Cal Football Weekly Presser - Miami Game Week
Cal head coach Justin WIlcox, OC Mike Bloesch, DC Peter Sirmon, QB Fernando Mendoza, MLB Cade Uluave and safety Craig Woodson talked to the media today for Cal's weekly presser.
Wilcox was asked what hosting the program’s first GameDay at Memorial Stadium means to the program.
"It's great," Wilcox said of the GameDay matchup. "It's great for the school, it's great for our team, great for the program, fans. It's going to be a great crowd. Our alumni and student body will be in full force, and we want to take advantage of that. And the best way to do that is to have a great week of practice and not get distracted by social media or ticket requests and things like that. It's important that the team, all of us, stay in rhythm and have the best week of practice we possibly can so we can go play our best football, because that's what it's going to take."
Wilcox noted that the game is rapidly approaching sellout status with the excitement for a primetime contest against #7 Miami.
“I don't know that there's many tickets left,” Wilcox said. “They're very, very excited. The fans are, the student body. And I know with GameDay being here, it's the biggest show, certainly in college football, and maybe the biggest shows in all of sports, is College GameDay. So it's great to have them on our campus and I know the student body is excited for that early Saturday morning wake-up call.”
The head coach noted that injured offensive guard, MLB Liam Johnson and nickel back Matt Littlejohn are probable, cornerback Collin Gamble is available and receivers Tobias Merriweather and Kyion Grayes continue to be evaluated.
After a fairly solid showing in the sacks allowed column last season, the offensive line and the offense as a whole has struggled in protection this season, allowing an unacceptable 13 sacks in just the past two games.
"Yeah, it's been disappointing," OC/OL coach Mike Bloesch said. "Obviously, looking over that stuff at the bye week, doing some self scout and evaluating, what we're doing schematically, and then just the execution of it. Obviously the offensive line is going to be responsible for the majority of those, but we've had issues with running backs and protection. We've had issues with protection checks from the quarterback. So just really trying to streamline all that over the bye week has definitely been a focus.
“Obviously it's not getting coached well enough, and that's on the offensive staff to get it cleaned up. And then schematically on offense, we've got to do a better job of staying out of those third and must-pass situations where people can just pin their ears back on us.”
Pre-snap penalties were also a big issue for the offense, in particular the offensive line.
"We've worked on it every single day," Bloesch noted. "That was a huge point of emphasis for us. It's honestly the reason why we lost the game against Florida State. We did not handle our business, especially as we got down into those tight red zone areas and the crowd noise became an issue for us. I've got to do a better job coaching it. We've got to do a better job of executing it, communicating with all 11 guys in those situations. And yes, we've worked it every day, obviously not anticipating needing a silent count at home, but we will continue to work it every day so that it will not be an issue as we move forward on the road, we'll go back to that."
Cal QB Fernando Mendoza
Cal MLB Cade Uluave
Cal safety Craig Woodson
ESPN College GameDay will kick off Saturday morning from 6-9 am in the Memorial Glade by Doe Library and the Campanile. The program is hoping for an impressive crowd for Cal’s first hometown appearance for the wildly popular college football preview show featuring many of the network’s top personalities.