(Written by kencraw)

What is it with the Bears and their regular season trips to the Rose Bowl?  Tedford’s Bears were notorious for laying eggs when on the road at UCLA (2005 and 2011 being the most notable).  Now Dyke’s Bears have been blown out twice down there.  Since 2003, the only victory at UCLA was 2009.

I was willing to excuse the 2013 performance as the Bears were generally terrible, getting blown out just about every week, so UCLA just fit in with the “theme” of the season.  But there’s no excuse this year and there’s no other way to say it: the Bears laid an egg last night.  So what is it?  Is it that that the Bears have so many So. Cal players on the team?  (The Bears don’t exactly have the best track record at the LA Coliseum either.)  Is it that it’s the only long bus ride the Bears take to a game? (The Bears fly to the Oregon, Washington, Arizona and “mountain” schools, but take a bus to LA.)  Is it a permutation of the Rose Bowl curse?  Or is it a coincidence and what we’re seeing here is due to something else (Thursday night game, Utah hangover, etc.)?

Frankly, I don’t know, but I’m getting really, really, really sick and tired of losing to mediocre Bruin teams in LA.

Some notes on the game:

• Has anyone else noticed that up until the Utah game, Cal operated the snap differently?  It used to be the guard looked back and on Goff’s command tapped the center in the leg.  Now we use the more traditional scheme of the center looking through his legs.  Frankly, the offensive line play has looked terrible since then.  I was willing to overlook it against Utah, but UCLA does not have the sort of dominant line that Utah does.  The old system allowed the center to keep his eyes on the defense and be the leader of the line calling audibles and the such.  Why did they change?
• When I looked at the Cal secondary positioning, it reminded me too much of past seasons.  Players were too often WAAAY off the ball, particularly in the slot.  It’s another, ‘why the change?’.  The defense looked confused and out of sorts all night.  The scheme was ridiculously bad.
• That said, Cal is losing these games in the trenches.  I really thought the lines were in better shape than they are.  They’re getting pushed around and manhandled on both sides of the ball.
• Goff had another bad game.  He looked tentative and unsure.  I think those interceptions from the prior week are in his head.  He’s also not taking what the defense is giving him and forcing the ball too far down field too often.
• Why is Mohammad not our primary back?  Whenever we put him in, the run game comes to life.  All of a sudden we’re getting 5+ yards a rush.  Even when he doesn’t have a great rush, he’s falling forward, getting 2-3 instead of -1.  What the heck did he do or what bias does the coaching staff have against him?  It’s been the biggest head-scratcher of the year.  This guy should be our primary back.  No RB by committee until Lasco (another head-scratcher is why he’s not 100% yet) is healthy.
• Dykes picked some really odd times to be aggressive despite being conservative in his offensive game plan for most of the game.  What was with that fake punt on 4th and 10?
• Overall I’d say it was a bad offensive game plan (to go along with the horrible defensive game plan).  They should have committed to the run game earlier and stuck with it.  They were running on downs that are a bad idea when you’ve got concerns about the run game.  You don’t run on 2nd and 10.  3rd and 7 is not much of a help.  It’s just making it so you’re nearly guaranteed to have 3rd and long and taking your margin of error down to nothing.  You also don’t pass on 2nd and short.  That’s when you tell the team to go out there and get those 3 yards and don’t let them off the hook until they start converting them.  Finally, on 3rd and short, you don’t throw low percentage plans like deep fades to Treggs.

So, I’m disgusted.  If the Bears play like they did last night for the rest of the season, this team will be 6-6 and there’s a risk they don’t go bowling if things fall apart for the OSU game.  (Luckily I have hope that the Bears won’t play like that for the rest of the season.   They may be able to get a couple of wins out of vulnerable USC and Oregon as well as over-rated ASU.)