Some musings:
- According to Sagarin, we played the 7th toughest schedule in the country. His computer ranking system currently has us as the 34th best team
- Grambling ended up going undefeated and winning their conference regular season championship although they lost the championship game to finish at 9-3. An FCS foe but a good one
- SDSU won the Mountain West Conference with an undefeated mark and beat Air Force in the MWC championship game. A mid major but a good one.
- Texas finished 4-5 in the BIg 12 BUT they beat Oklahoma on an neutral field and then finished the year by beating Baylor. A team in the midst of a turnaround for sure but clearly one talented enough to beat any team in the nation on a given day
- Our 4-5 record in the Pac 12, had us beating only one of the top six teams in the conference, Washington State.
- We had IMO two ugly losses - At UCLA and At Oregon. We were never in the Bruins game and marginally competitive vs the Ducks
- We gave Utah, Stanford and USC all they wanted. Goff melting down in SLC cost us while USC out executed us on a handful of difference making plays. Stanford game came down to an ill advised decision to KO to McAffrey at the end of the first half.
- We gutted out several close wins with Texas, WSU and ASU at the top of the list
If you want to reduce the season to a simple fact, it's this. If our OL had not taken 8 games to gel, this team wins 9 games in the regular season. Our OL development time cost us Goff's confidence mid season and that cost us two games
Assuming Dykes comes back next year and that looks like a certainty, we need to do all we can to make sure we can pay our assistants. We all saw what a stronger DB coach could do this season as well as an improved leader to the OL. On that issue Sonny Dykes and every Cal fan are surely aligned. More budget for assistants
- According to Sagarin, we played the 7th toughest schedule in the country. His computer ranking system currently has us as the 34th best team
- Grambling ended up going undefeated and winning their conference regular season championship although they lost the championship game to finish at 9-3. An FCS foe but a good one
- SDSU won the Mountain West Conference with an undefeated mark and beat Air Force in the MWC championship game. A mid major but a good one.
- Texas finished 4-5 in the BIg 12 BUT they beat Oklahoma on an neutral field and then finished the year by beating Baylor. A team in the midst of a turnaround for sure but clearly one talented enough to beat any team in the nation on a given day
- Our 4-5 record in the Pac 12, had us beating only one of the top six teams in the conference, Washington State.
- We had IMO two ugly losses - At UCLA and At Oregon. We were never in the Bruins game and marginally competitive vs the Ducks
- We gave Utah, Stanford and USC all they wanted. Goff melting down in SLC cost us while USC out executed us on a handful of difference making plays. Stanford game came down to an ill advised decision to KO to McAffrey at the end of the first half.
- We gutted out several close wins with Texas, WSU and ASU at the top of the list
If you want to reduce the season to a simple fact, it's this. If our OL had not taken 8 games to gel, this team wins 9 games in the regular season. Our OL development time cost us Goff's confidence mid season and that cost us two games
Assuming Dykes comes back next year and that looks like a certainty, we need to do all we can to make sure we can pay our assistants. We all saw what a stronger DB coach could do this season as well as an improved leader to the OL. On that issue Sonny Dykes and every Cal fan are surely aligned. More budget for assistants
