Sac State preview
(Written by kencraw)
It’s not hard to predict a winner of this game. You’d really have to be high on Sac State and low on Cal to predict anything but a Cal victory. I mean, just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong against a very similar caliber team (Portland State) last year and the Bears still squeaked out a victory.
So the question becomes, what sort of game should we expect.
I’m expecting the Bears to take a step back. Call this a “letdown game”. The Bears had the Northwestern Game circled on their calendar from the moment last year’s disappointing game ended. It got double and triple circled at the end of the season when it was clear that redemption for a miserable 2013 would only come in 2014.
And this was quite clear last Saturday. As an Oregon fan friend of mine said, “The Bears played the 1st quarter of the game like their lives depended on it.” Add to this various quotes from Dykes that he both played up the importance of the game and started game planning for Northwestern earlier than normal (two weeks into camp), and it’s quite clear the Bears were hyper-focused for the game.
Now, to be clear, I think this was wise. With Sac State next on the schedule and a bye after that, it allows the team to have that sort of singular focus on the Northwestern game.
However, as a result of that singular focus, I expect to see a flatter team tomorrow and more mistakes. I also expect to see a more generic game-plan, both because Dykes will want to hide the more creative aspects of his plans from future opponents and because they won’t have spent nearly as long optimizing the game-plan as they did for Northwestern.
Luckily, the Bears have the talent to easily beat Sac State.
Plus, Sac State is not the same team they were 2 and 3 years ago when they beat Pac-12 teams in huge upsets.
Let’s get down to the specifics… I expect the Bears to come out running the ball and until Dykes feels he’s gotten all the kinks worked out (or learned all he can), he’s going to keep running the ball. He’ll see this as a game to work on the area of the offense that still isn’t pleasing him.
The defense will be playing pretty vanilla coverages (again, don’t give future opponents too much revealing game-film) and as a result, the ‘giving 120% to try for the huge upset’ Sac State will probably have a little early success on offense.
So the 1st half will be a lower scoring affair than we’d expect and Sac State will likely score a couple times. Somewhere around 17-10 Cal at half.
But in the 2nd half, a tired Sac State team won’t be able to keep up with the more talented Bears and Cal will extend the lead in the 3rd quarter. By the middle of the 4th quarter, the backups will be in for both teams and Cal will comfortably cruise to the win, but overall people will be nervous about the slow start.
Final Score: Cal 41 – Sac State 20
September 5th, 2014 at 2:05 pm
Ken,
I like that your expectations of the Bears have increased enough to think that this will be a letdown game, but I think this team is hungry. They were embarrassed for most of last year and I think they ride the momentum from game one into a solid performance this week.
I think letdown games are more for teams that have big expectations or teams that are inconsistent because a lack of talent or coaching (which is exactly what this team could be).
A couple things to look for – Goff’s energy/enthusiasm this week. If he’s going to be a great QB (I didn’t say elite, because I he’s still even a year away from potentially being called that) then he needs to lift these other players up when they’re flat.
How the defense performs. They stepped up in a couple situations last week where they were bowled over last year. Will they come out aggressive and sharp? That’s the progress we need to see on a consistent basis to be competitive in the Pac-12. An early lead is probably significantly more important for the young defensive players to get more reps. The catch-22 is that the better they play, the less defensive snaps they’ll see….
HOW DO THE COACHES RESPOND? Are they fired up? Are they loose? Are they creative? Are they hungry? This is where I don’t have any gauge whatsoever. I’m curious to see how they respond to their first sign of success.
September 5th, 2014 at 3:41 pm
What has me a bit worried is that Sac State score 49 points last week. Even if it was against a Incarnate Word, a college I’ve never heard of, if the Bears do have a letdown, Sac will be able to step right in. I don’t think Sacramento will win, but they may give us more of a game than some people expect.