Sunday morning thoughts
(Written by kencraw)
There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth today!
Before I head off to Church, a few thoughts…
- The Hail Mary was just the unfortunate end to what was an epic collapse. The offense did just about everything in their power to not this one slip away, but as Joshiemac points out, you just CAN NOT give up 36 points in the 4th quarter and expect to win. That’s on the defense.
- In all three games we’ve played, the 3rd quarter has been when things started going wrong. Yes this week we gave up 36 points in the 4th, but I feel like when we let Arizona back in the game was in the mid-3rd quarter. So far I’ve been unimpressed with Dykes playcalling and how he’s having the team play in the 3rd. The 3rd is the time to go for the kill. Dykes appears to already be in prevent mode and it’s WAAAAY too early for that.
- One of the things that a rebuilding team struggles with is the rare plays. The onside kicks. The Hail Mary’s. The coaching staff has much bigger fish to fry and they don’t spend a lot of time on those “extras”. I can’t fault them in principle for that. But it really, really, really hurt us. To that end…
- When there is a Hail Mary, you DO NOT PLAY THE RECEIVER!?!?!?!?! You turn around and play the ball. All of our DB’s were playing their guys and that was COMPLETELY why the play was successful. Hail Mary balls are in the air for a long time. You just play center field and knock the ball DOWN (a reminder to Bears of the past).
- How is it possible that the Bears played that 2nd attempt at the 1st onside kick so poorly? They already saw what AZ was going to do and yet they STILL only had 3 guys on that side of the ball. UN-BE-LEAVE-A-BULL!
- While I can understand the thinking, when they brought in Rubenzer on that last possession, I think you hand the ball off to the guy doing the sweep. You’ve trained the defense that when Rubenzer is in, he’s going to have the ball. OK, so you’re not ready to throw in that situation (stops the clock, etc.), but the guy coming across on the sweep/distraction would have had a lot more success than he did.
- If we got all the breaks in the 1st half (FG off the upright, etc.) we got ZERO breaks in the 2nd half. That interception was amazingly hard to comprehend. How often does that happen? With how hard it popped up, I was sure it hit the ground on 1st viewing (but it didn’t).
- I was frustrated how close to the box the outside linebackers were playing down the stretch. We got beat on seam passes over and over, and if the OLB’s were playing wider and deeper, that entirely goes away. If I had to say the one thing that doomed us in the game, this is it. Solomon had not touch. He was only good when he could rocket the ball in on slants and seam routes. Why didn’t we clog up those lanes and take them away?
- Also, why weren’t we switching up who was covering #1? Allensworth was struggling, so get someone else against him.
So obviously I’m frustrated. I saw so many different things in that 2nd half that really ticked me off.
But there’s a silver lining here. Cal can compete in these sorts of games. There’s a lot more winnable games down the road if the team continues to improve. My fear is this game becomes a big momentum killer. Dykes’ job is to turn this into extra motivation to go out and kick some butt. I want to see a VERY determined, ticked-off team next Saturday in Berkeley.
September 21st, 2014 at 7:59 am
I wish I could build a terminator to send back in time
to tell my 5 year old self that following this team will bring me nothing but sorrow and heartbreak.
September 21st, 2014 at 9:00 am
I thought the defense looked really beat in the second half. Which the coaching staff should have anticipated, with the hot weather being a known factor, so there should have been both physical and mental preparation.
Joshiemac raises an interesting philosopical question–would we be happier not following the Bears? Maybe we can discuss later in the week.
September 21st, 2014 at 8:06 pm
I probably should feel more upset about last night than I do, but this game strangely doesn’t hurt me as much as so many other losses when they affected our team’s chances to really do something special. This program is in the very early stages of a very long building mode. The stakes just aren’t that high right now–it’s all about being learning how to be competitive at this juncture, which the team has showed to this point. It still beats losing games before you could even get into your seats, as was the case so often last year. This could be the type of loss that makes the staff to rethink the overall strategy of team building and game management going forward. It seems the plan has been to get the offensive humming on all cylinders, assuming that if the the defensive can do just enough, we’ll be fine. Such a colossal breakdown could force their hand to make changes now that could really benefit the program down the line. Otherwise these lessons might be learned too late when the stakes are greater.
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:37 pm
It is games like this that make me glad that directv doesn’t carry the PAC-12 network, and that every sports bar worth their weight carries direct tv because of the NFL Sunday ticket.