Washington State, which hosts Cal on Saturday afternoon, has had troubles getting things started this season, figuratively and literally.
The Cougs rewarded new coach Nick Rolovich with a rousing ten-point win over Oregon State -- in Corvallis no less -- in the season opener.
That was five weeks ago. Since then the two best days for the Cougs were the games against Stanford and Washington. Those were canceled. When it played, WSU lost to Oregon at home and was boat-raced by USC Sunday in the L.A. Coliseum.
Rolovich came to WSU from Hawaii to succeed the eccentric Mike Leach, who wore out his welcome in Pullman after going 6-7 in 2019.
The new coach wasn’t sure how his troops would react after two idle weeks and then getting walloped by the Trojans.
“Morale this week has been much better than I thought it would be,” Rolovich told the WSU media. “They didn’t like getting embarrassed.″
On defense WSU has done pretty well against the run, ranking second in the conference giving up 132.0 yards per game on the ground. But why bother with establishing the run against them when you can throw the way USC did. The Trojans had just five rushing yards but 282 passing, most of it in the first half.
New defensive coordinator Jake Dickert uses a base 4-3 alignment, with plenty of variations in the pressures. WSU can put as many as eight men in the box. Against Oregon State, it showed how well it can work, and in the two losses showed how it can be exploited. But there are some good athletes in there and once they get the hang of it might turn out to be effective.
“They have skilled guys,” Cal offensive line coach Angus McClure said this week. “They’re long, their edge guys (Brennan Jackson and Ron Stone) are both 6-4. They have a defensive tackle (Dallas Hobbs) who is 6-6. They show greater athleticism. They are tricky up front, they run a lot of schemes. They really did well against USC in the second half. In the first half, their defense was put in a tough situation.”
Among the most athletic of the defenders is senior Jahad Woods, the 6-1, 230-pound linebacker who is the leading active career tackler in the Pac-12 with 310 total stops. He was a preseason All-Pac-12 selection by the media and he is living up to it.
A surprise in the secondary is freshman walkon Ayden Hector, who was conference Freshman of the Week for his play against Oregon. He recorded four tackles, two fumble recoveries, and his first career interception. He grabbed all three takeaways in the game on three straight series.
On offense Rolovich and coordinator Brian Smith are bringing the “Run and Shoot” to Pullman, It is similar but not identical to Leach’s “Air Raid”. The formations are hard to tell apart, both featuring two slot receivers, two wideouts, and one running back. The differences are mainly in how the pass routes are executed and the fact now the Cougs will run the ball substantially more. They are just tenth in the league, averaging 134 yards per game, but under Leach, they were annually last in the nation.
They had been counting on Max Borghi a preseason All-Conference pick who has a back injury, to be the primary ball-carrier. But he has not seen the field yet this season.
His replacement Deon McIntosh has filled in admirably, averaging 101 yards per game.
“All of a sudden, you lose Max Borghi, and you’re going to your second back, and you put McIntosh in, and you still keep that discipline,” USC coach Clay Helton said. “He’s done a really nice job running the ball between the tackles and attacking every inch of grass vertically and horizontally.”
Among Pac-12 backs with at least 30 carries, only Oregon State’s Jermar Jefferson and Oregon’s Travis Dye have been more explosive on a per-carry basis than McIntosh.
But even given the uptick in the running game, the “ Run and Shoot” could more accurately be called the “Shoot and Run”. It is a pass-first offense.
WSU returned two quarterbacks who had been drilled in Leach’s scheme. But instead Rolovich went with freshman Jayden de Laura, who played his high school football in Hawaii and ran the “Run and Shoot”. When Rolovich took the WSU job, talking de Laura into following him was an easy sell.
He had a bang-up game in the opener, 18-for-33, 227 yards and two touchdowns, and was the conference Freshman of the Week. He had another good game against Oregon (25-39, 225, 2) but after the layoff struggled against USC. Still, he impressed Trojans coach Clay Helton.
“He has that confidence and that demeanor to lead a football team,” Helton said. “He’s got the quarterback intangibles. We saw that in recruiting. It was easy to see his arm talent, but there’s so much more to being a quarterback. And those intangibles shine through.”
He is third in the at 227.3 passing yards per game.
He has plenty of targets including Bernard Bell and Travell Harris, who rank first and second in the conference with 9.0 and 7.7 catches per game respectively.
The WSU offensive line is one of the Pac-12’s better ones, led by right tackle Abraham Lucas, a 6-7, 328-pound junior, whom at least one rating service called the best blocking offensive lineman in the country.
As long-time Cal fans will remember (or maybe have purposely forgotten) the Bears had a brief flirtation with the “Run and Shoot” 39 years ago. And there is a connection to Rolovich.
A coach named Mouse Davis invented the “Run and Shoot” and had great success at Portland State, including tutoring quarterback June Jones to record-breaking seasons. In 1981 Cal hired Davis as OC in a move that smacked of desperation. For a variety of reasons the offense fizzled and Davis didn’t last the season.
Jones meanwhile became a successful head coach himself acting as a pied piper of the ‘Run and Shoot”. He had a long successful run at Hawaii, where one of his best QBs was Rolovich. And here we are.
Notes:
Cal leads the series 48-28-5...Washington State went 18-2 at home the previous three seaso. … de Laura is the first true freshman to start a season opener at quarterback in WSU history ….Place kicker Blake Mazza is one of the best in the country, … The game was originally scheduled for 7:30 p.m, but when the Oregon-Washington game was canceled, this matchup took the 1 p.m. slot.
