Shhh don't bring the facts into this discussion

UCBerkGrad;842637474 said:

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Cal was 6th in conference scoring average, but we were also...

2nd in conference yards per game: 511.6 yards per game (#1 Oregon 541.8, #3 ASU 490.6)

3rd in conference yards per play: 6.66 yards per play (#1 Oregon 7.37, #2 Furd 6.68)...virtual tie for 2nd

Oh yeah, and we had the toughest conference schedule....missing games against Colorado and Arizona, two of the worst defenses in the conference.

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the thing about stats and numbers... you know what team was worse than both Arizona and Colorado? #117 Oregon in total defense.

also, what does it matter if we generate the 2nd most yardage per game, if we're 6th in conference scoring? that just means other teams are doing it more efficiently.

Jon Wilner:
"Cal non-garbage-time pts: 24 Utah, 16 UCLA, 21 USC, 16 Stanford, 28 Ore (atrocious D)."

beeasyed;842637482 said:

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the thing about stats and numbers... you know what team was worse than both Arizona and Colorado? #117 Oregon in total defense.

Jon Wilner:
"Cal non-garbage-time pts: 24 Utah, 16 UCLA, 21 USC, 16 Stanford, 28 Ore (atrocious D)."

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Oregon's defensive yards allowed was mostly a function of the style of play their offense played. Only UCLA's defense was on the field for more snaps. Looking at yards allowed per play, Oregon was right in the middle of the conference ranked 7th with 6.10 yards allowed per play. Again, the two teams Cal missed were worse...Colorado 8th and Arizona 10th.

concordtom;842637424 said:

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Sorry but can you explain "TFS"?
VS is vertical stack? But what does that mean exactly?

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TFS = Tony Franklin System. He sells his offense package to high school coaches and runs summer coaches' camps to train them how to use it.

VS = Vertical Set. The OL blocking scheme in which they're always in 2 pt. stance and retreating at the snap. Never fully accepted by many of us (being as kind as possible).

beeasyed;842637482 said:

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the thing about stats and numbers... you know what team was worse than both Arizona and Colorado? #117 Oregon in total defense.

Jon Wilner:
"Cal non-garbage-time pts: 24 Utah, 16 UCLA, 21 USC, 16 Stanford, 28 Ore (atrocious D)."

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Oh come on, he's just sticking to the script.

Act One: Blame previous coach
Act Two: We're young
Act Three: Blame the schedule
Act Four: We can't hope to compete now that [some other team] is serious about football
Act Five: Capitulation, but we did it The Right Way

Between acts, the altos and sopranos of the aside Chorus rhythmically chant "We're Cal, we-can't-have-good-things, we're Cal, we-can't-have-good-things" while the hooded baritones and basses sonorously rumble "Proooo-cessss, prooooo-cessss..."

UCBerkGrad;842637484 said:

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Oregon's defensive yards allowed was mostly a function of the style of play their offense played. Only UCLA's defense was on the field for more snaps. Looking at yards allowed per play, Oregon was right in the middle of the conference ranked 7th with 6.10 yards allowed per play. Again, the two teams Cal missed were worse...Colorado 8th and Arizona 10th.

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that's fair.
still doesn't explain how we put up record-setting yardage per game, #2 in conf. in total yards, but only 6th in scoring.

in 2014, Cal's red zone conversion for TDs was 72.5% (#9 in country). in 2015, it dropped to 64.7% (#41 in country). what accounts for that?

UCBerkGrad;842637484 said:

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Oregon's defensive yards allowed was mostly a function of the style of play their offense played. Only UCLA's defense was on the field for more snaps. Looking at yards allowed per play, Oregon was right in the middle of the conference ranked 7th with 6.10 yards allowed per play. Again, the two teams Cal missed were worse...Colorado 8th and Arizona 10th.

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This is incorrect. Their style of play was the same as previous years (where your argument could hold water). Their defense was noticeably worse than before. Eye test. There's a reason Pellum was demoted to LB coach - their D was terrible.

tequila4kapp;842637492 said:

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This is incorrect. Their style of play was the same as previous years (where your argument could hold water). Their defense was noticeably worse than before. Eye test. There's a reason Pellum was demoted to LB coach - their D was terrible.

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I wasn't claiming their defense was good, or as good as it has been in the past. I was merely pointing out that their defense played a lot of snaps because of the tempo the team runs. However, on a per play basis, they were not in the bottom five of the conference.

Since we're now prioritizing yardage over points scored, I can now look back fondly on the 2004 USC game, when we decisively clobbered the #1 team in their own house, 424-205.

Yep a decade ago

going4roses;842637498 said:

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Yep a decade ago

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wwwwhhhhhooooooooooooooooooooooosssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

BearsWiin;842637496 said:

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Since we're now prioritizing yardage over points scored, I can now look back fondly on the 2004 USC game, when we decisively clobbered the #1 team in their own house, 424-205.

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Nobody is prioritizing yards over points scored.

BearsWiin;842637487 said:

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Oh come on, he's just sticking to the script.

Act One: Blame previous coach
Act Two: We're young
Act Three: Blame the schedule
Act Four: We can't hope to compete now that [some other team] is serious about football
Act Five: Capitulation, but we did it The Right Way

Between acts, the altos and sopranos of the aside Chorus rhythmically chant "We're Cal, we-can't-have-good-things, we're Cal, we-can't-have-good-things" while the hooded baritones and basses sonorously rumble "Proooo-cessss, prooooo-cessss..."

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What is act 6 and 7?

beeasyed;842637482 said:

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the thing about stats and numbers... you know what team was worse than both Arizona and Colorado? #117 Oregon in total defense.

also, what does it matter if we generate the 2nd most yardage per game, if we're 6th in conference scoring? that just means other teams are doing it more efficiently.

Jon Wilner:
"Cal non-garbage-time pts: 24 Utah, 16 UCLA, 21 USC, 16 Stanford, 28 Ore (atrocious D)."

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So, because we played Oregon, that nullifies not playing AZ and CO? Wouldn't it make more sense to focus on the average points allowed by our in-conference opponents (all of them) and compare that to other conference teams
in-conference schedules?

Points are what matters ultimately, if winning is considered the objective. I'd like to think that's something we all can agree upon. Heck, we were in the top 25% in yards a game, or thereabouts - in 2013. BFD. We couldn't even muster 20 PPG in conference play, the worst of course...

Points. Those are the facts that most matter, to those who want to win.

SFBear2012;842637446 said:

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I believe we were seventh before the ASU game. The last two games bumped us up significantly.Actually I think the 9th and 7th places are conference scoring, a more appropriate measure if true.

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Even more appropriate would be to divide scoring by number of offensive possessions for conference games and compare. I haven't found a site that does that, or anything similar.

Looperbear;842637408 said:

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Well, Macy throws to his backs and uses a TE. One of his TEs played at USC this year as a true freshman--no interest in Cal which wouldn't even use a good NFL TE as a TE in Richard Rodgers.
Just pulled the season stats up for 2015. We finished 7th in scoring offense (I think we were 9th heading into the ASU game). Again, that's with and NFL qb and lots of experience on offense. We finished TENTH in rushing offense. How are you supposed to win when you can't run the ball in college football?

http://pac-12.com/content/football-statistics

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So throwing to the running back and using a tight end = "elements of sophistication"? BTW, we threw to the backs and sort of used the inside receivers as tight ends, too, you know...

Look, I can't disagree when folks say that our offense did not live up to expectations in big games the past couple of years and, to some extent, that has to be on Franklin. I just think that you really overstated your criticisms earlier, as did a few others. Critics who think the offense is too simple and too easy to prepare for perhaps don't understand the nuances of the offense. To help enlighten these people, killa22 went into a lot of detail and I think it is evident that he knows more about this than you (or me). I know you read what he wrote (as you quoted it). So should GoCal1, rjgoode and Chapman_is_Gone. If they can repudiate what he wrote, well, I'm ready to read it. Go ahead, change my mind.

Cal89;842637506 said:

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Points are what matters ultimately, if winning is considered the objective. I'd like to think that's something we all can agree upon. Heck, we were in the top 25% in yards a game, or thereabouts - in 2013. BFD. We couldn't even muster 20 PPG in conference play, the worst of course...

Points. Those are the facts that most matter, to those who want to win.

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Wins are what matters ultimately, if winning is considered the objective. I'd like to think that's something we all can agree upon. Heck, we were #17 in the country and #2 in the conference in points a game in 2014. BFD. We couldn't even muster 4 wins in conference play.

Wins. Those are the facts that most matter, to those who want to win.

Basing your analysis entirely on ppg is an overly simplistic way to look at an offense, especially when our own defense was 10 ppg worse in 2014 than in 2015. On your model, our offense in the WSU game in 2014 was way, way better than in the WSU game in 2015. That makes sense until you consider the fact that we had to score every last one of our 60 points against WSU in 2014 to win, and we had to score 59 points against Colorado (10 of which came in overtime, by the way, and so shouldn't be compared to games that ended in regulation). Our defense was terrible, so we scored way more points against bad defenses than we would've otherwise. Those two games pull our average up significantly (35% of our total conference scoring in 2014), and account for a lot of the TD/game difference between 2014 and 2015 (against the rest of our conference opponents, we were at ~31 ppg in 2014). If we'd had a better defense that season, we wouldn't have scored so many ppg, even with the exact same offense. In 2015, we had a much better scoring defense in conference, going from giving up 44 ppg to giving up 33.

Another factor that your ppg analysis misses is garbage time points in 2014. In 2014, we scored ~60% of our passing TD's while losing, and 27% of our passing TD's in the fourth quarter. In 2015, we scored 25% of our passing TD's while losing, and 18% of our passing TD's in the fourth quarter. What this captures indirectly (I can't find the exact stats I would need to show it directly, namely points scored when down multiple scores in the fourth quarter) is that a higher percentage of our 2014 points were scored when the game was out of reach. Those points shouldn't be credited to our 2014 offense to the disadvantage of our 2015 offense, which played a lot more meaningful snaps. In 2014, we played about 40% of our snaps down by multiple scores. In 2015, that number dropped to about 30%. A few cases in point: against USC in 2014, we were losing 31-9 at the half. We scored 21 second half points to make it look better than it was (it was still 31-16 at the end of the third), but USC was milking clock all the way, both with their offensive and their defensive strategies. Our offense got dominated in that game when it mattered. This season we scored fewer points, but the game was never out of reach, and so all units on both teams were playing differently. Similarly, against UCLA in 2014, I'm not sure that our offense crossed the fifty on its own until the last drive of the game. We got 21 points off of TO's in UCLA territory and had one short field thanks to a great kick return, but other than that our offense couldn't drive the field at all. The difference between being close against UCLA in 2014 and getting blown out in 2015 wasn't worse offensive production (which was awful in both games), it was our defense getting more TO's in 2014. So, do we fault the 2015 offense for scoring 10 fewer points against UCLA, or do we acknowledge that, in this case, there just hasn't been much movement from season to season?

One way to measure our offensive performance is, to be sure, performance against good teams. By that measure, the 2015 game against UW was, by far, the best game that we've played offensively under Sonny. UW gave up 20 ppg in conference, and we scored 30 in a win. Nothing in 2014 came close to that. The Utah game, in spite of five TO's, was also a better game than anything we saw in 2014 in terms of scoring points and gaining yards on a good defense in a competitive game. Yes, we still sucked against USC and UCLA, and the 2015 Oregon game was worse than it was in 2014. At the same time, we did markedly better against Stanford in 2015 than we did in 2014.

The overall narrative that I'm getting at here is that, as Sonny likes to say, things are never as good or as bad as they seem. The 2014 offense was overrated for the reasons that I've given, and that shows up most clearly in the fact that we only won five games (three in conference). It wasn't good enough for us to win, and it wasn't effective against good teams. The 2015 offense, on the other hand, was better than it seems if you only make a ppg comparison to the 2014 offense. That can be seen in our improved records both overall and in conference.

beeasyed;842637488 said:

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that's fair.
still doesn't explain how we put up record-setting yardage per game, #2 in conf. in total yards, but only 6th in scoring.

in 2014, Cal's red zone conversion for TDs was 72.5% (#9 in country). in 2015, it dropped to 64.7% (#41 in country). what accounts for that?

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Daniel Lasco.

oski003;842637502 said:

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What is act 6 and 7?

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There is no Act Six or Seven. The Greek tragedy then repeats itself.

gotoActOne

berk18;842637531 said:

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Wins are what matters ultimately, if winning is considered the objective. I'd like to think that's something we all can agree upon. Heck, we were #17 in the country and #2 in the conference in points a game in 2014. BFD. We couldn't even muster 4 wins in conference play.

Wins. Those are the facts that most matter, to those who want to win.

Basing your analysis entirely on ppg is an overly simplistic way to look at an offense, especially when our own defense was 10 ppg worse in 2014 than in 2015. On your model, our offense in the WSU game in 2014 was way, way better than in the WSU game in 2015. That makes sense until you consider the fact that we had to score every last one of our 60 points against WSU in 2014 to win, and we had to score 59 points against Colorado (10 of which came in overtime, by the way, and so shouldn't be compared to games that ended in regulation). Our defense was terrible, so we scored way more points against bad defenses than we would've otherwise. Those two games pull our average up significantly (35% of our total conference scoring in 2014), and account for a lot of the TD/game difference between 2014 and 2015 (against the rest of our conference opponents, we were at ~31 ppg in 2014). If we'd had a better defense that season, we wouldn't have scored so many ppg, even with the exact same offense. In 2015, we had a much better scoring defense in conference, going from giving up 44 ppg to giving up 33.

Another factor that your ppg analysis misses is garbage time points in 2014. In 2014, we scored ~60% of our passing TD's while losing, and 27% of our passing TD's in the fourth quarter. In 2015, we scored 25% of our passing TD's while losing, and 18% of our passing TD's in the fourth quarter. What this captures indirectly (I can't find the exact stats I would need to show it directly, namely points scored when down multiple scores in the fourth quarter) is that a higher percentage of our 2014 points were scored when the game was out of reach. Those points shouldn't be credited to our 2014 offense to the disadvantage of our 2015 offense, which played a lot more meaningful snaps. In 2014, we played about 40% of our snaps down by multiple scores. In 2015, that number dropped to about 30%. A few cases in point: against USC in 2014, we were losing 31-9 at the half. We scored 21 second half points to make it look better than it was (it was still 31-16 at the end of the third), but USC was milking clock all the way, both with their offensive and their defensive strategies. Our offense got dominated in that game when it mattered. This season we scored fewer points, but the game was never out of reach, and so all units on both teams were playing differently. Similarly, against UCLA in 2014, I'm not sure that our offense crossed the fifty on its own until the last drive of the game. We got 21 points off of TO's in UCLA territory and had one short field thanks to a great kick return, but other than that our offense couldn't drive the field at all. The difference between being close against UCLA in 2014 and getting blown out in 2015 wasn't worse offensive production (which was awful in both games), it was our defense getting more TO's in 2014. So, do we fault the 2015 offense for scoring 10 fewer points against UCLA, or do we acknowledge that, in this case, there just hasn't been much movement from season to season?

One way to measure our offensive performance is, to be sure, performance against good teams. By that measure, the 2015 game against UW was, by far, the best game that we've played offensively under Sonny. UW gave up 20 ppg in conference, and we scored 30 in a win. Nothing in 2014 came close to that. The Utah game, in spite of five TO's, was also a better game than anything we saw in 2014 in terms of scoring points and gaining yards on a good defense in a competitive game. Yes, we still sucked against USC and UCLA, and the 2015 Oregon game was worse than it was in 2014. At the same time, we did markedly better against Stanford in 2015 than we did in 2014.

The overall narrative that I'm getting at here is that, as Sonny likes to say, things are never as good or as bad as they seem. The 2014 offense was overrated for the reasons that I've given, and that shows up most clearly in the fact that we only won five games (three in conference). It wasn't good enough for us to win, and it wasn't effective against good teams. The 2015 offense, on the other hand, was better than it seems if you only make a ppg comparison to the 2014 offense. That can be seen in our improved records both overall and in conference.

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Well that makes sense

moonpod;842636942 said:

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yeah this is clearly a move DOWN. not lateral. not up. DOWN.

sonny was giving him time to find a new job

you don't see him in any of the pix with recruits for a long time.

this has been brewing

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Agreed 100%
And the previous OC at Middle Tennessee was making a whole $180,000
Probably good for Tennessee . . . but a totally different scene than the Bay Area.

berk18;842637531 said:

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The overall narrative that I'm getting at here is that, as Sonny likes to say, things are never as good or as bad as they seem. The 2014 offense was overrated for the reasons that I've given, and that shows up most clearly in the fact that we only won five games (three in conference). It wasn't good enough for us to win, and it wasn't effective against good teams. The 2015 offense, on the other hand, was better than it seems if you only make a ppg comparison to the 2014 offense. That can be seen in our improved records both overall and in conference.

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thank you for that very nuanced and sophisticated evaluation of the end results offensively 2014 v 2015. much appreciated

Here's more data for this discussion. Below, I've ranked our 2014 and 2015 conference opponents by scoring D, and given their ppg yielded in parentheses. Our stats against them in that year come after the colon:

[U]Cross-Season Conference Game Comparison (2014):[/U]
Stanford (19.4 ppg): 410 yards, 5.39 yards/play, 17 points
UO (23.8 ppg): 560 yards, 6.02 yards/play, 41 points
UW (24 ppg): 368 yards, 4.38 yards/play, 7 points
USC (24.6 ppg): 384 yards, 4.92 yards/play, 30 points
UCLA (28.7 ppg): 366 yards, 5.01 yards/play, 34 points
UA (29.3 ppg): 573 yards, 7.96 yards/play, 45 points
OSU (36.4 ppg): 546 yards, 5.81 yards/play, 45 points
WSU (41.9 ppg): 589 yards, 8.3 yards/play, 60 points
CU (43 ppg): 585 yards, 8.13 yards/play, 59 points

[U]Cross-Season Conference Game Comparison (2015):[/U]
UW (20 ppg): 481 yards, 5.23 yards/play, 30 points
Utah (23 ppg): 467 yards, 6.23 yards/play, 24 points
Stanford (24.1 ppg): 495 yards, 6.35 yards/play, 22 points
USC (28.1 ppg): 394 yards, 6.46 yards/play, 21 points
UCLA (28.8 ppg): 426 yards, 4.84 yards/play, 24 points
WSU (30.4 ppg): 469 yards, 6.25 yards/play, 34 points
ASU (35.9 ppg): 680 yards, 9.32 yards/play, 48 points
Oregon (37.8 ppg): 432 yards, 6.55 yards/play, 28 points
OSU (42.3 ppg): 760 yards, 9.16 yards/play, 54 points

In 2014, there was a pretty clear dividing line at 29 ppg. We played four defenses who gave up more than that, and scored 40+ against all of them while gaining 500+ yards. We went 3-1, with the loss obviously coming against UA on the hail mary. Above that line, we struggled with every team except Oregon. The numbers tell the story vs. Stanford and UW. We only scored 7 and 17 points in those games, so the offense obviously didn't work. Oregon was a positive outlier, with us scoring way more points than they usually gave up, and keeping it at under a 14 point differential for the first half, where we did most of our scoring. USC and UCLA look like good offensive games on the scoreboard, but notice how few yards we gained against them. Those stats are way closer to the awful UW game than to the rest of our schedule. That's because our offense came off of turnovers, or in a limited number of garbage time snaps. We weren't moving the ball in those games.

2015 is completely different. To start from the bottom again, there is one clear negative outlier in the Oregon game, which was a true WTF game for our offense, especially with only 10 first half points. That was really bad. Other than that, OSU and ASU went exactly as they should've. The interesting games all lie above those three, though.

To move to the top, let's look at how we did vs. the better defenses.

First comparison: UW 2015 vs. Stanford 2014. In the 2014 Stanford game we were down 24-7 at the half. We made it look more respectable in the second half by scoring a whopping 10 points, so that salvaged things, but it wasn't a close game and our offense didn't work at all when it mattered. We lost 38-17 to a Stanford team that was only 4-4 in conference at that point. In the 2015 UW game, we scored 20 first half points and never gave up the lead on our way to scoring 30. Advantage: 2015 offense.

The 2014 Oregon game was a clear positive outlier for us, so we'll put that down as a mark in favor of the 2014 offense vs. the 2015 offense.

Second Comparison: Utah and Stanford 2015 vs. UW and USC 2014. Against UW in 2014, we were losing 28-0 at the half and only scored seven points overall. The 2015 Utah game was within one score at the end of every quarter. Enough said on that front. Against USC in 2014, we gained 382 yards with 4.92 ypp. Against Stanford in 2015, we gained 495 yards at 6.35 ypp. We scored more against USC in 2014, but we were losing 31-9 at the half, and 31-16 at the end of the third. USC had a depleted roster and was milking clock for the entire second half. With all this considered, the 2015 games against both Utah and Stanford were better than both of the 2014 games against UW and USC.

Third Comparison: USC 2015 vs. USC 2014. In 2014, as I've said, we were down 31-9 at the half, and 31-16 at the end of the third quarter, before scoring two 4th quarter TD's to make things interesting. Our offense failed where it mattered. In 2015, we gained a few more yards, but had a way higher yards/play rating. The game was out of hand for a stretch in the third quarter, but was a one score game at the end of the first, second, and fourth quarters. Slight advantage to the 2015 offense, but to be fair USC's 2015 scoring defense was a little worse.

Fourth Comparison: UCLA 2015 vs. UCLA 2014. The 2014 UCLA game was close throughout, but only because of TO's deep in UCLA territory. In the first half, we punted every time that UCLA didn't hand us the ball. In the second half, we did have two 54 yard TD drives, one after a turnover on downs, and another after a punt, and the game was still competitive at this point, so that's a mark in favor of the 2014 offense. Our next TD in the 2014 game was only a 2-play, 32 yard drive after Hundley threw an interception. Until the last drive of the game, we had punted every single time that we got the ball inside of our own 40 yard line. The offense didn't work well in this game. It didn't work much better in the 2015 game, but our first FG drive was a 14-play, 66 yard drive. At the end of the half we went 75 yards in 8 plays for a TD to make it 23-10. In the third quarter we went 73 yards in 12 plays for a TD, although at that point the game was getting out of reach. Our 2014 offense did a better job at capitalizing on field position, but the 2015 offense was better able to drive the ball without their success being as dependent on field position. These two performances are close to a tie, with the big difference being the TO ratio.

So here's what I take away from these comparisons: Oregon was an outlier in both years, once in a positive direction, and once in a negative direction. It's only two games, but we can speculate that this is because of Oregon's boom or bust style of play. When you play them, you can either get completely overwhelmed and boat raced (2015) or you can get yourself into a wild shootout (2014). With the 2015 Oregon game as an exception, in both years the offense clearly worked against teams that gave up 29+ ppg, and this is what we should expect. Our ppg was lower against this tier in 2015, but the higher ppg in 2014 didn't help us win more games, with the loss to UA being an obvious case of a barnburner leading to lots of points in a losing effort. As I argued in my last post, we also wouldn't have scored as many points against WSU and CU in 2014 if our defense had been better, as it was in 2015. It should also be noted that OSU was the only truly atrocious (40+ ppg) defense we played in 2015, while both WSU and CU were awful in 2014 and accounted for 35% of our scoring in conference play.

The big difference between the two years is at the top of the conference, where in 2015 we actually moved the ball and scored some on the better defenses in the conference, occasionally looking downright good against these teams. In both years, we underperformed against USC and UCLA relative to the rest of the conference, and so it seems that we were less able than other teams to make up for deficiencies in athleticism against the two best recruiting teams in the conference, even though they weren't exceptional defenses overall. If you want to argue that our offense was worse in 2015, it can only be through quibbling over the fact that we should have scored more against the bad teams in the conference, and not through a comparative study of the entire schedule in each year, particularly at the top, where it matters most for many of us.

Of course, this is a relative comparison, and I think it's fair to say that in absolute terms there are coaches out there that would've won nine games with this roster, so there's still plenty of room for disappointment. That also sets the bar for the rest of Sonny's contract, though, since to my eye it would take relatively minor improvements to go from the seven-win regular season that we just had to a nine win regular season. There's no doubt that we're a lot closer to that now then we were when Sonny started with this group of players, though, so it's fair to say that he should be able to build on this new starting point in the next two seasons. If he does it, great. If he doesn't, then we haven't made that much of an extra commitment to him with this recent extension and should be able to get rid of him.

killa22;842637259 said:

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Primarily, Tony favored a Singleback set, but, depending upon who played @ H/Y (inside receiver), we could seamless transition from a 10 Singleback Personnel, 4 wide formation (either 2x2 or 3x1/4x1), and Empty Set 3x2 or 4x1, or an 11 Personnel 2x2 or 3x1/4x1, and occasionally a 12 Personnel 2x2 Set.

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Just to piggyback off of this for those who like numbers, I broke down the UT game by formation, and we played with a true TE on 37% of our snaps.

For some more general comments on the overall discussion of personnel groupings, for my money, 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR's) is the best grouping in football right now, and I think that our shift in that direction has been huge. If everyone on here only listened to one point that I make, I'd want that point to be that whenever you go to 2-backs, you strongly encourage the defense to rotate their safeties and put an extra player in the box. This is the case because of the distribution of your immediate vertical receiving threats. When you're in two back, you have, by definition, a 2x1 receiver distribution, with a TE and a WR to one side, and a single WR to the other. If you don't have a truly kick-ass split end, you're strongly encouraging the defense to man up on that single WR and spin one of their safeties into the box. If you're in the I-formation, you're practically asking teams to play with an 8-man box against your seven blockers (4 DL + 3 LB's + 1 S vs. 5 OL + 1 TE + 1 FB) unless you have a truly kick-ass split end. In 11 personnel you have two receiving threats to each side of the formation (1 TE + 1 WR on one side, and 2 WR's on the other side) giving you a lot more power to force defenses into 2-high coverages, so that they'll only be playing with a six-man box against your 5 OL + 1 TE. By incorporating a third WR into your personnel, you don't just gain more potential for sophistication in the passing game, you also gain the ability to swing numbers +1 in your favor in the run game.

beeasyed;842637488 said:

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that's fair.
still doesn't explain how we put up record-setting yardage per game, #2 in conf. in total yards, but only 6th in scoring.

in 2014, Cal's red zone conversion for TDs was 72.5% (#9 in country). in 2015, it dropped to 64.7% (#41 in country). what accounts for that?

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Lack of running game. Passing gets more difficult in the Gold Zone as the field shrinks. So we felt Lasco's absence much more in the Gold Zone.

Good news...they need to hire someone to diversify and evolve the offense who has California recruiting experience

beeasyed;842637488 said:

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that's fair.
still doesn't explain how we put up record-setting yardage per game, #2 in conf. in total yards, but only 6th in scoring.

in 2014, Cal's red zone conversion for TDs was 72.5% (#9 in country). in 2015, it dropped to 64.7% (#41 in country). what accounts for that?

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I haven't studied this systematically, but I think that our "power" formations on the goal line are a f*%cking curse. In a normal offense, you compress the formation at the goal line because of numbers. Usually, with a pocket passer like Goff, the defense should have a +2 advantage at the goal line. The defense has 11 potential tacklers to combat 9 potential blockers (the offense has 9 blockers plus the ball carrier and a statue of a QB who can't block or advance the ball). To defeat this +2 advantage at the goal line, pro-style offenses bring in as many players as they can to the core of the formation. The reasoning is this: imagine that the offense has all 9 of its possible blockers blocking in the core of the formation (say, 23 personnel, with 2 RB's and three TE's). If you're running up the middle, you can use these 9 blockers to take out up to 9 defenders. At the goal line, this is fine, because the two CB's on the outside will never, ever dive inside to make a tackle between the OT's. So, you can leave those two CB's completely unblocked on the outside (especially because they have contain responsibilities outside and so can't jump inside too aggressively lest they give up the bootleg or flat route) and you can devote your 9 blockers to their 9 remaining defenders.

This works mathematically, but practically it might not. If your three TE's can't block their DE's, then you're just creating match-ups that you can't win on the inside. Our TE's got absolutely worked at the goal line in, for example, the UW game, where we had a ton of trouble in short yardage. To return to the numbers given above, this compressed strategy only works if you have 9 blockers who can win the match-ups that you're creating for them against the 9 inside defenders. We keep trying to do cute sh*t with jumbo formations in short yardage, but we don't have enough adequate blockers to pull it off.

If you can't win those matchups personnel-wise, as we couldn't, then I think you're better off playing from the spread at the goal line. If you do that, then you automatically pull four defenders out of the box to cover the four wide receivers, so inside the box you've got seven defenders remaining against five blockers. Those aren't good numbers, which is why the goal line is tough, but at the same time you have viable passing options on the outside for your first round QB to exploit (Lawler on the fade, Treggs on something outside, Anderson on the slant/curl/flat route/pick, etc.). In the run game, you've at least created some space for your RB to twist and turn for a yard or two. When we compressed the formation, we inevitably failed, because our best 9 blockers were worse than their 9 best run defenders. My stance is that, contrary to popular wisdom, we didn't go spread enough, and tried too hard to use big personnel at the goal line when that wasn't our strength.

Another factor that is way overlooked is the Rubenzer factor. When your QB isn't just a pocket passer, that gives you an extra man on the inside. Say you're in the spread, so you pull 4 WR's out of the box and they pull out 4 DB's to cover them. That leaves them with seven defenders in the box against your 5 OL. If the RB is the only viable ball carrier, then the defense has a 7-on-5 advantage against your 5 OL. If your QB is a viable ball carrier, then that swings the numbers +1 in your favor, and so the defense is only 7-on-6, which creates even more space to get that extra 1 or 2 yards at the goal line. In 2014, Rubenzer rushed for 3 red zone TD's and threw for 1 more. I would've been curious to see what our offense would've looked like in 2015 with him in there at the goal line like he was in 2014, and with a better OL to boot. And yes, as someone else said, Lasco would've made a difference as well, because Enwere, our best power back without Lasco, doesn't yet read even simple holes as well as some of our other RB's.

berk18;842637922 said:

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Once Lasco went down and the replacements proved ineffective early on in the red zone, why didn't Franklin before the SC or UO game reinstate Rubenzer for some red zone plays and/or start calling plays from the spread near the goal line?

I'm hoping staff adds some more assistant to assistant coaches...

Example best was missed this season I think being tf Was trying to where many hats

You think tf could have followed Goff as package at the next level has his Qb coach

going4roses;842637950 said:

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I'm hoping staff adds some more assistant to assistant coaches...

Example best was missed this season I think being tf Was trying to where many hats

You think tf could have followed Goff as package at the next level has his Qb coach

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Marshawn Lynch for RB GA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That would be prime ...although he might be eyeing Hc job at Oakland tech

Nasal Mucus Goldenbear;842637929 said:

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Once Lasco went down and the replacements proved ineffective early on in the red zone, why didn't Franklin before the SC or UO game reinstate Rubenzer for some red zone plays and/or start calling plays from the spread near the goal line?

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We'll find out really quickly who was behind what once next season starts with a new OC. At least one person on the staff liked to tinker with personnel, especially in short yardage, and it wasn't a good idea about 50% of the time. Even moreso because several of our short yardage packages completely neutered our passing game, but we tried to throw out of them anyway.

Aloha Tony. I saw him as an offensive guru, great unique guy, and someone who sincerely did love Berkeley. I always thought we always had the smartest OC in each game, which is a great feeling. Now I think he did try to outsmart himself and our own team sometimes by not just running basic plays on 3rd and short, and I wasn't sure if his system was suited for the Pac-12. But overall, there's no question this man knew the game.

On travel with the family, and I don't have time to find a prior post, but more thoughts.

Objective = Winning. The one who wins does so by outscoring the opponent. That simple. With that, the bottomline effectiveness for an offense is point production. For defense, the prevention of such.

I wouldn't call that an analysis, as it doesn't merit such. Season is done, its late January. We are not inquiring about a particular game, drive or possession, but effectiveness of an offense, and its leader, the OC.
It's rather commonsensical. I've had deeper dives here, with more under-the-hood type metrics, that this does not necessitate... Our offense was mediocre and producing points in conference play in 2015. That is an unfortunate fact. Not a trivial one, or an interesting one that might explain some other metric, but points on the board that determine if we win the game.

With that, I'll say however that garbage time happens, for us, all teams, at various times, in all seasons... And while one can cherry pick UW, that we scored 30 on them, versus the 20 they gave-up on average in the Pac-12, another can retort, what about UCLA, Southern Cal, Oregon, Stanford, where the offense failed to get the conference average on those guys... I choose not to go there, tit for tat, looking at a game here and there; because at this point, it doesn't matter. Season is done and our point production as an offense rose to average in what had become the worst pass D in FBS.

I find there to be no acceptable explanation for this occurrence, and the production of a TD less a Pac-12 game compared to 2014. I've commented about our plays a game going down every year (89->84->78). I recognize that of course can explain in part there being fewer points, with fewer opportunities. But, I / we should be seeking acceptable explanations, and that is not one. Someone decided (TF and /or SD), for whatever reason/s, to slow the pace down.

I've heard some comment about a tougher 2015 Pac-12 schedule for Cal, compared to 2014. The Pac-12 D's we played in 2015 were not all that different from 2014, actually very similar with respect to PPG allowed:

2014 = 30.12 PPG allowed, for Cal's 9 conference opponents
2015 = 30.04 PPG allowed, for Cal's 9 conference opponents

The overall number of points scored in conference play says it all though, without the need of getting into this silliness now

Before the season I was jacked about the potential for this offense. No, I wasn't expecting the nearly 52 PPG in La Tech's 3rd season with SD and TF, but the 37.6 PPG of 2014 (Pac-12 games) was encouraging. I had however expressed concerns mid and late 2014 about the offense's point production though... I was thinking how nice it would be to bump our point production by a TD, or to nearly 45 PPG (even posted such). Having a couple Pac-12 teams a year do so is not uncommon. TFS, Bear Raid in its 3rd season, Goff's as well, our best QB in a decade for sure, one of the best in college football, the most experienced team in all of the P5, surely the offense must improve, a FG even to 40+ PPG. Nope. A TD less a game in conference play. Unbelievable. TF is gone for that reason, IMO.

I suppose in a couple of so years when the Blue Raiders are scoring 50 PPG there will be some here on BI who will regret having lost him. I wouldn't be surprised if the TFS flourishes once again. Whether playing the worst Texas D or team in decades, Beavs as well, the Sun Devils pass D which was the worst in FBS, an FCS team of the Mtn West, the TFS clearly shines in such instances.

TF seems like a neat guy, a good person, and I trust that he'll do well at MTSU, but I'm well beyond putting much weight on such touchy feely stuff now. I was excited as any when he was part of the SD hire. Honeymoon very much over.

What SD has done on the academic side of the house, the often noted family atmosphere he has fostered, I really want him to succeed here. The DC hire was a massive mistake and the OC, an experimentation that clearly did not produce the desired results... Really hoping for an appealing hire!