Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

I took a look at the Cal run game for the Oregon and USC games and put together some clips. Both games were blowouts, so Cal abandoned the ran fairly early, but I just wanted to take a close look at what they do. Cal's consistently been one of the top rushing teams in the Pac-10 under Tedford, but they have expanded a bit in recent year. I believe their OC came from Utah last season, where they used a more wide-open approach, and I think it shows on their run game.

From the two games I saw, I wasn't really that impressed with Kevin Riley (although it was against two good teams). Between that, and our defense giving up 200+ to Oregon and close to that number against Stanford, I think that the run defense will be an important point on Saturday. 

Here are some numbers:

You can see the popular schemes for Cal are their zone game (inside and outside) and their power game. Don't know if they had it last year, but against USC I saw them with a Wildcat-"lite" package that is not all that different from what they already do.

The last time I really took a look at Cal was when they had Marshawn Lynch, and their power game was a key play for them. They seem to have gone more to a zone scheme this year, as the bulk of their power plays that I charted came  at the end of the Oregon game when they were just running clock with their backups.

Power

As I said, Power used to be a staple of the Cal offense. Seems that they prefer zone now (see below). Cal runs several variations with different blocking depending on what kind of look they get and how the defense plays them, but the basic idea is one player to kick out the end man on the line, and another to lead through and clean up the linebacker.

Here's two clips of them running power against Oregon as well as the diagram below.

Here is another diagram against a front that Cal might see from UCLA (it was one that we used against Stanford when they lined up in a similar formation).

You have the FB kicking out the strong backer, the TE taking on the defensive end, a double team on the DT with one guy sliding off to the backer when he threatens, and the guard pulling through to pick up the middle backer. They may change up a few things depending on the defensive look...sometimes they have their FB kick out the end, send the TE to the backers, have the guard pull and lead through on a different guy, etc, but the concept is the same. I couldn't find my copy of the 2005 Cal game but I remember Marshawn Lynch doing well on this play against us.

Zone

I broke down some zone last week for Oregon and there isn't much different, except that Cal is running it from under center. The one difference is that Cal doesn't really try to sell much of a fake with Kevin Riley, so they usually have a guy blocking the backside defender. Usually they will just send a guy across the formation to pick up this backside defender on inside zone, which usually breaks from hole to backside. 

Here is Javhid Best running inside zone off a fake end-around look. The wing runs across the formation and picks up the backside defender, and sure enough the run cuts back for yardage. Reverse action aside, USC runs this exact same series, as their QBs usually aren't a threat to run either - they will often run playaction off this zone look, leak this backside blocker into the flat, and throw it to him. 

Wildcat and Direct Snap

Cal has shown a direct snap look as well as a Wildcat in their last game against USC (the two aren't the same). The direct snap plays they showed against Oregon and USC mainly involved snapping the ball to Jahvid Best and letting him run - nothing fancy. It worked once against the Ducks because someone missed a tackle. They also tried to get fancy and run a sort of counter-type play out of the direct snap, but they didn't get anywhere with it. The TV announcers were talking about this being their "Wildcat", but I don't agree - it's just a direct snap to your great athlete and letting him work.

As far as the "true" Wildcat, Cal's version isn't full-grown yet. Not sure if they just installed it for USC week, but they didn't really seem to be all that comfortable with it, and just used it on a few drives late in the game. For those of you who didn't get to see the original Wildcat as run by Darren McFadden and the Arkansas Razorbacks, the Wildcat is three main things:

1. Unbalanced line - providing a different look to align against, tilted towards the speed sweep side
2. Fly motion across the formation - immediate threat to the outside
3. An athlete to receive the snap - this is the most obvious trait and the one that gets pointed to first
4. Series-based football of plays that complement each other

Here's a clip of Cal's Wildcat in action

Notice anything? The line is doing the same thing as they did above with the inside zone. Send the wing to the backside to pick up the end man, zone block frontside, and have the back take a direct angle looking to break from hole to backside. Once again, Best breaks backside for yardage. They run their same basic running game out of Wildcat - zone and power. Here they run inside zone with Javhid Best at QB and fly sweep action, diagrammed below.

It's almost exactly like how they run zone from under center, except that they have a fake to the motion man and line up a little differently. They use an unbalanced line, but USC treats it pretty much like a normal 21 formation, they line up in an under front, and probably would have made the tackle for a short gain if Cal hadn't gotten an extra block by the umpire. SC rolls their safety down on the backside in their under look, and he's responsible for those runs to the backside - ref just gets in the way.

I respect the true Wildcat series, which can be a fundamentally sound and legitimate offensive package if you are able to teach it and implement it completely. I think it is one of those things where you need to be either all in or all out, just like the option - running it once or twice a game isn't really going to help you as it takes a lot of repetition to master.

I'm not sure how much time our defense is spending on this - it is possible that Cal has used their bye week to implement the whole series and some new tricks - if so, we might have a challenge defending it. However, seems like a lot of work to coach and rep something that doesn't really complement what you are already doing.