Holiday Bowl Analysis: For Cal and Texas, It's about the Rush

At the start of November, the California Golden Bears and Texas Longhorns appeared headed in opposite directions. Cal had lost four of its last five game, finishing with a humiliating defeat Oct. 29th to UCLA. Texas had bounced back from back-to-back defeats at the hands of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State to drub Kansas 43-0.

And then November happened. The Bears flipped a switch after the UCLA debacle to win three of their last four games, losing only narrowly to ninth-ranked Stanford. Texas started out strong by crushing Texas Tech before fading in the stretch to win only one of its last four games.

What changed for these teams?

First, Texas suffered injuries to its star running backs, Malcolm Brown and Joe Bergeron, derailing the rushing game and forcing Texas to rely more on its youthful, interception-prone quarterback duo of David Ash and Case McCoy. 

Second, Cal took off running.

Here's a quick look at Cal's offensive passing and rushing numbers for their last four games:

vs. Washington State: 123 yards passing; 288 yards rushing

vs. Oregon State: 128 yds passing; 296 yds rushing

vs. Stanford: 280 yds passing; 81 yds rushing

vs. Arizona State: 237 yds passing; 247 yds rushing

Totals: 768 yds passing; 912 yds rushing

To put those numbers in perspective, Cal's 2011 season finished with 3,018 yards passing and 2,006 yards rushing. Almost half of Cal's rushing yards came in the final third of their season.

After the Oregon State win, Cal coach Jeff Tedford said, "When you can run the football effectively like we did today, the game is very different...When you run the ball, it makes the flow of the game much better."

No need to tell that to Texas. Before the running back injuries, the Longhorns leaned on the run for their wins, and consequently, rank 19th nationally in rushing. And at the end of their season, they faced four teams (Baylor, Texas A&M, Kansas State and Missouri) also ranked in the top 25 in rushing who demonstrated that fact.

So California and Texas both rely heavily on the rushing game. They had better be good at defending it. 

Texas seems to defend the rush well. During its dive, it held each of those rush-crazy teams below their average (including holding Kansas State to 38 yards rushing, far below its 193.7 season average). Still, it gave up seven rushing touchdowns in those four games, and those touchdowns proved the difference in losing three out of four.

Cal allows only 130 rushing yards per game and 1.33 rushing touchdowns per game, and the Pac-12 is as much, if not more so, rush-oriented than the Big 12. It held Stanford (another top-25 rushing team) below its season average but gave up big yards rushing to ASU (a subpar rushing team) and got blown out by Oregon's rushing.

Obviously, Texas is nowhere near the quality of Oregon's rushing attack, but the ASU gains are worrisome despite holding Stanford down. Baylor was the only team to allow Texas more yardage in that four-game stretch. It could afford to with Robert Griffin III leading a potent offense. Cal's defense is the Great Wall of China to Baylor's garden fence, but Texas will have most of its injured talent back on December 28th. 

Things are far different than they were for these teams at the start of November, and now, both are headed in the same direction—San Diego. It will be interesting to see which comes out ahead. Cal has a talented receiving corps that can leave gaps for their running game. Texas has a strong offensive line used to punching holes for their rushers.

Whoever pounds through, you can bet this game will be full of movement and excitement.