Oregon Recap

Sorry for the short break from blogging. My wife and I actually welcomed Baby BearwithFangs into the world this past weekend so we were a bit tied up with things. In fact, I was actually able to catch the first three quarters of the game while I was coaching my wife through her contractions.

It's a good thing I had the birth of my first son to help me forget about the debacle that was Saturday's 55-16 loss against the Ducks. It's always nice to have perspective

I mean, what can I say? It was an absolutely demoralizing game from beginning to end. The Bears rolled into Autzen Stadium ready to shock the world, only to play a game in some of the worst conditions I've ever seen for a football game. I mean, I was there when the Bears played the Ducks in a rain soaked Memorial Stadium back in 2008, but this looked like a completely different beast.

The Bears seemed like they couldn't get a grip, both literally and figuratively. While the defense struggled to keep up with the Ducks' skill players in space, the offense seemed absolutely unprepared for the weather conditions, coughing the ball up in its own territory on its first four possessions to start the game.

From there, the Bears would again fail to make it a game after falling behind by 41-0 in the first half.

This is going to be a shorter post since I'm already over it and ready to move on to Washington State, but let's get to the big points.

Missed Opportunities
From the early get go, it looked like Cal was poised to get their asses handed to them, but the big story had to be Cal's turnovers early on and their inability to capitalize on Oregon's mistakes. The Ducks had a difficult time handling the ball in the rainy conditions as well, but Cal failed to recover any of their fumbles until they were already down by 27 points.

Cal seemed allergic to the football, as Goff, Bigelow, Muhammad and Goff again took turns fumbling the ball. It's hard to imagine a sloppier or more nightmarish of a start to the game.

I completely get the weather. I do. It looked awful. Like, they should call off the game kind of awful.

But you simply can't turn the ball over four times on your first four possessions in your own territory and expect to have a chance in hell to win the game. After the Ducks scored on 3 of their first 4 posessions, it was pretty much all she wrote.

Defense..A little bit better, but still a mess
Wait, what?

Call me crazy, but I don't think the defense looked all that awful throughout the whole game on Saturday. I mean given how bad we've looked to start off the season, along with how good the Ducks have looked on offense, I honestly think we weren't that awful. Bad? Yes. But not nearly as bad as we've been the past few weeks. And I get that the Ducks called off the dogs when they could have full well have kept the gas on the pedal. And I also fully understand that the weather affected them almost as much as they affected us (though not even close).

But a lot of my thinking that the D wasn't THAT bad had to do with the fact that we were actually pretty stout in defending the A and B gaps in the trenches. Anything outside of the hashmarks were a complete disaster, but we were pretty good at taking away their inside running game. The Bears were absolutely abused whenever the ball carrier bounce the ball outside whether it was on the zone read or on WR screens however.

It comes back to the same issues:

1) Linebackers and safeties still slow to react.
The lack of seasoned veterans at the safety position was none more apparent than on Saturday. There were way too many times when Cal's backers and safeties were simply out of position and confused. I've liked the physical play of Demariay Drew this season, but he was tricked time and time again against the zone read. I don't think it's a coincidence that Cameron Walker saw increased snaps at his safety position on Saturday. I do think that Michael Lowe did pretty well in coverage though, and defended a few passes nicely. 2) Inability to shed blocks.
It's been really disconcerting to see how much Cal's defenders have struggled to shed blocks. Cal's DBs were abused on WR screens all day. On top of that, there were some plays where Cal's DBs were still being blocked 15-20 yards down field 4 or 5 seconds after the ball had been snapped. An inability to shed a block for that length of time is simply mind boggling to me.

Cal's linebackers and defensive ends didn't fare much better, though they had the task of shaking off offensive linemen. Still, they were just absolutely stonewalled leaving the wide part of the fields absolutely unmanned and free for Ducks backs and Marcus Mariota to play with.

3) Poor Tackling in space.
This falls back to effort and coaching, but Cal's players continue to take poor angles and struggle wrapping up in one-on-one battles in the open field. They do a pretty decent job of gang tackling on inside runs (and this wasn't the case early in the season), but they're still struggling in space.

Zach Kline Makes Debut
After Goff looked visibly shaken and unable to hold onto the football, Zach Kline got his first collegiate snaps under some of the worst conditions anyone could ask for. Down by a boatload against the 2nd ranked team under some of the worst conditions I've seen in a college football game.

He clearly gave the offense a bit of a spark when he entered the game, moving the offense down the field until some miscommunication with his intended receiver Drake Whitehurst led to an endzone interception. By the way, I could be way off here, but it looked like that interception was on Whitehurst. He struggled to shed the block from the DB, and when he figured the play was done, he seemed all too casual about giving up on the play and drifting inside without considering that the play was still very much alive.

Overall, I thought Kline looked alright. He obviously doesn't seem the field as well as Goff does right now, and is a tick slower in going through his progressions, though I don't see it as a night and day difference. But I liked the way he worked the pocket, and did a pretty good job of stepping up into his throws, even when facing a decent pass rush.

It's also important to consider the circumstances and environment when evaluating QB play that night. I think Marcus Mariota is tremendous, and even he struggled throwing the football on Saturday. Kline didn't show the same type of zip and accuracy on his deep throws, and he's admitted that he had to alter his throwing motion to ensure he didn't turn over the football under the wed conditions.

In all, while I don't think Kline did anything to win the starting job, I thought he did well enough in the conditions to give the coaches something to think about. Keep in mind, I think Goff has been very solid as a true freshman, but he's far from being in any position not to be pushed for the starting spot. I said that I thought the battle between Kline and Goff would continue through the season, and I think we're seeing that now. I think Goff still emerges as the starter, but I'm all for whatever will lead to better QB play from both players.

Special Teams back to being "Special"
I didn't have a chance to write up a report card with high marks for Cal's special teams last week and it's a good thing, as I would have looked absolutely foolish doing so.

That's a bit unfair. I will say that Cal's special teams have been very solid throughout the season. That's why it was amazing to see such poor play on coverage, allowing Oregon's Bralon Addison to return not one, but two punts returns for scores. That's only the fourth time in conference history such a thing has happened.

I'm not going to say much else because it was that embarrassing.

Oh, and we missed an extra point. Sigh.

Moving Forward
I decided halfway through the second quarter that I was done with the game. This is the last I'll think about it. There is little to glean from this game other than that we are absolutely awful in typhoon weather. Everything else we saw falls in line with what we've seen from the last few weeks. Our defense is likely going to be one of the worst defenses in the country this season until we learn to shed blocks and trust defensive reads. Our offense is going to run into issues until it finds a consistent running game and one of our QBs continues to grow. Our special teams can't take anything for granted because they're one bad angle away from being embarrassed on Sports Center.

Let's move on to Washington State. Please. For the sake of everyone involves.