After reading all the comments here it appears hes' behind the times.
BearSD said:
You folks are looking in the wrong direction.
The offense that you are bashing scored 27 points.
With last year's defense, or even a defense 75% as effective as last year's, those 27 points would have been more than enough to win this game, even with the 2 INTs and the blocking breakdown on the 4th quarter punt that gifted the final TD to the Beavers. But instead we're looking at a defense that gave up a 75 yard TD run on this game's first play from scrimmage and was completely outmatched last week against UCLA.
Second half is where we really stalled, only 7 points and those 7 points came after Hicks gifted us incredible field position and we needed a couple of flags to go our way. After a promising first half for the O it was a very disappointing second half.txwharfrat said:BearSD said:
You folks are looking in the wrong direction.
The offense that you are bashing scored 27 points.
With last year's defense, or even a defense 75% as effective as last year's, those 27 points would have been more than enough to win this game, even with the 2 INTs and the blocking breakdown on the 4th quarter punt that gifted the final TD to the Beavers. But instead we're looking at a defense that gave up a 75 yard TD run on this game's first play from scrimmage and was completely outmatched last week against UCLA.
Are you paying attention? 27 is not sufficient in college football this century.
The question is, is this O good for us? I'm thinkin' JW wants conservative.KoreAmBear said:Second half is where we really stalled, only 7 points and those 7 points came after Hicks gifted us incredible field position and we needed a couple of flags to go our way. After a promising first half for the O it was a very disappointing second half.txwharfrat said:BearSD said:
You folks are looking in the wrong direction.
The offense that you are bashing scored 27 points.
With last year's defense, or even a defense 75% as effective as last year's, those 27 points would have been more than enough to win this game, even with the 2 INTs and the blocking breakdown on the 4th quarter punt that gifted the final TD to the Beavers. But instead we're looking at a defense that gave up a 75 yard TD run on this game's first play from scrimmage and was completely outmatched last week against UCLA.
Are you paying attention? 27 is not sufficient in college football this century.
Problem is that 20 of the 27 were in the first half. We disappeared except for that last drive---well, whoops.BearSD said:
You folks are looking in the wrong direction.
The offense that you are bashing scored 27 points.
With last year's defense, or even a defense 75% as effective as last year's, those 27 points would have been more than enough to win this game, even with the 2 INTs and the blocking breakdown on the 4th quarter punt that gifted the final TD to the Beavers. But instead we're looking at a defense that gave up a 75 yard TD run on this game's first play from scrimmage and was completely outmatched last week against UCLA.
I have been screaming for that sort of offense on the insider board for years. If you want to play the way Musgrave wants to play you have to have superior personnel. The Bears do not have the players to do this and win.killa22 said:
We hit a deep cross / over concept on a 5 step drop from under center. Kind of says it all right there.
Lining up in 21 looks and motioning Z in to crack on a backer. Yay, let's bring another dude into the box - 8/9 man fronts.
Washington State smoked this same Oregon State team with a new offense and frosh qb running the ball against a light box, and then throwing up vertical shots off play action / RPO when they came down in one high. That's right, the supposed spread run and shoot team rushed for 230 doing all of that damage against 5/6 man boxes.
Kind of a different thought process / approach between spread and pro-style.
This isn't a modern-ish spread a la Mahomes / Kansas City. This looks like 1990's Broncos / 49ers. Not a bad thing, but it doesn't take advantage of the key elements that college offenses have used to tip the scales in the favor of offense over defense.
Look, Alabama, LSU, Florida, and now Georgia have all adopted aggressive spread passing games.
Not saying we should go full 10 P air raid and just wing it all over the place, but there's something to be said about the meta being in 11p with that flex TE to give you different run surfaces and then heavily utilizing screens and play action.
A modern pro style approach to the spread vs a legacy pure pro style offense which is what we are seeing.
The defense gave up some big plays, otherwise it stuffed OSU for most of the game.westcoast101 said:
The defense skinks.
heartofthebear said:The defense gave up some big plays, otherwise it stuffed OSU for most of the game.westcoast101 said:
The defense skinks.
For essentially one half of football, from late 1st Q to late 3rd Q, OSU was held to one FG.
And the two TDs in the 2nd half, one late 3rd and one late 4th, followed generous field positions donated by our punting team.
Yes the defense isn't what it's been. It never was going to be. Recruiting on the defensive side has lagged the last couple of years, especially in the interior (S, ILB and DT). And top guys like Jordan and Weaver have moved on. Not having Bequette and then Maldonaldo getting lost for the year puts an added hurt on us. Heck, we didn't even have Mckenzie.
I said it before, I'm not in favor of Australian punters. And stats will show they are worse than the American punters we had prior. Mostly they are end over end kicks which do not carry and do not give coverage teams a chance to cover. On the blocked punt, our punter, dropped the ball extremely low to the ground to kick, giving a better angle to block it.
Meanwhile the OSU punter, punting American style, averaged about 44 yards per punt and had 50 more yards total punting with one less attempt. We could have used those 50 yards yesterday. We would have won with those 50 yards and one less blocked punt.
We like to blame our ST coaches here at Cal. But it is not that simple because ST coaches have great success after leaving Cal for other schools, including Furd. I just don't think the players take pride in it as much as some other places. Maybe the coaches need to have consequences like extra workouts or bench players when big mistakes are made.
Punter took 5 steps...in addition to holding it low.heartofthebear said:The defense gave up some big plays, otherwise it stuffed OSU for most of the game.westcoast101 said:
The defense skinks.
For essentially one half of football, from late 1st Q to late 3rd Q, OSU was held to one FG.
And the two TDs in the 2nd half, one late 3rd and one late 4th, followed generous field positions donated by our punting team.
Yes the defense isn't what it's been. It never was going to be. Recruiting on the defensive side has lagged the last couple of years, especially in the interior (S, ILB and DT). And top guys like Jordan and Weaver have moved on. Not having Bequette and then Maldonaldo getting lost for the year puts an added hurt on us. Heck, we didn't even have Mckenzie.
I said it before, I'm not in favor of Australian punters. And stats will show they are worse than the American punters we had prior. Mostly they are end over end kicks which do not carry and do not give coverage teams a chance to cover. On the blocked punt, our punter, dropped the ball extremely low to the ground to kick, giving a better angle to block it.
Meanwhile the OSU punter, punting American style, averaged about 44 yards per punt and had 50 more yards total punting with one less attempt. We could have used those 50 yards yesterday. We would have won with those 50 yards and one less blocked punt.
We like to blame our ST coaches here at Cal. But it is not that simple because ST coaches have great success after leaving Cal for other schools, including Furd. I just don't think the players take pride in it as much as some other places. Maybe the coaches need to have consequences like extra workouts or bench players when big mistakes are made.
I can't believe we had only one guy back there to block at that point in the game and in that place on the field. Often in football there are 2 guys, one on each side and the snap goes between them. Not that time. The rusher can't juke 2 guys. I suppose they were worried about punt coverage. There is a simple way to handle that. Punt the ball out of bounds.CALiforniALUM said:heartofthebear said:The defense gave up some big plays, otherwise it stuffed OSU for most of the game.westcoast101 said:
The defense skinks.
For essentially one half of football, from late 1st Q to late 3rd Q, OSU was held to one FG.
And the two TDs in the 2nd half, one late 3rd and one late 4th, followed generous field positions donated by our punting team.
Yes the defense isn't what it's been. It never was going to be. Recruiting on the defensive side has lagged the last couple of years, especially in the interior (S, ILB and DT). And top guys like Jordan and Weaver have moved on. Not having Bequette and then Maldonaldo getting lost for the year puts an added hurt on us. Heck, we didn't even have Mckenzie.
I said it before, I'm not in favor of Australian punters. And stats will show they are worse than the American punters we had prior. Mostly they are end over end kicks which do not carry and do not give coverage teams a chance to cover. On the blocked punt, our punter, dropped the ball extremely low to the ground to kick, giving a better angle to block it.
Meanwhile the OSU punter, punting American style, averaged about 44 yards per punt and had 50 more yards total punting with one less attempt. We could have used those 50 yards yesterday. We would have won with those 50 yards and one less blocked punt.
We like to blame our ST coaches here at Cal. But it is not that simple because ST coaches have great success after leaving Cal for other schools, including Furd. I just don't think the players take pride in it as much as some other places. Maybe the coaches need to have consequences like extra workouts or bench players when big mistakes are made.
You could see from our very first punt that it was only a matter of time before they blocked one. While your point about the punting style may be relevant, the three second-line blockers looked like they had no idea what they were supposed to do. The juke on the blocked punt just can't happen. Their job isn't supposed to square up the opponent but to just slow them down. As the player who was on the flank he can't get beat on that side.
I think you are looking for cyberbears.com.Big C said:
Coincidence that killa would mention 1990s 49ers and Broncos...
In I think it was the 3rd quarter, I said to my wife, "I feel like it's 1995." She says, "Really? 'Cause you don't look like it."
Regarding the OP wondering if the new offense is a dinosaur, maybe, but not a powerful T Rex or even a lightening-quick velociraptor. A gentle plant eater, more like.
rim shot... can we get a rim shot here?
100% correct. Bad mistake. But punters getting the ball out seems very slow too.CALiforniALUM said:heartofthebear said:The defense gave up some big plays, otherwise it stuffed OSU for most of the game.westcoast101 said:
The defense skinks.
For essentially one half of football, from late 1st Q to late 3rd Q, OSU was held to one FG.
And the two TDs in the 2nd half, one late 3rd and one late 4th, followed generous field positions donated by our punting team.
Yes the defense isn't what it's been. It never was going to be. Recruiting on the defensive side has lagged the last couple of years, especially in the interior (S, ILB and DT). And top guys like Jordan and Weaver have moved on. Not having Bequette and then Maldonaldo getting lost for the year puts an added hurt on us. Heck, we didn't even have Mckenzie.
I said it before, I'm not in favor of Australian punters. And stats will show they are worse than the American punters we had prior. Mostly they are end over end kicks which do not carry and do not give coverage teams a chance to cover. On the blocked punt, our punter, dropped the ball extremely low to the ground to kick, giving a better angle to block it.
Meanwhile the OSU punter, punting American style, averaged about 44 yards per punt and had 50 more yards total punting with one less attempt. We could have used those 50 yards yesterday. We would have won with those 50 yards and one less blocked punt.
We like to blame our ST coaches here at Cal. But it is not that simple because ST coaches have great success after leaving Cal for other schools, including Furd. I just don't think the players take pride in it as much as some other places. Maybe the coaches need to have consequences like extra workouts or bench players when big mistakes are made.
You could see from our very first punt that it was only a matter of time before they blocked one. While your point about the punting style may be relevant, the three second-line blockers looked like they had no idea what they were supposed to do. The juke on the blocked punt just can't happen. Their job isn't supposed to square up the opponent but to just slow them down. As the player who was on the flank he can't get beat on that side.
killa22 said:
We hit a deep cross / over concept on a 5 step drop from under center. Kind of says it all right there.
Lining up in 21 looks and motioning Z in to crack on a backer. Yay, let's bring another dude into the box - 8/9 man fronts.
Washington State smoked this same Oregon State team with a new offense and frosh qb running the ball against a light box, and then throwing up vertical shots off play action / RPO when they came down in one high. That's right, the supposed spread run and shoot team rushed for 230 doing all of that damage against 5/6 man boxes.
Kind of a different thought process / approach between spread and pro-style.
This isn't a modern-ish spread a la Mahomes / Kansas City. This looks like 1990's Broncos / 49ers. Not a bad thing, but it doesn't take advantage of the key elements that college offenses have used to tip the scales in the favor of offense over defense.
Look, Alabama, LSU, Florida, and now Georgia have all adopted aggressive spread passing games.
Not saying we should go full 10 P air raid and just wing it all over the place, but there's something to be said about the meta being in 11p with that flex TE to give you different run surfaces and then heavily utilizing screens and play action.
A modern pro style approach to the spread vs a legacy pure pro style offense which is what we are seeing.
It's good if you want to go back to being a defensive coordinator and stop being a head coachRushinbear said:The question is, is this O good for us? I'm thinkin' JW wants conservative.KoreAmBear said:Second half is where we really stalled, only 7 points and those 7 points came after Hicks gifted us incredible field position and we needed a couple of flags to go our way. After a promising first half for the O it was a very disappointing second half.txwharfrat said:BearSD said:
You folks are looking in the wrong direction.
The offense that you are bashing scored 27 points.
With last year's defense, or even a defense 75% as effective as last year's, those 27 points would have been more than enough to win this game, even with the 2 INTs and the blocking breakdown on the 4th quarter punt that gifted the final TD to the Beavers. But instead we're looking at a defense that gave up a 75 yard TD run on this game's first play from scrimmage and was completely outmatched last week against UCLA.
Are you paying attention? 27 is not sufficient in college football this century.
Big C said:
Coincidence that killa would mention 1990s 49ers and Broncos...
In I think it was the 3rd quarter, I said to my wife, "I feel like it's 1995." She says, "Really? 'Cause you don't look like it."
Regarding the OP wondering if the new offense is a dinosaur, maybe, but not a powerful T Rex or even a lightening-quick velociraptor. A gentle plant eater, more like.
rim shot... can we get a rim shot here?
dimitrig said:Big C said:
Coincidence that killa would mention 1990s 49ers and Broncos...
In I think it was the 3rd quarter, I said to my wife, "I feel like it's 1995." She says, "Really? 'Cause you don't look like it."
Regarding the OP wondering if the new offense is a dinosaur, maybe, but not a powerful T Rex or even a lightening-quick velociraptor. A gentle plant eater, more like.
rim shot... can we get a rim shot here?
Did you tell her: "Look who is talking?"
Tonges can catch; he's being put in position to do that. Haven't seen Polk's routes this year, but he's able to catch, too. RBs? Dancy seems to have been cured of dancin' and is gaining yards. With the starting OL out, it's too soon to judge, but the new guys didn't embarrass themselves. Nonetheless, those 2 running plays to start the second half were wrong. Likely that Mus was thinking invest in the ground game now and it will pay off in the 4th, but he forgot that 1. Our OL is young; and 2. Their DL was rested. Those plays were going nowhere. The OSU O had been knockin' on the door all first half. The last thing we wanted was what happened - 3 and out to start.calumnus said:killa22 said:
We hit a deep cross / over concept on a 5 step drop from under center. Kind of says it all right there.
Lining up in 21 looks and motioning Z in to crack on a backer. Yay, let's bring another dude into the box - 8/9 man fronts.
Washington State smoked this same Oregon State team with a new offense and frosh qb running the ball against a light box, and then throwing up vertical shots off play action / RPO when they came down in one high. That's right, the supposed spread run and shoot team rushed for 230 doing all of that damage against 5/6 man boxes.
Kind of a different thought process / approach between spread and pro-style.
This isn't a modern-ish spread a la Mahomes / Kansas City. This looks like 1990's Broncos / 49ers. Not a bad thing, but it doesn't take advantage of the key elements that college offenses have used to tip the scales in the favor of offense over defense.
Look, Alabama, LSU, Florida, and now Georgia have all adopted aggressive spread passing games.
Not saying we should go full 10 P air raid and just wing it all over the place, but there's something to be said about the meta being in 11p with that flex TE to give you different run surfaces and then heavily utilizing screens and play action.
A modern pro style approach to the spread vs a legacy pure pro style offense which is what we are seeing.
The college game is characterized by constant turnover in personnel built in and great disparities in talent level. Especially at Cal where we have had NFL HOF QBs, TEs, RBs and WRs and OLs but usually on a team with guys who at best will never play professionally. An OC at Cal can have an idea of where he wants to go, but needs to recruit the best players he can get regardless of position and then devise the actual scheme to emphasize his best players.
Thus a major requirement for an OC at Cal is creativity and flexibility. The OC needs to identify his best players, identify what it is they do exceptionally well and then put them in a position where they can do that. You want to create matchups that favor you whether it is size, speed or numbers. In order to do that you need to have some element of surprise and misdirection in your base offense to create those mismatches. You cannot be predictable that gives the advantage to the defense. You want your offense to be simple enough and flexible enough that you can utilize the exceptional talent of a freshman.
Killa, like you i was happy with our offense under Dykes. We had the QBs, WRs and RBs to make it effective. It was flexible enough to give TE like Richard Rodgers Jr. his best season by far and put him into the NFL. It was before your time but I though going to the Run and Shoot in the 80's was a smart move by Theder but one of the big errors OC Mouse Davis made was not figuring out a way to incorporate our best athlete, TE David Lewis into his offense.
"Multiple" is not bad overall, but each year you need to identify your strengths and decide what your identity is going to be and simplify around that. If you have a great senior QB and great WRs you will pass a lot. If you are staring a freshman QB but have a great RB you are going to emphasize the run game and throw off of play action almost exclusively. You need a few base plays that emphasize your strengths and then have multiple counters and variations for when the defense tries to stop your best.
You also need to be flexible enough to change during the year due to injury or if a new star emerges. Or just to exploit a weakness in an opponent (more common in college than in the NFL).
The big difference between Cal and USC in 2004 is that USC found a way to get Reggie Bush on the field in the slot while we had Marshawn Lynch mostly on the bench.
In 2006 we went to the spread. Yet our QB was Longshore, and we had Marshawn Lynch (backed up by Forsett) at RB. We had Wil Ta'ufo'ou at FB and Craig Stevens and Cameron Morrah at TE and an NFL Line. And yes we had Desean Jackson, Lacelle Hawkins and Robert Jordan at WR. Still, that is a team built to emphasize the power run behind Lynch with Longshore throwing deep off of playaction.
When we had Jahvid Best I thought the play that struck fear to the defense was Jahvid a pitch outside. So that should have been our bread and butter, with everything else coming off a fake pitch to Jahvid first.
After Bigelow torched Ohio State for two TDs on two touches we took him out of the game. Crazy. You want the defense to fear something. Leave him in if only as a decoy, fake the swing pass, then throw deep, anything.
Baldwin started out spread which made sense since he inherited a spread team with a lot of talent at WR. As the season progressed he lost the speed receivers mostly to transfer. He was left with possession receivers. He started out with a big back (Enwere) running up the middle in a light box, but when defenses figured out we did not have speed at WR and the playcalling was predictable, they could crowd the box and stuff the 1st down run. The could blitz up the middle every time, either catching the back in the back field or sacking QB Bowers. Laird emerged as an effective runner because he would bounce outside for a good gain when the run up the middle was stuffed.
The one really exceptional weapon we had was McMorris. A freakish athlete. 5'11 290, a champion shot putter. High School All American. Twice named MVP of Mater Dei's BASKETBALL team! The few times he was in were TV highlights because he made open field pancake blocks on linebackers and defensive linemen. He was an ideal H-back. Especially when paired with Laird who was exceptional at following his blocking. Once we lost our WRs I thought we should pivot to Laird and McMorris as the focal point of our offense with Bowers throwing off of play action.
The same was more true the following year. Wharton, Noa, Ways were all possession receivers. Bunting was a big TE. Garbers and McIwain could run. Having an H-Back like McMorris sealing the edge or going out into the flat as a safety valve gives you a place where defenses have to worry about something. You needed scheme to get guys open.
Last year the young WRs who had the dropsies previously, didn't and we were best with Crawford healthy and able to stretch the field. Baldwin's offense doesn't scheme to get guys open.in order to get that light box to run against he needs the defense to respect the WRs. Running predictably on first down never helps.
We have decent WRs now. Crawford, Polk and Remigio, Tonges as a receiving TE. Still, none are so talented that they don't also need scheme to help them get open. I'd like to see someone more dynamic than Brown as the feature back or with one of the faster backs lining up in the backfield with Brown then one of them motioning out to the slot or coming back on the fly sweep. Basically we should run the Rams' offense. Simple, plenty of misdirection. Utilizes a pass catching TE. Scheme gets guys open for easy throws by the QB. Pocket moves around enough to foil rushers...QB can take off an run for a first down if it is open.
I'll give Musgrave some benefit of the doubt on the personnel side, since he hasn't had a lot of in person time with the team to figure out who his stars are. However the predictability, lack of misdirection and imagination in play-calling we have seen so far are inexcusable. Hopefully we see better, soon.
I was on the boat, mostly because I bought into the hype of Musgrave. He still can be the guy that gets us right, but I am a little disturbed by his conservatism. The offense was much better than the UCLA game though and our starting o-line was out, so I know we can't be too hard on him at this point in a pandemic. I think a lot of it has to do with having the muscle memory now to run his plays and not having to think about what to do in game.burritos said:
It's amusing how 99% here hated Beau Baldwin and proclaimed Musgrave the 2nd coming(as usual).
burritos said:
It's amusing how 99% here hated Beau Baldwin and proclaimed Musgrave the 2nd coming(as usual).
I'll take Killa. All his offensive lingo has me on the bandwagon. I know a guy who can make t-shirts.calumnus said:burritos said:
It's amusing how 99% here hated Beau Baldwin and proclaimed Musgrave the 2nd coming(as usual).
1. 99% here are huge Wilcox fans. 100% want him to succeed.
2. We had the worst offense in the PAC-12 and one of the very worst in football three years in a row under Baldwin. 60% wanted Baldwin gone. 40% always support the coach and blamed the players/lack of talent. They tried to see progress and hoped for improvement in year 4.
3. With Wilcox finally replacing Baldwin with ______ everyone is going to be supportive. Those who wanted Baldwin gone are happy and those who think Wilcox walks on water still do. Everyone wants Wilcox to succeed. We are all optimistic until we can see what the actual results are. My wish was that Wilcox found the next up and coming brilliant strategist. Obviously Musgrave is not that, but he said the right things and he is clearly experienced and competent. He has been given a tough situation in 2020. My hope is that as he sees what his players can do he puts out an offense that puts them in a situation to succeed. Maybe we start a campaign to hire Killa as an offensive assistant?
Rushinbear said:Tonges can catch; he's being put in position to do that. Haven't seen Polk's routes this year, but he's able to catch, too. RBs? Dancy seems to have been cured of dancin' and is gaining yards. With the starting OL out, it's too soon to judge, but the new guys didn't embarrass themselves. Nonetheless, those 2 running plays to start the second half were wrong. Likely that Mus was thinking invest in the ground game now and it will pay off in the 4th, but he forgot that 1. Our OL is young; and 2. Their DL was rested. Those plays were going nowhere. The OSU O had been knockin' on the door all first half. The last thing we wanted was what happened - 3 and out to start.calumnus said:killa22 said:
We hit a deep cross / over concept on a 5 step drop from under center. Kind of says it all right there.
Lining up in 21 looks and motioning Z in to crack on a backer. Yay, let's bring another dude into the box - 8/9 man fronts.
Washington State smoked this same Oregon State team with a new offense and frosh qb running the ball against a light box, and then throwing up vertical shots off play action / RPO when they came down in one high. That's right, the supposed spread run and shoot team rushed for 230 doing all of that damage against 5/6 man boxes.
Kind of a different thought process / approach between spread and pro-style.
This isn't a modern-ish spread a la Mahomes / Kansas City. This looks like 1990's Broncos / 49ers. Not a bad thing, but it doesn't take advantage of the key elements that college offenses have used to tip the scales in the favor of offense over defense.
Look, Alabama, LSU, Florida, and now Georgia have all adopted aggressive spread passing games.
Not saying we should go full 10 P air raid and just wing it all over the place, but there's something to be said about the meta being in 11p with that flex TE to give you different run surfaces and then heavily utilizing screens and play action.
A modern pro style approach to the spread vs a legacy pure pro style offense which is what we are seeing.
The college game is characterized by constant turnover in personnel built in and great disparities in talent level. Especially at Cal where we have had NFL HOF QBs, TEs, RBs and WRs and OLs but usually on a team with guys who at best will never play professionally. An OC at Cal can have an idea of where he wants to go, but needs to recruit the best players he can get regardless of position and then devise the actual scheme to emphasize his best players.
Thus a major requirement for an OC at Cal is creativity and flexibility. The OC needs to identify his best players, identify what it is they do exceptionally well and then put them in a position where they can do that. You want to create matchups that favor you whether it is size, speed or numbers. In order to do that you need to have some element of surprise and misdirection in your base offense to create those mismatches. You cannot be predictable that gives the advantage to the defense. You want your offense to be simple enough and flexible enough that you can utilize the exceptional talent of a freshman.
Killa, like you i was happy with our offense under Dykes. We had the QBs, WRs and RBs to make it effective. It was flexible enough to give TE like Richard Rodgers Jr. his best season by far and put him into the NFL. It was before your time but I though going to the Run and Shoot in the 80's was a smart move by Theder but one of the big errors OC Mouse Davis made was not figuring out a way to incorporate our best athlete, TE David Lewis into his offense.
"Multiple" is not bad overall, but each year you need to identify your strengths and decide what your identity is going to be and simplify around that. If you have a great senior QB and great WRs you will pass a lot. If you are staring a freshman QB but have a great RB you are going to emphasize the run game and throw off of play action almost exclusively. You need a few base plays that emphasize your strengths and then have multiple counters and variations for when the defense tries to stop your best.
You also need to be flexible enough to change during the year due to injury or if a new star emerges. Or just to exploit a weakness in an opponent (more common in college than in the NFL).
The big difference between Cal and USC in 2004 is that USC found a way to get Reggie Bush on the field in the slot while we had Marshawn Lynch mostly on the bench.
In 2006 we went to the spread. Yet our QB was Longshore, and we had Marshawn Lynch (backed up by Forsett) at RB. We had Wil Ta'ufo'ou at FB and Craig Stevens and Cameron Morrah at TE and an NFL Line. And yes we had Desean Jackson, Lacelle Hawkins and Robert Jordan at WR. Still, that is a team built to emphasize the power run behind Lynch with Longshore throwing deep off of playaction.
When we had Jahvid Best I thought the play that struck fear to the defense was Jahvid a pitch outside. So that should have been our bread and butter, with everything else coming off a fake pitch to Jahvid first.
After Bigelow torched Ohio State for two TDs on two touches we took him out of the game. Crazy. You want the defense to fear something. Leave him in if only as a decoy, fake the swing pass, then throw deep, anything.
Baldwin started out spread which made sense since he inherited a spread team with a lot of talent at WR. As the season progressed he lost the speed receivers mostly to transfer. He was left with possession receivers. He started out with a big back (Enwere) running up the middle in a light box, but when defenses figured out we did not have speed at WR and the playcalling was predictable, they could crowd the box and stuff the 1st down run. The could blitz up the middle every time, either catching the back in the back field or sacking QB Bowers. Laird emerged as an effective runner because he would bounce outside for a good gain when the run up the middle was stuffed.
The one really exceptional weapon we had was McMorris. A freakish athlete. 5'11 290, a champion shot putter. High School All American. Twice named MVP of Mater Dei's BASKETBALL team! The few times he was in were TV highlights because he made open field pancake blocks on linebackers and defensive linemen. He was an ideal H-back. Especially when paired with Laird who was exceptional at following his blocking. Once we lost our WRs I thought we should pivot to Laird and McMorris as the focal point of our offense with Bowers throwing off of play action.
The same was more true the following year. Wharton, Noa, Ways were all possession receivers. Bunting was a big TE. Garbers and McIwain could run. Having an H-Back like McMorris sealing the edge or going out into the flat as a safety valve gives you a place where defenses have to worry about something. You needed scheme to get guys open.
Last year the young WRs who had the dropsies previously, didn't and we were best with Crawford healthy and able to stretch the field. Baldwin's offense doesn't scheme to get guys open.in order to get that light box to run against he needs the defense to respect the WRs. Running predictably on first down never helps.
We have decent WRs now. Crawford, Polk and Remigio, Tonges as a receiving TE. Still, none are so talented that they don't also need scheme to help them get open. I'd like to see someone more dynamic than Brown as the feature back or with one of the faster backs lining up in the backfield with Brown then one of them motioning out to the slot or coming back on the fly sweep. Basically we should run the Rams' offense. Simple, plenty of misdirection. Utilizes a pass catching TE. Scheme gets guys open for easy throws by the QB. Pocket moves around enough to foil rushers...QB can take off an run for a first down if it is open.
I'll give Musgrave some benefit of the doubt on the personnel side, since he hasn't had a lot of in person time with the team to figure out who his stars are. However the predictability, lack of misdirection and imagination in play-calling we have seen so far are inexcusable. Hopefully we see better, soon.
I meant rested coming out of half time.Big C said:Rushinbear said:Tonges can catch; he's being put in position to do that. Haven't seen Polk's routes this year, but he's able to catch, too. RBs? Dancy seems to have been cured of dancin' and is gaining yards. With the starting OL out, it's too soon to judge, but the new guys didn't embarrass themselves. Nonetheless, those 2 running plays to start the second half were wrong. Likely that Mus was thinking invest in the ground game now and it will pay off in the 4th, but he forgot that 1. Our OL is young; and 2. Their DL was rested. Those plays were going nowhere. The OSU O had been knockin' on the door all first half. The last thing we wanted was what happened - 3 and out to start.calumnus said:killa22 said:
We hit a deep cross / over concept on a 5 step drop from under center. Kind of says it all right there.
Lining up in 21 looks and motioning Z in to crack on a backer. Yay, let's bring another dude into the box - 8/9 man fronts.
Washington State smoked this same Oregon State team with a new offense and frosh qb running the ball against a light box, and then throwing up vertical shots off play action / RPO when they came down in one high. That's right, the supposed spread run and shoot team rushed for 230 doing all of that damage against 5/6 man boxes.
Kind of a different thought process / approach between spread and pro-style.
This isn't a modern-ish spread a la Mahomes / Kansas City. This looks like 1990's Broncos / 49ers. Not a bad thing, but it doesn't take advantage of the key elements that college offenses have used to tip the scales in the favor of offense over defense.
Look, Alabama, LSU, Florida, and now Georgia have all adopted aggressive spread passing games.
Not saying we should go full 10 P air raid and just wing it all over the place, but there's something to be said about the meta being in 11p with that flex TE to give you different run surfaces and then heavily utilizing screens and play action.
A modern pro style approach to the spread vs a legacy pure pro style offense which is what we are seeing.
The college game is characterized by constant turnover in personnel built in and great disparities in talent level. Especially at Cal where we have had NFL HOF QBs, TEs, RBs and WRs and OLs but usually on a team with guys who at best will never play professionally. An OC at Cal can have an idea of where he wants to go, but needs to recruit the best players he can get regardless of position and then devise the actual scheme to emphasize his best players.
Thus a major requirement for an OC at Cal is creativity and flexibility. The OC needs to identify his best players, identify what it is they do exceptionally well and then put them in a position where they can do that. You want to create matchups that favor you whether it is size, speed or numbers. In order to do that you need to have some element of surprise and misdirection in your base offense to create those mismatches. You cannot be predictable that gives the advantage to the defense. You want your offense to be simple enough and flexible enough that you can utilize the exceptional talent of a freshman.
Killa, like you i was happy with our offense under Dykes. We had the QBs, WRs and RBs to make it effective. It was flexible enough to give TE like Richard Rodgers Jr. his best season by far and put him into the NFL. It was before your time but I though going to the Run and Shoot in the 80's was a smart move by Theder but one of the big errors OC Mouse Davis made was not figuring out a way to incorporate our best athlete, TE David Lewis into his offense.
"Multiple" is not bad overall, but each year you need to identify your strengths and decide what your identity is going to be and simplify around that. If you have a great senior QB and great WRs you will pass a lot. If you are staring a freshman QB but have a great RB you are going to emphasize the run game and throw off of play action almost exclusively. You need a few base plays that emphasize your strengths and then have multiple counters and variations for when the defense tries to stop your best.
You also need to be flexible enough to change during the year due to injury or if a new star emerges. Or just to exploit a weakness in an opponent (more common in college than in the NFL).
The big difference between Cal and USC in 2004 is that USC found a way to get Reggie Bush on the field in the slot while we had Marshawn Lynch mostly on the bench.
In 2006 we went to the spread. Yet our QB was Longshore, and we had Marshawn Lynch (backed up by Forsett) at RB. We had Wil Ta'ufo'ou at FB and Craig Stevens and Cameron Morrah at TE and an NFL Line. And yes we had Desean Jackson, Lacelle Hawkins and Robert Jordan at WR. Still, that is a team built to emphasize the power run behind Lynch with Longshore throwing deep off of playaction.
When we had Jahvid Best I thought the play that struck fear to the defense was Jahvid a pitch outside. So that should have been our bread and butter, with everything else coming off a fake pitch to Jahvid first.
After Bigelow torched Ohio State for two TDs on two touches we took him out of the game. Crazy. You want the defense to fear something. Leave him in if only as a decoy, fake the swing pass, then throw deep, anything.
Baldwin started out spread which made sense since he inherited a spread team with a lot of talent at WR. As the season progressed he lost the speed receivers mostly to transfer. He was left with possession receivers. He started out with a big back (Enwere) running up the middle in a light box, but when defenses figured out we did not have speed at WR and the playcalling was predictable, they could crowd the box and stuff the 1st down run. The could blitz up the middle every time, either catching the back in the back field or sacking QB Bowers. Laird emerged as an effective runner because he would bounce outside for a good gain when the run up the middle was stuffed.
The one really exceptional weapon we had was McMorris. A freakish athlete. 5'11 290, a champion shot putter. High School All American. Twice named MVP of Mater Dei's BASKETBALL team! The few times he was in were TV highlights because he made open field pancake blocks on linebackers and defensive linemen. He was an ideal H-back. Especially when paired with Laird who was exceptional at following his blocking. Once we lost our WRs I thought we should pivot to Laird and McMorris as the focal point of our offense with Bowers throwing off of play action.
The same was more true the following year. Wharton, Noa, Ways were all possession receivers. Bunting was a big TE. Garbers and McIwain could run. Having an H-Back like McMorris sealing the edge or going out into the flat as a safety valve gives you a place where defenses have to worry about something. You needed scheme to get guys open.
Last year the young WRs who had the dropsies previously, didn't and we were best with Crawford healthy and able to stretch the field. Baldwin's offense doesn't scheme to get guys open.in order to get that light box to run against he needs the defense to respect the WRs. Running predictably on first down never helps.
We have decent WRs now. Crawford, Polk and Remigio, Tonges as a receiving TE. Still, none are so talented that they don't also need scheme to help them get open. I'd like to see someone more dynamic than Brown as the feature back or with one of the faster backs lining up in the backfield with Brown then one of them motioning out to the slot or coming back on the fly sweep. Basically we should run the Rams' offense. Simple, plenty of misdirection. Utilizes a pass catching TE. Scheme gets guys open for easy throws by the QB. Pocket moves around enough to foil rushers...QB can take off an run for a first down if it is open.
I'll give Musgrave some benefit of the doubt on the personnel side, since he hasn't had a lot of in person time with the team to figure out who his stars are. However the predictability, lack of misdirection and imagination in play-calling we have seen so far are inexcusable. Hopefully we see better, soon.
I was surprised to see time of possession for the game: Cal 38:06; OSU 21:54. Not sure the Beaver defense was all that rested.
Sonny Dykes didn't have bad defenses because his defensive coordinators were morons. He had bad defenses because he was Sonny Dykes.burritos said:
It's amusing how 99% here hated Beau Baldwin and proclaimed Musgrave the 2nd coming(as usual).