his passes, Cal will most likely have an 11+ win regular season.

If Cal's starting QB completes between 62%-65% of his passes, Cal will most likely have a 10 win regular season.

If Cal's starting QB completes between 60%-62% of his passes, Cal will most likely have a 9 win regular season.

If Cal's starting QB completes between 58%-60% of his passes, Cal will most likely have a 8 win regular season.

If Cal's starting QB completes between 55%-58% of his passes, Cal will most likely have a 7 win regular season.

If Cal's starting QB completes less than 55% of his passes, the 2nd string QB should probably be starting.

I haven't looked at this prediction in a while. And when I just looked at it now for the first time in over a month, I cringed. Right now, Riley is completing 55.6% of his passes. That means, I think Cal could be aimed at a 7 win season this year. Ouch. It hurts even more when you think about how highly ranked we were pre-season and how much we were hyped as the team that could finally beat USC. But in all honesty, all that preseason hype was a bit much. People gave us too much benefit of the doubt. So if you ignore all the pre-season hype, it doesn't hurt as much and it actually makes sense.

Cal had questions at QB, WR, and OL. Simple measures of all their success (or lack thereof) can usually be seen in the the RB's production and the QB's production.

In 2008, Jahvid Best averaged 8.1 yards a carry. This year he's averaging 6.1 yards per carry.

In 2009, Riley completed 50.7% of his passes. This year he's completing 55.6% of his passes.

While the QB completion percentage has gone up, it's still bad. To put things into perspective, Kyle Boller only completed 53.6% of his passes in 2002. Cal clearly is having offense problems. So what are the causes of the problems? For the most part, I think it's talent talent talent.... err, lack thereof.

Passing and rushing begins in the trenches. It starts with the OL opening up holes and sustaining pass blocks. They haven't been getting that production. There haven't been holes. There haven't been great pass blocks. Whether the problem is due to incompetent coaching or lack of talent is debatable but I think the problem is mostly just lack of talent. In a couple years we'll probably have our answer when we know if any of this year's starters are playing on Sundays, but I'm already pretty sure the answer is going to be no.

(9) Coach critique. I'm not too fond of dishing out tons of coach criticism because I'm not at practices. I'm not seeing what the coaches are teaching the kids and how they are handling things. All I can do now is look at the on-field results and try and make some sort of judgment from that. But even then, on the field results aren't always indicative of the coaches. As good as a coach may be, some players just aren't talented enough or just make untimely mistakes. Sometimes there's nothing more that you can do about it. Some players have it, and some don't. Some players perform better than others regardless of the coaching they receive. That is one of the truest facts in any type of performative sport or performance. The greatest coaching in the world can't make up for the lack of innate talent and innate consistency.

But as Ragnarok said in the podcast, if we merely step aside and don't critique the coaches because we lack the requisite knowledge or because we're not at practice, we're simply putting the state of the program in Tedford's hands and admitting our own ignorance. Ragnarok calls this a "cop out" and seems to think it's an unsatisfactory alternative. It seems as if he thinks fans should have a voice despite our lack of knowledge and connectedness to the program. I know a lot of fans feel the same way. I am not going to argue that we can't critique the coaches. Certainly, fans have the freedom to do so. But that doesn't mean the critique is accurate or even warranted. You'd never think that from reading some of the critiques though. By the sound of it, a lot of us are genius football coaches. Go ahead and critique the coaches, but I just wish there was a little more self-awareness of our lack of substantive football knowledge and knowledge of the situation.

With that out of the way, allow me to critique the coaches. Please disregard everything from here on out because, well, let's face it, I'm a cook not a football coach.

Alamar. He has to get it together. Special teams have sucked for a while. I've been pretty tolerant of it. But now I'm finally growing tired of it. Kickoff coverage is below average. Kick return blocking sucks. Our field goal kickers haven't been great despite supposedly getting some of the top kicking talent in the nation. Our place kickers have been unsatisfactory for the past few years too. Perhaps Alamar should just do TEs, and we should bring in a dedicated special teams coach?

Ludwig. I'm a bit perplexed why the offense seems to have become less diverse over the past few weeks than what we saw earlier on in the season. Perhaps Ludwig was merely trying out new things early in the season. Maybe that's all he was doing, but I think it was working too. It gave defenses a lot to think about and it kept the off guard. But the offense as of late has seemed to become less diverse and I find it a little disappointing. I also would like to see a bit more down-field passing. I think Riley is best throwing the deep balls, such as gos/flys. He's pretty good at posts too. He's perhaps shown the most accuracy with the seam routes. We've been very successful with the seam throws against opponent zones and even man coverage (Minnesota game, ASU game, OSU too). We have the TE to make those tough catches too, in Anthony Miller.

In regards to Ludwig is calling bubble screens and easy swing passes, I understand those are generally easy passes and a safe way to keep the defense honest and from stacking the box completely, but I'm not sure Riley's even that good at those throws. I have no idea who Zennie Abraham is, but he has noted that Riley's best throws are the routes which do not require "leading" the WR. In other words, routes without a lot of lateral movement. I hadn't quite thought about it like that, but I certainly had noticed that Riley's best routes were the deeper down-the-field routes (which require little lateral "leading" of the receivers). As Mr. Abraham notes, Riley consistently misses those bubble and swing passes. Sometimes the passes are behind the receiver (backward passes), and thus laterals which can be fumbled and recovered by the defense. The passes need to be forward passes. Riley is also just a bit slow to throw the bubble screen passes. He doesn't get the ball out to the WR quick enough.

Does Ludwig need to be fired? I don't think so. Not yet. Going through so many offensive coordinators has hurt the offense. As I reported in my Emerald Bowl Pep Rally and Luncheon report, one of Cal's notable starting offensive linemen of the 2008 squad felt that the team was still not 100% confident and proficient in the new pass blocking schemes that Cignetti brought to the offense in 2008. Ludwig has shown promise. And I think with more talent, we can do just fine with him. For now, I think we should keep him to maintain some continuity for the Cal offense that it has needed for a long time.

Gregory. I do think he's a better coach than most people think. Nobody was complaining about Gregory in 2008 when the defense was dominating. But people are complaining this year. What's the big difference between 2008 and 2009? The loss of three great linebackers who all had multiple years of starting experience, a decline in Hagan's abilities (he missed some of fall camp, and I think he self-admittedly stated that he wasn't quite pushing himself as much as he could), and a decline in Ezeff's abilities (missing practices to take a class). Oh, and a pretty crappy offense which isn't giving the defense any help. I don't think this year's defensive struggles are really due to lack of defensive coaching. I see it mostly as a talent issue. The guys just aren't as talented as last year's players, and they aren't as talented as we all hoped they would be at the start of the season. The DL is fine. But the LBs only have about half of their game together. They're pretty good at stopping the run but they're pretty bad in pass coverage. The DBs have been pretty bad except for Syd. Overall, I think the defensive woes are more a talent issue, than coaching.

Tedford. Many of us might not like how he runs the program, or how he keeps certain positional coaches or coordinators around. Nevertheless, I do think he's still the right coach for Cal. Few could have done what he did with our shoddy program. Even fewer would have stuck around like he did through the thick and thin. He is completely dedicated to this program. That shows. That helps sell this program. It sells it to recruits. He also has honor and a reputable reputation. He raises the kids first and foremost to be good upstanding people in the world. It's life and academics first; football second. Football just isn't about winning games. Tedford recognizes this. He hasn't sacrificed morals, or jeopardized the University's reputation to win a few more games unlike other notable coaches around the country. Tedford has shown a willingness to challenge himself, reflect, and learn from his mistakes. Not all coaches have the courage to set aside their own stubbornness and pride to say they were wrong and that changes need to be made. Perhaps Tedford still has to make more changes within his positional and coordinating coaches ranks. Perhaps he will. But of all the coaches on the Cal Football team right now, I do think that Tedford is the most important of them all. There should be little talk of firing Tedford. Things have not gotten that bad yet at all. He has set the program in the right direction. With more time, talent, shiny new facilities, and a supportive fan base, I do think he can officially get us to a BCS bowl or the Rose Bowl.

Looking Back At Arizona State: Playaction & The Domino Effect

HydroTech — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:20:19 -0000

More photos » by Paul Connors - AP

about 1 month ago: Arizona State quarterback Danny Sullivan looks for an open receiver in the second quarter of an NCAA college football game against California Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009, in Tempe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Paul Connors)

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During the 2009 Cal @ Arizona State college football game, Arizona State scored on an 80 yard touchdown pass. Who was to blame for this defensive error? Most football fans use a general rule of blaming the closest defender to the offensive player. On this particular play, that was safety Marcus Ezeff. Such however, a rule isn't always correct. The closest defender to the intended receiver is not always the player at fault for the completion.

On this particular play, the defender who is more at fault for the touchdown is a cornerback, who is away from the intended wide receiver.

Here is the play at issue (please excuse my poor quality images, I no longer have photoshop on my computer):

Arizona State is facing a 1st and 10 from their own 20 yard line. Cal lines up in its 3-4 defense showing a two-deep look and with the cornerbacks showing man coverage. A two-deep defense is a defense which has two deep defenders each guarding the right and left deep halves of the field.

The defensive error occurs at the snap of the ball. Conte, Cal's left cornerback (the defense's left) reads run, and bites down on the playaction, leaving the WR that he is supposed to be covering completely undefended. I've shown Conte's pursuit with a blue arrow, and I've circled the ASU WR in red.

The Cal safety to Cal's left side of the field presumably Cattouse or Johnson, leaves his deep 1/2 of the field and jumps down to defend the wide open WR along the sideline that Conte left unguarded. I've shown the Cal safety's pursuit with a blue arrow. This opens up the deep 1/2 of the field opposite of Ezeff (Cal's right safety)- which is not Ezeff's responsibility. The ASU WR whom the pass was thrown to runs a deep post. I've shown the ASU WR's route with a red arrow.

As you can see from the above picture, Cal's left deep 1/2 of the field is completely wide open. I've shown this area with a green box. This is the area that Cal's left safety should be covering.

The above picture was taken exactly when the ASU WR caught the ball. I've shown the deep left 1/2 side of the field with a blue box. I've circled the ASU WR in red. As you can see, the ASU WR is in the deep left 1/2 zone - where the left Cal safety should have been. Ezeff was expecting help, but got none.

Below is the play in its entirety (youtube video below courtesy of ieeebear):

Some people might think this play was a corner blitz and Ezeff had man coverage responsibilities on the ASU WR. This conclusion is incorrect. Had Conte been blitzing, he would have placed himself on the line of scrimmage, pretending he was trying to jam the WR he was covering. Such an act would place Conte closer to the QB and would decrease the amount of time to get to the QB on his pass rush. Conte did not do this. If Conte was on a blitz, he more than likely would have continued his pass rush - but like most defenders who are fooled by playaction, he stops his approach on the ball fake and heads down the field to resume his blown coverage. Conte does this. Furthermore, if Conte was blitzing, then Cal's left safety would have had man-coverage responsibility on the WR that Conte was pretending to cover. Thus, Marcus Ezeff would have been the lone deep defender to cover the entire field and he would have aligned himself more towards the center of the field and not so wide to the right. Ezeff did not do this.

Comments from Cal Defensive Coordinator Bob Gregory support the conclusion that this was not a corner blitz. Here's what Cal Defensive Coordinator Bob Gregory had to say about the defensive playcall:

We were in a two-deep. It probably wasn’t the best call in the world. It was first down and we were taking a shot because they had run it a bit on first down. It was a play-action pass and we lost our middle linebacker and we also lost our backside safety on the play-action pass. They kind of jumped at the run a little bit quick as opposed to playing back a little bit. It was a combination of not great technique and I could have had a better call on first down.

Had Gregory would have called up a corner blitz, he probably would have mentioned it in his quote. Furthermore, the resulting playcall would have put Cal into a 1-deep coverage and Gregory specifically states that we were in a two-deep.

Conclusion:

It only takes one defender to make an error on the field to give up a touchdown. That defender doesn't even have to be the defender nearest the intended receiver or the ball carrier. In this play, Conte was far from the intended WR. Yet his mis-read of the offensive play as a run instead of a pass caused a domino effect. His error caused him to leave his ASU WR undefended. This caused Cal's left safety to vacate his deep zone to cover the ASU WR that Conte left undefended. This allowed ASU's intended WR to catch the ball in Cal's left 1/2 deep zone where the Cal left safety should have been.

Perhaps Ezeff shouldn't have been playing so deep. Perhaps Ezeff shouldn't have been playing so wide. Ezeff may be partly at fault, but his fault is minimal compared to Conte's. Conte's error was the one domino which fell and knocked over the others.

Cal Football has been plagued this year by its "10 man defense." This is one of those plays. It takes all 11 defenders to execute and win their individual battles for the play to be a success. On this play, only 10 defenders executed and won their individual battles.

Cal @ Arizona State Post-Game Thoughts

HydroTech — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:00:11 -0000

More photos » by Paul Connors - AP

about 1 month ago: California wide receiver Marvin Jones, left, celebrates with teammate Verran Tucker, right, after Jones made a touchdown reception against Arizona State in the first quarter of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009, in Tempe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Paul Connors)

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(1) Story of the game: Bad Execution Everywhere. Fumbles. Penalties. Dropped passes. Un-sustained blocks. Poor tackling. Poor recognition of offensive plays by defensive players. Poor passes. Bad playcalling. Missed field goals. This game was ugly and scary. How appropriate since it was on Halloween. While a lot of complaining has been made about the defense, and the offense, things would be a lot different if the players just executed and all won their individual player battles.

(2) Cal played sloppy and deserved some of those penalties, but ASU got some calls which they shouldn't have. Tepper's hands to the head call? Totally deserved. Jones' facemask penalty on his deep sideline go route? Totally deserved. But Conte's pass interference call? That was a bunch of crap. Receivers and defenders have equal right to the ball. Conte played the ball, and it just so happened that the ASU WR ran his route right into Conte. That should not have been a penalty. Miller's holding call? More bs. I can understand that to the ref who threw the flag that it might have looked like holding based on the way the defender fell down, but Miller didn't hold. It seemed like due to the sloppy nature of the game, that the refs were even more ticky tacky and threw even more flags. I don't remember a single call going against ASU that shouldn't have. But there were definitely at least two flags on Cal that shouldn't have been flags. I don't mind losing games with fair penalizing, but I hate it when a loss is aided by the help of incorrect flags from the refs.

(3) Riley's best *passing* game of perhaps his career. This game was perhaps the best passing game of Riley's career. Aside from one pass that should have been intercepted, and another missed easy swing pass to Best (if I recall correctly) he was incredibly in the zone - especially on that final drive. On that final drive, ASU was pretty aggressive in their defense by sending five to six pass rushers every other down. Riley recognized the blitz, and got the ball out quickly (when the offense is facing a blitz, the ball has to come out fast). If I had to give a grade for Riley's passing, I'd probably give him an A- or so.

But, as for Riley's *overall* grade, that's different. Riley did scramble around when needed to extend plays and make some great throws. But he also had three very unfortunate fumbles. I do realize that the pass blocking was not excellent, but the ball must be protected. Either get rid of the ball quickly, cover up and take the sack, or cover up and run. Riley's overall grade for this game is probably more in the B range due to his fumbles, and a delay of game penalty. But on the whole, Riley did a pretty good job managing the game.

(4) Riley comes with good and bad. The good: plays like the scramble in the 4th quarter on a 1st and 25 for a 26 yard completion to Marvin Jones. Having a QB who is a bit of a gambler can lead to awesome plays like this. The bad: plays like the 3rd and 2 playaction bootleg where Riley tried to dump the ball off to a receiver but instead put the ball right into the chest of an ASU linebacker - who miraculously dropped the easy interception. The way Riley plays, we can definitely expect to see some great and spectacular plays we haven't seen for the past few years with Longshore as our QB, but we should also be prepared to see some bad plays that we rarely saw for the past few years with Longshore as our QB.

(5) Riley comes with more fumble risks. This point is sort of related to the previous point. Riley is more prone to fumbling. This has to do with the way he carries the ball in a collapsing pocket. But also because he doesn't always get the ball out when the pocket is collapsing. I'm sure I'm not the only one that was a bit surprised to see Riley fumble. To me it was a surprise because it's something that we never really saw for the past three years. Why is that? Well, Longshore was great at getting the ball out quickly - even against a collapsing pocket. Therefore, the ball was rarely in his hands to get popped out for a fumble. But Riley is a different QB. He hangs on to the ball longer to make a play. With his style, we should expect a greater chance of QB fumbles. This is just another one of those bads that comes with this style of QB.

(6) ASU might have made a tactical error on Cal's final drive by sending five and six pass rushers over half the time. Prior to that final drive, ASU was doing a pretty good job getting pressure on Riley with just four pass rushers. They'd often send five pass rushers and get even more pressure, but they seemed to be doing just fine with four pass rushers. Yet on that final drive, they seemed to be a bit more aggressive than normal, and I think it was a mistake. By dropping more defenders into coverage, the QB will often have to hold on to the ball longer. Since ASU's pass rush was fairly effective, why not just drop seven into coverage, force Riley to hold onto the ball longer, and let your pass rush get to him? He already showed the penchant to fumble this game. But instead, ASU went a bit more aggressive than normal. They played man coverage, and without that seventh or sixth defender, the secondary opened up. Riley had space to make easy mid-range throws - mid-range throws that he didn't really have tons of room to throw earlier. Riley absolutely torched the ASU defense on their blitzes. Riley did a great job reading the blitzes, the coverage, getting the ball out quick, and placing the ball. I'm not defensive coordinator, but after it became apparent that Riley was getting the ball out quickly, the last tactic you want to do is to send more pass rushers. You're basically setting yourself up for death. I mean, it's essentially the same as blitzing the QB when you know the offense is going to run a screen. You just don't do it.

(7) Ezeff was not really at fault for ASU's 80 yard touchdown pass; Conte was at fault. I think there is a lot of blame getting pasted onto Ezeff for that touchdown. It sure looked like Ezeff was at fault. But he substantially wasn't. Here's what Gregory had to say about that play:

We were in a two-deep. It probably wasn’t the best call in the world. It was first down and we were taking a shot because they had run it a bit on first down. It was a play-action pass and we lost our middle linebacker and we also lost our backside safety on the play-action pass. They kind of jumped at the run a little bit quick as opposed to playing back a litlle bit. It was a combination of not great technique and I could have had a better call on first down.

Indeed, Gregory is correct. Cal was playing its 3-4 defense in a two deep - meaning Cal had two deep safeties each covering 1/2 of the field. This is not to be confused with a Cover-2 defense. A Cover-2 defense involves all zone coverage. But a two-deep implies that there are two deep defenders and the rest of the coverage is not zone coverage. Gregory, being the football expert he is (I know many Cal fans may dispute this), clearly made this distinction. If you look at the play, you'll see that indeed, Cal is playing two-deep and man coverage. Both Conte and Syd are locked up in man coverage. What happens is that Conte reads run, and bites down on the playaction, leaving his the WR that he is supposed to be covering completely undefended. The Cal safety to that side of the field (the "backside safety" that Gregory is referring to), presumably Cattouse or Brett Johnson, leaves his deep 1/2 of the field and jumps down to defend the wide open WR that Conte left unguarded. This opens up the deep 1/2 of the field opposite of Ezeff - which is NOT Ezeff's primary responsibility. The ASU WR whom the pass was thrown to ran a deep post which ran him right into Cattouse/Johnson's deep 1/2 of the field. Had Cattouse/Johnson been there, the play might have been broken up. Cattouse/Johnson probably would have been there if Conte hadn't been sucked up by the playaction.

Conte's error, caused Cattouse/Johnson to cover Conte's man, causing a hole in Cal's deep coverage, which resulted in a touchdown. It only takes one mistake by one player to cause a domino effect. This touchdown goes against Conte, not Ezeff.

(8) Riley doesn't come off the field during wildbear because it tips off the defense of the impending play. The Marshawnthusiasts talked about this in last week's podcast. It's been suggested left and right by many, and including me at one point, that perhaps Cal should just put a RB, TE, or WR out there instead of Riley. This makes sense if Cal isn't going to pass. But if Ludwig subs out Riley for wildbear, the defense will be notified of the impending play. The defense's coaches in the coaching box watch the offense's substitutions so they know what personnel are on the field. By keeping Riley on the field for the wildbear plays, the defense doesn't know until they see the offense line up, whether the play is wildbear or just some other play (Cal can and does run its regular plays out of the wildbear personnel).

(9) The wildbear pass on 2nd down was a bad playcall. I've been debating this for a while now. At first I thought it was a bad call. Then I changed to a more neutral stance saying it just merely depends on how aggressive you want to be. But now I'm changing back to the bad playcall party. Here's why.

Cal gets a first and goal on the ASU 8 yard line with 1:29 remaining. The playclock runs down to about 1:12 remaining at the snap of the ball on first down. The playclock resets at 40 seconds when there are 1:03 seconds of game time remaining. Had Cal ran the ball on 2nd down, instead of passing, the clock could have been milked down to about 24 seconds. Then Cal would have faced a 3rd down (assuming they don't score on the 2nd down run). Assuming ASU doesn't take their timeout (even if they did Cal could still milk the clock down on the subsequent play), Cal can center the ball on 3rd down, and then call a timeout with 3 seconds remaining. Cal can then kick the field goal to win the game and ASU never gets the ball back.

Now, proponents of the second down passing wildbear play say that the touchdown would have put the game away. This is only half true. A touchdown would have made the game a 26-21 Cal lead. Regardless of whether Cal gets the two point conversion or not, it requires ASU to get a touchdown to win the game or tie the game. While a touchdown is harder to get than a field goal - which seems to be the crutch of the argument for fans who support the second down passing play, this argument fails because it gives the ball back to ASU with time remaining on the clock. That result is undesirable and it is the last thing you want to do because ASU can potentially score again to win the game or tie the game. Had Cal milked the clock down, they could have kicked the game winning field goal as time expired without ASU ever getting the ball back. Even if ASU had taken a timeout somewhere in those final four plays, Cal still would have been able to milk the clock down to 3 seconds for one final field goal.

I understand that many Cal fans like to see "going for the jugular" playcalling by Ludwig or more aggressive playcalling, but that 2nd down playcall was the incorrect playcall and there is no valid argument otherwise. It's not that the playcall was bad because it was going for the jugular or because it was aggressive, it was a bad playcall because it disrupted the clock management and timing of the game. Cal could have won the game without giving ASU back the ball, but instead Cal attempted to win the game with giving ASU one more possession. This is an unnecessary risk. As Cal fans, who are constantly reminded of crazy shit like The Play, we all know that crazy stuff can happen. You don't want the other team getting the ball back at all. Ludwig's pass out of the wildcat was one of the worst playcalls of this year; hands down, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

(10) That specific wildbear pass play can only be used in goalline situations. That specific wildbear pass play can only be used in goalline situations. Why goalline situations? Because since the offense is so close to the defense's goalline, the defense has to heavily play the run as since they can't give up any yardage. Since the defense is playing the run so heavily, it sucks in the linebackers towards the line of scrimmage pretty quickly and thus allows for easy passes over the top. Furthermore, because the play occurs at the back of the endzone, the ball can easily fall out of play for an incompletion lessening the chances of an interception. Had the offense used this play somewhere else, such as at midfield, it would not have been effective at all since the defense doesn't need to play the run as heavily. Also, tipped balls are more likely to be intercepted at midfield since there is no out of bounds immediately behind the intended receiver.

I am very glad Ludwig does have a passing play installed. I hope he has more. I have been advocating for passing out of the wildbear for a few weeks now. Obviously, that particular 2nd down playcall is only really good for goalline situations, but there are perhaps a few other ways to pass out of wildbear where the offense doesn't need to be a few yards away from the defense's endzone. I hope to see a few of those here and there.

DBD 11.04.09 - I'm not trying to jinx us but...

HydroTech — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:51:21 -0000

I was just looking at stats. Did you know that California Football, under Jeff Tedford, has only lost 10 games at home through today?

3 of those 10 losses occurred during the 2002 season when Cal Football was at its weakest. In other words, through 6.5 years of Cal Football home games, Cal has only lost 7 home games. That's about 1 a year at home. That's not too bad.

Is that some home field advantage or what?

Okay, that's all I got. I apologize.

Poll

This...

is it?

5 votes

is MADNESS.

11 votes

is WATERCUBE.

14 votes

is the end of Cal Football's season; HydroTech has just jinxed Cal Football.

27 votes

is one of the worst DBDs evair

5 votes

I want TwistNHook to do DBDs from now on.

4 votes

66 votes | Poll has closed

Cal vs. Washington State Post-Game Thoughts

HydroTech — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:18:00 -0000

More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

about 1 month ago: California's Cameron Jordan (97) pressures Washington State quarterback Jeff Tuel (10) during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009, in Berkeley, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

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(1) New kickoff coverage scheme? Today I noticed something I hadn't noticed before. Most teams have the entire kick coverage team get a running start on the kick, and all the defenders are at the line of scrimmage right when the ball is kicked. This is what Cal has done in the past, and if I'm not mistaken, what they've been doing this year. However, today on kickoff coverage, two of our defenders would hang back approximately 5 yards at the instant of the kickoff instead of being right on the line of scrimmage at the time of the kick. Thus, Cal has eight kickoff coverage defenders going down the field full speed at the time of the kick from the line of scrimmage, and three defenders moving down the field behind. It's as if there are now two waves of defenders (eight then three) as opposed to one wave of defenders (of eleven men if you want to counter the kicker too). Now, I suppose some of you might be thinking I was just seeing things and the two guys were just being lazy about not being right at the LOS at the moment of the kick, but no. It was intentional. I'm pretty positive. They were distinctly and purposely further back than the initial coverage net to give more depth to the coverage net.

(2) Gregory breaks out the 4-2 nickel defense! This was a surprise. I was just sort of chilling and watching the game. Then all of a sudden I see four down linemen. Now sometimes, when Cal uses its 3-3 defense we have one of the linebackers get in a three point stance (usually Price) and so it gives the impression of a 4-2 nickel although it's not. But this was the 4-2 nickel. I made sure by checking who those four down linemen were, and they were all defensive lineman. Pretty interesting. I don't think this is something that will be regular though. I think this was more of a unique thing that Gregory was doing because of WSU's single-back three WR offense with a lot of zone read. By using the 4-2 instead of the 3-3, it gives Cal more run protection (due to four defensive linemen instead of three defensive linemen) against WSU's zone reads. Because there is greater run protection, the linebackers won't get so sucked up from the zone read fakes like they do in the 3-3. With the 4-2, it did seem like Gregory was getting more pressure with the four man rushes as compared to the 3-3's three man rushes - or perhaps the WSU players are just worse than previous opponents.

(3) Gregory was somewhat more aggressive in his playcalling this game. Last week, lots of Cal fans were complaining about his "passive" UCLA gameplan and other "passive" gameplans. Well, I think there should be less complaining this week. Gregory blitzed more than usual. When he wasn't blitzing five, he was already rushing four on the 4-2 defense. He stunted and twisted the defensive line on occasion. With WSU's 3 and 4 WR sets, he mostly used zones but we saw some man sprinkled in here and there.

WSU did show some repetitive success with taking short curls against 10 yard cushions; that slot WR swing pass (pretty much just like a bubble screen but without the screen part); and that playaction QB-backspin bootleg play. I can understand taking away the deep balls and giving up some easy yards against our 10 yard cushions, but I was hoping for a little more adjustment to counter those playaction QB-backspin bootleg plays. Maybe I'm making too big of a deal about it though. A few times they got decent yardage, but I think we also shut down those plays for minimal gains fairly often too.

Corner blitz at 7:50
Man coverage at 8:15
Weakside zone stretch at 9:10

(4) We ran a slant! ... and it went for an incompletion. I can't remember who was the WR. Perhaps Tucker. But the offense was driving south. Tucker was on the east side of the field. Ran a slant, Riley's ball placement was low, the ball wasn't caught - incomplete. Would have been an easy 7-8 yard gain at least had the throw been on the money.

(5) Jordan has a good game. Well, way to make me look bad. Last week I was harsh on Jordan saying he's disappeared far too much this season, and then he comes out and has six tackles of which 2.5 were sacks for a loss of 17 yards. On one particular sack, Jordan's freak athleticism got him the sack. the WSU QB was flushed out of the pocket to the right and he started scrambling at an angle backwards trying to pass. Jordan was at left defensive end (defense's left) and used his speed to close in on the QB and sack him. I guess Jordan owes a bit of credit to whomever got pressure on the QB and flushed him out towards Jordan, but Jordan's athleticism was also responsible for the sack. On the other occasion, Jordan got a pure sack against WSU's right tackle by just getting the tackle turned, and pushing him out of the way. Good for Jordan. Hopefully he can keep this up and these sacks weren't just because the WSU players sucked.

(6) Washington State false starts itself to death and penalizes itself to death. Washington State was penalized 13 times for 114 yards. Around five of those penalties were false starts. I found that puzzling. It was puzzling because the stadium was pretty empty. They announced that 50,000 people were there, but it looked more like 40,000. By the time the third quarter came around, it was more like 30,000. The stadium was not very loud at all on consistent basis. The student section was only about 50% filled (it looked more filled than it really was because they were more spread out, but if you squished them together with normal spacing, the students probably would have only filled 1/2 of the student section). The students weren't really that into the game since it's WSU and the game was never truly in doubt. The rest of the stadium seemed fairly quiet. Yet WSU false started themselves to death for some reason. Sort of funny.

(7) Riley was okay. He obviously made some huge touchdown throws. But he missed an easy slant pass too low. He missed a sure-touchdown pass to Best in a goal line situation. Riley faked playaction to Best, and then Best immediately burst out to the right flat and was completely uncovered. Nobody was within 10 yards of him. But Riley just lead Best too much and threw the ball too shallow rather than deep (on an angle more towards the flat area rather than on an angle more towards the corner). Riley also threw an INT when the pass probably shouldn't have been thrown at all. Again, that INT is just another instance of Riley trying really hard to make something happen. Sometimes he makes it work. Sometimes he doesn't. I think the better decision on that INT play would have been to just keep the ball and run for that zero yard gain or one yard gain. That's what we all thought he was going to do as the play was unfolding. Nobody appeared to be open from my seats. I think from Riley's point of view the WR looked open, but the WSU safety was closing fast from center field and picked off the ball. The pass was slightly against the grain. One of those QB golden rules is to not throw back across the grain. But forget the rules! Riley's a gamer!

(8) Offensive line did a pretty good job opening up holes. Best averaged 12.2 yards a carry. Vereen averaged 5.1 yards a carry. The RBs consistently had holes to run through. Very few bad blocking tackle for loss plays. Some pretty good blocking by the OL overall.

(9) Offensive line did a great job pass blocking. Riley wasn't sacked. Very few hurries. Riley helped them out too by getting the ball out on time, and scrambling when things started breaking down. Great pass blocking today.

(10) WSU averaged (approximately) 9.0 yards per pass attempt against Cal's defense. Statistically, this is horrible. But I don't think it was quite as bad as it seemed or something that was wholly unexpected. First of all, we were playing a decent amount of man coverage. Cornerbacks at the college level aren't as good at man coverage as cornerbacks in the NFL so there are more bigger pass completions. WSU had deep completions of 68 yards, 33 yards, and 31 yards from some of their WRs (not all against man coverage). This certainly isn't good. It's something that you want to avoid. But it's also something that you somewhat expect to happen on occasion. Second, WSU also got quite a few easy 8-10 yard gainers too against deeper zones and bigger cushions by our defense due to the offense being in 2nd and 15 situations from penalties. In other words, Cal was definitely more willing to take away the deep ball and give up shorter passes underneath and could afford to do so because WSU often needed large amounts of yards to convert for a first down. So I don't think it was really as bad as the 9.0 yards per pass attempt statistic makes it seem.

I know, WSU did roll up 440 total yards of offense on us. That certainly isn't good from a statistical standpoint. But if you take into account all their penalty yards (114 yards of penalties!), then they really only had a net gain of like 326 yards against our defense (440 - 114 = 326). That statistic is more reasonable. Let me reiterate again, throughout the game there never really was an instance where everyone was like, "OMG. WTF. WHY ARE THEY GETTING SO MANY YARDS TIME AFTER TIME???" Sure they were getting yards, but they were also just making up for their penalty yards. So it wasn't as frustrating or maddening as the 440 yards of offense stat might suggest.

(11) Cal's defense allowed 4.0 yards per rush but was actually even better than that statistic suggests. The official statistics say the defense only allowed 2.0 yards per rush but that is taking into account yards from sacks which occurred on passing plays not run plays. Such a statistic is very misleading. So you have to take out sack yardage. So 4.0 yards per rush is alright. You'd prefer to see it more in the 3.0 yards per rush area for college football, but 4.0 isn't horrible or bad. Cal clearly had WSU's run game bottled up fairly well for the most part. One of WSU's runningbacks had 51 yards total on the day, but 37 of those yards came from one run. Thus, on those other runs, he was averaging only 2.0 yards per rush ((51-37)/(8-1)=2). So actually, aside from one screwup where WSU got a big 37 yard gainer on the ground, Cal's defense really did shut down WSU's two runningbacks (2.0 yards per rush and 1.6 yards per rush). That's a pretty excellent performance right there.

(12) Enough with the "if not now, then when?" talk. I still see some people toting that line around complaining that this is another bust year, this Cal team is the most talented Cal team in the Tedford era and since it isn't going to the Rose that it'll never happen. Please. This team always had legitimate concerns at QB, WR, OL, and LB. Cal was over-hyped due to a mixture of our Heisman runningback, having an All-American cornerback, and USC being slightly down. This isn't a bust year from an objective standpoint (not yet at least). Sure we were ranked #6 or whatever at one time, but such early season polls are mostly based on incorrect public perception and conjecture rather than substantiated facts and game outcomes. Cal was never really a #6 team. It might have seem like it the way we were destroying our early opponents. But now that we've seen how bad Maryland was, and how bad EWU was, it's clear that we were just a pretty good team beating down on patsies, but not a sure-fire BCS caliber team.

(13) Cal should let other ticket holders sit in the student section if the student section is doing card stunts and the student section is not substantially filled by kickoff. At kickoff today, I think the student section was about 1/3rd full (even such an estimate might be generous, it could have been as little as 1/4th full). At its peak, the student section was probably just under 1/2 full. Needless to say, the card stunts sucked. There weren't enough students there to do the stunts. Shame on the students who didn't show up. Now, how can this problem be remedied? Allow young alumni, and other season ticket holders to plop down in the student section to enjoy the nice seats and help with the card students. After all, the young alumni and regular ticket holders pay more money than the students to see the game. If the students aren't going to show up, why not give back to the young alums and season ticket holders? Why not let others sit in the student section to help fill it out so the card stunts don't suck? It's a win-win for everyone. But NOPE! The security/usher guys/gals were out in force today kicking people out of the HALF FULL student section. I see such a policy accomplishing NOTHING. I can understand such a policy on games where the student section is full, such as USC or Big Game. But at kickoff the student section was 1/3rd full. There is no need to enforce the usual student-only policy - especially not when card stunts will be performed at half time. Cal had a golden opportunity to turn this pathetic student turnout into something better, and failed based on short-sighted policy.

(14) Four man rush out of a 4-2 versus a four man rush out of a 3-3. The benefit of the former is that it puts four defensive lineman, who are usually the best players on the team at defeating pass protection, onto the field. The negatives of the former is that the offense will know who is pass rushing and who isn't. There isn't that surprise factor. The main concern for the offense is figuring out the coverage and not who is going to pass rush. The benefit of the four man rush out of the 3-3 is that there is that surprise factor. The defense won't know who will be that fourth pass rusher. Is it the strong side linebacker? The middle linebacker? Both of them with the NT dropping back into zone? The offense is presented with two problems: who is the fourth pass rusher? And what is the coverage? On the other hand, the negatives of the four man rush out of a 3-3 is that at least one of the pass rushers will be a linebacker who typically isn't as skilled in pass rush as defensive linemen. The linebacker may be faster than a defensive lineman, but he often doesn't have the moves or technique to get by pass blocks.

Is one better than the other? Not really. Both can work. Both can fail. The defensive coordinator has to utilize them in ways that maximizes their defensive output. I think against WSU the 4-2 was the better option because it gave Cal more run protection up front - and that was needed because WSU was threatening to run.

(15) Ludwig masks the inside zone for once. Recall last week I criticized Ludwig on the inside zone runs:

(2) Cal's inside zone runs tip off the defense to which side the offense is going to run to before the snap. These are the plays where Cal motions a WR who stops on the backside (the side of the offense that Cal is running away from) to block the backside defender. When Cal does this, it's obvious it's a run as since Cal doesn't playaction out of the inside zone (we have in previous years but we really haven't seen it this year). It also tips off the defense as to which way the run is going.

Well Ludwig showed off a new play which masks this tendency a bit. Clearly, Ludwig reads the CGB (just kidding, there is 0% chance he actually reads the crap I write). No, but seriously, he did show off a new play which masked his inside zone run call better. The play can be seen in this video below at the 0:40 mark .

Instead of using a WR, he uses a TE. That's significant. Plus, Ludwig starts out the TE in the slot, which is something Cal doesn't normally do and it probably had the defense thinking (and maybe even confused) for a bit. Plus, Ludwig didn't have the TE stop on the backside of the formation to seal off the backside defender. Instead, he kept the motion coming from the playside and had the TE kick out the backside defender with a cut block. Cal used to run (essentially) this play A TON in 2007. The difference was that we didn't use pre-snap motion. Instead, Cal would line up with twin TEs to one side out of 12 personnel and bring the H-back from playside to backside to cut block the backside defender.

A stunt can be seen at 6:50 in the video above too.

(16) Cal's screen game recognition was a lot better this game. In previous games, Cal's DL has been a bit slow to respond to screens. But against WSU, I felt like they were doing a great job reacting to screens.

(17) Cal needs to pass out of the Bearcat. It's gotta happen. Defenses will know it's possible when Vereen takes the snap as since Best doesn't throw. But the Bearcat can get really hard to defend if we start throwing out of it - even if it is rarely. Vereen knows it. He wants to do it. You know it.

1:25 - great play by WSU. Nearside twin WRs run bubble screen fake. The slot WR swings out giving the impression of a swing or bubble. The split end (the WR on the LOS) runs a go and is open. Tool pump fakes a pass to the split end, but the Cal safety to that side of the field doesn't bite on the fake. The split end is attacking the Cal safety on Cal's right side of the defense (#29 Ezeff) and wanted the Cal safety (Ezeff) to that side to bite on the split end and pump fake. Doing so would have dropped the Cal safety to that side of the field down (towards the LOS), and the WSU WR (that the pass was actually thrown to) would have slipped behind the Cal safety (Ezeff) for a huge gain or touchdown (had the pass actually been completed). Great play design right here by WSU that attempts to take advantage of the Cal defense who had been baited all game long by that bubble/swing and go combination by twin WRs.

3:38 - Recall this post about USC running a great zone read bubble screen combination? WSU runs essentially the same play right here but out of a different formation. The zone read look gets the backside defender (Cal #47) to freeze, giving more time and space for the slot WR to get the pass and run.

7:03 - Offensive tendency. Cal tips off pass with Vereen stepping up and becoming shallower right after Riley changes the play. Deep 7 yard alignment = run. Shallower 6 yard alignment = pass. This is also one of Cal's staple plays although it is not usually run out of the 21 personnel strong-I.

4:18 - Gregory purposefully calling lots of stunts at DE and DT to counter the zone read look? On this play the LE and DT stunt. The stunt acts very much like a scrape exchange although it's between the LE and DT, and not a DE and the backside LB.

5:35 - corner blitz (left side of screen). Missed tackle makes for easy gain. Looks like man coverage.

6:40 - man coverage, 5 man rush, no deep safety. Looks like Syd should have been there actually (Syd was in the left slot, and the Cal Safety took the left slot WR leaving Syd free to roam, Syd looks to be too shallow to give deep help).

0:50 - new kickoff coverage scheme visible.

1:14 - tricky little WSU play. Looks like zone read, and the TE fakes the zone block (he ignores the backside defender which is normal on this type of play to help sell the zone read look), and then runs a flag for an easy catch in space without anyone around). Very cool addition to a team's zone read looks. Very cool.

2:25 - man coverage. WSU killin' us with the curls.

3:05 - great view of Cal's power man scheme.

3:25 - Cal zone read; Riley keeps

3:50 - you can tell this is already going to be pass before the audible and snap because the RB is too shallow.

2:30 - Cal's LG pulls on playaction for pass protection. This is a new scheme Ludwig has installed this year.

3:10 - Cal's inside zone. Ludwig is masking it with the TE split out. Same play (essentially) as seen above under point #15.

4:25 - stunt on DL, man coverage. 30 yard gain. You guys still want Gregory to play more man?

5:00 - easy way to get yards against zones is the drag route. On this play the slot (split end) WR runs a go route to clear out the defenders. The flanker runs a drag right behind the go route and is open for the easy drag route.

0:05 - man coverage. I've noticed our slot Cornerbacks play inside leverage to protect the middle. The thing about using inside leverage is that it puts the cornerback's back to the QB and thus he has to be very good at reading the WR for where the play is and when the ball is coming (if it's coming). The corners are also vulnerable to the outside release skinny post which WSU runs on this play because it causes the slot cornerback to turn a full 180 degrees from the start of the play rather than something less (such as 90 degrees to cover an out route).

0:50 - man coverage

3:10 - max protection; smash concept (Great for defeating cover 2 and tampa 2 defenses; the outside WR runs a short 5 yard-ish hitch, and slot WR runs flag); twinned WRs run smash; Sweeney checks to the hitch. Sweeney seemed a bit too eager to throw on this play. I remember this play from the stands because I picked this signal (from the sideline QB) and knew what the play was going to be beforehand. Although it's hard to see on the video, I do believe the slot WR would have been incredibly open on the flag route had Sweeney given the play another half second. This is a staple Cal play although rarely run from weak-I formation.

HUGE THANKS TO PRD74 FOR GETTING FANTASTIC SHOTS OF THE PLAYS.

I love seeing the defense. It's such a Christmas present to be able to see the defense on the videos - something you don't normally see on TV broadcasts. Thanks for getting the entire pre-snap formation too - very helpful. Thanks for putting these videos together too. It's much quicker for me to provide quick analysis comments from pre-made videos rather than me photoshopping individual plays. Thank you PRD74!

Cal @ UCLA Post-Game Thoughts

HydroTech — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:56:50 -0000

More photos » by Reed Saxon - AP

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(1) Riley played well. I can't really remember any bad passes off the top of my head. He looked pretty sharp today. His passes to Marvin Jones were right on the money. His pass to Best was perfect. There was even a quasi throw-away pass that Riley threw on the run which was perfectly placed where only the wide receiver could catch it (although the pass ended up being incomplete). I was really impressed with Riley's ball placement today. He wasn't just making the throws today, but also was placing the ball very well too.

Riley showed pretty good pocket presence and would scramble when things started breaking down. His gutsy play on his QB scrambles and QB draws was inspiring. He just seemed calmer and more poised today than in previous games. Perhaps it's mental, or perhaps it's because the offensive line wasn't sucking like it did against Oregon and the offense wasn't facing USC's defense. Riley's completion percentage today was 60.1% - which is fair, but I think Riley played better than his completion percentage suggests.

(2) Cal's inside zone runs tip off the defense to which side the offense is going to run to before the snap. These are the plays where Cal motions a WR who stops on the backside (the side of the offense that Cal is running away from) to block the backside defender. When Cal does this, it's obvious it's a run as since Cal doesn't playaction out of the inside zone (we have in previous years but we really haven't seen it this year). It also tips off the defense as to which way the run is going.

I guess Ludwig likes the inside zone as since it has become the blocking scheme that Cal has used the most this year. Last year the outside zone was our most-used blocking scheme and it was pretty dominant. I actually like the outside zone better because it doesn't tip off the defense as to which way the run is going and because it gives Best and Vereen more options on where they can run. However, the fact that Cal isn't using the outside zone runs this year must mean Ludwig feels we're not quite suited for it. If that's true, that must mean he's thinking our offensive line this year doesn't have the quickness and athleticism to get moving laterally very quickly - as is required with the outside zone. Anyways, I wouldn't mind seeing more outside zone runs rather than these telegraphed inside zone runs. But maybe I'm making too much out of this issue. In previous years, Cal's power man blocking schemes always telegraphed which way the run was going because Cal ran its power scheme to the strong side of the offense like 98% of the time. Even when Cal let the defense know which way it was running its power scheme, our run offense was still pretty dominant and we would average like 6.0 yards a rush anyways.

(3) Cal's running game was pretty inconsistent. Case in point: Jahvid Best had 102 yards on 18 rushes, 93 yards of which came from one run. That means Best gained a whopping 9 yards on the other 17 rush attempts. Yeesh. This isn't a diss on Best, but moreso a diss on our offensive line. I know UCLA's stellar defensive tackle Brian Price was blowing things up left and right, but still. If it wasn't for Best's and Vereen's big play potential, I don't think Cal's offensive line had enough in them to sustain a drive. Thankfully, Cal's passing game showed up today and it didn't put too much of a burden on the Cal rushing attack. Cal's blocking still has to get stronger at the point of attack. Right now, it's pretty lacking no matter what scheme we use. Power hasn't been that great, inside zones haven't been that great, outside zones have actually sucked this year, and the outside toss sweeps haven't been great. Best's sick Reggie Bush-like touchdown run came on a toss sweep, and if it wasn't for Jahvid Best being so sick (in the "awesome" slang sense, not in the influenza sense), that play would have been stopped for a loss because UCLA was on that play like white on rice. I'm a little surprised we didn't see more outside zone runs today and toss sweeps to get the ball away from Price as since he was blowing everything up in the middle.

Overall, I think this year's offense is fairly mediocre despite our Heisman runningback. The run blocking hasn't always been there (but Best's and Vereen's big play potential makes up for it sometimes), and Cal's passing game has been off and on. When both the running and passing are working, Cal's offense has enough firepower to put games away. But it's when one isn't working when things start turning south. Cal's offense is going to have to turn things around this season to win out.

(4) Gregory continues to use more man coverage in pass defense. In the first three games of the season, Cal used zone defenses perhaps on 90% of the plays it ran to defend against passing plays. After Oregon destroyed our zones with pump fakes, Gregory switched to more gutsier man defenses against USC. Gregory still used the man coverage pretty often against UCLA. I think the amount of man and zone that Cal is using now is perhaps closer to 40/60 man to zone. I suppose this will please most Cal fans as since it appears that many of us react very negatively to zone defenses - although nobody was complaining about the zone defenses last year and in 2006 when we were intercepting balls left and right. I think it's good that Gregory is mixing up the man/zone coverages up more. I think that by mixing it up more often that the opposing QB doesn't quite get in that rhythm of always knowing he's going to see zone and knowing what he has to do. I mean, the opposing QB is almost always going to know what coverages Cal is playing before the snap. So it's not so much that mixing up the coverages is confusing the QB - it's just keeping him out of that mental and dropback rhythm of timed passes.

Also, the benefit of using zone coverages is that it allows the cornerbacks to get more involved in run defense. When cornerbacks are playing man coverage, they're looking at the WRs they're covering instead of the QB and the ball, and are often "run off" the play by the WRs. But with zone coverages, the cornerbacks are watching the QB and the ball, and can tell whether the play is run or pass, and therefore help in run support if it's a run.

So there's advantages and disadvantages of using man or zone. The reason why Syd had so many great run stops early this season was because Gregory was playing zones a lot and it allowed Syd to peek at the QB and the ball to see the play. If Gregory continues using man coverages, you're probably going to see the offenses get more easy runs to the outside where the WRs are running off the cornerbacks (because the cornerbacks don't know if the play is run or pass because in man coverage they're looking at the WRs).

(5) Cal's pass rush was pretty weak. Outside of Tyson Alualu, our guys on the defensive line really aren't doing that great of a job getting pressure on the QB. Jordan has had a very quiet year thus far and I think he's been a bit over-hyped by the Cal fanbase. I mean, there were some people saying he was going to go pro early. No. Not gonna happen. He's been largely disarmed from game to game by individual offensive linemen. Cal really lacks a dominant pass rush on the whole from both the defensive line and the linebackers. I think this problem will continue throughout the year and come back to bite us.

Seeing who is good at pass rush is pretty easy. The top two things I look for are (1) explosion off the line; and (2) penetration (a product of good technique, quickness and sheer power). Alualu gets off the line very fast and gets penetration very quickly. As for our other defensive linemen... eh, not so much.

(6) I would have liked to see Cal use the delayed blitz a little earlier, or perhaps twist the defensive ends in. As I said in my previous point, Cal's pass rush was pretty weak. UCLA was blocking for Prince very well on pass plays. Prince was stepping up into the pocket to avoid the deep Cal defensive end pass rush. Naturally, the next step to counter good pass blocking and a QB that steps up into the pocket is to delay blitz, and twist the defensive ends in. Gregory finally got around to using the delayed blitz late in the game and it led to a nice Eddie Young sack which stopped a UCLA drive on a critical 3rd down. But we never quite saw the defensive ends twisting in. By that, I mean, the defensive ends would take a step up the field as if on their normal pass rush, then cut back inside behind the inside pass rushers. Well, since Cal uses the 3-4, the twisting would probably be done by one of the DEs and an outside linebacker rather than both of the DEs. By twisting, the outside pass rushers are relocated to the inside and right into the area where the opposing QB will be stepping up into the pocket. Not quite sure why we didn't see this today. But what do I know? I'm just a couch potato.

(7) Vereen fumbling kickoff returns a bit too much. Okay, so this has only happened twice. Once against USC, and against UCLA, but it's a bit concerning. Today against UCLA, Vereen wasn't even looking into the sun (the sun was behind Vereen). But Vereen just fumbled the catch and destroyed any chance of a return. Fumbling these kickoff returns is also dangerous because that's a live ball. If the ball gets away from Vereen it can be recovered by the kickoff coverage defense for a score, or perhaps a safety if Vereen bobbles the ball, steps out of endzone, then has to go back into the endzone to recover the ball. Clean catches is just one of those small things that can't go wrong because there is huge potential for losing the ball or getting backed up against your own goalline.

(8) Kickoff coverage continues to suck. I'm a pretty tolerant guy. While most Cal fans have been calling for special teams coach Alamar's head on a silver platter for like the past 7 years, only now am I finally getting fed up. I even had a dream on the Friday night before the game that he had been fired. Anyways, here is where UCLA started their drives this game:

36, 48, 48, 39, 24, 27, 22, 38, 20, 20, 33, 23, 16, 32, and 47.

That's an average of 31.5. So UCLA was starting at their 31.5 yardline on average. If you take out the touchbacks, then UCLA is starting at their own 33.3 yard line. In other words, the opposing offense only needs to go about 30 yards to be within field goal range. These starting field positions cannot be so advantageous. I'm not quite sure what it is about or kick coverage, but it just doesn't cut it.

(9) Whether a punt returner decides to fair catch or return a punt depends on the quality of blocking by the punt return team, and the decision is up to the punt returner. I'm not trying to pick on people here, but I think I have to talk about this - not because there was an argument about this in the live thread, but also because I've heard people at games saying really ridiculous comments regarding punt return. I guess how punt return works is not common knowledge (just like it's apparently not common knowledge that liquid dish washing soap cannot be used in dish washers!).

Whether the punt returner decides to return the punt or not, is a choice purely up to him. The coaches do not tell the punt returner prior to the play whether to fair catch or not. This may seem obvious, but against USC two weeks ago, I heard someone in the stands say "why do the coaches always tell Syd to fair catch??? They should tell him to return it!!!" I had an epic face-to-palm after hearing that comment.

So basically, as the punt is in the air, and as the punt returner is watching the ball in the air, the punt returner uses his peripheral vision to "see" whether the punt return coverage is good enough to allow him to catch the ball safely, and return the ball.

That's it. It merely comes down to how good the punt return blocking is, and whether the punt returner feels he can make the catch and return the ball upfield, or not. Nothing is pre-determined. The coaches aren't telling the punt returner prior to the play to fair catch or not. The punt returner doesn't fair catch because that's what he likes to do. The coaches and the players want to return punts. They do! Believe it or not, they do! The coaches are not going to pull a punt returner from the game because he fair catches too much. As I said, sometimes the punt return coverage sucks and the punt returner has to fair catch. Sometimes the scheme dictates that the punt returner will have to fair catch. For example, if the punt coverage team is trying to block the punt (as in a full-out block rather than the usual punt scheme which sends some defenders on punt block and punt return blocking), then the punt returner will more than likely have to fair catch because all of the punt return coverage men went for the block and didn't block the defenders.

It comes down to the punt return coverage, and the punt returner. The quality of the punt coverage (and sometimes the scheme itself) that will essentially influence whether the punt is returned or fair caught, but nothing is predetermined. The coaches prefer that all punts are returned if possible.

(10) Ludwig breaks out the split backs formation. If you watch the team in pre-game warmups, the team uses this formation quite a bit. We've never seen it in the games itself, but it finally got used today. Cal passed out of this formation which is pretty normal as since split backs is a fairly weak run formation.

(11) Ludwig pulls a guard on playaction for added deception. On the touchdown pass to Best, and on another play action play, Ludwig showed off a new blocking scheme. This scheme pulls a guard across the formation (on the TD pass to Best the left guard pulled to the edge of the right side of the offensive line) to set up on the edge for pass blocking. The purpose of guard pull is to make the play look more like a run play to the defense. Defenses often watch, or key in, on the movements of the offensive line (against Cal, defenses especially key in on the guards because Cal likes to pull its guards) to determine whether the play is a run or pass. If a guard pulls, the play is usually a run. For example, Cal's power man blocking run schemes pull guards. So by pulling a guard on a playaction pass, it really makes the play look like a run. Indeed, Cal had the UCLA defense fooled pretty bad. UCLA's safeties bit HARD on the fake.

Cal has hasn't really used pulling linemen on pass plays. The only time I can really remember this happening was in 2007 against Oregon State. On that play, Cal pulled center Alex Mack on a non-playaction passing play.

(12) Cal uses both the number/wristband system, and the hand signals system to send in plays. There is apparently some confusion about this. Perhaps I am also to blame for this confusion because I've talked about this a few times and I think my statements have varied (although I'll explain why below). If so, I apologize.

The number/wristband system is what Cal used since (at least) 2006. I'm not sure what system Cal used in 2005 and prior. But in 2006, under former offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar, Cal would use the number/wristband system. This system would have the sideline QB (only one QB sending signals) signal in a hand signal corresponding to a number to the QB on the field. The QB on the field would read what number was sent into him, and look on his wristband for the corresponding play.

The hand signal system uses hand signals to signal in the entire play. There are no numbers used. The hand signals say EVERYTHING. They say the formation. They say what the play is going to be. If you can figure out these hand signals, you can know what play Cal is going to run before they snap the ball (you also have to figure out which QB is live and which is the dummy).

I know for a fact that Cal was using the number/wristband system from 2006 to 2008. I know this because it was in 2006 that I learned the hand signals and began watching the sideline QBs. This year (2009), Cal started off the year using mostly the hand signal system. Actually, Cal used both the hand signals and the number/wristband system, but used the hand signals more often. Perhaps 70% hand signals and 30% number/wristband system. Now though, half way through the season, things have flipped, and it appears as if Cal is using 30% hand signals and 70% number/wristband system.

Why has there been this change? Well, I don't think it has to do with simplifying anything for Riley, as was suggested by a commenter. Afterall, whether the team sends in plays via numbers or actual hand signals doesn't influence whether the play is any simpler for Riley or not. The play is still the same. It's merely the form that the play is transmitted to Riley which has changed. Instead, I think this just goes to show that Ludwig is just calling more plays that he expected to call in the game. You see, the plays that Ludwig expects to call, usually go on the wristband. Plays which Ludwig perhaps doesn't expect to call, and that don't make it on the wristband, are signaled in via hand.

So what's the point of using numbers/wristband versus hand signals? The most obvious reason for using the number/wristband system is that the number/wristband system is near impossible to pick. At the very best, if you astutely observe the numbers being sent in, at the very most you can say "they're going to run play number 23 again!" If you remembered what play number 23 was when they ran it the first time, then you will be able to know what they're running again. But the number/wristband system is impossible to pick unless you have the wristband to see what plays correspond with what number.

But I think the real advantage of using the hand signal system over the number/wristband system, is that such a system allows the offensive coordinator to call the play that perfectly fits the situation at hand. The wristbands only hold 150 plays (300 if you want to count the flipped version of each play). Sometimes the play you want, isn't one of those 150 plays. But with the hand signal system, it's not a problem. The offensive coordinator just tells the sideline QBs to run XYZ play - the play that the offensive coordinator wants but isn't on the wristband, and the sideline QBs will signal in XYZ play. Voila!

(13) Cal's new 10 man defense is probably due to all the subbing and player injuries. It was widely reported that Cal did a lot of subbing against UCLA because of the heat. Not surprising, Cal did its first ten man defense this game too. It happens. It shouldn't. But it does. It gets even more confusing when you have injuries. Once you have guys that are injured, as well as lots of subbing, it gets crazy confusing on who is in and out. Yes, the coach in the box could have seen this problem. But at the same time, I think it's almost understandable if he doesn't because he's dialing up the next play and also watching the offense to see what the offense is doing. He doesn't really watch the defense because he knows what the defense is doing (or more correctly: he assume he knows what the defense is doing). So the blame really comes down to the players themselves (those on the sidelines and in the game) for not adequately notifying their substitutes to go in, and the sideline coaches for not making sure they were getting one for one substitutions as oppose to one for none substitutions.

DBD - 10/16/09 - Tebow will be a great NFL QB?

HydroTech — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:34:23 -0000

via tophatal.files.wordpress.com

So a friend of mine is a Florida fan. After Florida's win over LSU last week, I emailed her saying something along the lines of: "congrats on the win, i was rooting for lsu, i'm tired of all the tebow love."

Later my friend emails me back saying something along the lines of "am I correct in assuming that if Tebow was on Cal's team that you wouldn't dislike him?"

I sent back a response essentially saying: "Well, I would actually not care much of Tebow was on Cal's team because Tebow probably wouldn't even be starting on Cal's team. He's not the pro-style QB that Tedford wants or uses in his offense. Tebow isn't even that great of a QB. He has a slow release. He doesn't even spiral the ball half the time (which gets problematic on deep throws and windy conditions). He doesn't get good RPMs on the ball (again, problematic for windy conditions). His accuracy is questionable. He doesn't have the experience or maybe even the ability to drop back from under center and make a read. I don't think he's going to make a good QB in the NFL. Right now he's a great college player because he's surrounded by blue chip talent, on a great team, and in the right system."

I might have pissed off my friend because then she sent back a response saying that we should make a bet on Tebow being a great NFL QB and that she thought he would be a great NFL QB. She seemed genuinely upset that I dissed Tebow.

So, my fellow CGB denizens, I ask you for your opinion...

DO YOU THINK TIM TEBOW WILL BE A GREAT NFL QB?

I mean, don't let this information sway your decision, but draft experts such as Mel Kiper have already said Tebow is probably like at the highest, a third round draft pick ... AS A TIGHT END. Others have said similar things saying he has no chance at playing QB in the NFL. Or at least, he has very little chance at making it in the NFL as a QB.

I'm not the only one that has reached this conclusion.

Random CBS writer says Tebow ain't going to be great:

He has an NFL body, he has NFL athletic ability, and he has an NFL head and heart. He just doesn't have an NFL arm. Nothing wrong with that. Very few college quarterbacks -- very few Heisman Trophy winners -- have an NFL arm.

Tebow Scouting report:

Weaknesses: Absolutely horrendous footwork ... Plays in a run-option offense and it will take him 2-3 years to learn an NFL offense ... Horrible touch on the football, which is difficult to catch ... Nice accuracy on the deep ball, but it's very inconsistent in the intermediate routes ... Extremely long release ... Shown no improvement in his mechanics over his career ... Locks on to primary receivers all the time ... Speed at wide receiver made a lot of his throws look better than they actually were.

Summary: Tim Tebow lacks the basic precision passing qualities for what it takes to be an NFL quarterback, and as of now I'm giving him a fourth-round draft grade ... Needs to improve mechanics drastically ... Transition to being an NFL signal caller should take some time ... Needs to be more of a calm/cool/collected leader on the field rather than being so emotional ... Second halves against Michigan and LSU showed Tebow's great flaws when they neutralized the run option and forced him to be a pocket quarterback ... He could be a solid fullback in the NFL with his running style if it doesn't work out at quarterback.

Mel Kiper says Tebow will have a great NFL career .... as a Tight End:

Kiper said ... that Tebow is likely to play tight end when he enters the NFL in 2010.

"I think an H-back, tight end projection, like we've had quarterbacks move to wide receiver in the past," Kiper said. "That's what I think he will be. ... (Tebow) can have a very successful career in the NFL, but not at quarterback."

So what do you guys think? Many of us has seen Tebow play. Certainly, if the NFL team that drafts him wants to tinker with their offense and make it more Florida-like for Tebow, I think he can be *productive* in the NFL.

But in my opinion, he's never going to be Peyton Manning good of a passer. I just don't see the mental acuity, I don't see the mechanics, I don't see the arm.

So should I take up the bet with my friend? Or shall I be a gentleman and tell her to keep her money and thank me in 3 years when Tebow is 4th string QB on some NFL team or playing fullback or tight end?

Poll

Is Tim Tebow going to be a great NFL QB?

Gonna be great as a QB

2 votes

Gonna be solid as a QB

1 votes

Gonna okay as a QB

8 votes

Gonna suck as a QB.

18 votes

Gonna be worse than Ryan Leaf.

5 votes

He's not even going to play QB in the NFL because he sucks so much as a QB.

18 votes

52 votes | Poll has closed

2009 Cal vs. USC - The Presnap Chessmatch

HydroTech — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:16:20 -0000

More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

2 months ago: Southern California's Damian Williams, left, is pushed out of bounds by California linebacker Mike Mohamed during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009, in Berkeley, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

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Based on the feedback from those of you that participated in our Golden Feedback, it appears as if many of you really enjoy game film play analysis. I'm sorry for not providing more game film analysis on a regular basis, but school has once again kept me fairly busy (15 units and 6 classes: Mediterranean Cuisine, French Sous-vide, Advanced Sauces, Delicate Desserts, Unusual Proteins, and Dangerous Foods Preparation). I will try to provide a little more analysis here and there. Please bear with me in the following analysis as since I no longer have Photoshop on my laptop and I had to use Paint instead.

While watching the Cal vs. USC game between practicing my Julienne cuts and while waiting for some creme brulee to finish cooling down, I noticed something pretty interesting. I noticed USC's QB Matt Barkley make a fantastic pre-snap adjustment to take advantage of the Cal defense. At the college level, it doesn't seem like a lot of QBs are allowed to make pre-snap adjustments. Some offenses merely have the entire offense look to the coaches on the sidelines before the snap, to get signals from the coaches which will dictate whether the offense will run the original play or run a different play. In these offenses, the QB is just a stupid mindless automaton that directs the offense under the command of the sideline coaches. Other offenses allow the QB some control to change direction of runs or change the play to a few select pre-determined plays (Cal's offense). And then there are only a few QBs at the college level are allowed to pretty much do whatever they want (if I recall correctly, I think Boston College's Matt Ryan was given the freedom to change the play at the line of scrimmage to any play he desired - don't quote me on that but I could have sworn I read that in an ESPN Magazine or something). USC's QBs are either the second or third option, meaning they definitely can change plays around and perhaps they can even do whatever they want with the offense.

Above is the pre-snap look. USC has 11 personnel on the field (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WRs). They are facing a 2nd and 17. USC comes out in a formation that has the TE to the offense's left, bunch WRs to the offense's left, and the RB to the QB's left. Cal lines up in its 3-4 defense with only two defenders defending the bunch. USC's QB Matt Barkley sees that only two Cal defenders are in the immediate vicinity of their bunch WRs (if playing 7 and 8 yards off is even really in the "immediate" vicinity). Barkley then instructs the RB to Barkley's left, to move to Barkley's right. This subtle change in the pre-snap formation is key to this play's success against the Cal Defense.

Above is the pre-snap look after the subtle change in the offensive formation. Now the USC offense is showing a distinct zone read formation because the runningback is in the "weak" position ("weak" position is to the opposite side of the TE). The USC offense has now strengthened its running threat ability because if the play is a zone read run to the offense's left, the runningback will be running behind to the strength of the offense (the general rule is that the strength of the offense is the side which the TE is on) which is the offense's left because the TE is on the left.

Prior to the change in the pre-snap formation, USC's formation seemed to suggest either a bubble screen or a pass. There wasn't really a threat of a zone read because most pro-style offenses that occasionally use the zone read (such as Cal and USC) won't run a zone read to that side of the offense unless there is a TE on that side. But now, by moving the runningback to the other side of the QB, USC's formation suggests either a bubble screen or a zone read left. I've shown the zone read left with a red arrow.

It's this change in formation which threatens a zone read which puts pressure on the backside defender (the "backside defender" is the defender who the offense is running away from). In this case, the backside defender is Cal's strong-side linebacker, Eddie Young, who I've circled with a yellow oval.

Cal's SLB (strongside linebacker), Eddie Young, knows he has the zone read to look out for and will probably bite in on the zone read to help defend the run.

Of course, USC's QB Matt Barkley was planning this all along. Barkley purposely moved the RB before the snap to give the distinct zone-read look to get Eddie Young to bite, even if a little, on a zone read fake. The play is really a bubble screen to the bunch WRs (shown with the red routes). Barkley would rather run the bubble screen instead of the zone read, because there are 8 Cal defenders in the box defending Barkley and the RB run. On the other hand, there are only two Cal defenders on the screen defending the 3 USC WRs (presumably another Cal safety is off the screen helping defend the bunch but he's so far away from the bunch that he's not in prime position to stop a bubble screen).

Above is the play post-snap. Barkley has given a slight fake to the USC RB who pretends to take the ball on a zone read (the red arrow). This causes Eddie Young to bite down on the play fake (the yellow arrow). Because Young bit on the play fake, it has created a larger void (the "bubble") than if he hadn't bit on the zone read fake. Also, notice how big of a buffer zone the two Cal defenders have given the bunch. I know it's 2nd and 18, but the large buffer zone they've given up is like at least 5 free yards of run-after-the-catch.

USC's Matt Barkley passes the ball to WR Damian Williams who has a huge "bubble" of protection and tons of uncontested yardage to gain. I've put a thick yellow circle where Cal SLB Eddie Young was lined up before the snap. As you can see from this picture, the zone read fake has caused him to move away from the bunch WRs and towards the QB, thus putting him further away to stop the play than if he had just stayed home at his pre-snap position.

In this picture Damian Williams has caught the ball and has begun picking up tons of easy yardage. I have placed the initials "E.Y." in the picture above by Eddie Young so you know which player he is. Alternatively, I guess I could have said he's the defender who is trailing Damian Williams and behind the play. Eddie Young probably wouldn't have been trailing Damian Williams and be behind the play if it weren't for the subtle pre-snap change in formation orchestrated by Barkley.

Here is the Youtube video of the play in its entirety (special thanks to ieeeBear who created the video for me):

Conclusion: What really made this play interesting was the fact that it appeared to be either a bubble screen or a downfield pass from the formation pre-change, but then Barkley changed the play to a bubble screen with a zone read fake based on how the Cal defense was lined up. The zone read fake was critical in creating an even bigger bubble area for the WR. Overall, this is an excellent example of the pre-snap chess match between the QB and defense.

Many teams, including Cal, run plays (similar to the one above) which have the zone read slash bubble screen option (the QB can either hand off the ball or throw the bubble screen). It's not a totally uncommon play and it works really well because it puts the defender between the offense line and the bunch (such as Eddie Young in the play above) in a bind because he has to beware of the zone read run which pulls him away from the bunch, and he also has to be aware of the bubble screen which if he chooses to defend the screen then that pulls him away from the zone read run. So either way, Eddie Young was pretty screwed on this play and it wasn't his fault - it was just really good chess by USC's Matt Barkley.