A little late this time around because there were no games this weekend (other than Army/Navy neither of whom would be ranked) and because we only had like 3 ballots until much later. We only have 8 now, so it's not much of an improvement.

1		Alabama (5)	2
2		TCU (2)	1
3		Cincinnati	1
4		Texas	1
5		Florida	3
6		Oregon (1)	--
7		Boise State	--
8		Ohio State	--
9		Virginia Tech	--
10		Georgia Tech	1
11		Iowa	1
12		Penn State	3
13		Oregon State	3
14		Pittsburgh	--
15		Miami (Fla.)	1
16		LSU	1
17		Brigham Young	3
18		Stanford	1
19		Arizona	5
20		Nebraska	1
21		Clemson	2
22		Oklahoma State	--
23		Southern California	5
24		Utah	1
25		West Virginia	2

Others receiving votes:
California, Wisconsin, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Arkansas, North Carolina, Central Michigan, Texas A&M

Dropped out this week:
California

Biggest Difference from AP Poll:
Southern California +10, Clemson +9, West Virginia -7, Central Michigan -7

Biggest Difference from BCS Poll:
West Virginia -9, Oregon State +5, LSU -4, Clemson UNR, Wisconsin UNR

Looks like a lot of people just mailed in their ballot without thinking about it (I'm guilty of this also). I mean what else describes our bias for Texas and ranking West Virginia significantly lower than the official polls. Other than that not much to say. Alabama for now is king of the hill and if we had our way we'd have a 'Bama v. TCU national championship. Unfortunately we don't.

The Biggest Homer Award goes to...

... bluginger who voted for Cal as #12!

This award was presented to the user(s) who loved Cal the most out of everyone who voted this week

Did you miss the game last Saturday? You know where Washington turned into a buzzsaw?

The OMG Cal Sux Award goes to...

... racsan, Takimoto, DougOLis, Kai, Davis Bear, and royrules22, all of whom did not vote for Cal!

This award was presented to the user(s) who held a glass half-empty look at Cal

Almost everyone else (coolingfan voted for Cal at #25).

The Five Most Confusing Teams Were...

1. Utah
2. Southern California
3. Oklahoma State
4. Clemson
5. Brigham Young

Most people had the most trouble figuring out where these five teams belonged. This list is limited to teams that are in the top-25 only.

Utah our bowl opponent is one of the perennial confused team. They haven't really done much to prove they're that good, and on the same token have done much to prove they're bad. As for USC, everyone is probably scared of dropping USC from a poll.

The Five Least Confusing Teams Were...

1. West Virginia
2. Ohio State
3. Alabama
4. Iowa
5. Texas

Most people were generally on the same page when it came to these teams. This list is limited to teams that are in the top-25 only otherwise all the crappy teams would top this list.

So all (8) of us decided to vote West Virginia at a much lower position than the rest of us. It's interesting to note that Bama is not unanimous.

The Five Most Divergent Voters Were...

1. royrules22
2. racsan
3. Takimoto
4. DougOLis
5. Davis Bear

This avard was given to the five voters whose poll differed most from the overall Top 25.

Heh. Really almost all of us had the exact same divergence. The only WTF vote was Takimoto's vote for Oregon at #1. The rest of us just had weird votes such as Cincinnati at #2, USC at #25 (me), or hell even Texas A&M at #25 (Davis Bear).

The Five Least Divergent Voters Were...

1. bluginger
2. coolingfan
3. Kai
4. Davis Bear
5. DougOLis

This avard was given to the five voters whose poll differed the least from the overall Top 25.

Everyone else. We only had 8 voters so there is overlap here.

Sorry, I didn't really put effort into this.

Yea I know there's still a bowl game to go, national signing day to come, etc but I think a preliminary look at next season might be useful.

If you're like me, the media or most other Cal fans you bought into the hype this year about Cal having one of it's best team since 2004. You thought that this year was the year, that our losses on defense and offensive lines could easily be "reloaded", etc. Even more this was not the first year you were burnt. 2009 was supposed to be Rose Bowl. 2008 a 9 or 10 win season (ok that worked out), 2007 Rose Bowl or even (gasp!) National Championship, 2006 Rose Bowl, 2005 9 or 10 wins, etc etc. That is of course unless you are HydroTech who always predicts our collapses. This time I refuse to be sucked into any hype whatsoever. Therefore I will try and take an objective look at what is the most pessimistic (and realistic) result we can hope to achieve next year. Keep in mind that this doesn't account for recruiting studs/duds and injuries among other factors.

Continue reading this post »

Whoops forgot to do this yesterday in my Washington hatred

You know the drill: Go here and vote for the top 25 teams for week 14.

The directions are listed on the voting page and it should be simple enough. Please let me know if you encounter any troubles. The results will be posted either on Tuesday or Wednesday. Blah blah blah blah

Important: There are two bugs on the poll that I haven't fixed it yet but I hope to soon! So be careful. You can vote for the same team twice (ask rags how). Don't do it! Also if you drop a team out (by pressing X) and then in the drop down select another team and then want to vote the original team back in... you can't. So try not to do that m'kay?

The previous week's results are located:
Preseason
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13

Let's aim to get more than a dozen ballots people!

1		TCU (3)	--
2		Florida (6)	2
3		Alabama (2)	1
4		Cincinnati (1)	1
5		Texas	3
6		Oregon	1
7		Boise State	1
8		Ohio State	2
9		Virginia Tech	4
10		Oregon State	4
11		Georgia Tech	4
12		Iowa	3
13		California (2)	2
14		Pittsburgh	5
15		Penn State	3
16		Miami (Fla.)	1
17		LSU	1
18		Southern California	2
19		Stanford	2
20		Brigham Young	2
21		Nebraska	2
22		Oklahoma State	6
23		Clemson	4
24		Arizona	2
25		Utah	1

Others receiving votes:
Houston, West Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, UCLA, Texas Tech, Central Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Navy, Troy, Connecticut

Dropped out this week:
Wisconsin

Biggest Difference from AP Poll:
Houston -8, California +6, Arizona +5, Penn State -5, Stanford +4, Brigham Young -4, TCU +3, Oregon State +3, Iowa -3

Biggest Difference from BCS Poll:
Oregon State +6, California +6, Brigham Young -6, Stanford +5, Penn State -4, LSU -4, TCU +3, Virginia Tech +3, Iowa -3, Clemson UNR, Arizona UNR, Houston UNR, West Virginia UNR

Poor Houston and West Virignia. They're totally not in our poll even though they are ranked nationally (Houston even pretty high!). Aside that we continue to rate Pac-10 teams higher than the media and the BCS. This means that as usual Cal is ranked highly by a Cal blog (!). That aside the top-5 remains generally stable with only minor flux (and two of these teams will duel it out this coming Saturday). However TCU remains the #1 vote for two weeks in a row. Only major drops are by Oklahoma State, Pitt, Georgia Tech and Clemson. But that aside it's not that much more different than last week, albeit with fewer voters. Personally I found this week the hardest to vote since the beginning of the season.

The Biggest Homer Award goes to...

... rocksanddirt, and Hydrotech, all of whom voted for Cal as #1!

This award was presented to the user(s) who loved Cal the most out of everyone who voted this week

I sense an imposter. The real Marshawnthusiast capitalizes the T in Tech.

The OMG Cal Sux Award goes to...

... Kai who did not vote for Cal!

This award was presented to the user(s) who held a glass half-empty look at Cal

Wait what? You freedom hating commie!

The Five Most Confusing Teams Were...

1. Utah
2. Oklahoma State
3. Clemson
4. Arizona
5. Brigham Young

Most people had the most trouble figuring out where these five teams belonged. This list is limited to teams that are in the top-25 only.

WTF has Utah done that is worthwhile. In my opinion they're living off the hype of last year. Okla St and Clemson are meh teams anyway.

The Five Least Confusing Teams Were...

1. Alabama
2. Oregon
3. Florida
4. Cincinnati
5. TCU

Most people were generally on the same page when it came to these teams. This list is limited to teams that are in the top-25 only otherwise all the crappy teams would top this list.

Surprise surprise, Alabama and Florida once again make an appearance. I want people to be confused with them for once! Oregon is a surprising visitor to the list however.

The Five Most Divergent Voters Were...

1. rocksanddirt
2. Hydrotech
3. Kai
4. katster
5. royrules22

This avard was given to the five voters whose poll differed most from the overall Top 25.

rocksanddirt wins this week's crazy voter award with votes such as Cal at #1, Stanford at #7, UCLA at #19, Navy at #25 and of course not voting for Florida at all. Fake Hydrotech came in second with votes such as Cal at #1, Florida at #5, and Iowa at #15.

The Five Least Divergent Voters Were...

1. Rated-R Superstar
2. Takimoto
3. Ohio Bear
4. Berkelium97
5. DougOLis

This avard was given to the five voters whose poll differed the least from the overall Top 25.

It seems almost every week Rated-R Superstar shows up and we see a performance from one of the Bears in Ohio. Rated-R Superstar's only big difference was Cal at #18.

You know the drill: Go here and vote for the top 25 teams for week 13.

The directions are listed on the voting page and it should be simple enough. Please let me know if you encounter any troubles. The results will be posted either on Tuesday or Wednesday. Blah blah blah blah

Important: There are two bugs on the poll that I haven't fixed it yet but I hope to soon! So be careful. You can vote for the same team twice (ask rags how). Don't do it! Also if you drop a team out (by pressing X) and then in the drop down select another team and then want to vote the original team back in... you can't. So try not to do that m'kay?

The previous week's results are located:
Preseason
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12

Let's aim to get more than a dozen ballots people!

So many votes! This is the most popular week as we nearly tripled the number of ballots from last week! Some of these voters are new and possible CGB lurkers. Hey guys start posting!

1		TCU (4)	2
2		Alabama (10)	1
3		Cincinnati	1
4		Florida (2)	2
5		Oregon (2)	2
6		Boise State	2
7		Georgia Tech	1
8		Texas (2)	3
9		Pittsburgh	1
10		Ohio State	1
11		California (6)	11
12		Penn State	2
13		Virginia Tech	1
14		Oregon State	3
15		Iowa	--
16		Oklahoma State	--
17		Miami (Fla.)	1
18		LSU	7
19		Clemson	--
20		Southern California	--
21		Stanford	8
22		Brigham Young	1
23		Nebraska	--
24		Utah	1
25		Wisconsin	1

Others receiving votes:
Arizona, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas Tech, Houston, Arkansas, Washington, West Virginia, Northwestern, Navy, Oklahoma

Dropped out this week:
None

Biggest Difference from AP Poll:
California +10, Mississippi -7, North Carolina -5, Houston -5, Texas -5, Oklahoma State -5, Oregon +5, Stanford +5

Biggest Difference from BCS Poll:
California +11, Texas -5, Iowa -4, Oklahoma State -4. Stanford UNR, Nebraska UNR, Wisconsin UNR, Mississippi UNR, North Carolina UNR, Houston UNR

Wow what a weird pol. Tons of homer-ish voting causing total confusion. TCU is in first place by 28 votes despite the fact that 'Bama had 6 more first place votes! This is what happens when people don't vote for 'Bama. I'd also like to point out to you guys that Texas isn't a bad team and that Cal is not such a good team. At least not good enough to deserve 6 first place votes! In other news Florida drops to the lowest it's been this season while Oregon rises again. The biggest movement this week is of course California's rise combined with LSU's and Stanford's drop.

The Biggest Homer Award goes to...

... gol, jl, steveo, Ghost of Joe Roth, kk, and Rocksanddirt, all of whom voted for Cal as #1!

This award was presented to the user(s) who loved Cal the most out of everyone who voted this week

Sigh. Come on guys we're not *that* good.

The OMG Cal Sux Award goes to...

... Ohio Bear who voted for Cal as #21!

This award was presented to the user(s) who held a glass half-empty look at Cal

And we're not that bad!

The Five Most Confusing Teams Were...

1. Wisconsin
2. Nebraska
3. Stanford
4. Utah
5. LSU

Most people had the most trouble figuring out where these five teams belonged. This list is limited to teams that are in the top-25 only.

So why did Wisconsin and Nebraska end up getting ranked anyway? Has Wisconsin done anything notable this season anyway?

The Five Least Confusing Teams Were...

1. Alabama
2. Boise State
3. Florida
4. TCU
5. Cincinnati

Most people were generally on the same page when it came to these teams. This list is limited to teams that are in the top-25 only otherwise all the crappy teams would top this list.

As usual it's teams in the top 10 that are devoid of confusion.

The Five Most Divergent Voters Were...

1. Rocksanddirt
2. aslkdjfgregs
3. Ghost of Joe Roth
4. steveo
5. jl

This avard was given to the five voters whose poll differed most from the overall Top 25.

Rocksanddirt had came in first votes for Cal at #1 and Oregon at #2 while totally omitting Alabama from his ballot, in addition to voting in Stanford at #8 and Navy at #25. aslkdjfgregs flipped it around with Oregon at #1 and Cal at #2 and Georgia Tech at #3. At least he voted for Alabama at 5.

The Five Least Divergent Voters Were...

1. Berkelium97
2. neodarksaver
3. MadBum
4. Ohio Bear
5. CruzinBears

This avard was given to the five voters whose poll differed the least from the overall Top 25.

How do you do this Berkelium? Always knowing exactly how it's going to turn out so that you can match your ballot as closely as possible?!

You know the drill: Go here and vote for the top 25 teams for week 12.

The directions are listed on the voting page and it should be simple enough. Please let me know if you encounter any troubles. The results will be posted either on Tuesday or Wednesday. Blah blah blah blah

Important: There are two bugs on the poll that I haven't fixed it yet but I hope to soon! So be careful. You can vote for the same team twice (ask rags how). Don't do it! Also if you drop a team out (by pressing X) and then in the drop down select another team and then want to vote the original team back in... you can't. So try not to do that m'kay?

The previous week's results are located:
Preseason
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11

Let's aim to get more than a dozen ballots people!

I'm late yet again... In any case this week was the first week in which Rishi voted! Or at least someone claiming to be him. In the end I had to throw out the ballot because it was ridiculous. Cal at #1 was the best part of the ballot because it had stinkers like Wazzu, Temple, Duke, SMU, UTEP, etc. Outside of Cal no other team on his ballot deserved a single vote. Unfortunately this means we only have 9 ballots this week.

1		Alabama (4)	1
2		Florida (2)	1
3		TCU (2)	--
4		Cincinnati	--
5		Texas (1)	--
6		Georgia Tech	1
7		Oregon	1
8		Boise State	2
9		Ohio State	1
10		Pittsburgh	2
11		LSU	--
12		Virginia Tech	5
13		Stanford	10
14		Penn State	4
15		Iowa	1
16		Oklahoma State	4
17		Oregon State	4
18		Miami (Fla.)	5
19		Clemson	5
20		Southern California	11
21		Brigham Young	1
22		California	16
23		Nebraska	4
24		Wisconsin	4
25		Utah	9

Others receiving votes:
Arizona, North Carolina, Houston, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Boston College, Rutgers, Georgia, Florida State, Tennessee

Dropped out this week:
Arizona, Houston, Oklahoma

Biggest Difference from AP Poll:
Rutgers -9, Wisconsin -7, California +6, Oregon +4, Virginia Tech +4, Oklahoma State -4, Nebraska +4, Houston -4, Oregon State +3, Miami (Fla.) +3

Biggest Difference from BCS Poll:
Wisconsin -8, Oregon +4, Stanford +4, Oklahoma State -4, Clemson +4, Utah -4, California +3, LSU -3, Virginia Tech +3, Houston UNR, Nebraska UNR

A couple of big moves but most in the bottom half of the poll. Namely Stanford's and Cal's rise and USC and Utah's fall. Arizona and Houston also falls out from a pretty high up position in the poll. Houston I can understand, but 'Zona? In other news Alabama takes over Florida's spot and it makes no difference as they'll play each other anyway. TCU also recieves two first place votes but it doesn't do enough to upset the top 2. Isn't it odd seeing USC in the 20s?

The Biggest Homer Award goes to...

... DougOLis, who voted for Cal as #21!

This award was presented to the user(s) who loved Cal the most out of everyone who voted this week

Most everyone who did vote for Cal voted for us in the low twenties. No surprise here.

The OMG Cal Sux Award goes to...

... Missing Barry, Ohio Bear, and Kai, all of whom did not vote for Cal!

This award was presented to the user(s) who held a glass half-empty look at Cal

Anyone surprised to see Missing Barry in here?

The Five Most Confusing Teams Were...

1. Utah
2. Brigham Young
3. Clemson
4. Virginia Tech
5. Miami (Fla.)

Most people had the most trouble figuring out where these five teams belonged. This list is limited to teams that are in the top-25 only.

Utah because well they got killed by TCU, BYU because well what have they done notable other than beating up a Bradford less Oklahoma and the other three are schizophrenic ACC teams.

The Five Least Confusing Teams Were...

1. Wisconsin
2. California
3. Nebraska
4. Alabama
5. Florida

Most people were generally on the same page when it came to these teams. This list is limited to teams that are in the top-25 only otherwise all the crappy teams would top this list.

I'm a little surprised to see Wiscy on here as I'm definitely confused about them

The Five Most Divergent Voters Were...

1. Kai
2. Missing Barry
3. Takimoto
4. BeastMode
5. royrules22

This avard was given to the five voters whose poll differed most from the overall Top 25.

"Rishi" would've won this but since he's not included it's Kai! He had votes such as TCU at #2, Florida St at #23, LSU at #21 and Clemson at #8! It's crazy I tell you!

The Five Least Divergent Voters Were...

1. Ohio Bear
2. Rated-R Superstar
3. Berkelium97
4. DougOLis
5. royrules22

This avard was given to the five voters whose poll differed the least from the overall Top 25.

Hey look I get two awards! That's because only 9 people voted... argh. Ohio Bear's life in drab Ohio is reflected in his poll, yikes!

We're missing a Rocky fanpost so I'm trying to fill the gap here, but I think this fanpost isn't up to his usual standards. Wait what am I missing? Oh yea "FIRE GREGALAMSHALLFORD"!!!

Ok more seriously, this fanpost will attempt to take a look at Cal's defensive performance against the quarterbacks we've faced this year (i.e. up to yesterday's game against Foles of Arizona). This means this does not look at situational stats such as performance on 3rd down. I had to chose an area to focus on!

This post will contain many charts but they always come in two flavors. The first chart will show how Cal performs against a QB versus the QBs season stats. However since the season stat contains the Cal game the second chart shows the same except it excludes stats from the Cal game.

Be sure to click on the images to see a larger version.

QB Rating

So basically we got owned by Masoli (big surprise right?), Tuel (!) and Canfield. What this is showing is that yes our defense doesn't force a quarterback to have a worse game than usual (unless you are Turner or Foles), but it's not as bad as everything believes it to be. Sure the variation between Masoli's season rating and how he performed against Cal is stunning, but keep in mind that this was early in the season with a LBs corps that was still learning. As you will see the Pac-10 quarterbacks are miles beyond anything we faced in our OOC schedule (Nichols has gaudy stats but he plays in D-1AA for a reason). Many were angered at our performance against Canfield but he is good. He is quite possibly the best Pac-10 quarterback we have faced yet. And keep in mind that our entire team was probably down after the Best injury and focused mostly on stopping the Rodgers brothers. Tuel is the only inexplicable result.

Difference Between the QB ratings

This is basically comparing the season QB rating of a quarterback versus his rating against Cal. Simply put the more positive the number the better (because that means his season rating is much better than what he did against Cal).

It's way more obvious here how badly we performed against Oregon. But enough of that. I want you to focus on the positive numbers versus Barkley and Prince, two quarterbacks many feel shredded Cal. That is not true according to this. After our dropping the ball versus Wazzu, Cal seems to have picked up and started performing better, culminating in a dominating performance against Foles.

Percent Completion per game

This is basically the completions per game divided by attempts per game

This shows just about the same thing as the QB rating shows. Dismal performance against Masoli, Tuel and Canfield. But surprisingly it's not as dire of difference as QB rating shows. The only big difference is that we let Nichols complete more pass against a BCS defense than he does otherwise.

TDs per game

(Yes the legend is wrong. But trust me it's the correct graph!)

This is interesting. This I think just shows our "bend not break" defense and how it's somewhat effective (at least with respect to pass defense). Throwing out Masoli, Tuel and Canfield we've held the opposing QBs to near or below their average TDs per game. Weber and Barkley are the only surprises. Weber because of Hagan's brain farts and Barkley for not scoring a single TD versus Cal. That was all on Cal's offense and special teams.

INTs per game

I like how Weber threw the most INTs against Cal than anyone else, granted they came in garbage time. But once again our trend of under-performing against Oregon and Wazzu shows up, but surprisingly we picked off Canfield more than he usually does (but not by much). Does it surprise anyone that Barkley throws more picks than Tuel (14 and 5 respectively in their seasons though Barkley has played 4 more games in full).

Sacks per game

Now we come to the aspect of pass rush. This is basically the number of times a QB has been sacked which is a function of both his O-line and the QB itself. I nominate this chart as perhaps the most surprising of all. Outside of Canfield we have sacked the QB nearly as many times as they get sacked per games if not more times.

I think the Cal pass defense has only had three "bad" games. Oregon who dominated us in all aspects, Wazzu (who basically had to throw the whole time) and Oregon State. I can't make any excuses for the Oregon performance. I think with Wazzu people were just taking it easy because well it was Wazzu and it was a blowout. With Oregon State the defense was focused on the run and probably was mentally down after the Best injury.

So true the Cal pass defense isn't the world beating group we thought prior to the season, it isn't that bad.... Oh who am I kidding, FIRE GREGORY!!

Addendum: Masoli's progression over the season

Well damn. This is probably the ugliest thing for the Cal defense. I can't say anything other than, wow we got beat. Interestingly Masoli's completion percentage seems to be dipping ever lower.

You know the drill: Go here and vote for the top 25 teams for week 10.

The directions are listed on the voting page and it should be simple enough. Please let me know if you encounter any troubles. The results will be posted either on Tuesday or Wednesday. Blah blah blah blah

Important: There are two bugs on the poll that I haven't fixed it yet but I hope to soon! So be careful. You can vote for the same team twice (ask rags how). Don't do it! Also if you drop a team out (by pressing X) and then in the drop down select another team and then want to vote the original team back in... you can't. So try not to do that m'kay?

The previous week's results are located:
Preseason
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9

Let's aim to get more than a dozen ballots people!