So I decided to do a little research to find out what was really happening last night.
I mean, how did Arizona even have the ball enough times to score 36 4th Q points?
We must not have held the ball very long. Remember we even got 2 TDs that quarter.
So, how did that happen?

I looked at the drive charts for our 2 close games. I did not include Sac. St. because I don't think these problems affect games against severely inferior teams. Also they are FCS and prefer to concentrate on FBS opponents.

I threw out the last drive of the each half if it involved simply running out the clock without needing a first down.

I looked at average time of possession per drive for each quarter. Here is what I found:

[U]NORTHWESTERN[/U]
1ST QUARTER= 5:30
2ND QUARTER=1:20
AVERAGE FOR 1ST HALF=3:25
3RD QUARTER=2:10
4TH QUARTER=1:40
AVERAGE FOR 2ND HALF=1:55!

[U]ARIZONA[/U]
1ST QUARTER=1:18
2ND QUARTER=1:51
AVERAGE FOR 1ST HALF=1:34
3RD QUARTER=1:42
4TH QUARTER=1:50
AVERAGE FOR 2ND HALF=1:46!

Draw your own conclusions but this looks like a recipe for allowing a high octane offense back in the game. We knew who we were playing in Arizona, at least we should have. The reason why we didn't lose worse is that Solomon was off early in the game and they scored so quickly when they did that it gave time for our offense could score 14 more points in the 4th quarter. The defense spent 3 quarters of heat exhausting work on the field before they finally broke.

Please explain to me how a defense is supposed to operate when your offense is only averaging less than 2 minutes per possession in the second half. Actually there has been only one half when Cal averaged more than 2 minutes per drive and that was the first half of the Northwestern game. There have been only 2 quarters all season when the average time of possession per drive was more than 2 minutes and one of those was only 2:10.

According to my research, Cal has had...

• only 1 drive that lasted more than 5 minutes in those 2 games.
  
• They have never had a 4th quarter drive last as much as 3 minutes.
  
• All season they have only had 2 second half drives last longer than 3 minutes and neither was as much as 5 minutes.
  
• Against Arizona their longest drive time for any single drive was only 2:51 and only 2:48 in the second half.
  
  • Against Arizona they only 6 drives all night that were at least 2 minutes. That means almost 2/3 of the time the defense had to come back on the field in less than 2 minutes of clock time.
    
  • For the 30 drives in those 2 games, 19 of them were less than 2 minutes long, again close to 2/3 of the time.
    
  
  
  

I'm sure it was not significantly different last year. The only difference was that we didn't score as much.
I love the bear raid but the reason why our defense is failing and so many players get injured is because they aren't getting enough time to rest between possessions.

There is a simple solution but it requires that Franklin have the humility and flexibility to enact it. Keep the same aggressive play calling but, when we have a big second half lead, kill the fast paced offense so we eat more clock each play. If we had done this we would be 3-0 right now.

So TF, which is more important to you, your ego or Cal? The rest of the season will answer that question.

What are your thoughts.
Everyone is putting this on the defense and the special teams or the offense becoming too complacent. I think the problem is the offense is not complacent enough and does not take enough time.

What are your thoughts?

My thoughts, having been camping and not watching, is that TOP must have not had an impact.Or what is the excuse for Arizona needing 36 points to win when TOP was less than you exclaimed 1:46?Until your post, I would have guessed that TOP was the main problem, though.

I don't know what I have to say to make you see that the defense gets tired in the 4th quarter and allows more scoring because they are not being given enough time to rest the whole game. You don't necessarily get tired right away. You might be able to withstand short rest periods for 2 or 3 quarters, but it will get to you after a while.

Maybe I don't understand your question. Could you rephrase this sentence: "Or what is the excuse for Arizona needing 36 points to win when TOP was less than you exclaimed 1:46?"? I don't understand what you mean or what the point is about the 1:46. Arizona needed 36 points because we were wiping them out for 3 quarters and they won because Cal didn't have anything left on defense and the offense didn't hold the ball long enough.

Why is that so hard to understand?

I still think looking at the time is getting it the wrong way around. No matter what offense you run, a 3-and-out will take between 1:00-2:00 off the clock. We've had some drives at the bottom end of that and some at the upper end of that, as has Alabama, to name the team that I just looked at. A slower 3-and-out doesn't materially improve your chances of winning. A hurry-up drive with two first downs is better at burning the clock than a "ball control" 3-and-out. Our problem in the second half of Northwestern and UA was that we were going 3-and-out at a higher rate than we were at other points in the game. Nothing burns clock like 1st downs, and time issues have to be subordinate to the need for 1st downs and scores. On my model, you're right back to criticizing traditional stats like 3rd down % and yards/play, just like you would be in any offense. If you are succeeding in those regards with tempo, I'd say don't mess with it, because you don't get your defense any additional rest by hamstringing your offense. Obviously a drive that gets first downs AND takes 5 minutes is the ideal, but you can't assume that you'll get that perfect scenario to the point that you change your offense from what you do well, especially with our OL. You have to do what works. The idea that we could do exactly what we did, but do it slower, takes for granted that tempo has no positive impact on our ability to gain yards, which is, of course, a claim that is VERY open to debate.

I think heart and berk you're both partially correct, but that heart is on the right track focusing on our scoring drives. I agree that 3 and outs are usually pretty similar regardless of the snap speed. But traditional teams take much longer on their scoring drives than we do. Sprinkling those in throughout the game gives the d on a traditional team extra rest that our defenders never get because the TOP delta between our successful drives and unsuccessful drives is too small. It's a major drawback of any up tempo offense. They all put max pressure on the d.

OldBlue1999;842363964 said:

---

I think heart and berk you're both partially correct, but that heart is on the right track focusing on our scoring drives. I agree that 3 and outs are usually pretty similar regardless of the snap speed. But traditional teams take much longer on their scoring drives than we do. Sprinkling those in throughout the game gives the d on a traditional team extra rest that our defenders never get because the TOP delta between our successful drives and unsuccessful drives is too small. It's a major drawback of any up tempo offense. They all put max pressure on the d.

---

I agree that there's a lot to the tempo issue, as I was anxiously watching the clock the whole second half like the rest of you. Where I'm ultimately coming from here is this: When I look at our OL, I don't see a bunch of road graders who can pick up 4 yards against any defensive look or sort out multiple pressure packages in the passing game. I agree with heart that this is a significant problem with our team. My opinion is that the offense (tempo included) is allowing them to play above their heads so far this season. Tempo limits the looks that the defense can give you by limiting the defense's ability to make adjustments, communicate in checks, get specialized blitz calls, read WR/RB/OL alignments and splits to predict the play, catch their breath, regroup, etc. If we could line up against any look and gain yards, awesome, but I don't believe that's the case. I don't think we're choosing between fast scoring drives/first downs and slow ones, but rather between fast scoring drives/first downs and fewer ones.

And ultimately, this is all moot if we don't throw an INT and botch the onside kick. No amount of defensive exhaustion would have lost us that game without UA getting those two extra drives (which, in fact, contributed to defensive exhaustion in their own right), which says to me that the O and D both put us in a pretty good place heading into the 4th Q. If we play that 4th Q 10 times, how many times do you think they get (1) an INT, (2) an onside kick recovery, and (3) a 47-yard Hail Mary? I don't think that was a bad position for us to be in, tired defense or no.

Simple answer, more depth on D and more talent on the lines, so we can pressure the passer and have a solid running game to take time off the clock, so that it's an option for TF.

berk18;842363967 said:

---

I agree that there's a lot to the tempo issue, as I was anxiously watching the clock the whole second half like the rest of you. Where I'm ultimately coming from here is this: When I look at our OL, I don't see a bunch of road graders who can pick up 4 yards against any defensive look or sort out multiple pressure packages in the passing game. I agree with heart that this is a significant problem with our team. My opinion is that the offense (tempo included) is allowing them to play above their heads so far this season. Tempo limits the looks that the defense can give you by limiting the defense's ability to make adjustments, communicate in checks, get specialized blitz calls, read WR/RB/OL alignments and splits to predict the play, catch their breath, regroup, etc. If we could line up against any look and gain yards, awesome, but I don't believe that's the case. I don't think we're choosing between fast scoring drives/first downs and slow ones, but rather between fast scoring drives/first downs and fewer ones.

And ultimately, this is all moot if we don't throw an INT and botch the onside kick. No amount of defensive exhaustion would have lost us that game without UA getting those two extra drives (which, in fact, contributed to defensive exhaustion in their own right), which says to me that the O and D both put us in a pretty good place heading into the 4th Q. If we play that 4th Q 10 times, how many times do you think they get (1) an INT, (2) an onside kick recovery, and (3) a 47-yard Hail Mary? I don't think that was a bad position for us to be in, tired defense or no.

---

This is a long way of saying that my concern may be justified. We just don't have what it takes to match up and slow down, particularly at OL. Berk: Regardless of our rate of success, don't you think this style of play will put our defensive personnel at risk of exhaustion and injury? And don't you think that partly explains what happened last year? If you're a defensive player, wouldn't you need more than 2 minutes of clock time (5-6 minutes real time) to rest between drives?

I agree that our personnel is not suited to a more traditional approach, and that a team with more experience knowing how to close out games wins that one. It's all part of the process of learning how to win imo. But I do have more broad concerns about the inherent pressure this type of offense puts on a defense.

heartofthebear;842363981 said:

---

This is a long way of saying that my concern may be justified. We just don't have what it takes to match up and slow down, particularly at OL. Berk: Regardless of our rate of success, don't you think this style of play will put our defensive personnel at risk of exhaustion and injury? And don't you think that partly explains what happened last year? If you're a defensive player, wouldn't you need more than 2 minutes of clock time (5-6 minutes real time) to rest between drives?

---

You were making an argument about what the coaches should have done last night, and ought to do starting with Colorado, correct? I don't think anyone would disagree with you about the benefits of holding onto the ball. It's a long way from there to saying that the coaches should change their minds and run plays slower. If running plays slower causes you to hold onto the ball less, then it makes the issue that you're concerned about worse. So yes, we don't have what it takes to match up and slow down. We could have this while running the exact same offense if we had a better confluence of personnel (whether more experienced or more talented) and OL coaching. That's exactly the point that I'm making. Is that also the point that you were making?

Concerning last year, I think that insofar as the offense impacted the defense (which was truly terrible regardless), it was because we didn't score that much, our yards/play were abysmal, and we were terrible on 3rd down. I don't think that tempo caused our offense to be bad in those ways, I think that our offense was just bad. Bad pro-style teams don't control the ball either.

berk18;842364014 said:

---

You were making an argument about what the coaches should have done last night, and ought to do starting with Colorado, correct? I don't think anyone would disagree with you about the benefits of holding onto the ball. It's a long way from there to saying that the coaches should change their minds and run plays slower. If running plays slower causes you to hold onto the ball less, then it makes the issue that you're concerned about worse. So yes, we don't have what it takes to match up and slow down. We could have this while running the exact same offense if we had a better confluence of personnel (whether more experienced or more talented) and OL coaching. That's exactly the point that I'm making. Is that also the point that you were making? YES!!

Concerning last year, I think that insofar as the offense impacted the defense (which was truly terrible regardless), it was because we didn't score that much, our yards/play were abysmal, and we were terrible on 3rd down. I don't think that tempo caused our offense to be bad in those ways, I think that our offense was just bad. Bad pro-style teams don't control the ball either.

---

Good points and well said. At least I know now where you are coming from. I still respectfully disagree that we can't at least slow down some in the 2nd half. But I really respect your knowledge. It's just that, when 4 seconds are the difference, you'd think we could have used them somewhere and still moved at a fast pace. I'm not saying the coaches should always slow down the pace, in principle. I'm saying that they should make minor adjustments to the pace based on a reasonable cost benefit analysis of each in-game situation in order to maximize the chances of winning.

Do you have a specific reason to be concerned about the OL coaching? They seem to be much improved. Or is it the blocking philosophy that is the problem? It's easy to jump on the bandwagon and criticize the Yenser hire as many, including myself, have done. But remember, there were plenty of OL problems when we had more talented personnel under Michalczik, who was supposedly an NFL grade coach. Don't you remember the debates between the Maynard haters and the OL detractors over who was responsible for the poor offense?

When you have a 20+ point lead it shouldn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that possessing the ball and shortening the game is to your advantage. If we want to reach our full potential, our coaching staff needs to recognize and understand this. Otherwise, I'm going to be betting our opponent at the half every week and make enough to pay off the debt on the new stadium.

For the whole game, time of possession for Cal was 28.52 minutes and for Arizona was 31.08 minutes. So the time of possession was close to the same for both teams. I don't think time of possession was the deciding factor in this game.

heartofthebear;842363946 said:

---

So I decided to do a little research to find out what was really happening last night.
I mean, how did Arizona even have the ball enough times to score 36 4th Q points?
We must not have held the ball very long. Remember we even got 2 TDs that quarter.
So, how did that happen?

I looked at the drive charts for our 2 close games. I did not include Sac. St. because I don't think these problems affect games against severely inferior teams. Also they are FCS and prefer to concentrate on FBS opponents.

I threw out the last drive of the each half if it involved simply running out the clock without needing a first down.

I looked at average time of possession per drive for each quarter. Here is what I found:

[U]NORTHWESTERN[/U]
1ST QUARTER= 5:30
2ND QUARTER=1:20
AVERAGE FOR 1ST HALF=3:25
3RD QUARTER=2:10
4TH QUARTER=1:40
AVERAGE FOR 2ND HALF=1:55!

[U]ARIZONA[/U]
1ST QUARTER=1:18
2ND QUARTER=1:51
AVERAGE FOR 1ST HALF=1:34
3RD QUARTER=1:42
4TH QUARTER=1:50
AVERAGE FOR 2ND HALF=1:46!

Draw your own conclusions but this looks like a recipe for allowing a high octane offense back in the game. We knew who we were playing in Arizona, at least we should have. The reason why we didn't lose worse is that Solomon was off early in the game and they scored so quickly when they did that it gave time for our offense could score 14 more points in the 4th quarter. The defense spent 3 quarters of heat exhausting work on the field before they finally broke.

Please explain to me how a defense is supposed to operate when your offense is only averaging less than 2 minutes per possession in the second half. Actually there has been only one half when Cal averaged more than 2 minutes per drive and that was the first half of the Northwestern game. There have been only 2 quarters all season when the average time of possession per drive was more than 2 minutes and one of those was only 2:10.

According to my research, Cal has had...

• only 1 drive that lasted more than 5 minutes in those 2 games.
  
• They have never had a 4th quarter drive last as much as 3 minutes.
  
• All season they have only had 2 second half drives last longer than 3 minutes and neither was as much as 5 minutes.
  
• Against Arizona their longest drive time for any single drive was only 2:51 and only 2:48 in the second half.
  
  • Against Arizona they only 6 drives all night that were at least 2 minutes. That means almost 2/3 of the time the defense had to come back on the field in less than 2 minutes of clock time.
    
  • For the 30 drives in those 2 games, 19 of them were less than 2 minutes long, again close to 2/3 of the time.
    
  
  
  

I'm sure it was not significantly different last year. The only difference was that we didn't score as much.
I love the bear raid but the reason why our defense is failing and so many players get injured is because they aren't getting enough time to rest between possessions.

There is a simple solution but it requires that Franklin have the humility and flexibility to enact it. Keep the same aggressive play calling but, when we have a big second half lead, kill the fast paced offense so we eat more clock each play. If we had done this we would be 3-0 right now.

So TF, which is more important to you, your ego or Cal? The rest of the season will answer that question.

What are your thoughts.
Everyone is putting this on the defense and the special teams or the offense becoming too complacent. I think the problem is the offense is not complacent enough and does not take enough time.

What are your thoughts?

---

You can't extrapolate this from a data set of two. I really don't think the issue is the defense getting tired.

The defense is much improved, but our pass coverage is a work in progress. In both games the QB's had terrible first halves, missing many open receivers. Northwestern's below average QB went from awful to merely below average so was making headway. UA's good QB went from awful to insane. They both just took advantage of what was always there.

Both teams also made adjustments on defense that were effective.

Golden One;842364061 said:

---

For the whole game, time of possession for Cal was 28.52 minutes and for Arizona was 31.08 minutes. So the time of possession was close to the same for both teams. I don't think time of possession was the deciding factor in this game.

---

Except that 4 seconds made the difference and we gave them a 68 second advantage in TOP.

OaktownBear;842364070 said:

---

You can't extrapolate this from a data set of two. I really don't think the issue is the defense getting tired.

The defense is much improved, but our pass coverage is a work in progress. In both games the QB's had terrible first halves, missing many open receivers. Northwestern's below average QB went from awful to merely below average so was making headway. UA's good QB went from awful to insane. They both just took advantage of what was always there.

Both teams also made adjustments on defense that were effective.

---

The coaches and players, when asked, did not refute the fact that the defense was tired. And the coaches said as much. Over 100 plays in 90+ heat is a recipe for exhaustion. It's true that the result is partly due to Arizona just playing perfect ball for the last quarter.

Why do you not think the issue was the defense getting tired. Both offenses in that game are designed to make the defense get tired.

heartofthebear;842364099 said:

---

The coaches and players, when asked, did not refute the fact that the defense was tired. And the coaches said as much. Over 100 plays in 90+ heat is a recipe for exhaustion. It's true that the result is partly due to Arizona just playing perfect ball for the last quarter.

Why do you not think the issue was the defense getting tired. Both offenses in that game are designed to make the defense get tired.

---

Everyone is more tired after 100 plays, including the offense. I'm just saying that in both games the receivers were open in the first half and the QBs were missing them. If Solomon was on target in the first half, they would have moved the ball. I think the difference in both games was mostly the QB settling down

somebody fix it please

Golden One;842364061 said:

---

For the whole game, time of possession for Cal was 28.52 minutes and for Arizona was 31.08 minutes. So the time of possession was close to the same for both teams. I don't think time of possession was the deciding factor in this game.

---

TOP does become more of a factor against fast tempo offenses like UA which approach triple digit # of plays, against which the Bears have to find ways to significantly win TOP (not just be close in that dept). Franklin must be more appreciative of who they're playing and design 2nd half game strategy & tactics accordingly to dominate TOP (easier said than done). Come to think of it, b/c of our continuing problems w/ pass coverage, most teams with at least a slightly above average passing game could have greater than average # of plays and TOP esp. in 2nd halves b/c they won't have much difficulty moving the chains; so, focus on 2nd half TOP is a top concern (fortuitous pun) against most opponents (whether they are officially "fast tempo" or not).

rothforever;842363971 said:

---

Simple answer, more depth on D and more talent on the lines, so we can pressure the passer and have a solid running game to take time off the clock, so that it's an option for TF.

---

Those are the Ultimate Answers, which unfortunately are long-term. Talent deficit could be assuaged (to a limited extent) by continuing development of who we already have. Quality Depth problems will take at least a couple of YEARS to remedy because they are tied with the Talent deficit of incoming players (they can develop the talent of starters to somewhat match the better teams in conference, but it is a tall order to develop truly "quality" depth 2s and 3s to relieve starters and prevent 4th quarter fatigue with mostly mediocre incoming talent). To even achieve the goal of better depth and talent on D and the lines, the team has to start WINNING games against big-NAME competition, not just "be competitive" against them; most teenage top recruits look at W-L columns and are not as forgiving and analytical as most Bears fans are. Meanwhile, Sonny-Tony must find shorter-term stop-gap part-solutions, being creative with the talent we have to get more 1st downs and slow down the tempo somewhat in the 2nd half without sacrificing efficiency (easier said than done again b/c of the current deficits in line talent and quality depth).

OaktownBear;842364103 said:

---

Everyone is more tired after 100 plays, including the offense. I'm just saying that in both games the receivers were open in the first half and the QBs were missing them. If Solomon was on target in the first half, they would have moved the ball. I think the difference in both games was mostly the QB settling down

---

I have to agree with your assessment of the QBs, but that, by itself cannot explain 36 points. I do think there are some problems with the way our secondary has played. I think they play soft. That could also explain some of it. The injuries to McClure and Lowe could explain some. But it is hard to defend well when your offense is not giving you much break time. And that has something to do with 36 points. Remember that all we needed to do was tweak things a ltittle to win. And holding onto the ball a little longer would have done it.

Four seconds during the final quarter of the game is still four seconds at the end !! I believe our coaching staff blew this game by keeping us in the high tempo offense and losing the opportunity to bleed precious seconds off the clock during the final period. I reviewed our last two TD drives and we failed to shorten that game by [COLOR="#0000CD"]1:59[/COLOR] by snapping the ball with anywhere from 8 to 15 seconds left on the play clock. Had we played as smart as we do fast, our final recover of the onside kick would have sealed that game because we would have the ball with only [COLOR="#0000CD"]45[/COLOR] seconds left vice [COLOR="#0000CD"]2:44[/COLOR] that was on the game clock !!! At six seconds per running play, we could have burned Arizona's last two TO's and finished the game with a simple kneel down on third down.

These kids deserved to win that game, despite the soft play of our defense in the final quarter or the fact that Jones was never called for pushing off on two of his TD catches during the game. I was shocked to actually see the refs make a call on that first reception in the last possession of Arizona.

heartofthebear;842364098 said:

---

Except that 4 seconds made the difference and we gave them a 68 second advantage in TOP.

---

According to the game stats on Calbears.com, Cal had a slight edge in t.o.p, and we had an edge in the 4th quarter. TOP wasn't the issue, it was that Arizona ran more plays while they had the ball, and our D wore out and gave up 36 points in the 4th quarter. The numbers put up by our offense should have been good enough to win. The D need to help close this game out too, and they couldn't do it (and special teams blunders didn't help either).
CAL ARIZ
Possession Time............... 28:52 28:45
1st Quarter................. 8:15 6:45
2nd Quarter................. 6:19 8:41
3rd Quarter................. 6:20 6:17
4th Quarter................. 7:58 7:02

heartofthebear;842363946 said:

---

So I decided to do a little research to find out what was really happening last night.
I mean, how did Arizona even have the ball enough times to score 36 4th Q points?
We must not have held the ball very long. Remember we even got 2 TDs that quarter.
So, how did that happen?

I looked at the drive charts for our 2 close games. I did not include Sac. St. because I don't think these problems affect games against severely inferior teams. Also they are FCS and prefer to concentrate on FBS opponents.

I threw out the last drive of the each half if it involved simply running out the clock without needing a first down.

I looked at average time of possession per drive for each quarter. Here is what I found:

[U]NORTHWESTERN[/U]
1ST QUARTER= 5:30
2ND QUARTER=1:20
AVERAGE FOR 1ST HALF=3:25
3RD QUARTER=2:10
4TH QUARTER=1:40
AVERAGE FOR 2ND HALF=1:55!

[U]ARIZONA[/U]
1ST QUARTER=1:18
2ND QUARTER=1:51
AVERAGE FOR 1ST HALF=1:34
3RD QUARTER=1:42
4TH QUARTER=1:50
AVERAGE FOR 2ND HALF=1:46!

Draw your own conclusions but this looks like a recipe for allowing a high octane offense back in the game. We knew who we were playing in Arizona, at least we should have. The reason why we didn't lose worse is that Solomon was off early in the game and they scored so quickly when they did that it gave time for our offense could score 14 more points in the 4th quarter. The defense spent 3 quarters of heat exhausting work on the field before they finally broke.

Please explain to me how a defense is supposed to operate when your offense is only averaging less than 2 minutes per possession in the second half. Actually there has been only one half when Cal averaged more than 2 minutes per drive and that was the first half of the Northwestern game. There have been only 2 quarters all season when the average time of possession per drive was more than 2 minutes and one of those was only 2:10.

According to my research, Cal has had...

• only 1 drive that lasted more than 5 minutes in those 2 games.
  
• They have never had a 4th quarter drive last as much as 3 minutes.
  
• All season they have only had 2 second half drives last longer than 3 minutes and neither was as much as 5 minutes.
  
• Against Arizona their longest drive time for any single drive was only 2:51 and only 2:48 in the second half.
  
  • Against Arizona they only 6 drives all night that were at least 2 minutes. That means almost 2/3 of the time the defense had to come back on the field in less than 2 minutes of clock time.
    
  • For the 30 drives in those 2 games, 19 of them were less than 2 minutes long, again close to 2/3 of the time.
    
  
  
  

I'm sure it was not significantly different last year. The only difference was that we didn't score as much.
I love the bear raid but the reason why our defense is failing and so many players get injured is because they aren't getting enough time to rest between possessions.

There is a simple solution but it requires that Franklin have the humility and flexibility to enact it. Keep the same aggressive play calling but, when we have a big second half lead, kill the fast paced offense so we eat more clock each play. If we had done this we would be 3-0 right now.

So TF, which is more important to you, your ego or Cal? The rest of the season will answer that question.

What are your thoughts.
Everyone is putting this on the defense and the special teams or the offense becoming too complacent. I think the problem is the offense is not complacent enough and does not take enough time.

What are your thoughts?

---

Here is the problem with this... We did take the time off the clock on all 3 of our last 3 possessions, BUT we scored in 6 plays, 6 plays, and then missed a FG for a 5 play drive. Not sure what we could have done. Hey Muhammad great 50 yard TD run, but after the first down then please fall down so we can run more plays and take more time off the clock? We got hurt by being so successful at moving the ball and not taking enough time off the clock. That first drive of the 4th we passed on first down 6 yards, then we ran 5 straight time killing the clock each time for 69 yards

CalGB94;842364353 said:

---

According to the game stats on Calbears.com, Cal had a slight edge in t.o.p, and we had an edge in the 4th quarter. TOP wasn't the issue, it was that Arizona ran more plays while they had the ball, and our D wore out and gave up 36 points in the 4th quarter. The numbers put up by our offense should have been good enough to win. The D need to help close this game out too, and they couldn't do it (and special teams blunders didn't help either).
CAL ARIZ
Possession Time............... 28:52 28:45
1st Quarter................. 8:15 6:45
2nd Quarter................. 6:19 8:41
3rd Quarter................. 6:20 6:17
4th Quarter................. 7:58 7:02

---

The stats on TOP for the game are inconsistent with math. The TOP usually adds up to 60 mins. I believe the Cal TOP at 28+ is pretty accurate. CBS sports had the TOP for UA @ 31+. So different groups are reporting different things. I'll trust the ones that have the math right. Also, folks have pointed out that, when you have a big lead, you need to dominate the TOP not just win it.

Scoring fast on offense can't be prevented and if we score after only 1 play all the better. But we did not run the clock down enough per play. Some argue that we don't have the OL to win match-ups if we slow down enough for the defense to get set. If that is true, then that is a pretty serious handicap imo.

I suspect you might see the same sort of pattern if you analyze Oregon over the last few years but their limited time of possession doesn't seem to translate to defensive breakdowns. The value of time of possession has been debated for a long time. I doubt any coach committed to a system of up-tempo offense is going to seriously consider slowing down as a defensive tactic. The pace is a key element in the success of the scheme. We knew what we were getting in Dykes/Franklin and it's the main reason I didn't like the hire. The obvious answer: play better on defense. Easy to say; not so easy to execute.

Why is it the nature of the human to want to find a single identifiable answer to every question?

CALiforniALUM;842364839 said:

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Why is it the nature of the human to want to find a single identifiable answer to every question?

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Hold on while I try to find the answer to that question

Nasal Mucus Goldenbear;842364157 said:

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Those are the Ultimate Answers, which unfortunately are long-term. Talent deficit could be assuaged (to a limited extent) by continuing development of who we already have. Quality Depth problems will take at least a couple of YEARS to remedy because they are tied with the Talent deficit of incoming players (they can develop the talent of starters to somewhat match the better teams in conference, but it is a tall order to develop truly "quality" depth 2s and 3s to relieve starters and prevent 4th quarter fatigue with mostly mediocre incoming talent). To even achieve the goal of better depth and talent on D and the lines, the team has to start WINNING games against big-NAME competition, not just "be competitive" against them; most teenage top recruits look at W-L columns and are not as forgiving and analytical as most Bears fans are. Meanwhile, Sonny-Tony must find shorter-term stop-gap part-solutions, being creative with the talent we have to get more 1st downs and slow down the tempo somewhat in the 2nd half without sacrificing efficiency (easier said than done again b/c of the current deficits in line talent and quality depth).

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This.

Chip Kelly when asked at UO if he would ever take his foot off the gas with a big lead? "Score and score and score some more." The message should go out to D recruits - you will share in the joy of scoring and YOU WILL PLAY...A LOT.

In the short term until the depth is built up, lotta high percentage plays - mix runs with dink and dunk - and move the ball down the field slowly that way. When their D crowds the line, go long.

But, we're going to have to get used to this pattern. This isn't the last time we'll build a lead and have to hang on at the end (2 out of 3 games already this year). Sadly, our opponents will know this and it will inspire them to play as hard as possible in the 4th (you can imagine what their coaches are yelling at the start of the 4th).