calumnus said:
GMP said:
UrsusTexicanus said:
Good, comprehensive information. Quick conclusion is Cal has had great offenses and defenses the last four years, unfortunately, just not in the same season.
2016 was not a great offense. The passing yards per attempt was about as bad as it has been the last two years.
It was good at getting first downs, avoiding losses and turnovers, red zone conversion and scoring points.
A more complete analysis would count sacks and interceptions as passing attempts and adjust accordingly.
Morevover, 6+ yards per pass attempt can be good or bad, depending the variance. At an extreme, if you get 6 yards every single time you attempt a pass you can just pass on first and second down every time for 12 yards and a first down, until you score a TD on every single drive. That gets at the essence of what Bill Walsh did with Montana and has evolved into the Air Raid.
I was at the game in Austin, Texas in 2016 for our 50-43 comeback win and our offense was beautiful. Nothing like our current offense at all except the spread formations. Now the defense, that's another story...
Your argument re passing yards per attempt is so silly that I almost didn't respond, but here I am. No, 6 yards per attempt is NOT good. Never. Would you take 3.4 ypc, too? After all, run it three times and you'll never be stopped! Find me a passer that has a 100% completion rate and I'll accept a guy who throws 6 ypa.
As I've argued over the last few years, Dykes' system was
not efficient offensively. It put up big numbers because they ran a lot of plays. But when you look at efficiency and rate, it was was not great. In 2015 it was very good, because the team had a soon to be #1 pick who is playing in the Super Bowl three years later. But in 2016, with a QB who grew up in the system, and would soon be a third round pick, the yards per attempt were bad. And the conference ranking were bad. So, sure. Our offense was good when we had a #1 overall pick. It wasn't even good though when we had a third round pick, our highest picked QB other than Goff since Aaron Rodgers, by a long shot.
Btw. You may have thought our offense was beautiful in 2016, but your memory is way off. I was at the Cal/Texas game in Austin, too (not that being there gives you or me some superiority in opinion). But it wasn't in 2016. It was in
2015, when Goff was the QB. We had a huge lead in the second half and nearly blew it. In
2016, with Webb, we had had a minor comeback (as we lead at halftime and never trailed by more than 5 in the second half), but the game was in Berkeley. And yes, Webb had a nice game. He was a good QB. But even in that game, the offense averaged less than 10 ypa and less than 3 rush yards per carry. It was not a beautiful offense that season, not by a long shot.
