I was at a concert having way more fun then I would have had watching Cal vs uw, especially since the purple and piss won so I really have no clue if they are any good. I thought the D was respectable vs Utah (and their horrid QB with the cool name) and if JDL is back the O may be a little better but is this going to be another disappointment in the Rolovich experience?
Is Cal any good?
- Thread starter COUGinNCW
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I would say they are a team we could definitely beat if we can play 4 quarters. Cal always has our number though, and with our struggles I don’t have a lot of hope. I expect their defense can and will pressure us pretty well and dominate our interior line. We’ll have to be creative and get turnovers like last week.
Short answer: They're better than us.
I didn't think our defense played well at Utah. They played hard and forced turnovers, and that matters, but Utah's QB couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Cal's QB Garbers is much better. On the other hand, or offense was anemic. If JDL returns and provides a spark, we could make it a close game...maybe.
I didn't think our defense played well at Utah. They played hard and forced turnovers, and that matters, but Utah's QB couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Cal's QB Garbers is much better. On the other hand, or offense was anemic. If JDL returns and provides a spark, we could make it a close game...maybe.
Garbers is one of those pesky QBs who seems to make hay against our defense, even more than against most, by scampering for decent gains pretty much whenever he needs to, although I don't think he runs as much as he used to. More generally, Cal is the kind of team whose skill players aren't that dangerous against other Pac-12 teams but suddenly look dangerous against us. It's also in Berkeley.
Wilcox knows what he's doing on defense, of course, and our offense is having issues. Definitely will have issues if JG is playing.
Vegas apparently thinks the Cougs are only 4.5 points worse on a neutral field and is looking for something like 30-23, Cal. I think it will be more like 31-20, Cal, and might be worse than that if JG plays and is a turnover machine.
Wilcox knows what he's doing on defense, of course, and our offense is having issues. Definitely will have issues if JG is playing.
Vegas apparently thinks the Cougs are only 4.5 points worse on a neutral field and is looking for something like 30-23, Cal. I think it will be more like 31-20, Cal, and might be worse than that if JG plays and is a turnover machine.
Hard to say. Cal's defense didn't look as good as I expected in the first half, but they stiffened in the second. Their offense looked better than I expected, although it's hard to tell how much of that was that UW's D also isn't great.
Honestly, Cal should have won. They turned it over 3 times, the first one led to UW's first score and the last one ended the game.
Bottom line, they're better than us, and I think we've made Garbers look like a Heisman candidate every time we've played him.
Honestly, Cal should have won. They turned it over 3 times, the first one led to UW's first score and the last one ended the game.
Bottom line, they're better than us, and I think we've made Garbers look like a Heisman candidate every time we've played him.
I would submit to you that it doesn't matter that much if Cal is any good or not. Until the offense figures itself out, the only conference opponent we have a good shot it is probably Arizona
Good win! I thought Washington State would blow another lead but I was wrong! Big win by Coach Rolovich! Go Cougs!
Cal is the worst job in the league.
Any league win is a good win. The defense looked like it was gonna be a long day early giving up inside run yards and the deep pass. They pulled it together.
The offense was ok. 21 points probably isn’t going to win many league games but it was good enough yesterday. Im not impressed with the QB play. Too many balls are just off target. Limits the run after catch and the deep passes are just not accurate. Jackson had a big time grab, I stand by my prediction he will be in a NFL camp. I really really like MB and DM. They are averaging around 5 yards per carry between them. That is exactly what a young QB needs.
I thought Cal made bad decisions by not kicking the field goal late and then again with the flee flicker. How many times has that play been called in the history of football and how many times has it worked??? What play did they run in practice and decide against? The fumblerooski???
Nice league win. WSU gets paid this week.
Any league win is a good win. The defense looked like it was gonna be a long day early giving up inside run yards and the deep pass. They pulled it together.
The offense was ok. 21 points probably isn’t going to win many league games but it was good enough yesterday. Im not impressed with the QB play. Too many balls are just off target. Limits the run after catch and the deep passes are just not accurate. Jackson had a big time grab, I stand by my prediction he will be in a NFL camp. I really really like MB and DM. They are averaging around 5 yards per carry between them. That is exactly what a young QB needs.
I thought Cal made bad decisions by not kicking the field goal late and then again with the flee flicker. How many times has that play been called in the history of football and how many times has it worked??? What play did they run in practice and decide against? The fumblerooski???
Nice league win. WSU gets paid this week.
Good grief. Saying that one qb throws a bad deep pass doesn't imply that the back ups should play in his place.
Never said any such thing. JDL is very clearly the best QB on the roster. He also is not good at throwing deep. Both of these things can be true.
I hope not, because JDL is the ONLY option we have for winning games right now. Rolo choked away the game vs. Utah State by 1) not starting him, and 2) plugging the 3rd string kid into the game in a critical situation at the goal line. As we've discussed before, WSU isn't a program that can afford giving away games because of stupid coaching decisions.
Sometimes, especially in college football, you have to tweak your system around the personnel you have available. It would have taken me 3 practices in the Fall to determine that JDL was the only solution for this season, and I would have allocated 85% of the practice reps to him. Why are we still repping 3 QBs? Why was Cooper inserted into the game just before halftime at Cal to take a shotgun snap and run the ball himself inside the 15 yardline? The ONLY thing we needed to do was knee the damn ball down. It's not Cooper has breakaway speed. That kind of stuff makes absolutely no sense to me. You put a kid into the game who never plays and subject him to a viscous hit inside your redzone.
I don't hate everything about Rolo the way some posters on here do, but he makes some very questionable substitutions at the QB position in key situations.
Let’s not. But let’s imagine fir a minute JDL can be more consistent with better coaching and more game reps.
I've been imagining that all season. JDL was offered by Ohio State, USC, BYU, San Diego State and had Georgia fly out to Hawaii to visit him. OK, so he doesn't throw a great deep ball. OK, he's raw.
At what point, given the clear and obvious gap between him JG and CC; two kids with 4 more years of experience than he has, do you go all-in with JDL? Feed him all of the practice reps and design an offense that uses his energy and quick tempo to our advantage?
This is the area that I'm most frustrated with Rolo about. I actually like a lot of his offense. A lot of the formations are exactly what I wanted Leach to incorporate into his air-raid. I suspect JDL's knee is the reason we haven't seen more read-option keeps from him, because if we did, I think the offense would be much harder to deal with.
Hadn’t really thought of it until now (and I’m not saying we should do this heavily), but we’ve got the tools for a triple option with JDL, Borghi, and McIntosh. We don’t really have the OL to make it a big piece of the offense, but it could be an element, and would likely be more effective than JDL throwing deep
With practice time as limited as it is, you can’t install too many different formations, let alone a completely different blocking scheme. BUT, with this looking like a meh season, there’s no reason why we can’t bust out several new looks for Apple Cup.
