Washington State Recap

("You've lost your inner pirate.")

It wasn't the prettiest win, nor did it come close to matching the type of explosive performance last week, but the Bears went out to Pullman and had a workmanlike performance to put Mike Leach's Cougars away 31-17.

I understand some fans may not be impressed with the Bears having beaten a 2-4 team by just 14 points. While the performance was far from perfect, I do think there's something to be said about coming out on the road and play mostly efficient football. The Bears never surrendered their early lead, going up by as much as 21-3 in the 3rd quarter.

Again, there were some issues the Bears will have to clean up, but I've always said that one shouldn't discount the difficulty of playing focused ball on the road. We've seen the Bears falter far too often against tricky offenses on the road after big wins, so it was nice to see the Bears go on the road and take care of business.

Let's break down the game.

Defense Does Fine
All things considered, I think the Bears did an ok job on defense. Hardly an A performance, but given all the ways this game could have gone for poorly for the Bears, I thought they did a good job of disrupting Washington State's spread offense and making critical stops throughout the game.

Cal's secondary had far better luck against Connor Halliday early on, keeping him to 4 of 10 passing for 64 yards and two interceptions. Halliday lasted all but 10 minutes before being yanked for the veteran Jeff Tuel who had a far more effective day.

Jeff Tuel threw a whopping 53 times for 320 yards and 2 TDs. It might seem like an eye-rolling number at first glance, but you have to take WSU's offense into account. This offense put up 410 passing yards against Oregon's pretty good secondary. It wasn't a shutdown performance by any means, but given that the Bears's defense played with a lead for most of the game, they did a decent job holding the Cougars to 6.1 yards per attempt. That's pretty solid.

I would say the most troubling aspect of the defense's play on Saturday was their tackling. There were far too many moments where it looked like Cal's defenders were going for the knockout hit instead of wrapping up for the tackle. Sure, it provided some key moments like Sebastian knocking both Marquess Wilson and Teondray Caldwell out of the game. But it also led to some Cougar receivers gaining extra yardage. That simply can't happen and needs to be addressed this week.

Steve Williams Shines
Steve Williams has quietly had a very strong season so far this year. But on Saturday, Williams played like a man possessed with 6 tackles, 4 pass breakups and an interception. He was only beated on two passes, a long ball to Wilson in which he was actually in decent position and a stop route.

That's incredibly impressive given how often he was targeted, and he made play after play. It's the closest thing to shutdown corner play we've seen from a DB since Syd'Quan Thompson played put on the blue and gold.

Williams was easily the Bears' best cover corner this year, but with his improved tackling, he's developing into a really, really solid corner. With another year, he could be a potentially high draft pick. His career has been fun to follow.

Run Game Rumbles
The Bears continued their trend of running all over the Cougars by hitting a season high 318 yards on the ground. Not only was it the offensive line's best run blocking performance this season, but it was the best distribution of carries for the Bears' crowded backfield.

Check out these numbers:

C.J. Anderson: 15 carries for 112 yards (7.5 ypc) and 2 TDs
Zach Maynard: 10 carries for 78 yards (7.8 ypc) and 1 TD
Isi Sofele: 14 carries for 63 yards (4.5 ypc)
Brendan Bigelow: 8 carries for 59 yards (7.4 ypc)
Eric Stevens: 2 carries for 7 yards (3.5 ypc)

That's a pretty balanced workload, and just the right number for each back in my opinion. I'm not understanding those who think Brendan Bigelow needs to start getting more carries than CJA or Sofele. He isn't nearly as well-rounded of a back as the two seniors, but he's enough of a playmaker that 8-10 touches seems just about right. The Bears need to continue to get him quick screen passes and stretch plays that allow him to beat defenders to the edge and get out in quick space.

CJA appears to be the clear starter right now, with back to back strong weeks. He's averaged over 7 yards per carry in both games. It is important to note though that RB Coach Ron Gould usually does a nice job of distributing the carries depending on the opposing defense. So I'd expect that either Sofele or CJA getting a few more carries depending depending on what the opposing team's front looks like.

Finally, it was nice to see Maynard more involved in the run game. I'm not sure that there were more designed runs or zone reads this week, it seemed that Maynard just did a much better job reading defenses and knowing where his running lanes were going to be. His being able to know if linebackers are dropping or settling underneath also allowed him to scramble forward to pick up first downs on the ground. It's the most effective rushing performance we've seen from him so far.

Maynard Not Brilliant, But Effective
Coming off his best performance of his career last week, Maynard's stat line doesn't look nearly as impressive: 14 of 23 passing (60.9%) for 189 yards, 1 TD and 2 INTs.

First off, neither of Maynard's seemed to be 100% on him. His first pass to Darius Powe was slightly wide, but off the fingertips of Powe which allowed it to get picked off. On his second interception, it looked like the WSU defender got to Keenan Allen either right before or just as the pass was getting there which didn't let Allen get both hands on the bubble screen. Again, not the most accurate throw, but that wasn't all on Maynard.

Most importantly, a noticeable difference between Maynard this year and last year's Maynard is that he's shaking off early interceptions and mistakes, and not letting it rattle him into forcing too many plays throughout the rest of the game. And though Maynard has 7 interceptions on the season, the majority of the picks aren't nearly the type of "bad picks" or forced throws we saw from him last year.

The coaching staff and Maynard seem to have settled on the right formula for Maynard. If he continues to play within himself, and get decent protection in the pocket, then he can continue to have a fairly efficient year. What's most frustrating is the question of what took so long for the Bears to get on track offensively.

Offensive Line's Best Game of the Season
The fact that the announcers rarely called the name of WSU's DE/OLB Travis Long is enough credit in itself. Even so, the Bears' offensive line played easily their best game of the season. While the aforementioned rushing numbers are nice, the more encouraging number was the 0 sacks surrendered on the day. For all of WSU's woes, they were no slouch in the pass rush department, having entered the game with 19 sacks on the season. So credit is certainly due when the big uglies play well.

With that said, no one should think we're out of the woods just yet. Cal's offensive line still has their issues, and you don't go from surrendering 6-7 sacks a game for the first half of the season to thinking it'll be smooth sailing for the rest of the season.

However, there is something to be said about having Matt Summers-Gavin back and healthy in the lineup. With 3 new starters on the offensive line, and one playing a whole new position, a lot can be gained from letting your players take their lumps and the often excruciating process of developing some cohesion. Here's hoping that this game marks more of a turning point rather than a temporary blip on the radar.

Questionable WR Targets
There's some griping out there about Maynard targeting Keenan Allen for the vast majority of the game, and not giving the other receivers any real attention.

Allen caught 11 balls for 166 yards and a TD, with Chris Harper's late catch being the only other ball hauled in by a receiver.

Look, I can understand the desire to spread the ball out, but that's not how football works. You don't go into a play thinking "I'm going to throw to X or Y receiver because they haven't gotten the ball yet." You take what the defense gives you. Allen is going to the primary read (justifiably so) on most passing plays. And WSU's secondary made the huge mistake of playing off of Allen, and the Bears made them pay.

If Harper and Treggs were the primary reads and were consistently open, then I'd have a major issue with Maynard targeting Allen and forcing throws. But that wasn't the case. Plain and simple, Allen was getting open, and he was ripping up monster yardage. Not getting the real criticism here.

Penalties Brutally Bad
I usually throw this point out about once a year, which is ridiculously low given how terrible the Pac-12's refs are. But I try not to let myself get caught up with poor officiating.

In fairness, I thought the replay booth actually got most of the calls correct. And the Bears had some deserved holding and roughing the pass penalties.

But some of last night's calls were horrendous. Particularly the pass interference calls. It seemed the officials had the worst understanding of pass interference. A defender is allowed to have some contact. They're even allowed to have a hand on the back of the receiver. They just can't do anything to turn the receiver around or inhibit their ability to get the ball. And that simply wasn't the case with the majority of those pass interference calls. Just terribly, ticky tack calls.

That's the extent of my "the officials were awful" rant. I'm just upset given that both of WSU's TD drives were the result of such bogus calls. At this point, the officiating in our conference is simply embarrassing.

Moving Forward
You'll often hear coaches say that you don't ever want your team's highs to get too high, or their lows get too low. I think the same can be said with their fanbase.

Saturday's game wasn't close to being a perfect game, but it was encouraging to see the Bears come out in a focused, efficient effort on the road. I'm not trying to overstate the value of the game, but it's an effort we haven't seen too often from Cal teams when playing on the road.

It's the type of game that should provide the team with the right type of mindset going into the Big Game. A blowout might have over-inflated the Bears' confidence, yet they won with a comfortable enough margin that the win affirmed their ability to execute when playing focused ball. At the same time, the Bears still left enough plays on the field to keep them grounded and worry only about getting better.

And now seems like about as good of a time as any to say: it's Big Game week. Let's support our team and let's get the freaking axe back.