I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say Cal will beat Arizona. But in the last 3 weeks, I feel like they are battling harder and harder. Defensively I see players in better positions to make plays than earlier this season. Even though the secondary looks awful overall, with more attention to detail they could be making some plays. Guys are doing a better job of fighting through blocks, and though they are still missing tackles, you can see that if they made the tackles the overall situation would be far less serious. I also see more communication between players and that's a good sign. Early in the season I think there was less communicating because I'm not sure they knew the system/assignments well enough to work with each other. As for the offense, the backs look to be running harder. The line is staying with blocks longer. The lineup last night in the OL was challenging to begin with, and I thought given the situation they did pretty well. Goff makes some good throws, and misses others. On a couple of occasions I couldn't tell if it was him or a missed assignment from the receiver that went bad. But he's young.....the team's young. I think the program was a bigger mess than anyone expected going into this. New positions, new assignments, new system, new culture....so many things that have to be addressed. It won't happen this year. There is a lot that needs to take place before we can expect "sure thing" victories. Coaches have their work cut out for them. And so do the players. Right now I think too many players are thinking instead of just playing on instinct. That comes with familiarity of the system and comes in time. This season the best we can hope for is improvement and effort. Next year, I think it's reasonable we can expect 4-5 wins and closer scores. Third season? Sonny will have a few recruiting classes under his belt, 2 years of experienced players and that's when we'll know for sure what we really have.
