http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/26/cal-football-report-card-grading-the-loss-at-arizona-state/

"When the running game breaks down, the aerial attack is sure to follow"

"What do we make of Webb after four games? That he a very good quarterback who's still finding a groove with his receivers, a comfort level with the offense and the right mix of aggressiveness with his decisions. You can understand why he'd feel the need to force plays: The lead has disappeared, the momentum has shifted, the defense has crumbled, and the running game has vanished."

Agreed.

Agree. Which makes the premise in another thread that the loss was "on him and Spavital" patently ridiculous - so with Sonny's defense, the O needs to score 50+ points, 600+ yards, have no TOs, or it's their fault?? Geez.

goldenokiebear;842735894 said:

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Agree. Which makes the premise in another thread that the loss was "on him and Spavital" patently ridiculous

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Sonny is the HC, so everything is always ultimately on him. That's a given, if you want. If you want a more meaningful analysis of what failed, it is on Spav. ASU's terrible (to that point in the season) defense does not become world beaters at halftime. They took some things away, it is on the OC to find and exploit what they were giving us. And it's up to the players to execute. I don't have the expertise to know who failed but it was either Spav or the players (Webb being the most prominent). Whether it is appropriate to blame players, I also do not have enough expertise to know whether they deserve it and my inclination is to give them a pass. I do miss a QB who threw final drive TD's instead of INT's.

I know it's "Wilbur", but he was pretty much spot on. The one point he made that I disagree with is that we still need to find an X receiver. The ASU game continued Demetris Robertson's coming-out party. He's got that "it" factor, like Desean has, or like Jason Kidd had in basketball. We need to go to him more and more often -- let's be creative -- which will take some of the pressure off Hansen on the other side.

Go!Bears;842735910 said:

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Sonny is the HC, so everything is always ultimately on him. That's a given, if you want. If you want a more meaningful analysis of what failed, it is on Spav. ASU's terrible (to that point in the season) defense does not become world beaters at halftime. They took some things away, it is on the OC to find and exploit what they were giving us. And it's up to the players to execute. I don't have the expertise to know who failed but it was either Spav or the players (Webb being the most prominent). Whether it is appropriate to blame players, I also do not have enough expertise to know whether they deserve it and my inclination is to give them a pass. I do miss a QB who threw final drive TD's instead of INT's.

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I think we have to accept that interceptions will happen. The announcers pointed out that Webb did not see or could not see the linebacker who intercepted his first pass. But he was just sitting there, setting Webb up, waiting for a chance to get the ball. Same thing happened last season with Goff against Utah. The corner didn't bite and go with a wide receiver. He stayed home and got an interception which made a big difference in the final score. If you think about it, Graham probably learned a lot about Sonny's offense from that Utah game. Goff tried too many times to connect with Lawler, instead of going to Treggs or Anderson. Lawler was bracketed by two defenders. The same thing happened to Hansen the other night. We need to exploit other receivers when our human tendencies to go with the established receiver breaks down.

6bear6;842735991 said:

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I think we have to accept that interceptions will happen. The announcers pointed out that Webb did not see or could not see the linebacker who intercepted his first pass. But he was just sitting there, setting Webb up, waiting for a chance to get the ball. Same thing happened last season with Goff against Utah. The corner didn't bite and go with a wide receiver. He stayed home and got an interception which made a big difference in the final score. If you think about it, Graham probably learned a lot about Sonny's offense from that Utah game. Goff tried too many times to connect with Lawler, instead of going to Treggs or Anderson. Lawler was bracketed by two defenders. The same thing happened to Hansen the other night. We need to exploit other receivers when our human tendencies to go with the established receiver breaks down.

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The thing about that lb interception is that our rb swung out wide to that side. Isn't the qb suppose to read the lb, if he stays in the middle you throw to the back? I didn't understand what Webb was looking at on that play. Can't just assume lb will be pulled out wide by the back.

Go!Bears;842735910 said:

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Sonny is the HC, so everything is always ultimately on him. That's a given, if you want. If you want a more meaningful analysis of what failed, it is on Spav. ASU's terrible (to that point in the season) defense does not become world beaters at halftime. They took some things away, it is on the OC to find and exploit what they were giving us. And it's up to the players to execute. I don't have the expertise to know who failed but it was either Spav or the players (Webb being the most prominent). Whether it is appropriate to blame players, I also do not have enough expertise to know whether they deserve it and my inclination is to give them a pass. I do miss a QB who threw final drive TD's instead of INT's.

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Your opinion on what's a "meaningful analysis", not mine - I just can't accept that an offense is responsible to score 45 points in order to win a game - it's also on Sonny and the D coordinator to stop the opponent and prevent them from controlling the game in the 2nd half. ASU's O scored 27 in the 2nd half, not counting the Int and KO return. We won't win many games if we give up that in the 2nd half of remaining games.

goldenokiebear;842736009 said:

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I just can't accept that an offense is responsible to score 45 points in order to win a game - it's also on Sonny and the D coordinator to stop the opponent and prevent them from controlling the game in the 2nd half. ASU's O scored 27 in the 2nd half, not counting the Int and KO return. We won't win many games if we give up that in the 2nd half of remaining games.

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If we run 90 plays a game, mostly passing, the Offensive system is definitely going to have to score that many points. We are not just tiring the opponents defense down but our own.

On top of that, we are not going to be able to get a great DC without severely overpaying, and we are not going to get a lot of high caliber defensive recruits. At the end of the day, top recruits want to have a chance to go to the NFL and playing the equivalent of multiple extra games in a game that has higher injury probability might not be all that attractive. Or being left on the field tired for 20+ extra plays to get burned because while the offense can sub in tons of WR's, there is no defensive depth.

That said, if we throw $1 million at a DC, then $500k at some high level defensive position coaches who recruit, no doubt we'll improve. Problem is if one has to flush that same money down the drain on offense.

goldenokiebear;842736009 said:

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Your opinion on what's a "meaningful analysis", not mine - I just can't accept that an offense is responsible to score 45 points in order to win a game - it's also on Sonny and the D coordinator to stop the opponent and prevent them from controlling the game in the 2nd half. ASU's O scored 27 in the 2nd half, not counting the Int and KO return. We won't win many games if we give up that in the 2nd half of remaining games.

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Of course you're correct, Cal's problem is obviously the defense, not the offense. But given that, we know the defense is going to be giving up a ton of points this year. Given that certainty, it's fairly clear that if Webb played as well in the 4th Qtr of the SDSS and ASU games as he played in the first three qtrs, Cal could be 4-0. So it's natural to focus on Webb playing a bit better because that seems more likely than the defense making drastic improvements over the course of this season. So far it appears that Webb plays more consistently throughout the game when he's at home (so many data points! :p), so I will believe that his predicted high performance this Saturday will lead Cal to a win!

The running game broke down because it became predictable. Spavital and Webb were the most detrimental to the team in the second half, put simply. I don't write this to belittle Webb, as I'm pleased he chose to transfer to Cal. I also know that QB is the toughest position in sports, but Webb needs to learn not to force the ball. He could also tuck the ball and take off more often instead of standing firm in the pocket. The coaching staff needs to coach him up in these areas. Like he was in the Texas game, he'll be instrumental to our success.

The offense lost us the game in the first half. I believe the defense forced 3 or 4 3 & outs, which we need to convert into points if we are a good up tempo offense. We should have been leading by more at halftime. We saw this same issue in the 4th quarter of the SDSU game. The defense, in that game, had 3 successive possessions that went interception, fumble recovery, & 3 & out. After getting the ball back after these 3 possessions our offense went field goal, turnover on downs, & 3 and out.

As many people have talked about, the problem with this offense is that we can't win ugly football games. The defense only gave up 34 points to a team that hung 60 the week before. If you give ASU only 34 points, who wins the game? The defense played well enough to win this game, the offense let them down, particularly in the first half.

Go!Bears;842735910 said:

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Sonny is the HC, so everything is always ultimately on him. That's a given, if you want. If you want a more meaningful analysis of what failed, it is on Spav. ASU's terrible (to that point in the season) defense does not become world beaters at halftime. They took some things away, it is on the OC to find and exploit what they were giving us. And it's up to the players to execute. I don't have the expertise to know who failed but it was either Spav or the players (Webb being the most prominent). Whether it is appropriate to blame players, I also do not have enough expertise to know whether they deserve it and my inclination is to give them a pass. I do miss a QB who threw final drive TD's instead of INT's.

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It's one of those losses the coaches and team can learn a lot from. And will.

This debate continues to go on forever with endless discussions on strategy and stats but the bottom line again until SD commits to a competitive defense philosophy NOTHING changes. He continues to be a one side of the ball coach.

BBBGOBEARS;842736272 said:

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This debate continues to go on forever with endless discussions on strategy and stats but the bottom line again until SD commits to a competitive defense philosophy NOTHING changes. He continues to be a one side of the ball coach.

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I don't think you can have a good defense with this type of offense. Are there any examples?

RealDrew2;842736499 said:

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I don't think you can have a good defense with this type of offense. Are there any examples?

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Oregon has had some decent ones during their title runs.

KoreAmBear;842736507 said:

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Oregon has had some decent ones during their title runs.

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Yep. TCU, Auburn, and Baylor are other teams with defenses that were good enough to win big.

RealDrew2;842736499 said:

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I don't think you can have a good defense with this type of offense. Are there any examples?

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If we can recruit some better athletes on defense, why wouldn't our defense be better? If we can continue to be a "program on the rise", why can't we recruit some better athletes on defense?

(We gotta win at least six this year, otherwise ix-nay on the "program on the rise" thing: Beat the Utes!)

RealDrew2;842736499 said:

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I don't think you can have a good defense with this type of offense. Are there any examples?

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we also have to be able to run the ball in the second half of games when we have a lead to take some pressure off the D. when its clear they are gassed as sonny acknowledged that they were, then they need to be able to do the D a favor.

chazzed;842736531 said:

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Yep. TCU, Auburn, and Baylor are other teams with defenses that were good enough to win big.

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Baylor and Auburn do not run the Air Raid. TCU does run a variation of the Air Raid but they also rely heavily on spread option principles. All 3 of these teams also have had mobile quarterbacks to supplement the run game.

TCU's head coach is the only one of these three to be a former defensive coordinator. That should help TCU have a better balance between offense and defense. Maybe that's the combination: a defensive head coach that hires a spread coordinator. It does seem like the offensive head coaches who implement the spread have trouble keeping the other teams from scoring. I agree though, if we just had any uptick in defensive recruiting and coaching it would make a big difference in our win-loss record.

btsktr;842736671 said:

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Baylor and Auburn do not run the Air Raid. TCU does run a variation of the Air Raid but they also rely heavily on spread option principles. All 3 of these teams also have had mobile quarterbacks to supplement the run game.

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btsktr;842736671 said:

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Baylor and Auburn do not run the Air Raid. TCU does run a variation of the Air Raid but they also rely heavily on spread option principles. All 3 of these teams also have had mobile quarterbacks to supplement the run game.

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I'm just referring to teams that run no-huddle offenses as the default. The argument isn't about a specific offense, it's about the defense having to play a bunch of snaps.

Man, I wish we had Piatt and Drew in our secondary.

goldenokiebear;842735894 said:

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Agree. Which makes the premise in another thread that the loss was "on him and Spavital" patently ridiculous - so with Sonny's defense, the O needs to score 50+ points, 600+ yards, have no TOs, or it's their fault?? Geez.

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Well, that thread was started by someone who was angry.

chazzed;842736688 said:

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I'm just referring to teams that run no-huddle offenses as the default. The argument isn't about a specific offense, it's about the defense having to play a bunch of snaps.

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My biggest problem with this offense is not that it is no huddle, but that it relies so much on passing. Other teams do not have to respect our running game and as the opponents get tougher, this will get more and more obvious. As some mentioned earlier there is some grain of truth to Darrell Royal's saying that "when passing there are 3 things that can happen and 2 are bad". Obviously, there are a lot more things that have to go right for a pass play to be successful (think Stephen Anderson's drop against Texas? last year).

Because we almost solely rely on passing we are more prone to "3 and outs" and turnovers which is not a good recipe when playing hurry up. We average ~90 plays per game on offense and ~80 plays per game on defense. This is obviously not a recipe for success for our football team. I think we can all agree that there are games when our personnel is not as talented as our opponent (if not on both sides, definitely on defense). Why we would want to personally increase the number of plays in these games? Logic would suggest we should slow the tempo and hope the other team makes a crucial mistake or a fluke play happens.

Because we cannot run the ball, no lead that we have is safe. The offenses that you mentioned had some semblance of a running game and could begin to "take the air out of the ball" when leading. When we are leading in the 4th quarter and our opponent needs the ball back, they begin to creep linebackers closer to LOS and their corners begin to press. This makes it much harder for our offense to use its short passing game.

And I'm sick and tired of people saying our defense is bad because we under pay our assistants. As of last year Art Kaufman was making $550 K. Here are 3 coordinators in the Pac 12 that making less than him: Tom Bradley UCLA, Pete Kwiatkowski Washington, & John Pease Utah. Anybody interested in any of these coaches? I realize we also underpay our position coaches, but c'mon can we please stop that line of argument. Sorry, I'm sick and tired of hearing Sonny say "we need to be able to run the ball when everybody in the stadium knows we're running it" and "we need to field top defense in order to compete for the conference title".

He is entering his fourth year here and we haven't really improved in either category. At this point, he can't blame it on the prior regime because the roster is almost entirely his players. And he talked about how there was a roster imbalance when he got here, but in my opinion he we currently have a roster imbalance because of him. By my count, if Aaron and Strickland stayed we would have 15 of our 85 scholarships (including Hansen) tied to one position. And we currently have at least 3 current or former walk-ons playing significant minutes at this position. So, either we have too many scholarships tied to WRs or we are really bad at evaluating WRs when recruiting.

P.S. I just looked at our roster and it seems that we have 2 senior WRs scheduled to graduate this year and they are both walk-ons. We already have 2 committed WRs in next years class. Does this make sense to anyone?

Well you have it all figured out...

going4roses;842736840 said:

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Well you have it all figured out...

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I just know I'm tired of losing 50-40, 45-35, etc. and at this point I do not see a light at the end of the tunnel with this coaching staff

btsktr;842736829 said:

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And I'm sick and tired of people saying our defense is bad because we under pay our assistants. As of last year Art Kaufman was making $550 K. Here are 3 coordinators in the Pac 12 that making less than him: Tom Bradley UCLA, Pete Kwiatkowski Washington, & John Pease Utah. Anybody interested in any of these coaches? I realize we also underpay our position coaches, but c'mon can we please stop that line of argument. Sorry, I'm sick and tired of hearing Sonny say "we need to be able to run the ball when everybody in the stadium knows we're running it" and "we need to field top defense in order to compete for the conference title".

He is entering his fourth year here and we haven't really improved in either category. At this point, he can't blame it on the prior regime because the roster is almost entirely his players. And he talked about how there was a roster imbalance when he got here, but in my opinion he we currently have a roster imbalance because of him. By my count, if Aaron and Strickland stayed we would have 15 of our 85 scholarships (including Hansen) tied to one position. And we currently have at least 3 current or former walk-ons playing significant minutes at this position. So, either we have too many scholarships tied to WRs or we are really bad at evaluating WRs when recruiting.

P.S. I just looked at our roster and it seems that we have 2 senior WRs scheduled to graduate this year and they are both walk-ons. We already have 2 committed WRs in next years class. Does this make sense to anyone?

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Okay there are several points here that need to be contested:

A) None of those people live in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is more expensive than each of those places other than possibly Westwood, and even then, the Bay Area contains three of the top 5 most expensive cities in the United States. To say that your actual income after expenses is more just because the salary is a little higher here is a fallacy.

B) The other air raid offense in the conference, WSU, has 16 WRs on their roster. We lost our top 6 WRs, including one who had another year of eligibility, and we might even lose Chad after this year is over to the draft. Taking 2 WRs this year is fine, and as far as I know we're recruiting Jeremiah as an athlete so we don't actually know if we're using him on the offense anyway. I'm assuming part of the way this scheme works is to have several different types of bodies to exploit different matchups. In other words, it's a feature of the system. It's another thing if you think that the system itself is wrong, but to say that the roster numbers is imbalanced for an air raid system is also untenable.

C) Sonny is in year 4 of his time here, yes. We lost a ton of starters on both sides of the ball this year either due to graduation, the draft, or to injury. Usually, unless you're Urban Meyer or Nick Saban, losing that many starters leads to regression. Seeing improvement immediately isn't going to happen. We're four games into the season. We were probably a handful of plays away from a 4-0 start. Let's just relax for a moment and realize that this team was going to be worse than last year's at least at the beginning. I'm seeing a lot of upside though, and assuming everyone stays healthy and one of our QBs pan out, we're going to look very scary next year.

oski003;842736727 said:

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Man, I wish we had Piatt and Drew in our secondary.

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And Sebastian, Nickerson, and Barton. Think how different this defense/team would be with those 5.

btsktr;842736829 said:

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My biggest problem with this offense is not that it is no huddle, but that it relies so much on passing. Other teams do not have to respect our running game and as the opponents get tougher, this will get more and more obvious. As some mentioned earlier there is some grain of truth to Darrell Royal's saying that "when passing there are 3 things that can happen and 2 are bad". Obviously, there are a lot more things that have to go right for a pass play to be successful (think Stephen Anderson's drop against Texas? last year).

Because we almost solely rely on passing we are more prone to "3 and outs" and turnovers which is not a good recipe when playing hurry up. We average ~90 plays per game on offense and ~80 plays per game on defense. This is obviously not a recipe for success for our football team. I think we can all agree that there are games when our personnel is not as talented as our opponent (if not on both sides, definitely on defense). Why we would want to personally increase the number of plays in these games? Logic would suggest we should slow the tempo and hope the other team makes a crucial mistake or a fluke play happens.

Because we cannot run the ball, no lead that we have is safe. The offenses that you mentioned had some semblance of a running game and could begin to "take the air out of the ball" when leading. When we are leading in the 4th quarter and our opponent needs the ball back, they begin to creep linebackers closer to LOS and their corners begin to press. This makes it much harder for our offense to use its short passing game.

And I'm sick and tired of people saying our defense is bad because we under pay our assistants. As of last year Art Kaufman was making $550 K. Here are 3 coordinators in the Pac 12 that making less than him: Tom Bradley UCLA, Pete Kwiatkowski Washington, & John Pease Utah. Anybody interested in any of these coaches? I realize we also underpay our position coaches, but c'mon can we please stop that line of argument. Sorry, I'm sick and tired of hearing Sonny say "we need to be able to run the ball when everybody in the stadium knows we're running it" and "we need to field top defense in order to compete for the conference title".

He is entering his fourth year here and we haven't really improved in either category. At this point, he can't blame it on the prior regime because the roster is almost entirely his players. And he talked about how there was a roster imbalance when he got here, but in my opinion he we currently have a roster imbalance because of him. By my count, if Aaron and Strickland stayed we would have 15 of our 85 scholarships (including Hansen) tied to one position. And we currently have at least 3 current or former walk-ons playing significant minutes at this position. So, either we have too many scholarships tied to WRs or we are really bad at evaluating WRs when recruiting.

P.S. I just looked at our roster and it seems that we have 2 senior WRs scheduled to graduate this year and they are both walk-ons. We already have 2 committed WRs in next years class. Does this make sense to anyone?

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Some of your points are well taken. But, a couple comments:

1. The defense HAS improved. The defense gave up 34 to ASU - which isn't great, but isn't a tire fire like it was in 2013-14. They actually looked downright GOOD in the first half.

2. Roster imbalance: We often run 4 WR sets. 4 WRs are 18% of the 22 starters. If our roster has 15 wide receivers, then that's not actually an imbalance as it represents 17% of our scholarships. And yes, adding 2 WRs next year, despite losing 2 non-scholarship players, makes sense to me. You have to keep the pipeline moving. You also need to plan for non-graduation attrition - injuries, early departures to NFL, transfers, etc.

Big C_Cal;842736664 said:

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If we can recruit some better athletes on defense, why wouldn't our defense be better? If we can continue to be a "program on the rise", why can't we recruit some better athletes on defense?

(We gotta win at least six this year, otherwise ix-nay on the "program on the rise" thing: Beat the Utes!)

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Big C

Your in box has been full for months now!

We have real needs in recruiting for the immediate future. We are losing four starters on the Oline- Borrayo, Stuckey, Granado and Moore. All seniors. In addition, we need to recruit heavily at linebacker and defensive tackle. On the defensive side, recruiting here could mean a smothering defense since we seem to have solved our safety and dback issues. The trenches is where it all starts and finishes. Hope that Sonny and staff will succeed in getting the players we want and need.

Wants and needs huh ... Both are not on the menu at this time so it's either pick/or choose

jyamada;842736916 said:

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Big C

Your in box has been full for months now!

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Big C you need to sign in on a computer to empty the inbox or ask mods to delete some

Is Ooms or Granado the starting center? How is Ulave doing?

packawana;842736845 said:

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Okay there are several points here that need to be contested:

A) None of those people live in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is more expensive than each of those places other than possibly Westwood, and even then, the Bay Area contains three of the top 5 most expensive cities in the United States. To say that your actual income after expenses is more just because the salary is a little higher here is a fallacy.

B) The other air raid offense in the conference, WSU, has 16 WRs on their roster. We lost our top 6 WRs, including one who had another year of eligibility, and we might even lose Chad after this year is over to the draft. Taking 2 WRs this year is fine, and as far as I know we're recruiting Jeremiah as an athlete so we don't actually know if we're using him on the offense anyway. I'm assuming part of the way this scheme works is to have several different types of bodies to exploit different matchups. In other words, it's a feature of the system. It's another thing if you think that the system itself is wrong, but to say that the roster numbers is imbalanced for an air raid system is also untenable.

C) Sonny is in year 4 of his time here, yes. We lost a ton of starters on both sides of the ball this year either due to graduation, the draft, or to injury. Usually, unless you're Urban Meyer or Nick Saban, losing that many starters leads to regression. Seeing improvement immediately isn't going to happen. We're four games into the season. We were probably a handful of plays away from a 4-0 start. Let's just relax for a moment and realize that this team was going to be worse than last year's at least at the beginning. I'm seeing a lot of upside though, and assuming everyone stays healthy and one of our QBs pan out, we're going to look very scary next year.

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Thought I would jump in here:
A) We can and absolutely should pay our coaches more. Dykes received additional funds to do this, so there's no excuse there. Changes should have been made to some position coaches before this year started, but unfortunately they were not. I would be surprised if we don't see changes this coming off season.

B) btskr has a valid point on the number of wide receivers on the roster. Go to each teams website and sort by position. Just looking at those listed as wide receivers, not including tight ends, Cal has the most in the conference at 20. Two spread teams are Oregon at 16 and ASU at 17. The closest to us has 18 and that includes Arizona, fucla and Utah. While that might not seem like a big difference, it does represent more resources, time and training focused on one positional group. It's a valid concern and does not appear to be a feature of the system.

C) This is college football where EVERY team loses players to graduation, draft and injury. There are many coaches not named Urban Meyer and Nick Saban that handle that transition just fine. Moreover, this is Dykes fourth year, so he has had time to prepare for transition. This not a valid excuse.

It bears repeating - in six years as a head coach, Dykes' highest ranked defense was in 2011 when it was ranked 57 out of 120. The next best defense was 109th in the nation with the rest 116th and below. This year is shaping up in a similar fashion. For whatever reason, under Dykes the defense is simply not getting it done.