Colorado State Recap

Well, Cal wins big 42-7 over Colorado State, but few Cal fans will tell you like they’re feeling very big after the weekend. Despite excellent play from Cal’s defensive, and some big plays from Special Teams, Cal struggled to move the ball on offense on numerous occasions, and lost a few key players to injury. Let’s dive right into it.

Injury Update
The most notable story is Jahvid Best being out with a dislocated elbow after awkwardly falling to the turf on a tackle in the third quarter. The question is how long he’ll be out. While X-ray results turned out negative, meaning there isn’t a fracture, we will have to wait for the results of Best’s MRI today to get an idea of a time table for his return. Coach Tedford has said that the Best case scenario (hahah BEST, get it? Get it?! ah nevermind) would be that Best would miss one game, but a dislocated elbow could potentially be trickier than that, so it wouldn’t be surprising to hear Best be out of action for the next 6-8 weeks, which would put him out until the back end of November.

While the exact injury isn’t known, Rulon Davis was seen in a walking boot after being injured on the last play of the 1st half, and is expected to miss the next six weeks. It’s a shame after Davis had his breakout game of the season, absolutely being a wrecking force on the line.

Left guard Chris Guarnero is out for the season after a toe injury he suffered during the Maryland game. While it was thought that Guarnero could possibly play during the Colorado State Game, the latest tests showed that the injury was a bit more severe than initially thought, with test showing a torn tendon in his big toe.

Ouch, Charlie!


Offensive Struggles
Let’s start off with the good: Cal ran the ball very well on Saturday. It was fairly evident early on that the Rams weren’t going to be much of a match for Cal’s offensive line that was constantly opening up huge holes for our backs to run through. Vereen and Best (and Slocum for that matter) were very patient in waiting for their gaps, and followed their blocks well. The running game production helped to mask the two fumbles from both Best and Vereen that halted any early offensive momentum.

Now to get the bad and the obvious: I don’t want to hear any talk about our Cal’s offense being “explosive” for a while. The fact is, at times Cal couldn’t move the ball, period. And much of it comes down to Cal’s passing game, or lack of it. Five weeks into the season, and QB Kevin Riley has yet to develop any real connection with his receivers. While one had hoped coming off a late rallying passing performance during the Maryland game, that Cal would show some offensive consistency in the air on Saturday before getting into the bulk of conference play, this would not be the case.

Cal had a weak 159 yards passing for the game, with most of those coming from Nate Longshore late in the game. This coupled with the meager 114 yard passing performance Cal had at Washington State, is troubling to say in the least. Furthermore, no receiver has yet to step up as a “go-to” guy. Not one receiver had more than 30 yards receiving, or more than 2 catches in the game. Clearly, a lot of Cal’s offensive woes come down to the fact that Cal is breaking in a brand new receiving corps. But a good part of it does come on Riley. As for the Quarterback controversy, look for my post on this a bit later, as it merits its own writeup.

(Redemption never tasted so good)

Defense Steps Up
So let’s get this out of the way: Colorado State isn’t very good. Or at the very least, didn’t play very well on Saturday. They were outmatched in every facet of the game, and a few of Cal’s scores were just gimmes.

With that said, I thought Cal’s defense played a good physical brand of football on Saturday. Although it was CSU, holding any team to no points until late in the game is still impressive, no matter how you spin it. That's what good defenses do. They come up with big plays and they shut out lesser teams. And that touchdown came against Cal’s second team defense who gave up a few long passes late in the game.

With the running game, the defense rarely missed their assignments, and did a good job containing the run. While neither CSU Gartrell Johnson or Kyle Bell are blazers, they’re still big bruisers who could pound out tough yards, but Cal did very well to contain both, holding both backs to under 100 yards combined, and a 3.5 ypc.

Cal also eliminated the long pass from CSU’s arsenal, forcing the Rams to try different screens and hooks to get any production in the air. Cal held Rams QB Billy Faris, who had been the second leading passer in the Mountain West conference, to 96 yards on 48% completion, and 2 interceptions.

What made me happiest however, was Cal’s ability to get pressure on Faris. You thought Nate Longshore was immobile? Man, at least Longshore doesn’t lock up in the pocket and at least tries to side step the rush or throw it away. The pressure came in Cal’s dominance on defensive line, and the multiple blitz packages. While a few of the sacks came from blitzes coming from different directions, most of them were straight up coverage sacks with the pocket simply collapsing on Faris. Cal’s defense recorded 4 sacks on the day.

I remember telling my friend during the game while the student section started the “Iron Man” clap after the second sack, “Man, I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve seen that happen more than once in a game."

The question is whether Cal will be able to do it to some of the conference’s stronger offensive lines, such as Oregon, USC, and most immediately, ASU.

Desean Nnabuife
Anyone who follows the NFL and watched Bryant Nnabuife return his second blocked punt for a touchdown on Saturday thought the same thing as they saw Nnabuife flip the ball as he ran into the endzone, “NO! Wait one more second!”

I went ahead and watched the replay in slow motion, and I’m convinced that that wasn’t a touchdown. While it was close, Nnabuife clearly let go of the ball before the ball broke the plane. By a good yard or two in fact. His teammates were smart enough to recover the ball just in case before celebrating with Nnabuife, but you would think that with all the media talk surrounding the infamous Jake Locker toss and Desean Jackson’s blunder, that one would remember to just hold on to the ball a few more steps.

I miss Justin Forsett politely tossing the ball to the ref before taking a knee for a quick prayer. Classy.

Special Teams is Definitely “Special”
Cal’s special teams continues to be a mixed bag. Like a can of nuts. You get some delicious ones like cashews, such as Syd’Quan’s punt return. You could tell the crowd had been aching for an dynamic punt return, having been deprived of one for over a year, as they absolutely exploded when Squid broke out of the tackle and found a seam down the sideline before cutting back in for the score. It was not Desean-esque, as I don’t remember Action Jackson breaking too many tackles. Let’s just say it was “Squid-esque."

Then there were some other tasty bits like peanuts, in Bryan Anger’s continued impressive leg and kick-off coverage. After struggling for most of the season, the kickoff coverage on Saturday was absolutely fantastic. They contained all of CSU’s returners from breaking off any big ones.

But then, there were some nasty pieces like unsalted almonds that made me nearly vomit. The blocked field goal. And more disgustingly, the kick offs. Not only were most of them short, there were three out of bound kicks. THREE. Are you kidding me? The field is 160 feet wide! THREE!? Blah. I’m going to grow a goatee like Pete Alamar and refuse to shave it until kickoffs improve.

Overall
All in all, it was good to see Cal come out and get a big win, but it wasn’t quite worth the cost of the injuries. Also, Cal won’t be able to survive in the Pac-10 with 50% of their points coming from special teams and defense. Cal will need to fix whatever’s wrong with their offense. And not having Jahvid Best and potential QB switch isn’t a good start. It will be an interesting week of practice.