Short and Early Review of Cal Bears Football Season

Cal Offense

O-Line

Two issues have plagued the Cal offense this year. The first being injuries on the offensive line. Tepper has not played a down this year, Malele is out, so is Teofilo, as is Guarnero. That, folks, makes four starters out.

To add injury to injury, much of the backups on the OL have been out or on the injury list also, most prominently Schwartz.

Redshirt freshmen Justin Cheadle and JUCO transfer Donovan Edwards are regular starters. Possibly Cal should have taken Kevin Hart, the fake recruit from Nevada. (I am being facetious here.)

Something’s amiss in the passing game.

This issue, specifically related to the running game, has exacerbated issues with the timing of the passing game. I do not claim to know the intricacies of the Cal Offence, so I can’t lay blame on the wide receivers or the quarterbacks.

Most, if not all, college and pro teams run at least some routes that change based on the coverage. This often happens with pres coverage, either cover 2 or cover 3 cloud, the receiver against cov2 will likely run a fade rout against this coverage. Against cov3 cloud, the route may vary.

Without knowing the Cal offense, and watching hours of game film, I can not discern who is to blame, and it is rather trivial. The main issue is that something is not working.

With Cal this year, something is wrong with the communication between WR’s and QB’s. This manifests itself in the low completion percentage; the problem becomes more apparent in close games.

Overall, Nate Longshore leads Kevin Riley in completion percentage, 58.6 percent to 50.2 percent; both are exceptionally low. Last year, Riley completed 64.3 percent of his passes and Longshore 59.9 percent.

While the Longshore percentage is not much different, but it is still lower, Riley has gone from completing about ⅔ of his passes to ½. The percentage is exacerbated in close games. Note the chart;

Hate to live in the past, but Longshore should have played all season.

Riley (close games)

Date    game    %         Comp.-Att.

8/30     MSU   70.8     17-24

10/18   U of A 36.8     7-19

11/1     U of O 58.3     7-12

11/8     USC    25.0     4-16

11/15   OSU    44.0     11-25

Total average in close games: 47.9

Longshore

8/30     MSU   60.0     3-5

10/4     ASU    60.7     17-28

11/1     U of O 48.1     13-27

11/8     USC    73.3     11-15

Total average  close games: 58.6

One suppressing figure is the number of sacks given up by Riley: 18 on 203 pass attempts. This means that Riley was sacked 8.8 percent of the time he dropped back to pass (almost one of every ten passing plays).

Longshore was sacked four times on 133 attempts, or 3.0 percent of the time (one sack per 33 passes).

While this may the result of the play calling and game situation, the difference is astounding. (though in Riley’s defense, he did throw fewer interceptions, 5 in 203 passing attempts vs. 4 on 133). though the percentage is really not too different, 2.4% of Riley’s passes when for picks where 3.0% of Longshore’s did.)

This year

With any luck, Riley improves against Stanford. Riley will be the starting quarterback next season and needs improvement to help Cal maximize their offense’s potential.

Hopefully, OSU and USC win out, which would get both OSU and USC in BCS games, giving Cal a better bowl game. I expect Cal to beat Stanford in a difficult game, and UW with less difficulty.

Next Year

The move to a 3-4 defense was a success, and I would like to see it continue. Though Cal will lose Williams, Follett, and Felder. One should expect little drop-off from Mohamed, Young, and hopefully DJ.

Holt becomes the player in the middle that recruiting and practice notes predict. As for the DB’s, Cal will lose Thompson, but Ezeff, Hagan, Conte, Johnson and Cattouse should form solid DB’s. The D-line will be exceptional with, Alualu, Jordan, and Hill.

Hopefully, the line will be better and the quarterback and receivers will be on the same page.