FremontBear

Sure, Sonny's Cal team beat Texas, twice! He beat a 5-7 Texas team in 2015, and beat them in 2016, when it accumulated another 5-7 record. You're right the 2015 game in Austin was a thrilling ending.

You obviously didn't read all of the text.

Don't forget Sunny Dykes used to be Cal's HC, where he produced good to very good O, and atrocious, history-setting bad D. My guess is SMU's pattern under Sonny will probably be the same at Cal: high offensive production overall, with some of the worst defense in the conference.

There are debates on our own Forum on deserving to be Top-25. Time will tell. Meanwhile, Mean Green gave us all we wanted, and more. Here are some excerpts from post game film analysis, and the writers are generally fair, direct, and brutally honest. Did I mention BRUTUALLY honest? See you in 2022 folks, it's been good talking to all of you, and I have no issues with Rick's or anyone else's well-reasoned criticisms of Da Bears; we didn't play a clean game, to be sure. Injuries were the big story for Cal on Saturday. Ben Hawk-Schrider, Christopher Brown, Cameron Goode and Tevin Paul all left the field with injuries and did not return Josh Drayden was limited and Valentino Daltoso and Chineodu Udeogu did not play at all Very disappointing performance by the Bears on both sides of the ball. By far the worst offensive performance of the year on a yards per play basis as well as the worst yards per play given up on defense The game met the definition of a trap game between two bigger named opponents on the road. The fast start by Cal seemed to drain the Bears of whatever verve and focus they were able to mount despite the “trap” and after the first quarter they were outplayed and had to hold on for the victory UNT played a defensive scheme that was focused on taking away the big play. Man coverage with high safeties. The Man Green’s 3-3-5 approach proved very tough to run against and confused Cal’s OL with its flexibility in formation and assignments In particular, UNTs defense waited until the Cal offense got their sideline adjustments and then adjusted. Almost always correctly. They had a very good read on Cal’s offense and Garbers tendencies The weakness to the 3-3-5 was the inability to stop the QB run and Garbers was effective all game exploiting it. After a heroic performance against UW the week prior, the Cal Offensive Line had a rough day. The pass protection was “okay” and the run blocking was mostly ineffectual. True freshman McKade Mettauer had an inconsistent day and struggled with the UNT defensive alignments Henry Bazakas split snaps with Brandon Mello and had a rough game. He missed several crucial blocks. Mello looked far more comfortable in pass protection but is less physical at the point of attack on running plays than Bazakas. Daltoso’s health looms large for this unit Saffel and Curhan were again the class of the OL Single coverage on the outside against Ca’s WR and UNT won the day Cameron Goode was everywhere early. Dominating performance. So quick off the ball and great read and react. He’s tailor-made to take on spread offenses Evan Weaver once again was a force with a forced fumble and a forced interception while leading the team in tackles in limited snaps Special teams improved markedly with their best day overall. Strong coverage, good returns on both a KO and Punt. Deng had a better read and react game though he got pushed around on a few run plays Hawkins took a terrible angle on the long TD and along with Tre Turner was part of the blown assignment on the near long TD that was dropped; He also had forced fumble and some big-time tackles on third down The secondary as a whole had (for it) a subpar performance. Multiple blown coverages where Cal was lucky to escape via bad throws or dropped balls. The Cal coaches came in with a plan to give the backups a lot of snaps even prior to the injury troubles. Anusiem, Turner, Smith and Scott were in the rotation in the secondary. Tattersall and Doughty at LB and the aforementioned Mello at LT. The defensives performance noticeably dropped off with the backups. Anusiem gave up the late TD and the long UNT drive late in 2nd quarter against a lot of Cal backups - Doughty, Smith, Anusiem, Scott, Croteau The drop-off with defensive backups was noticeable if not expected. Longest run for UNT came with Tattersall locked his eyes on the blocker and not on the runner and lost inside shoulder contain The UNT defense out schemed Beau Baldwin’s play-calling and Chase Garbers decision making. Their late pre-snap adjustments, their ability to confuse the OL with blitzes and stunts and the disguises between zone and man to man in the secondary all were effective. The lack of cohesion, experience and tight communication with the Offensive Line was the most impacted unit by UNT Didn’t track it statistically but certainly appeared that Cal had far more success passing against UNT zone than man to man. Garbers seemed more comfortable making a read and getting the ball out vs. zone WRs other than Duncan, did a poor job of coming back to Garbers on plays where he had a lot of time and got outside the pocket Receivers were more open on tape than it appeared live. Felt like we weren’t ready for zone vs. man so reads were slower and Garbers is clearly playing not to make a mistake. Does not trust his vision and instincts. He may have good reason to be cautious in that regard The post fumble recovery drive was stalled by poor OL play on 2nd and 1 blitz where Bazakas whiffed on two defenders forcing Garbers to rush the throw The following play was another missed block by Bazakas. Perhaps not an ideal play call by Baldwin either as UNT was clearly selling out to stop the run Terrible drop by Reinwald and a bad drop by Hawkins. The first drop by Reinwald was very tough to catch, where he was hit on the ball immediately after catching the ball Chase Garbers is what he is at this point: Very good runner, tough kid who appears to be optimizing for not making mistakes. He’s got a slower release, inconsistent footwork, below-average field awareness, and vision and is not particularly accurate especially when throwing outside the pocket To be fair to him, he kept his eyes downfield and got to 2nd and 3rd reads better vs. UNT than he had in the Bears previous two games. He didn’t force balls and made some nice throws periodically. All of which are demonstrative of improved play over 2018 His biggest challenges on Saturday were his decision making both in the run game and his field awareness to find open receivers. Poor play on 3rd and 7 in red zone in first quarter. Garbers had time and a couple of receivers open quickly but chose to roll out and take the sack instead. There’s almost certainly a little negative target fixation going on for Chase. The voice in his head of don’t force a ball likely slows down his instinctual processing and the ball doesn’t get out Greg Thomas showing good consistent accuracy; Would love to see him get the ball up in the air more. A blocked FG or PAT is in his future if he can’t get a higher trajectory Cal run D was not fantastic but not bad for the third week in a row. Zeandae Johnson took a step back in holding his ground at the point of attack and the loss of Paul and Goode were factors as their backups struggled. Remigio with nice long punt return. Some strong blocking on a lower kick. Remigio needs to tuck the ball tighter as he almost lost it a la Ashtyn Davis vs. UCD Really nice play call on Remigio long TD. Garbers makes nice read of the blitz and throws an easy ball for Remigio on the deep crossing route UNTs QB with very quick reads and release. Despite not having a lot of time, he threw some nice balls. Hawk Schrider limped off at end of the 1st quarter and did not return Soft coverage outside by UNTs CBs was unexploited. No hitches, quick slants or short outs. Not enough use of the middle of the field when we were in max protect. Bears start last drive of half well inside UNT side of the field yet don’t score. Bad pass to Hawkins that Hawkins still should have caught, Great play by UNT CB to knock the ball out of Remigio’s hands on 2nd down. Dancy makes a bad cut where he might have had the first on 3rd down run. 4th down sack Bears were markedly outplayed in the 2nd half. The battle of the halftime adjustments went to UNT. The long TD catch to start the half was a combination of a great read by UNT and Fine and two bad plays at once by Cal. Tempo play for UNT, Goode is slow to react to his man going laterally, Hicks is blocked (held?) and inexplicably Hawkins goes inside the blocker even as Goode has contain on that side. Adding injury to insult, Goode pulls up with hamstring pull. Garbers starts second half with bad option read decision. He keeps and gets a big gain, instead it’s a loss by Brown. The 3-3-5 look continued to confuse Cal Slightly longer throw on long pass to Remigio that drew PI penalty and it’s a Bears TD UNT made a halftime adjustment by vertically stacking their defense (3-3-2 all between the hashes) when Cal went to two TDs. Bears could not run against it in the 2nd half Great late presnap adjustment by UNT on 3rd and 4 on 1st drive of Q3 for Bears. Garbers misses wide-open WR and forces it to Reinwald who was well covered Drive stalls on 3rd and 3 as UNT does their 2nd delayed blitz and Garbers drops eyes and loses a yard Bears pass rush slowed down as game went on. Loss of Goode hurt. The one bright spot was Ogunbanjo who had two QB hurries and was a factor with his speed coming off the edge

Thanks for post, CMJ. My wife and I plan to attend Cal's return trip to Denton. See you in a couple of years, meanwhile GO MEAN GREEN!

Not sure what you base your argument on, but our defense is plenty good. It limited Mason Fine (a QB UNT front office touted as Heisman candidate) to 21-40 passing, 2TD and 1 INT, and that's probably the low for Mason this season. So, if that's being overrated, then show me another team on your schedule that isn't overrated. USC and Utah will be very tough games for us, but SC comes to Berkeley, and we can build on our victory over them last year. Playing at Utah will be even tougher, and I'd give the Utes the edge. But, our defense will keep us in the game and I certainly don't pencil it as a loss.

I really hate to say this, but we have a propensity for a touch of PC cheer-leading squads/dance teams. They're all very talented cheerers and dancers, but not necessarily candidates for inclusion in Vogue.

No we don't suck. We have a top-shelf defense, but we also have a hapless offense. Our D will keep us in every game, and our O will struggle in every game too. We've beaten an FCS, a G5 and a P5 team, and every one of them had a better QB. If we had Mason Fine, we'd score 40-points against you, while our Defense would still give up just 17 points.

Good game, Mean Green. It was an ugly win, but I'll take it. Really impressed with Mason Fine and your RB Siggers. Good luck rest of the way, and see in Denton a couple of years from now.

I've been following Cal football since High School, and my wife and I have been season ticket holders for more than 30 years. I routinely see Cal legacy recruited either as scholarship athletes or as invited walk-ons. Over the decades, Cal's football program has done a good job of reaching out to, and involving previous players/legacies. It's one thing I seen the program do well all these decades. Hope to see Tyson Edwards do well at Cal, or anywhere else he chooses to go.

Thanks for that! I remember Tyrone at Cal, and it's great to hear he and his family are doing well. His son is legacy, so I'm sure our recruiting staff in Berkeley has seen videos and will act accordingly.

A bit early to draw conclusions on Wilson. Not bad in 2018 with 4 yrds per carry, but no TDs in over 60 carries. Can catch the ball out of the backfield, but that's pretty much a given for NFL RBs nowadays. My non-sugar coated take is Jeff Wilson shows promise, had some flash last season, but the jury's still out on how successful he'll be as a RB in the NFL, specifically as a 49er.

We'd have problems scoring 40 on Little Sisters of the Poor. All modesty aside, I think our D would give Mean Green a lot of trouble, and our O will convert just enough opportunities for a solid win. Something like 31-17

I used to be a Raider fan, until Al Davis moved the team down to Los Angeles in 1982. I now follow the 49ers, and haven't cared about the Traitors since. I root for Jared Goff against everyone, except the 49ers.

Cal fan here. Comparison to UC Davis QB, Jake Maier, wasn't a slight, as he's considered UC Davis' best player and a legit NFL prospect.