Grading the Game - California

Beaver, Marsh, Dozier, Adams, Seymour: You guys here me?

It’s pretty clear that we are challenged in generating a pass rush and we are still sloppy in coverage, but the guys are laying lumber out there and Dennison is playing out of his mind.

A lot of “Bend but don’t break” D going on. Redzone D was pretty solid yesterday.

Impressive!

We won despite our defense. How ‘bout that final drive? Let Cal march down the field, give up first downs on 3 and long, or 4th and 3, and the only reason they didn’t score was due to THEIR QB overthrowing his WR by a country mile.

The defense did play better in the second half, but by no means did they win the game. We are 117th in pass defense, 108th in total defense and 104th in scoring defense. Put that on a resume and see how many jobs you get!

You want the bad news?? The schedule is only going to get harder. It scares me to think what USC, Arizona, Oregon, Utah and WSU’s offenses will probably do to us.

… mostly watching ASU/USC game. It looks like all Oregon at this point.

I spent a lot of time watching him as well. He is outstanding at just bull rushing directly at his guy, which is fine for a specific run-stopping style of play, but he rarely even attempts a lateral move, or any type of arm movement to get around a blocker. He seems content to engage, and stay engaged.

Remember that win total prior to Sark and Holt’s arrival? Even in the Don James years we didn’t win as much as you want us to. And the fact that our roster isn’t as loaded as those James rosters is just you being so out of touch with reality. You can’t go from 0-12 to 12-0 without some growing pains and building blocks. Sure the defense allowed some big numbers, but the glaring number starring me right in the face is 23 total points allowed to a Cal team that could be one of the more dangerous teams in the Pac 12 North Division.

Story Problem: It took us a 8 years and 3 head coaches to go from 8 and 9 wins to 0 wins. So if it takes 8 years do that that, how many years do you suppose it will require to flip it back up to 10 to 12 wins?

I find it ironic that you are arguing about Holt’s “hallmarks” and selectively choosing to ignore his defenses at USC and the last four games of last year while calling me out for pulling out the outlier play from yesterday…but, whatever.

My point is that the 75 other plays that Cal ran yesterday resulted in about 370 total yards which is a not horrible 5 yds per play. UW also held Cal to 9 of 21 on third and fourth downs…again, not disastrous. If you add in the extra plays Cal generated based on some questionable sideline plays and two turnovers, it’s hard to say that this level of Defensive effort is not a big step forward from what we’ve seen to date.

The team needs to put this game to rest and gear up for a huge challenge on the road. You can bet it’s going to be loud at Utah and the Utes are going to be fired up for this one- their Pac 12 home opener.

Defenisvely I think we turned a few pages and I think the kids got a sense of how they can be successful. Moreover I think the kids responded better to the defensive calls and began to trust one another, which is what coach Holt had been saying for awhile. I think the Utah game is winnable, but we need to build on the success we had last week.

Three fumbles by Cal, all recovered by them. Two fumbles by the Huskies, both recovered by Cal.

They allowed Cal to get in the red zone 5 times and only gave up 16 points. That’s not a complete indicator of ability.

Okay, then what was it?

The last play of the game is a good symbol of this. If that throw would have been halfway decent they probably would have gotten a touchdown. It doesn’t mean our defense was good.

What about the three plays prior to that? Three shots from the two netted zero yards. And it wasn’t like Richardson was out of position on that last play. A more catchable throw also gives him a chance to make a play on the ball. Would he have? Who knows.

The Huskies fumbled twice and lost both of them; Cal fumbled 3 times and recovered all three. Fumbles are usually a toss-up as to which team recovers, and yesterday was one of those days where the ball bounced Cal’s way. Recover one or two of those forced fumbles against Cal and that game wouldn’t have been nearly as close, and our defense would have looked a lot better.

We’re a ways away from where I feel comfortable with them, but I do see some improvement taking place.

…the screen play to ASJ was a thing of beauty. Reminded me of that old reverse field screen play to John L. Williams the Seahawks used to great effect in the late ’80’s.

Plays and calls like those are what remind me how much I like Sark as an offensive coach.

Sark and staff need to sit down and evaluate what our offense is doing on final drives where we need to run the clock. Also if there is some common way the defenses have been playing us. My impression is that Sark goes very conservative on first down and always ends up in 2nd and long. I’d like to see play action to use the defenses aggression against them. Once we’re in field goal position Sark can get as conservative as he wants.

Looked like he’s at full speed by his third step. Good looking RB for sure.

I like our depth at RB and if Cooper comes back fully recovered, we are going to be loaded at that position. I want to bring Sankey into the mix slowly. When he muffed the kickoff at Nebraska you could just sense the kid felt terribly bad. Then when you saw him explode thru that hole yesterday, you could almost see a huge smile on the kid’s face as he looked over at the sidelines with much joy. He’s going to be a good one, but we’ve seen first hand what happens to young RBs who are pushed into action before they are physically able to withstand the constant pounding they receive. By the time this kid’s body is fully matured and with the amount of confidence the coaching staff is going to give him, this kid will probably take off when Polk goes pro. No reason to rush him into a bigger role just yet. I want to see him get 5 carries per game for the rest of the season. Groom him to take over for Polk. Getting him injured this season only sets us back.

The crowd and the team feed off each other. Fans get going, players get going. Or the players make big plays/hits and the crowd gets loud. The better they play the louder we are, and vice versa.

but he’s getting a lot of help from his skill guys. ASJ, Polk, and Aguilar are all making good plays and getting extra yards. At some point if he doesn’t adjust and get better, the opposing DC’s are going to figure him out.

I don’t really see that, either. However, he does show a trait that Farve had: the ability to keep a play alive by slithering out of trouble in the pocket and to keep his eyes downfield. It’s a pretty cool element of his game.

Moving outside the pocket, hook step here, jab step there w/ eyes always down field. Oops! On the run, wait I’ll just find the drag route reciever and dump it off to him.

Fans butcher the definition of “gunslinger” all the time. They see the word and apply it to a QB who isn’t shy of throwing into tight coverage, which more often the not leads to an INT. That’s not the definition of “Gunslinger”. Gunslingler refers to a quck release trigger man, who might have to throw an improvised on the run ball at times to keep the offense moving the chains. That’s what I see in Keith when he gets outside the pocket. He looks as if he’s going to go all Locker on us then rears back and dumps one off as if he knew his receiver was going to be there, but was so cat quick it seemed to us onlookers that it was an improvised and reactionary decision.