The Bears came out with a nice win over ASU, a mid-ranked Pac 10 team. I think that the Sun Devils will win a few more, probably be bowl eligible, and have a nice 7 or 8 win season.
The Bears, in order to do better than that, need to get the QB thing down.
There is a lot of angst on the message boards - Kevin or Nate, Nate got lucky, it was Cignetti, etc. The bottom line is that Nate did a better job than KR did in the first half this season, but the second half was terrible offensive football. You need to get a first down in the fourth quarter.
The Defense and special teams - especially Anger - did a great job on Saturday. But Cal should have had another 14 points minimum in the second half to ice that game. 41 to 14 would have been appropriate, considering how much better we were than those guys.
Generally, sitting on a lead for the Bears is a disaster. We got lucky. If we had done that at MSU, we would have lost.
So the question is, is it Nate, is it Kevin or is it Frank Cignetti and JT? I have to put this one on the coaches. Nate played well in the first half. So what do we do second half? We go three and out running. Then we try three and out passing, then back to running. What gives? Where is the offensive creativity to get the team rolling. They can't have been happy about that - it does not make the offensive line feel good when you are three and out all day long.
I think that Tedford should have played Kevin in the second half, after two series with Nate. i was continually surprised to see Nate going back out there. We had enough lead, and enough power to win this game no matter. I think the QB competition should still be open. If Nate misses three passes in a row, then put in Riley. My god, these kids are tough kids. Let them battle it out. It is not like they are freshmen. They have been around long enough to know that performance dictates playing time.
Neither is a bad QB. It is clear this year why JT did not play Kevin Riley last year - he clearly was not ready for a prime time engagement. But he is getting there, and we need for him to continue to be involved.
I do think that both can and should play at Arizona. While they look good, they may well be paper tigers - we will see this week at Stanfurd, when AZ plays at the farm. Start Nate, then bring in Kevin.
GO BEARS!!
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4 comments:
Have to disagree about sitting on a lead being death. Historically, that is just what JT has done - get out big, then grind out the fourth to the win. See Texas Tech game as the classic example (there are many many many others).
The (concerning!) issue is that it didn't work. Historically, we out-physical the team in this situations. They know we're running, but we do it anyways. Our O-line was just not that impressive in run offense against ASU.
I think I have to agree with Oski Talk on the coaching. Not just this year, but even last year i felt the play calling lack creativity, or should I even say..daring?!? I mean getting stuffed with 1st and goal in the Oregon State game was a true disappointment. With the skill players CAL had on the field, they should have punched it in the end zone and avoided the whole Riley debacle. As I said last year, coaching has a lot to do with it. Tedford has done great getting CAL to national prominence. I would just like to see him get us over the hump and become a national powerhouse!!!
I Agree, why not give Riley a chance in the second half. If this week was truly an open QB competition, why not let Riley get a series or two (the same as we did with Longshore in the MSU game).
Why now does everyone realize that playcalling is a part of the offense stalling. This is the main reason that Riley isn't starting now. CSU was run, run, run, pass, run, run, run. How was Riley ever supposed to get into a rythm.
Also, could it be that our WR's are starting to click now. How about the fact that we didn't rotate 7 different WR's on every down while Nate was in the game.
I think that the issue with KR is that the coaches do not necessarily trust him to run the offense. So they run a conservative plan. Which does not feature his strengths. Which is a vicious circle.
Nate they trust, and they run more complex rollout plays and misdirection, and even play action - because they expect Nate to make the right reads.
Given time, they will get a more exciting mix in for KR. But for now, I think we are going to see the 3 yards and a pile of dust until they can really trust the passing game.
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