General
The day and environs were absolutely beautiful. Memorial Stadium is one of the best settings to watch a game in the country IMO. The stadium itself looked great. I sat in the University Club for the first time (near Coach Madsen, who when asked if we are going to win it all, smiled sheepishly and said “Well, that’s the plan.”), and it was very plush with outstanding views and amenities. Pretty ridiculous the amount of food they provide, almost a bit of overkill, and watching the game from there is a bit sterile, but it is a pretty amazing perk for the well-heeled. Crowd was pretty flat the whole game – not much of a homefield advantage.
Offense
What can I say? The offense was not good. The gameplan was blah, execution was blah, and playmaking was blah. Not a great way to start the season. Our third down efficiency was particularly awful with bad play calling and even worse execution.
The OL was terrible, especially on run blocking (pass blocking was mediocre). There is no way to sugar coat it. When you have the running back talent we have, and are playing an FCS team, to have a 2.7-yard rushing average is simply abysmal. OL play will be the biggest factor in holding us back this year IMO. Getting some of those injured back might help, but I’m not sure it will help that much. More than anything I just didn’t see any fire there, with no one wanting to just pound someone into the ground. It was pretty sad, frankly.
Mendoza was OK and had a couple of good throws, but he tends to lock onto his first option and tries to force things on occasion IMO. He also is not great on third downs as he does not complete the easy throws, ones required to extend drives, with near enough efficiency or accuracy. And when things break down, well he’s not going to remind anyone of Patrick Mahomes, which is a problem because our OL stinks. I think he will be average, pretty much what I expected. Rogers OTOH just looked bad. Left the pocket to run way too early and often including idiotically on a 4th down when he had little chance of getting a first down, most throws were off target, and he just looked super jittery the whole time. He will not be the starter going forward unless Mendoza lays a big egg.
Our RBs had a bad day. A big part of it was the OL play as mentioned, but we have the least creative, vanilla running system in history. It is mind boggling to me that we just hand the ball off up the middle time and time again. No misdirection, no pitches, no outside runs, no ingenuity, nothing. Ott had a pretty pedestrian game before he got hurt, with the one TD run being his best carry, and he did not look as elusive as I had remembered. That said, he is still our most important player, and it ran a chill down my spine to see him limp badly off the field. It was interesting watching him on the sideline, as he kept to himself a lot and I was surprised the staff did not take him into the locker room for better treatment. It looked like a sprained ankle, but he did not elevate it or get it wrapped. If I had to guess, I would think he will not play against Auburn, but hopefully I am wrong. As for the others, well, Calloway certainly had an inauspicious start to his Cal career with the fumble scoop and score – probably will be in the Wilcox doghouse forever now. Thomas and Cardwell looked pretty mediocre and for the latter, a bit more plodding than I remembered. I sure hope this unit plays better than this game showed going forward, since as a group that was supposed to be our best, they did not look great.
As for the TEs, I do not think Endries played, and Dyches did flash on one pass, but otherwise I didn’t notice them, as they were not a focus of the offense (but then again, the whole offense was fuzzy).
WRs showed some talent, and there may be some playmakers there. Mavin Anderson started off the game with 4 catches and looked great, and then they completely forgot about him. Hunter definitely has some talent and had one nice 20+-yard catch. Grizzell did little, Matthews looked fine, and Grayes and Brady had a couple of drops, but not a lot of opportunities either. It was kind of hard to assess them when there was little consistency in usage, no discernible gameplan of note, and no apparent overarching goals. And forget about deep balls being a big part of our offense – they tried a couple, but they weren’t close (sum up a poor OL, not a super accurate QB, and non-super star talent at WR, and you do not get a good long-ball team IMO). Lastly, as has consistently been the case throughout Wilcox’s reign, the WR blocking was absolutely awful. Every screen was blown up and I think one reason they do not run outside is because our WRs can’t block or we don’t know how to teach blocking or we don’t emphasize it, or a combo of all three. It is sad because if you watch a team like the Niners, you see how important WR blocking is. Wilcox apparently does not appreciate this.
Defense
Defense looked asleep in the first half, including one play where they forgot to match up with the outside WR, who was left all alone, resulting in an easy 30-yard play. Their WRs had huge separation as we played a lot of zones, and there were zero blitzes. Typical bend-but-don’t-break BS we’ve decried for years and was supposed to be replaced with a more aggressive approach this year by Sirmon, but here it was again. They did stiffen when they needed to, but generally did not look dangerous. The second half was completely different. While they still weren’t attacking much, with only a handful of blitzes, they played tighter coverage and brought their backers up closer to the line to take away the run. Good adjustments and the will to play better.
Our line is not good at pash rushing – other than batting down a few balls, they had zero pressure but are above average at run coverage. Not sure what else to say as they were very blah today, and no one really stood out to me. I’m thinking they will be serviceable but not exceptional this year.
I like Buchanan a lot. He was all over the place and made a lot of plays, reminding me a bit of Mike Mohamed. He’s a gamer. Uluave is a star and is going to have a big year and his INT was a thing of beauty. We are very strong up the middle with these two, although they are a bit undersized. As for the outside LBs, they didn’t do much to stand out and Reese did not play. Carlton had zero pressures pass rushing, which was a bit disappointing.
Nohl Williams looks like a dominant athlete. His kick return might have saved us, and his INT was exceptional. He has speed and instincts and likes to hit. He’s a player. Harris got beat several times and does not appear to be much of a tackler, but he did have a nice pick and several defended balls. Safeties did nothing exceptional in my mind other than not allowing any big plays over the top, but then, that is their job.
Special Teams
Coe looked as advertised, with a big, accurate leg. He is a weapon for us. Lachlan Wilson was simply the best player on the field. His punts were exceptional, with the one caveat that on rugby kicks, he needs to more consistently get the kicks to bounce forward instead of back. But that is a minor quibble. Wilson showed he’s likely to play at the next level IMO. Coverage teams looked good. We are exceedingly dangerous on kick returns with Ott back there leading them to pooch kick all day, which helped with Williams’ TD runback. Punt returns were mediocre, but at least we actually had returns – I don’t remember one fair catch, a first for Wilcox.
Coaching
The offensive play calling was just offensive and not in a good way. When you have whole series where you don’t get the ball to your best player, that is just dumb. There was no real apparent plan – nothing was established of merit, and it was kind of all over the place. As mentioned, the run game has zero creativity and must be a dream for opposing coordinators to plan for. We also did not look crisp, well coached, or well prepared. And if we continue to be 2-13 on third downs, we might not win any more games. Yes, we had injuries. But this offense looks mediocre at best, and bottom of the ACC and easy to gameplan for at worst. That simply cannot happen when you have a talent like Ott. Bloesch better up his game, but then, it could only go up after dropping a 281-yard, 24-point effort against an FCS team. As for the defense, it’s hard to be negative about a game where we only allowed 300 yards (less than 100 rushing) and 7 points and had three turnovers, but the lack of aggressive play calling by Sirmon was still evident as was the lack of a pass rush. These latter things need to be improved upon if we are going to be a top-level defense. We are good, but we could be great on this side. As for Wilcox, well, he did a good job wearing the headset.
Overall
We did not look like an 8-win team. I think 6 wins is the ceiling, frankly. Maybe we will get better when (if?) we heal up, but we are a flawed team, with the same flaws that every Wilcox team has had – mediocre QB play, lack of explosiveness, poor OL play, and next-to-zero pass rush. At this point, as these have been consistent issues throughout his term, they have to be laid at his feet and can only be made better by getting a new head coach that recruits and coaches them away. But that isn’t happening this year.
We have some good players who will make some good plays, and I have little doubt that we will have a game where we put it all together like we did against UCLA last year, but I fear this is going to be another volume in the Wilcox set of an inconsistent, mediocre team that frustrates us all. I hope to be wrong – I really, really do – but I fear I’m not. I think the Auburn game will tell us a lot. If we play well and win, I’ll eat my hat. But if we don’t, it will likely be another long year.
