[berk18]

Now that this year's draft is in the books, it strikes me that 2010 was LOADED. In the past there've been arguments about whether this was more attributable to talent or coaching, but when you look at that roster it's clear that that is the year our program died.

At WR, we had two guys who would later be drafted. Marvin Jones was an upper-classman, and Keenan Allen was Keenan Allen. Schwenke was a returning starter and just got drafted in the 4th, and Schwartz was an upper-classmen who would be drafted in the 2nd. The rest of the OL wasn't as devoid of talent as people make it seem. Donovan Edwards spent at least some time in the NFL, and MSG was just picked up as a free agent. Obviously that's not the same as getting drafted, but you'd think our line was a complete POS to hear people talk about it. Shane Vereen was drafted by a perennial Super Bowl contender in the 2nd and just became the first NFL player EVER to score 2 TD's receiving and 1 TD rushing in a single playoff game.

The defense was even nastier, though. Jordan was a Sr. and future 1st round pick, Guyton was a Jr. and future draftee, and Coleman, who is in great shape to be an early round pick next year, was backing them up. Mychal Kendricks was a Jr. and future 2nd round pick, and Mike Mohamed was a Sr. and a 6th round pick. Chris Conte was drafted in the 3rd after that season, Marc Anthony was a sophomore and just got drafted, and Steve Williams, recent 5th round pick, was his back-up.

Even if Riley never got injured, we were heading for 7-5 at best. In retrospect, this season in particular is all the more dissapointing. The coaches clearly developed these players well enough for them to get drafted, but everything else just wasn't there. In retrospect, 2009 was a much better, but much less talented team.

[gobears725]

zzzzzzzzz

[bigcocoon007]

then what do you call 2010 Bama?

[berk18]

I call 2010 Bama a national championship contender. Fortunately for the rest of us, most college teams aren't that good, and we don't have to play all the teams that are.

Seriously, I know we all know that Cal's produced a lot of good players and underachieved, but I was hoping for some discussion from a long-distance perspective with thoughts on actual depth charts now that we know where everyone ended up. A comparison of the 2010 and 2009 rosters, for instance, makes the results of those two seasons much more interesting, and maybe kind of surprising. The complaints about the two teams were the same at the time, but it turns out there were major differences. Or were there? That's where I was hoping to go with this.

[calumnus]

Originally Posted by berk18

I call 2010 Bama a national championship contender. Fortunately for the rest of us, most college teams aren't that good, and we don't have to play all the teams that are.

Seriously, I know we all know that Cal's produced a lot of good players and underachieved, but I was hoping for some discussion from a long-distance perspective with thoughts on actual depth charts now that we know where everyone ended up. A comparison of the 2010 and 2009 rosters, for instance, makes the results of those two seasons much more interesting, and maybe kind of surprising. The complaints about the two teams were the same at the time, but it turns out there were major differences. Or were there? That's where I was hoping to go with this.

1. Offensive coaches were Tedford/Ludwig/Marshall/Daft....
2. Riley injured, back-ups were Sweeney and Mansion...

[heartofthebear]

Originally Posted by berk18

I call 2010 Bama a national championship contender. Fortunately for the rest of us, most college teams aren't that good, and we don't have to play all the teams that are.

Seriously, I know we all know that Cal's produced a lot of good players and underachieved, but I was hoping for some discussion from a long-distance perspective with thoughts on actual depth charts now that we know where everyone ended up. A comparison of the 2010 and 2009 rosters, for instance, makes the results of those two seasons much more interesting, and maybe kind of surprising. The complaints about the two teams were the same at the time, but it turns out there were major differences. Or were there? That's where I was hoping to go with this.

I believe one of the reported reasons at the time was the coaches offices were moved to temporary bungalows because, although CMS was still in use, the coaches were displaced. I think some of the practices had to be held at HSs as well. But that might be confusing 2011. In any case, I gave them a mulligan in 2010 because of the effect of the transition to new facilities.

I also agree with calumnus that our assistant offensive coaches really hurt us. Marshall continues to hurt us even though he isn't here. And Daft actually was a QB coach at one point, as well as a WR coach later.

[berk18]

Originally Posted by calumnus

1. Offensive coaches were Tedford/Ludwig/Marshall/Daft....
2. Riley injured, back-ups were Sweeney and Mansion...

Good points. These are the kinds of things I want to explore with this thread. We had those exact same coaches in 2009 and less talent. 2009, in retrospect, was a decent coaching job that was marred by high pre-season expectations. 2010 was the exact opposite.

With regard to Riley's injury, we lost three games before he got hurt. One was the Nevada debacle, and another was the infamous 42-0 half against USC. Stanford and Oregon were losses that happened later, and they were 1- and 0-loss teams, respectively. I think with Riley the Oregon game would've been different entirely, from our perspective and UO's, so we can't just say that they would've still scored 15 points while we would've scored more. I think even with a healthy Riley we lose to Stanford and one of Oregon and OSU at a minimum. In retrospect, though, that team was much better than a best-case scenario 7-5 or a more realistic 6-6. I think that whatever systematic/competitive problems we had must've taken over in 2010, which is potentially interesting. Was there more talent in the league in 2010 vs. 2009 or what? I don't know yet.

[Agureghian]

decent talent, bad coaching, no qb.

[dajo9]

Some people, like Grandmastapoop, seem pretty adamant that we did not have enough talent to succeed. I'm not sure why. It's pretty clear to me that we have been underachieving relative to talent. You generally have to lay that blame on the coaches.

We are in a good direction now, I think.

[Cal_Fan2]

Originally Posted by dajo9

Some people, like Grandmastapoop, seem pretty adamant that we did not have enough talent to succeed. I'm not sure why. It's pretty clear to me that we have been underachieving relative to talent. You generally have to lay that blame on the coaches.

We are in a good direction now, I think.

Agree with you and Agureghian. Except for QB where we were woefully lacking, talent was not our downfall, coaching on most levels was.

[HaasBear04]

We didn't have the facilities in 2010... QED

[berk18]

Originally Posted by heartofthebear

I believe one of the reported reasons at the time was the coaches offices were moved to temporary bungalows because, although CMS was still in use, the coaches were displaced. I think some of the practices had to be held at HSs as well. But that might be confusing 2011. In any case, I gave them a mulligan in 2010 because of the effect of the transition to new facilities.

I also agree with calumnus that our assistant offensive coaches really hurt us. Marshall continues to hurt us even though he isn't here. And Daft actually was a QB coach at one point, as well as a WR coach later.

That was 2011.

The Marshall point is interesting, which is what I hope to bring out in this thread. Look at the 2010 OL. Schwartz and Schwenke got drafted, and Cheadle is currently on the Steeler's roster, so he's managed to stick around the league for a few years. All those guys played a lot of football under Marshall. That's a solid hit rate for one offensive line from a mediocre-to-bad team where the fans always complain about how awful the OL is. Surely no one thought we had that much NFL talent in 2010. Nevertheless, while those guys were at Cal and coached by Marshall, they put enough good stuff on tape to get NFL attention. That's actually really, really interesting.

[berk18]

And for full disclosure, although this thread brings up old seasons and old complaints, I'm thinking about it because of how relevant it is for this year. The 2010 defense had a ton of NFL talent, relatively speaking. So did the 2009 defense. The 2010 defense simplified things for the front-7 in the run game, and changed a lot for the back-7 in pass defense. Nevertheless, the talent from 2009 really took off with a few position changes and the new scheme in 2010. I think that's actually an interesting comparison for this year's offense. We went from #71 nationally (#7 PAC-10) to #18 nationally (#1 PAC-10) in one off-season with a defensive scheme change. Why can't our offense do that?

[heartofthebear]

Originally Posted by berk18

That was 2011.

The Marshall point is interesting, which is what I hope to bring out in this thread. Look at the 2010 OL. Schwartz and Schwenke got drafted, and Cheadle is currently on the Steeler's roster, so he's managed to stick around the league for a few years. All those guys played a lot of football under Marshall. That's a solid hit rate for one offensive line from a mediocre-to-bad team where the fans always complain about how awful the OL is. Surely no one thought we had that much NFL talent in 2010. Nevertheless, while those guys were at Cal and coached by Marshall, they put enough good stuff on tape to get NFL attention. That's actually really, really interesting.

Most of the progress our players make in getting to the NFL happens after their college playing days are over. They make great strides in the combine and once they play on Sundays. This speaks to their level of talent, which, due to mediocre coaching, does not really manifest in college.

The level of competiton in the conference has been getting greater each year. Washington was considerably better in 2010 than 2009, even though we lost to them in 2009 as well. Stanford was also better. Nevada was much better than we expected them to be.

Also, we blew both the Washington and Arizona games due to really poor DB play late in the game and really conservative coaching. If we win those, we go 7-5 and possibly 8-5, which is no different than 2009.

Also, we did not really have anybody besides Vereen to give us a TB tandem.

[mbBear]

you are kind of over-selling the O-line aspect...