(A pre-rant caveat… I missed all the 2nd quarter and part of the 3rd, so I missed all 3 of Garbers INTs.  However, I think what I’m about to say still stands)

How could this be Cal’s strategy?  The Bears are throwing too many interceptions… so you switch QB’s and go with a QB who hasn’t seen any meaningful playing time in his 5 years at Cal.  SERIOUSLY!?!  I don’t care how bad Garbers was playing.  He’s your guy at this point.  Instead the right decision is to reign him in so he won’t keep shooting the team in the foot.  You sit him down at halftime and say… “OK, we’re up 7 to nothing.  You’re having a rough game.  Stop forcing it.  When in doubt, throw it away.  What we’re going to do is run a lot and when we do pass, you’re going to play it REALLY safe.  You’re also going to run it more.  We’re going to pick passing plays that make your job easy.  And when those are blown up, don’t sweat it, just throw it away.”

What you DON’T do is put the ball in Forrest’s hands and create even more risk.  You’re telling TCU, load up against the run and see if Forrest can beat you.  If they’ve scouted Cal at all they know Forrest can’t run at all, so they no longer need the spy, they no longer have to worry about the read-option.  Cal gave TCU a *HUGE* advantage by tipping their hands at what the 2nd half strategy was going to be.  It would have been wiser to leave Garbers in but use him differently.

For what it is worth, that’s what TCU did once their QB was injured.  After one disastrous series while he was getting medical treatment, they  trotted him out there and had him hand it off over and over.  He threw one pass just to show he wasn’t completely incapable and the defense had to respect his throwing a little, but mostly he just handed it off.

THAT’S what Cal should have done with Garbers.

But let’s even pretend that going with Forrest is OK, the entire end of the game was *STILL* pathetic.

Cal get’s the ball at their own 10 with 7 minutes left, and go with the run the ball strategy for the 4 consecutive following plays:

• 6 yard run
• 8 yard run
• 8 yard run
• 3 yard run

It sure seems like it’s working… and since Forrest has shown no feel for throwing the ball (he was 3 for 11 at that point), why would you have him throw, in particular something where he has an option to come back over the middle!?!

And thus Cal throws their 4th interception. ARG!?!

OK, on to the next possession (after Cal dodges a bullet and TCU can’t convert 4th and short just outside of field goal range)  Cal goes with a safe outside pass to the flat (that’s the sort of pass play to use to keep the defense honest) that Mo Ways powers his way to the TCU 40.  The Bears are in striking distance.  Woohoo!  Next they try WR screen to McMorris… a good idea, but he drops it.  Then they run on 2nd and pick up 5 (see the run is working!).  And while the following decision is debatable, I say the right call is to run it on 3rd and 5.  There’s not much trust in Forrest to read the defense and he threw an INT the last time he had to make a serious read.  Why not play it as a 4-down series and use two downs to get a 1st down running the ball? (It’s been working recently after all)  Heck, with some luck, TCU is not expecting run on 3rd down and Cal doesn’t even need the 4th down.  But nevertheless, if they get that 1st down by running on both 3rd and 4th down, then Cal could pound the ball to pick up 6 to 8 yards on the next series and all of a sudden Cal is in field goal range with little time left.  Even if they miss, they have a good shot at a win.

Instead they go for the high risk Forrest throw, it’s incomplete (as any idiot would expect) and then it’s too high risk to go for it on 4th and 5 and punting is sadly the right call with 2 minutes left.

The coaching staff still found fresh ways to lose their minds before regulation was up.  What was with the timeout with TCU at their own 10 with 2 minutes left on 1st down?  There’s only 2 timeouts.  Cal couldn’t have stopped the clock on all 3 plays.  They should have waited for 3rd and 4th down.  By waiting, at least they would know if it was 3rd and short or long before calling time out. At least by waiting you know if you’re likely to get the ball back and so it’s good to conserve clock, or whether they have 3rd and short and Cal should want to shorten the game.  But no, they take a timeout on 1st down and all of a sudden TCU is rumbling down the field and thankful Cal saved them some clock.  But thankfully, they miss the long field-goal and Cal is saved from their stupidity.

On to overtime…

The Cal running game picks up a reasonable 3 yards on 1st down (and frankly, it felt like it could have been 4 or 5.  Do they keep running the ball?  Do they say, “you know, I bet we can win a game of trading field goals… did you see how weak their kicker was?”  No, on 2nd down they have Forrest throw incomplete, surprising no one with his passing incompetence.  On 3rd down do they wise up?  No, they have Forrest throw again and it’s a ridiculously bad INT that was almost run all the way back.

Then the Bears lose when TCU kicks a field goal on their overtime possession.

Pathetic and disgusting.

It reminded me of everything that was wrong with the McIlwain experiment.  They have confidence in the wrong guys at the wrong time.  Instead of working with the obvious choice (Garbers) and working with his short-comings to hone in on an offense that is at least mildly functional without shooting the entire team in the foot, they go for a wildly high-risk plan with a QB who has shown time and time again to be even worse at the one thing we can’t afford (lot’s of INTs).

I just don’t get it.

Just a quick one with the game starting shortly…

I think TCU is a bit turnover prone and with a young QB (3rd start I think), interceptions will be the difference.  But otherwise, it’ll be a defensive struggle with few points scored.  The key to victory is who makes the fewest mistakes and at a 2nd level, who turns those few possessions that get down the field into a TD or two, versus who is stuck with field-goals.

Bears win 13 to 6.

I posted a condensed version of this on CGB and thought I’d expand on my thoughts here:

Looking forward to 2019, even though it is ridiculously early to think about it (we haven’t seen the bowl game and whether of month of extra practice can help the offense see some rhythm, nor who gets injured in Spring ball or transfers or what sort of transfers the Bears get), here’s my best shot at a prediction.

I see a year of slight regression, at least on the win/loss ledger.

Let’s start with the non-conference games.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see the team lose at least 1 non-conference game. I think people underestimate how good UC Davis has gotten and N. Texas is no slouch, plus Ole Miss on the road won’t be easy.  All of those games will be winnable, but at the same time, tougher non-conference games have a way of causing an unexpected loss among them.  Particularly when Cal has to play UW in the middle of their non-conference schedule, it’s not hard to think the Bears may lose 1 of the 3.

Next up, in conference Cal switches from Arizona and Colorado to ASU and Utah.  If we had stayed with UA and CU, I’d be optimistic the Bears would gain a win from 2018.  Cal would have Arizona at home against a team they should have beat last year.  Add to this that Colorado is in rebuilding mode after letting their head coach gone and it’s reasonable to hope the Bears would go 2-0 where they only went 1-1 against this pair in 2018.  But ASU and Utah is entirely different.  ASU made great strides in 2018 and year 2 under their new head coach will likely be another step in the right direction.  Luckily that game is at home, so the Bears have a good shot at a win, but it’s not exactly going to be easy.  As for Utah, that’s a *REALLY* tough game and one has to fear a loss.  So that suggests at best the Bears repeat their 1-1 record against this pair, but going 0-2 is far too likely.

The remainder of the schedule are teams the Bears play every year.  I’ll start with the 3 teams Cal lost by more than one score:  Oregon, UCLA and Stanford.  All 3 games were at home in 2018 and thus all 3 are on the road in 2019.  Oregon is the one I think might be most likely to see a regression in 2019, with Herbert gone at QB, but going to Eugene is always very tough.  It’s hard for a realistic person to hope for a win from that one.  UCLA is on the rise and will be much better next year.  Stanford might be the best hope for a win from the 3 as Stanford stadium isn’t exactly a tough road environment.  But since Cal isn’t going to have a realistic chance to win against Stanford until it wins in the trenches, I don’t have a lot of hope for a win here.  (More on this later.)  So the Bears stay 0-3 against these teams in 2019 from my way of thinking.

Next up, Oregon State… that was an easy win in 2018 and there’s every reason to expect that stays the same with the game in Berkeley in 2019.  But since they won in 2018, it won’t gain the Bears anything win/loss wise, by winning again.

Probably the best hope for a flip to the win column is WSU, the last loss from 2018 left to be considered.  With Minshew gone and the game in Berkeley, that game could be a win.  I tell you what, let’s assume that for now and move on to the big problem spots, even though The Pirate seems to have WSU in a place where they can recover from losing a good QB very quickly.

Cal beat both UW and USC in 2018.  Who think’s they’re going to repeat that?  There is some good news on this front as UW losses their 4-year QB, as well as a number of other notable seniors.  And since the Bears get them in the 2nd week of the season, UW won’t have had much time to break in their replacements.  However, the Bears *barely* beat UW at home and now have to go to the very tough Husky stadium to play the game.  Again, that’s not as tough in September as November, but still, I’d feel much better about that game in Berkeley.

Then there’s USC.  USC has so much talent.  Cal caught them at a pretty good time in 2018.  The good news is that the Bears play USC in Berkeley, but if history is any guide, that’s of little comfort.  USC always brings their big annoying band and lots of alum show up.  The game often feels pretty 50/50 crowd wise.  So while there’s a chance the Bears win this one, it’s not going to be easy.  So again, winnable, but not easy.

So with two winnable but not easy games, the safe assumption is they split them.  Just for simplicity, let’s say the Bears beat USC at home and lose to UW on the road.

So, adding that all up based on just schedule and trajectory of the other programs, I’m predicting an extra non-conference loss, an extra loss from the AZ/mountain pair, and an extra loss from USC/UW, with one new win to offset that from WSU.  The result is the 7-5 of 2018 will become 5-7 in 2019 unless the Bears can find a way to win the Big Game.

But all of that analysis, I didn’t much consider how the Bears would change.  That was all based on how I see the opponents changing.  So how do I see the Bears progressing next year?

If there’s good news, the losses to graduation are mostly replaceable with one huge exception.  The toughest losses are Kunaszyk and Laird.  But behind them are a number of underclassmen who have gotten enough playing time in 2018 to show their potential.  I’m optimistic that the Bears have enough talent behind them to not cause a notable effect.  Losing Wharton and Ways at WR is troublesome, but again, there’s a lot of young WR’s who have potential, plus Noa back from injury.  One could be concerned about the the 3 seniors lost at TE, but that would only be true if those 3 guys were of much help in 2018.  Hudson never returned to his former glory after a year off from injury and Bunting, while the best TE, wasn’t exactly lighting up the field.  If anything, perhaps the younger guys waiting in the wings have the opportunity to give us a positive surprise.

But then there’s the offensive line.  OUCH!  The losses of Bennett, Ooms and Mekari are going to be hard to replace. It was immediately obvious how much the O-line is going to miss Mekari based on the O-Line play against Colorado and Stanford after his ankle injury.  And it’s not like Cal can assist a weaker O-Line with TE’s and our FB.  We already talked about the TE’s.  As for FB, McMorris did a great job of filling the gaps in the offensive line and he’s gone next year.  So summing that all up, I’m very concerned about the O-line next year.

I am optimistic about better QB play. Garbers will improve and Bowers will hopefully be back and in the mix. And McIlwain, while it may not be at QB, will probably find some way to contribute.  So the question becomes, can improved QB play be enough to offset the O-Line losses?  I”m having a hard time believing that.

Now, the defense looks like it’s going to be every bit as good as 2018.  The losses to graduation are minimal outside of Kunaszyk and Funches, and there’s a lot of talent behind them waiting to prove themselves.  Plus the existing starters are only going to get better.  So even if the offense stinks as much as I fear, the defense will keep the Bears in a lot of games.

Nevertheless, it feels more like a 5-7 season, with upside to 6-6.  Yes, if the offense can find some magic it didn’t have in 2018, the team could take that next step forward.  ASU, UCLA, Stanford and a sweep of UW and USC are all possible with a good offense.  That would be 9-3.  Yet I just don’t see that happening.  Frankly, I much more fear that teams realize what Stanford did… the key to beat the Bears is just not to let the Cal defense win the game.  Be conservative and win the game 10-6.  And if that happens, we could see the Bears losing to both USC and UW, as well as not flipping WSU to the positive side of the ledger.  That would be a terrifying 3-9 scenario.

So there you have it, somewhere between 9-3 and 3-9 with 5-7 being my best guess.  Here it is game by game:

• UC Davis – Win
• @UW – Loss
• N. Texas – Win
• @Ole Miss – Loss
• ASU – Loss
• @Oregon – Loss
• Bye
• OSU – Win
• @Utah – Loss
• Bye (too close to the prior one, frankly)
• WSU – Win
• USC – Win
• @Stanford – Loss
• @UCLA – Loss (thinking about it, I have the Bears in the same situation as 2017, 5-6 going into a road game vs. UCLA in the Rose Bowl stadium.  We’ll see how much better UCLA is by then, but if they don’t take as big of a leap as I’m expecting, the Bears will be very motivated to pick up that win and might just pull off the upset and get to 6-6 that way.)

A handful of random thoughts now that the season was over:

• Cheez-it bowl?  I liked the name a lot better when it was the Copper bowl or the Insight Bowl.  Nevertheless, I’m happy to see the Bears in a bowl game.  I think the outcome will be pretty important for the trajectory of the program.  8-5 looks a lot better than 7-6 and beating another Power 5 school in a year where the Pac-12 was pretty lowly regarded (not without cause) will be to Cal’s benefit.
• When I look back at the season, I see a combination of both missed opportunities and a lot of good luck.  The missed opportunities start with Arizona.  I’m still not sure how the Bears lost that game, although I think it starts with the Bears forcing a turnover that somehow became a forward pass to Arizona’s benefit.  Add in the McIlwain experiment gone wrong, and it’s so disappointing Cal lost that game.  Then of course there is WSU, the other most obvious case of the McIlwain experiment sinking the Bears.  That’s two games that it would have been REALLY nice to have in the win column and there’s every reason to think that a couple of bounces/mistakes goes the Bears way.
• At the same time, don’t forget how many times the Bears got just enough bounces to their benefit.  The USC win had a few.  What if Weaver ends up 3 yards short of the endzone against UW?  What if Colorado doesn’t spot Cal 14 points?  (Admittedly those interceptions are a combination of good defense and opponent mistakes.)  The season was a lot closer to being a big failure than we want to admit.  Cal lost 2 games (Arizona and UCLA) that based on how they finished, Cal can’t afford to lose to if they want to be a bowl eligible team on a regular basis.
• Then there is the big question: Should Cal fire Baldwin and find a new OC.  I’ve thought about this a lot and my final conclusion is ‘no’.  I don’t feel very confident about that ‘no’, because Cal hides a lot of player information (most notably injury information).  But if we assume that Bowers was injured in week 1 and it really was the plan for him to be the 2018 starter, then it’s hard to look at Baldwin and say he should be fired.  As much as I was frustrated with the offense, there were enough things that broke the wrong way injury wise that one can be sure that Baldwin needs to be fired.  He deserves a chance at redemption next year.  He has enough history of HUGE offensive success at EWU as head coach that he deserves another shot.  Plus, one of the things that this team is building is a good culture.  I think having a former head coach as a coordinator is part of what is making that work.
• But it is important to finish with the positives, because overall this season was a good one.  Wins over both USC and the eventual conference champion (UW) are hard to argue with.  The only think that kept it from far exceeding our expectations was the Big Game loss.  But a trip to a bowl game was the goal, and the team cleared that hurdle with a game to spare.

Maybe I need to re-title this podcast something like “The extremely late podcast” or something.  I’m sorry this year I was so late in posting so many of them.  In any case, here it is:

Big Game OTRH Podcast [ 17:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download