Treggs' TD vs. UW

If you're interested in scheme, go back and watch Cal's offense vs. UW's defense right now. Do it twice. This game was awesome. Both sides had clearly scouted each other well, and both sides made great adjustments from those initial good gameplans. I've got a few aspects of our offense that I want to write posts on, so be on the lookout for a later post about what Brandon Jones has added to our run game (more lead blocking!), but for now I want to talk packaged plays, and particularly Treggs' 1^st half TD.

Introducing Oregon State's New Coaches

Later in the off-season I plan to put out some e-books on the other teams in the PAC-12. In most cases, the coaching staffs at other schools are staying the same, so the breakdowns are easier to do. Oregon State's new staff is cobbled together from several different places, however, and so my breakdown of them will be a little more complicated. As a result, I'm putting together a three part preview of what we can expect from Gary Andersen's Beavers. This post, on the coaching staff and its background, is installment one.

A Study in 4-Verticals: Cal vs. UCLA (2013 and 2014)

When Cal played UCLA at the Rose Bowl in 2013, the game was downright boring. Cal got shut out in every quarter but the second, and after scoring ten points in that quarter gave up twenty unanswered to lose the game 10-37. Goff threw for a near season low 215 yards with zero TD's and one awful INT. One year later, Cal was driving with a chance to kick a go-ahead FG in the final minutes of an exciting, back-and-forth 34-36 shootout. Unfortunately, we all know how that ended.

This post is going to answer two questions about the scenario that I just described. The first is, “Why was Cal's offense so much more successful in 2014 than in 2013,” and the second is “Why did we throw a deep interception on a play that didn't need a deep pass?” Conveniently, an answer to both of these questions is the pass concept “4 Verticals,” a concept I've discussed a few times on this blog. There are a ton of interesting specifics behind that general answer, though, and this post will focus on those details.

What do you want to see?

I'm taking recommendations for post ideas.  I've already posted and gotten a few ideas in the following BI thread, so if there's something you want to see, head over there and let me know.

http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?88765-Bear-Raid-Breakdown-What-do-you-all-want-to-see

Pick Plays and Cover-0: Caleb Coleman's 4th Down Stop

Every season there's some hot-button issue that gets the pundits talking. This year, for a stretch after the controversial finish to Notre Dame-FSU, that issue was the pick play. A little closer to home, a similar play gave Utah the victory over USC in the last minutes of that game. These are plays that everybody runs. Everyone complains about them when they're used against their team, and nobody notices them when their own team runs them. Until someone institutes a rule that no two receivers can pass within X yards of each other, these plays will have a legitimate place in football strategy, and that's OK. Although picks capitalize on a certain amount of “interference,” defenses have plenty of answers that can render them ineffective. Like every other play, it's about the coordinator having a sense for when these plays are coming, and making the right call to stop them. This post will break down three key plays involving picks from the OSU game in an effort to get inside the game-within-the-game behind compressed formations (formations where two or more receivers line up tight to each other). The ultimate point will be to understand Caleb Coleman's game-sealing tackle late in the game on 4^th and 2.

UCLA Defensive Gameplan

Up until the UCLA game, our defense had never given up more than 5 ypc against the rush, and had only given up more than 4 ypc twice. We'd only given up 150+ yards one time (to Colorado), and had held everyone else under 120. In the UCLA game we gave up 237 yards at 5.04 ypc. Why the sudden change? It's tempting to say that they're just better than the teams we'd played up to that point, but on the season they aren't that far ahead of UA. As always, it's a lot more complicated than the size, strength, and speed of your opponent.

Cal's Coverage Problems

Pass coverage is the hot-button issue for our team this season, so I want to keep chipping away at how it's supposed to work and the kinds of things that can go wrong.  This post will look more in depth at our Cover-4 package, the key responsibilities within it, and the things that can go wrong.