Post-Game Ramblings – Cal

[Godz40Acrez]

Longhorns 43 / Golden Bears 50​

So many negative things have been said about this game that I think it's time we take a hard look at the positives. It's easy to ignore the good that happened on a bad night, so let's try and focus on the favorable aspects of the game.

• It wasn't a blowout
• We kept the "Losing at Halftime, Lose the Game" streak alive
• Out of three games, this was the only one in which the play calling sucked
• The UT DB's uniforms will not have to be washed
• Bevo 15 remains undefeated

Oh, yeah... Chris Warren in the red zone...

 

[Godz40Acrez]

Run a play every 11 seconds turned into run a play with 11 seconds left. Dat ain't tempo or even HUNH – it's just nh.

I'm still waiting for the Bluiett fake-block-drift-into-the-middle-wide-open pass play off of the 18-Wheeler.

Hughes hasn't had a good game yet. He did come alive in the 4th quarter against nd, but that's it (unless I'm missing something). Naashon is a junior, yet he's being outplayed by a freshman and sophomore. Sure, it's typically a different scheme when we go with Roach and Hager, but at this point, I'd rather have the Roager duo starting games.

After all the secondary misalignments with QB Haines back in the lineup, I say it's time to unleash the 19. Jones may not be ready to supervise, but when you dismember a receiver, the rest of them won't be thinking about executing their routes.

Oh, I said I was going to focus on the positive so here it is.... Even with the 54 yarder, the run defense only allowed 2.8 YPC. Yea!

 

[TexExSpur]

There was good, there was bad, there was ugly and there was pathetic. We saw it all Saturday night/Sunday morning. Sonny Dick needs a muzzle

 

[Scholz]

Sonny Dykes is a douchebag full of douche.

At least Aaron Rodgers lost.

 

[clob94]

Did sonny have some borderline erotic post game ramblings that I missed?

 

[TexExSpur]

Did sonny have some borderline erotic post game ramblings that I missed?

From the kick Clob, his mouth never stopped running.

 

[Son of Wasatch]

The Good.

Our Running game still kicks ass

The Bad
Going away from the running game when it was apparent they couldn't stop it.

The Ugly
Defensive coaching and our inability to get within 5 yards of a WR.

 

[horn01]

POSITIVITY: The offense. Yea, its a bit troubling that we stopped running late in the game. With that said, last year who would have thought we would be nit picking a game with 600 yards of offense, 300 of which was on the ground? This team is way, way ahead of schedule on offense.

Hager and Roach continue to look great, when they in fact play (neither saw the field until the second half).

Reading between the lines of the presser: Bedford just lost much of his responsibility. This was going to have to happen eventually, so a by week is a great time to shuffle the deck chairs.

You learn a lot from a loss. This team plays pretty much the same game as four of our future opponents.

This can be fixed. We have the talent. Its time they get used properly.

 

[freeper]

The only good thing I took away from being at the game was a Zachary's pizza. Seriously good pizza if you ever find yourself in Berkeley. And the contingent of Texas women was a whole lot easier on the eyes than the local display....

 

[Godz40Acrez]

Texas DBs vs Cal Receivers

​

 

[LongfellowDrew]

I'm hoping this loss made changes come early instead of while we're in conference play. If we would've won it could be easy to ignore the coaching issues on that side of the ball. So here's to hoping two weeks of defense changes and better coaching comes into play.

 

[TexExSpur]

Where did he go? Where did who go?

 

[Bwilk55]

Someone took the time to piece together all of our offensive plays into a 17 min vid. Nice way to quickly review that side of the ball (I'm not sure I could stomach watching 17 minutes of defense).

A few takeaways:
- They never stopped our run game. There were a few plays that got stopped for no gain, none were TFL. Most were 5+ yards.
- Too many dropped passes, Burt was the biggest offender. He's great on the deep ball but tries to body catch the darts on the short passes.
- Two inaccurate throws led to picks. Swoopes high to Johnson and Shane short on the deep ball. Most of the other incompletions were deep balls thrown purposefully long by Shane. There were a few short routes that defenders jumped on and almost led to picks.
- Whatever Cal did on D, we must adjust to. It was the first time I had seen Shane go to throw and have to pull the ball down, which led to sacks or scrambles. A few throws he should have pulled down because they were almost picked off.
- Penalties, it seemed like almost every drive in the 2nd half got killed by penalties. It put us in 2nd or 3rd and long situations and forced us away from the run. The holding calls on Shack and Beck were pretty ticky-tack and didn't appear to even affect the play.

-Going forward, we have to avoid penalties but they of course will come. Our run game will carry us in a lot of games. We have to open up the passing game a bit more to avoid being so predictable as it seemed Cal was jumping some routes. Make Burt catch 100 passes off the JUGS for every body catch during practice.

 

[clob94]

I feel like a God damn idiot for not noticing this. Fvcking embarrassing that I've missed this-----


Watch our oline at the beginning of the game--- look how nice and low they are on run blocking plays.

Now fast forward to the 4th quarter and look how high we are during running plays.

They are tired.............

 

[clob94]

View embedded media

Someone took the time to piece together all of our offensive plays into a 17 min vid. Nice way to quickly review that side of the ball (I'm not sure I could stomach watching 17 minutes of defense).

A few takeaways:
- They never stopped our run game. There were a few plays that got stopped for no gain, none were TFL. Most were 5+ yards.
- Too many dropped passes, Burt was the biggest offender. He's great on the deep ball but tries to body catch the darts on the short passes.
- Two inaccurate throws led to picks. Swoopes high to Johnson and Shane short on the deep ball. Most of the other incompletions were deep balls thrown purposefully long by Shane. There were a few short routes that defenders jumped on and almost led to picks.
- Whatever Cal did on D, we must adjust to. It was the first time I had seen Shane go to throw and have to pull the ball down, which led to sacks or scrambles. A few throws he should have pulled down because they were almost picked off.
- Penalties, it seemed like almost every drive in the 2nd half got killed by penalties. It put us in 2nd or 3rd and long situations and forced us away from the run. The holding calls on Shack and Beck were pretty ticky-tack and didn't appear to even affect the play.

-Going forward, we have to avoid penalties but they of course will come. Our run game will carry us in a lot of games. We have to open up the passing game a bit more to avoid being so predictable as it seemed Cal was jumping some routes. Make Burt catch 100 passes off the JUGS for every body catch during practice.

Bwilk--- speaking of Burt-- I commented on here that when I went to practice I could close my eyes and "hear" every time our receivers caught the football. Soft handed receivers can catch a bullet and it barely makes a sound. Guess who had the loudest catches?


Burt...

 

[Godz40Acrez]

Following a big-plays-by-Cal breakdown piece with diagrams and video, BC ends the article with:

The Final Verdict

With the evidence in hand, let’s see how each of the charges hold up:

• Over-complicated and confusing coverages, just like we’ve always had...except for 2014 and 2015? - There’s no question that guys were battling confusion in a few cases. The wheel route TD in the first quarter and the sideline ball to Hansen looked for all the world like different guys were playing different coverages, and on the 30-yard seam route Malik either didn’t understand his assignment or was just wildly overagressive on the play fake. Hell, feel free to throw Roach’s late run-in into the “confusion” bucket as well. It wasn’t as epidemic as it felt in real time, though, and that certainly hasn’t been the Achilles heel of the Strong/Bedford defenses up to this point. We probably tried to throw too much into this week’s game plan in response to all the stuff Cal likes to do and got some guys lost - and we’ll likely simplify some things during the bye week - but this was more than simple bafflement at work.
• Telegraphed blitzes and an overall ineffective rush - Outside of Cal’s last TD, this isn’t what killed us. The rush was largely better than you remember - we didn’t see the multiple sacks and additional knockdowns on Webb here, and when the ball’s getting out in under 2.7 seconds to wide-open wideouts then the problem isn’t your rush.
• Inability to align properly and relate to the screen game - We only really got unbalanced against the screen one time, but getting influenced by misdirection was another killer when we were aligned properly. Drilling some stay-at-home into our interior defenders will go a long way towards cleaning up our tunnel screen issues.
• Lost and overmatched safeties - We don’t have a pair of playmakers in Haines and Hall, but it’s hard to pin a lot of this one on them. Aside from Haines’ Hainesian open-field face plant on the seam route they weren’t blowing coverages or committing outright botches - you want a lot more from the position if you can get it, but the main culprits in this one were elsewhere.
• Getting out-planned and out-called - There was a good bit of this in the screen game (though player error played a role as well) and the 3-3 Fire Zone in the red zone against four wides needs to be scrapped posthaste. This felt like a B- effort from a playcalling standpoint that ran into Dykes’ absolute A game and a QB who delivered under pressure in ways he never has.
• Simple player error - Hoo, boy. Evans blew it big-time up the right sideline on at least two occasions, which is likely why he was not to be found in the fourth quarter. Malik may be overloaded in terms of coverage responsibility right now, and his overplay of backfield action helped turn guys loose for a couple of long gainers.
• Fire everyone now - Maaaaaybe wait til’ after we’ve thrown down with the Toothless Twosome of OSU and OU first? There aren’t too many teams in this conference who are feeling great about their overall level of play to this point, and despite the ugly results this feels like more of a tighten-and-refine job on D rather than a burn-it-down-and-play-Cover-One-for-sixty-minutes emergency. Oklahoma State is very capable of exploiting the same weaknesses we showed in Berkeley - and very capable of giving us the ball and bogging down if we’ve got our house in order. Let’s see how it goes.

 

[horn01]

Following a big-plays-by-Cal breakdown piece with diagrams and video, BC ends the article with:

The Final Verdict

With the evidence in hand, let’s see how each of the charges hold up:

• Over-complicated and confusing coverages, just like we’ve always had...except for 2014 and 2015? - There’s no question that guys were battling confusion in a few cases. The wheel route TD in the first quarter and the sideline ball to Hansen looked for all the world like different guys were playing different coverages, and on the 30-yard seam route Malik either didn’t understand his assignment or was just wildly overagressive on the play fake. Hell, feel free to throw Roach’s late run-in into the “confusion” bucket as well. It wasn’t as epidemic as it felt in real time, though, and that certainly hasn’t been the Achilles heel of the Strong/Bedford defenses up to this point. We probably tried to throw too much into this week’s game plan in response to all the stuff Cal likes to do and got some guys lost - and we’ll likely simplify some things during the bye week - but this was more than simple bafflement at work.
• Telegraphed blitzes and an overall ineffective rush - Outside of Cal’s last TD, this isn’t what killed us. The rush was largely better than you remember - we didn’t see the multiple sacks and additional knockdowns on Webb here, and when the ball’s getting out in under 2.7 seconds to wide-open wideouts then the problem isn’t your rush.
• Inability to align properly and relate to the screen game - We only really got unbalanced against the screen one time, but getting influenced by misdirection was another killer when we were aligned properly. Drilling some stay-at-home into our interior defenders will go a long way towards cleaning up our tunnel screen issues.
• Lost and overmatched safeties - We don’t have a pair of playmakers in Haines and Hall, but it’s hard to pin a lot of this one on them. Aside from Haines’ Hainesian open-field face plant on the seam route they weren’t blowing coverages or committing outright botches - you want a lot more from the position if you can get it, but the main culprits in this one were elsewhere.
• Getting out-planned and out-called - There was a good bit of this in the screen game (though player error played a role as well) and the 3-3 Fire Zone in the red zone against four wides needs to be scrapped posthaste. This felt like a B- effort from a playcalling standpoint that ran into Dykes’ absolute A game and a QB who delivered under pressure in ways he never has.
• Simple player error - Hoo, boy. Evans blew it big-time up the right sideline on at least two occasions, which is likely why he was not to be found in the fourth quarter. Malik may be overloaded in terms of coverage responsibility right now, and his overplay of backfield action helped turn guys loose for a couple of long gainers.
• Fire everyone now - Maaaaaybe wait til’ after we’ve thrown down with the Toothless Twosome of OSU and OU first? There aren’t too many teams in this conference who are feeling great about their overall level of play to this point, and despite the ugly results this feels like more of a tighten-and-refine job on D rather than a burn-it-down-and-play-Cover-One-for-sixty-minutes emergency. Oklahoma State is very capable of exploiting the same weaknesses we showed in Berkeley - and very capable of giving us the ball and bogging down if we’ve got our house in order. Let’s see how it goes.

I admittedly have not been able to stomach a re-watch. With that said, I distinctly remember obvious out of place DBs and a few times pre-snap when out players were running around with their hands up like they had no idea what their responsibility was. With that said, there is a valid point here. We didn't need to shut down Cal. We won't need to shut down anyone left on our schedule. We need to slow them down. If all it takes is simplifying coverage a bit, great.

 

[clob94]

I admittedly have not been able to stomach a re-watch. With that said, I distinctly remember obvious out of place DBs and a few times pre-snap when out players were running around with their hands up like they had no idea what their responsibility was. With that said, there is a valid point here. We didn't need to shut down Cal. We won't need to shut down anyone left on our schedule. We need to slow them down. If all it takes is simplifying coverage a bit, great.

Two part problem here-----

1. If we run basic cover 2, cover 1, cover 4, man 2 man (china)---- we become VERY easy to pick apart.
2. If we can't disguise presnap what we're in--- we make it so easy a high school kids will know where the open lane is.

 

[clob94]

Coachemup---- help me out here-- when it comes to football, my weakest area is the secondary. I know what I'm looking at but like most QBs, sometimes I get fooled. I assume you've had that problem in your life from time to time----

At any rate-- have you seen-- because I don't think I have-- have you seen us run any cover 2 man under? I've seen pure cover 2 multiple times- but with the athletes we have at LB, I would think that flat to curl would be too small an area for a guy with Malik's speed. Would cover 2 man under help more with the spread offenses?

What about cover 4 (quarters)..... I played during the pro style, West coast, speed option days--- we played one "spread" team every year and that was the run and shoot at UH--- Klingler and co. My understanding of the spread is obviously high, it's my understanding of secondary coverages to stop it that is lacking.

 

[Son of Wasatch]

you know, we have a head coach that was a witch of a DC, I would think this is stuff that we should naturally do well at.

 

[Son of Wasatch]

Mack Brown went through a shit ton of DCs while he was at Texas, The one thing about having Charlie Strong as your Head coach is that we should never have a bad defense or have to fire a DC, Charlie needs to be the DC.

Our biggest worry should be who our OC is.

if we hired Tom Herman, I would think that offense would always be good and our biggest worry would be who our DC is.

It's perplexing that we have a defensive minded coach and have one of the worst defenses in College Football.

 

[LongfellowDrew]

Wish me luck about to watch the game for the first time.

 

[bubba2023]

Mack Brown went through a shit ton of DCs while he was at Texas, The one thing about having Charlie Strong as your Head coach is that we should never have a bad defense or have to fire a DC, Charlie needs to be the DC.

Our biggest worry should be who our OC is.

if we hired Tom Herman, I would think that offense would always be good and our biggest worry would be who our DC is.

It's perplexing that we have a defensive minded coach and have one of the worst defenses in College Football.

Nobody would have predicted when we hired Strong that we would be fielding this kind of defense in year 3. Something is broken. I don't want to rely on the planets aligning for us to have both a special O coordinator and a special D coordinator in order to field a contender, and then watch them be hired away in the offseason, and then wait for the planets to align again.

 

[Son of Wasatch]

Nobody would have predicted when we hired Strong that we would be fielding this kind of defense in year 3. Something is broken. I don't want to rely on the planets aligning for us to have both a special O coordinator and a special D coordinator in order to field a contender, and then watch them be hired away in the offseason, and then wait for the planets to align again.

Agreed.

 

[Godz40Acrez]

Coachemup---- help me out here-- when it comes to football, my weakest area is the secondary. I know what I'm looking at but like most QBs, sometimes I get fooled. I assume you've had that problem in your life from time to time----

At any rate-- have you seen-- because I don't think I have-- have you seen us run any cover 2 man under? I've seen pure cover 2 multiple times- but with the athletes we have at LB, I would think that flat to curl would be too small an area for a guy with Malik's speed. Would cover 2 man under help more with the spread offenses?

What about cover 4 (quarters)..... I played during the pro style, West coast, speed option days--- we played one "spread" team every year and that was the run and shoot at UH--- Klingler and co. My understanding of the spread is obviously high, it's my understanding of secondary coverages to stop it that is lacking.

@clob94, if you put the "@" at the beginning of someone's name, the software will give that person an "alert" which they can click on and be taken to the particular post. But, you must get their name correct in order for it to work.

So, @CoachEmUp64, see the post above by @clob94.

 

[clob94]

@Godz40Acrez thank you. I'm tech stooooopid.

 

[freeper]

Wish me luck about to watch the game for the first time.

It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere....have some strong liquor handy....

 

[horn01]

I'm willing to give Strong somewhat of a pass on D because the offense has been such a distraction. Now he has a competent OC. It's time for him to take over D and delegate decision making only when it fits with his own vision.
After a while to mull over this loss, it seems to me we went into this game overconfident on defense. We were sitting players to teach lessons, sitting players so that seniors could be on the field more, and did very little in terms of creativity. Seems to me like they thought they could get away with bringing a very bland scheme and sitting a bunch of the young guys.

 

[DHHorn]

I'm willing to give Strong somewhat of a pass on D because the offense has been such a distraction. Now he has a competent OC. It's time for him to take over D and delegate decision making only when it fits with his own vision.
After a while to mull over this loss, it seems to me we went into this game overconfident on defense. We were sitting players to teach lessons, sitting players so that seniors could be on the field more, and did very little in terms of creativity. Seems to me like they thought they could get away with bringing a very bland scheme and sitting a bunch of the young guys.

Or they played the ones who they thought would perform the best but we still sucked. I like your idea better though.

 

[clob94]

I'm willing to give Strong somewhat of a pass on D because the offense has been such a distraction. Now he has a competent OC. It's time for him to take over D and delegate decision making only when it fits with his own vision.
After a while to mull over this loss, it seems to me we went into this game overconfident on defense. We were sitting players to teach lessons, sitting players so that seniors could be on the field more, and did very little in terms of creativity. Seems to me like they thought they could get away with bringing a very bland scheme and sitting a bunch of the young guys.

If you're a defensive coordinator most of your life---- you should be able to coach defense.

 

[CoachEmUp64]

Coachemup---- help me out here-- when it comes to football, my weakest area is the secondary. I know what I'm looking at but like most QBs, sometimes I get fooled. I assume you've had that problem in your life from time to time----

At any rate-- have you seen-- because I don't think I have-- have you seen us run any cover 2 man under? I've seen pure cover 2 multiple times- but with the athletes we have at LB, I would think that flat to curl would be too small an area for a guy with Malik's speed. Would cover 2 man under help more with the spread offenses?

What about cover 4 (quarters)..... I played during the pro style, West coast, speed option days--- we played one "spread" team every year and that was the run and shoot at UH--- Klingler and co. My understanding of the spread is obviously high, it's my understanding of secondary coverages to stop it that is lacking.

Clob tbh I haven't paid much attention I try and tune out the over analyzing the game when I watch college and pro's and try to just enjoy it. Especially this time of year when I'm fvcking burnt out after Friday night and watching film on Saturdays.

I will say I've seen us run variations of Cover 3 specifically Sky and Cloud coverages. I've seen us spin and roll to try to disguise it. Looks similar to what Gary Patterson is known for at TCU.

We have run a lot of quarters which is supposed to be good against the spread looks. Essentially it turns into man or like you said cover two man under.

Just off the top of my head where we get fits and struggle is in perversions of trips bunch, empty, trips motion to empty, etc. but I think that gives everybody fits. Ask Nick Saban and Bama last weekend.

 

[clob94]

Clob tbh I haven't paid much attention I try and tune out the over analyzing the game when I watch college and pro's and try to just enjoy it. Especially this time of year when I'm fvcking burnt out after Friday night and watching film on Saturdays.

I will say I've seen us run variations of Cover 3 specifically Sky and Cloud coverages. I've seen us spin and roll to try to disguise it. Looks similar to what Gary Patterson is known for at TCU.

We have run a lot of quarters which is supposed to be good against the spread looks. Essentially it turns into man or like you said cover two man under.

Just off the top of my head where we get fits and struggle is in perversions of trips bunch, empty, trips motion to empty, etc. but I think that gives everybody fits. Ask Nick Saban and Bama last weekend.

Ugh---- we need to have a film session together that doesn't conflict with your job. I've been busting Phil Danaher, Todd dodge, and Todd ford's balls for two weeks now to have a "pow wow" with me regarding said topic. I'm getting back placated responses. Which means they're confused as well.....

 

[swVAHorn]

If you're a defensive coordinator most of your life---- you should be able to coach defense.

This. How can a HC who got the HC job BECAUSE he was a great DC not have a decent DEFENSE?

I am still seething mad Texas punted the ball with under 2 mins to go. That was inexcusable really. Texas had not stopped Cal all night so now they are going to do it?

 

[LongfellowDrew]

This. How can a HC who got the HC job BECAUSE he was a great DC not have a decent DEFENSE?

I agree with this. I listened to his Monday presser and he says he's involved but will get more involved. I don't know exactly what that entails but I hope he can get the D going in the right direction. I'm rooting for him to succeed and really want this to work out for UT and Charlie.

 

[TexExSpur]

He's not going to call the defense, he's

I agree with this. I listened to his Monday presser and he says he's involved but will get more involved. I don't know exactly what that entails but I hope he can get the D going in the right direction. I'm rooting for him to succeed and really want this to work out for UT and Charlie.

He's not going to take over the play calling, that will be career suicide should it fail. I do see him taking over/being front and center of the secondary room.