(Written by kencraw)

Phew!  That was too close for comfort.  It was significantly tighter than my pre-season (pre-North Carolina) prediction of 38-13.  Some initial thoughts:

• Anyone who wants to say that North Carolina had a great defensive line can take a long walk of a short pier as far as I’m concerned.  The Bears struggled with the Weber State defensive line far too often, more so than North Carolina.  There’s no way Weber State has one of the best defensive lines in college football.
• Laird impressed me last week and now I’m officially a huge fan of the guy.  He’s got great vision, great instincts, good timing, and deceptively impressive speed.  He’s looked better than Watson in every regard and is frankly giving Enwere a run for his money power-wise.  I think the depth chart officially got turned upside down for RB.
• The wide receivers are struggling a little bit with route running, in particular after the catch.  They need to get up field faster and are cutting short too often.
• Bowers has a great completion percentage, but his yard totals are pretty mediocre.  In part that is due to the previous item, but I think it’s also because he’s picking the wrong guy too often.  The dump offs have not been working.
• Cal’s defense got abused in 3 ways that are very troubling: 1. Linebackers running circles around our LBs in coverage.  2. Deep pass patterns.  3. The O-line getting too much of a push on Cal.  These are all things we should be watching with a close eye as the teams get more talented.  One caveat: Saffle was missing.  With him back things will be better.
• The offensive line looked much more mediocre today, more the way I was expecting.

More to come later…