I believe Moraga said he was very close to playing against Miami, but he did not.BearoutEast67 said:
Has there been an injury report after the Miami game? I didn't look to see if Vatikani played last game but hope he's ready.
I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
GoCal80 said:
I agree that the kickoff time and weather are pluses, but think that these long trips take more of a toll on a team than people are acknowledging.
Even Mario Cristobal, while dissing Cal and the visitor's locker room in his post-game press conference, spoke about the travel as a challenge for his team against Cal: https://247sports.com/college/miami/article/mario-cristobal-takes-jab-at-cal-acc-after-comeback-win-by-citing-travel-distance-locker-room-issues-237549896/
eastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
eastbayyoungbear said:
I think that's exactly my point. He plays lots of close games and loses more than he wins. He can win them, he's just not good at winning them.
He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
MrGPAC said:ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
It's not just that. Teams actively plan around taking Ott out of the game. Its not JUST bad play by the o-line. They stack the box bring the safety close in and crash the hand off as best they can. They want to force you to beat them through the air.
The downside of stacking the box and aggressively pursuing the hand off is that you leave over the top open, and with your safeties sucked in close to the line you leave yourself vulnerable to big plays. This also forces a lot of 1:1 matchups where tightends size can really exploit smaller db's with no safety help.
Cal just has done a **** job of exploiting this. The solution is to get these chunk plays repeatedly until the safeties are forced to retreat backwards. Punish the dline/linebackers for overpursuing and they will back off and be more tentative, then the run game will open up. Instead of waiting for them to adjust we seem to call our plays in a vacuum, ignoring the defense in front of us and playing against an idealized one instead.
These things don't happen in a vacuum.
Its not even about doing the same thing the entire game. Its about taking what the defense is giving you every single play.ducky23 said:MrGPAC said:ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
It's not just that. Teams actively plan around taking Ott out of the game. Its not JUST bad play by the o-line. They stack the box bring the safety close in and crash the hand off as best they can. They want to force you to beat them through the air.
The downside of stacking the box and aggressively pursuing the hand off is that you leave over the top open, and with your safeties sucked in close to the line you leave yourself vulnerable to big plays. This also forces a lot of 1:1 matchups where tightends size can really exploit smaller db's with no safety help.
Cal just has done a **** job of exploiting this. The solution is to get these chunk plays repeatedly until the safeties are forced to retreat backwards. Punish the dline/linebackers for overpursuing and they will back off and be more tentative, then the run game will open up. Instead of waiting for them to adjust we seem to call our plays in a vacuum, ignoring the defense in front of us and playing against an idealized one instead.
These things don't happen in a vacuum.
I've been saying this exact same thing over and over in other threads. That's why it's unfair to put all the blame on the oline. And it's why you cannot cannot cannot go vanilla.
I feel like Wilcox learned a partial lesson from the FSU game that this is how defenses are playing us, so you have to be aggressive.
Now the trick is for him to realize you have to commit 100% and do this the entire game.
He's a slow learner our Wilcox is.
PtownBear1 said:
I used to plan my days around Cal football games, but for the Pitt game, I think I'm going to start a new habit of only watching the last 5 to 10 minutes. Seems so futile watching the rest of a Wilcox coached game.
MrGPAC said:ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
It's not just that. Teams actively plan around taking Ott out of the game. Its not JUST bad play by the o-line. They stack the box bring the safety close in and crash the hand off as best they can. They want to force you to beat them through the air.
The downside of stacking the box and aggressively pursuing the hand off is that you leave over the top open, and with your safeties sucked in close to the line you leave yourself vulnerable to big plays. This also forces a lot of 1:1 matchups where tightends size can really exploit smaller db's with no safety help.
Cal just has done a **** job of exploiting this. The solution is to get these chunk plays repeatedly until the safeties are forced to retreat backwards. Punish the dline/linebackers for overpursuing and they will back off and be more tentative, then the run game will open up. Instead of waiting for them to adjust we seem to call our plays in a vacuum, ignoring the defense in front of us and playing against an idealized one instead.
These things don't happen in a vacuum.
MrGPAC said:Its not even about doing the same thing the entire game. Its about taking what the defense is giving you every single play.ducky23 said:MrGPAC said:ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
It's not just that. Teams actively plan around taking Ott out of the game. Its not JUST bad play by the o-line. They stack the box bring the safety close in and crash the hand off as best they can. They want to force you to beat them through the air.
The downside of stacking the box and aggressively pursuing the hand off is that you leave over the top open, and with your safeties sucked in close to the line you leave yourself vulnerable to big plays. This also forces a lot of 1:1 matchups where tightends size can really exploit smaller db's with no safety help.
Cal just has done a **** job of exploiting this. The solution is to get these chunk plays repeatedly until the safeties are forced to retreat backwards. Punish the dline/linebackers for overpursuing and they will back off and be more tentative, then the run game will open up. Instead of waiting for them to adjust we seem to call our plays in a vacuum, ignoring the defense in front of us and playing against an idealized one instead.
These things don't happen in a vacuum.
I've been saying this exact same thing over and over in other threads. That's why it's unfair to put all the blame on the oline. And it's why you cannot cannot cannot go vanilla.
I feel like Wilcox learned a partial lesson from the FSU game that this is how defenses are playing us, so you have to be aggressive.
Now the trick is for him to realize you have to commit 100% and do this the entire game.
He's a slow learner our Wilcox is.
Being able to impose your will on the opposition and do whatever YOU want is a GREAT long term goal, but REQUIRES superior athletes AND superior execution to do successfully. That's just not where we are now as a team...and frankly with NIL and the current transfer rules we may never get there. We are going to get to more parity, not less.
ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
calumnus said:MrGPAC said:Its not even about doing the same thing the entire game. Its about taking what the defense is giving you every single play.ducky23 said:MrGPAC said:ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
It's not just that. Teams actively plan around taking Ott out of the game. Its not JUST bad play by the o-line. They stack the box bring the safety close in and crash the hand off as best they can. They want to force you to beat them through the air.
The downside of stacking the box and aggressively pursuing the hand off is that you leave over the top open, and with your safeties sucked in close to the line you leave yourself vulnerable to big plays. This also forces a lot of 1:1 matchups where tightends size can really exploit smaller db's with no safety help.
Cal just has done a **** job of exploiting this. The solution is to get these chunk plays repeatedly until the safeties are forced to retreat backwards. Punish the dline/linebackers for overpursuing and they will back off and be more tentative, then the run game will open up. Instead of waiting for them to adjust we seem to call our plays in a vacuum, ignoring the defense in front of us and playing against an idealized one instead.
These things don't happen in a vacuum.
I've been saying this exact same thing over and over in other threads. That's why it's unfair to put all the blame on the oline. And it's why you cannot cannot cannot go vanilla.
I feel like Wilcox learned a partial lesson from the FSU game that this is how defenses are playing us, so you have to be aggressive.
Now the trick is for him to realize you have to commit 100% and do this the entire game.
He's a slow learner our Wilcox is.
Being able to impose your will on the opposition and do whatever YOU want is a GREAT long term goal, but REQUIRES superior athletes AND superior execution to do successfully. That's just not where we are now as a team...and frankly with NIL and the current transfer rules we may never get there. We are going to get to more parity, not less.
I disagree with that last part. This weekend was full of upsets. Vanderbilt beat #7 Alabama 40-35. Does anyone think Vanderbilt has "superior" athletes to Alabama? No, but they had a better game plan. Misdirection, they had a 23-14 lead going into the half but did not let up.
And NIL has been a godsend for Cal. Cal has had top 20 Transfer Portal rankings two years in a row.
Here are our HS recruiting rankings under Wilcox:
2017 #70
2018 #42
2019 #42
2020 #39
2021 #29
2022 #59
2023 #79
2024 #55
Again our last two Portal classes have been #18 and #17.
Sebasta and Cal Legends are killing it and providing Wilcox with talent. We have a large, wealthy alumni base to draw from. The biggest impediment is having coaches that squander talent.
MrGPAC said:calumnus said:MrGPAC said:Its not even about doing the same thing the entire game. Its about taking what the defense is giving you every single play.ducky23 said:MrGPAC said:ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
It's not just that. Teams actively plan around taking Ott out of the game. Its not JUST bad play by the o-line. They stack the box bring the safety close in and crash the hand off as best they can. They want to force you to beat them through the air.
The downside of stacking the box and aggressively pursuing the hand off is that you leave over the top open, and with your safeties sucked in close to the line you leave yourself vulnerable to big plays. This also forces a lot of 1:1 matchups where tightends size can really exploit smaller db's with no safety help.
Cal just has done a **** job of exploiting this. The solution is to get these chunk plays repeatedly until the safeties are forced to retreat backwards. Punish the dline/linebackers for overpursuing and they will back off and be more tentative, then the run game will open up. Instead of waiting for them to adjust we seem to call our plays in a vacuum, ignoring the defense in front of us and playing against an idealized one instead.
These things don't happen in a vacuum.
I've been saying this exact same thing over and over in other threads. That's why it's unfair to put all the blame on the oline. And it's why you cannot cannot cannot go vanilla.
I feel like Wilcox learned a partial lesson from the FSU game that this is how defenses are playing us, so you have to be aggressive.
Now the trick is for him to realize you have to commit 100% and do this the entire game.
He's a slow learner our Wilcox is.
Being able to impose your will on the opposition and do whatever YOU want is a GREAT long term goal, but REQUIRES superior athletes AND superior execution to do successfully. That's just not where we are now as a team...and frankly with NIL and the current transfer rules we may never get there. We are going to get to more parity, not less.
I disagree with that last part. This weekend was full of upsets. Vanderbilt beat #7 Alabama 40-35. Does anyone think Vanderbilt has "superior" athletes to Alabama? No, but they had a better game plan. Misdirection, they had a 23-14 lead going into the half but did not let up.
And NIL has been a godsend for Cal. Cal has had top 20 Transfer Portal rankings two years in a row.
Here are our HS recruiting rankings under Wilcox:
2017 #70
2018 #42
2019 #42
2020 #39
2021 #29
2022 #59
2023 #79
2024 #55
Again our last two Portal classes have been #18 and #17.
Sebasta and Cal Legends are killing it and providing Wilcox with talent. We have a large, wealthy alumni base to draw from. The biggest impediment is having coaches that squander talent.
What does that have to do with imposing your will? Imposing your will on an opponent means that they sell out to stop the run but you run it up the gut on them consistently anyways, which is what cal was able to do vs San Diego State and UC Davis late in the games. That isn't what Vanderbuilt did to Alabama and it isn't how we were going to beat Florida State OR Miami.
Teams sell out to stop the run against us, so we have to use that to our advantage. That's how we built the lead vs Miami. Going away from it is how we let them back in it.
ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
my mom went to and follows Pitt. the similarities are astonishing.ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
We either need a much better OL or a massive RB that can just overpower the line like Damien Martinez did on Saturday. Even after getting double tackled, he had enough momentum to push forward for 6 yards every time. We can't do it with elusive backs like Thomas and Ottcalumnus said:MrGPAC said:calumnus said:MrGPAC said:Its not even about doing the same thing the entire game. Its about taking what the defense is giving you every single play.ducky23 said:MrGPAC said:ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
It's not just that. Teams actively plan around taking Ott out of the game. Its not JUST bad play by the o-line. They stack the box bring the safety close in and crash the hand off as best they can. They want to force you to beat them through the air.
The downside of stacking the box and aggressively pursuing the hand off is that you leave over the top open, and with your safeties sucked in close to the line you leave yourself vulnerable to big plays. This also forces a lot of 1:1 matchups where tightends size can really exploit smaller db's with no safety help.
Cal just has done a **** job of exploiting this. The solution is to get these chunk plays repeatedly until the safeties are forced to retreat backwards. Punish the dline/linebackers for overpursuing and they will back off and be more tentative, then the run game will open up. Instead of waiting for them to adjust we seem to call our plays in a vacuum, ignoring the defense in front of us and playing against an idealized one instead.
These things don't happen in a vacuum.
I've been saying this exact same thing over and over in other threads. That's why it's unfair to put all the blame on the oline. And it's why you cannot cannot cannot go vanilla.
I feel like Wilcox learned a partial lesson from the FSU game that this is how defenses are playing us, so you have to be aggressive.
Now the trick is for him to realize you have to commit 100% and do this the entire game.
He's a slow learner our Wilcox is.
Being able to impose your will on the opposition and do whatever YOU want is a GREAT long term goal, but REQUIRES superior athletes AND superior execution to do successfully. That's just not where we are now as a team...and frankly with NIL and the current transfer rules we may never get there. We are going to get to more parity, not less.
I disagree with that last part. This weekend was full of upsets. Vanderbilt beat #7 Alabama 40-35. Does anyone think Vanderbilt has "superior" athletes to Alabama? No, but they had a better game plan. Misdirection, they had a 23-14 lead going into the half but did not let up.
And NIL has been a godsend for Cal. Cal has had top 20 Transfer Portal rankings two years in a row.
Here are our HS recruiting rankings under Wilcox:
2017 #70
2018 #42
2019 #42
2020 #39
2021 #29
2022 #59
2023 #79
2024 #55
Again our last two Portal classes have been #18 and #17.
Sebasta and Cal Legends are killing it and providing Wilcox with talent. We have a large, wealthy alumni base to draw from. The biggest impediment is having coaches that squander talent.
What does that have to do with imposing your will? Imposing your will on an opponent means that they sell out to stop the run but you run it up the gut on them consistently anyways, which is what cal was able to do vs San Diego State and UC Davis late in the games. That isn't what Vanderbuilt did to Alabama and it isn't how we were going to beat Florida State OR Miami.
Teams sell out to stop the run against us, so we have to use that to our advantage. That's how we built the lead vs Miami. Going away from it is how we let them back in it.
I agree with that part 100% What I disagree with is that we are at a huge talent disadvantage because of NIL. I think NIL in our current form is an advantage for us.
There are no top P4 teams that I am aware of that just try to line up vanilla and impose their will running up the middle repeatedly on other P4 teams. The top teams are all fairly creative on offense because they need to be to beat other top P4 teams. I think we have shown in the Miami game that we have the talent to beat teams like Miami. I don't know that our OL is terrible (other than false starts against FSU) it was good enough to score 38 points through 3 quarters against Miami when we used a little misdirection and emphasized our strengths. It is obviously not overwhelmingly great enough to run on first and second downs and then drop straight back on third and long. Nowhere close.
So we are in agreement, we need creative playcalling with misdirection to win. Where we disagree is I think Sebasta and the Cal Legends have given Wilcox a lot of talent. He and his staff are just not using it well.
calumnus said:MrGPAC said:calumnus said:MrGPAC said:Its not even about doing the same thing the entire game. Its about taking what the defense is giving you every single play.ducky23 said:MrGPAC said:ducky23 said:DoubtfulBear said:He won close games early in his tenure, but hasn't done so this side of COVID. Haven't seen any signs of it changing. I would argue that we were dominant against Miami because of good luck, rather than losing because of bad luck. No team can sustain such high yards per play as we did in the first three quarterseastbayyoungbear said:I feel like the narrative that Wilcox doesn't win close games is a bit off kilter. He wins close games (Washington 18 and 19, Oregon, USC '18) and loses close games (several points in the past).ducky23 said:
Pitt is EXACTLY in the position we are typically in and where we always fall flat on our faces (undefeated record after a soft early schedule, early ranking in 20's).
I think it's very possible Pitt lays an egg.
We are more talented, I have very little doubt of this. My only concern is whether Wilcox can actually win a close game. (Auburn was not a close game - if you get 5 turnovers that should be a double digit win).
I think he just plays close games and loses more than wins.
I'm not sure I'd say it's necessarily luck. Miami's D is high risk and high reward by design.
Basically their philosophy is that their offense is so good, they want to maximize how many plays they can run per game. The idea is that the more total plays run, the better for them because, over time, their talent will win out (proved to be right).
What they don't want is the other team grinding out drives and running clock. They want 3 and outs, and if they give up a few big plays (or quick scores) along the way, fine…their offense can make up for it.
It's exactly the type of D I was advocating for during the Dykes era.
What you absolutely cannot do against an overly aggressive D is play it safe. Cause they're going to eat you alive.
It's not just that. Teams actively plan around taking Ott out of the game. Its not JUST bad play by the o-line. They stack the box bring the safety close in and crash the hand off as best they can. They want to force you to beat them through the air.
The downside of stacking the box and aggressively pursuing the hand off is that you leave over the top open, and with your safeties sucked in close to the line you leave yourself vulnerable to big plays. This also forces a lot of 1:1 matchups where tightends size can really exploit smaller db's with no safety help.
Cal just has done a **** job of exploiting this. The solution is to get these chunk plays repeatedly until the safeties are forced to retreat backwards. Punish the dline/linebackers for overpursuing and they will back off and be more tentative, then the run game will open up. Instead of waiting for them to adjust we seem to call our plays in a vacuum, ignoring the defense in front of us and playing against an idealized one instead.
These things don't happen in a vacuum.
I've been saying this exact same thing over and over in other threads. That's why it's unfair to put all the blame on the oline. And it's why you cannot cannot cannot go vanilla.
I feel like Wilcox learned a partial lesson from the FSU game that this is how defenses are playing us, so you have to be aggressive.
Now the trick is for him to realize you have to commit 100% and do this the entire game.
He's a slow learner our Wilcox is.
Being able to impose your will on the opposition and do whatever YOU want is a GREAT long term goal, but REQUIRES superior athletes AND superior execution to do successfully. That's just not where we are now as a team...and frankly with NIL and the current transfer rules we may never get there. We are going to get to more parity, not less.
I disagree with that last part. This weekend was full of upsets. Vanderbilt beat #7 Alabama 40-35. Does anyone think Vanderbilt has "superior" athletes to Alabama? No, but they had a better game plan. Misdirection, they had a 23-14 lead going into the half but did not let up.
And NIL has been a godsend for Cal. Cal has had top 20 Transfer Portal rankings two years in a row.
Here are our HS recruiting rankings under Wilcox:
2017 #70
2018 #42
2019 #42
2020 #39
2021 #29
2022 #59
2023 #79
2024 #55
Again our last two Portal classes have been #18 and #17.
Sebasta and Cal Legends are killing it and providing Wilcox with talent. We have a large, wealthy alumni base to draw from. The biggest impediment is having coaches that squander talent.
What does that have to do with imposing your will? Imposing your will on an opponent means that they sell out to stop the run but you run it up the gut on them consistently anyways, which is what cal was able to do vs San Diego State and UC Davis late in the games. That isn't what Vanderbuilt did to Alabama and it isn't how we were going to beat Florida State OR Miami.
Teams sell out to stop the run against us, so we have to use that to our advantage. That's how we built the lead vs Miami. Going away from it is how we let them back in it.
I agree with that part 100% What I disagree with is that we are at a huge talent disadvantage because of NIL. I think NIL in our current form is an advantage for us.
There are no top P4 teams that I am aware of that just try to line up vanilla and impose their will running up the middle repeatedly on other P4 teams. The top teams are all fairly creative on offense because they need to be to beat other top P4 teams. I think we have shown in the Miami game that we have the talent to beat teams like Miami. I don't know that our OL is terrible (other than false starts against FSU) it was good enough to score 38 points through 3 quarters against Miami when we used a little misdirection and emphasized our strengths. It is obviously not overwhelmingly great enough to run on first and second downs and then drop straight back on third and long. Nowhere close.
So we are in agreement, we need creative playcalling with misdirection to win. Where we disagree is I think Sebasta and the Cal Legends have given Wilcox a lot of talent. He and his staff are just not using it well.
JeffMcd said:
Coaching test of the season Saturday. If Cal shows up and rips Pitt, we will know we have the staff and the players we need. Resilient. Tough. Committed. So much of life is mental. Everyone should stop whining and kick the s*** out of Pitt. Fingers crossed.
