Bears set to face several fine QBs
When Justin Wilcox was asked about facing Shea Patterson this week, the Cal head coach praised the Mississippi quarterback’s temperament, escapability and arm talent. Rewind. Play. Wilcox probably could use recordings of this week’s interviews each of the next five as Cal is about to go through a quarterback gauntlet that will test the Bears’ defense like no other unit in the country and prove why Cal is considered to have the nation’s toughest schedule.
“We’ll find out a lot about Cal’s defense in the four Pac-12 games, because those teams are well-balanced,” said Pac-12 Networks college football analyst Evan Moore, who played five NFL seasons after a stellar career at Stanford. “The running game opens up the passing game and opens it up for quarterbacks, who are elite players.
“These guys are on another level.”
Before Cal gets into conference play, it has to find a way to slow down Ole Miss, which has struggled to run (78 yards per game), but has managed to start 2-0 behind Patterson. The sophomore is among the nation’s top seven in passing efficiency, completion percentage, passing yards and passing touchdowns.
Patterson is David Blaine on a football field, magically escaping pressure and thriving once he starts improvising on a play. He has completed 76.9 percent of his passes this season for 918 yards, nine touchdowns and one interception.
“If you’re a defense, you’re either going to try to get a quarterback off his launch point by bringing a variety of pressures, or you’re going to play coverage,” said Pac-12 Networks college football analyst Yogi Roth, who coached quarterbacks at USC for five years and has been a staple with Elite 11 for nine years. “For Shea, he’s at his best when he’s off platform. Then, if you decide to play coverage, I think he’s made enough strides to sit back and bleed you out by taking what you give him. …
“Plus, he’s got dude qualities; guys rally around him. When he walks into a room, people feel him and he elevates their games.”
After playing Mississippi, Cal hosts USC in the annual Joe Roth game Sept. 23. The Trojans’ Sam Darnold is widely projected as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft, so much so that some NFL fans have started “Suck for Sam” campaigns to go after the top selection.
On a recent podcast with Seattle head coach Pete Carroll, Darnold spent the majority of the time peppering the defensive-minded coach with questions that could help develop his game.
“Where he’s different, is that he’s a true seeker,” Roth said. “He seeks answers to his offense, the history of the offense, the history of the play development, why a defense does what it does, how he can improve his game. … On the field, he completes throws that a lot of quarterbacks wouldn’t even attempt. He just has a confidence that is different.”
The middle obstacle of Cal’s quarterback steeplechase is maybe the most unknown commodity of the group, Oregon’s Justin Herbert. The innately quiet sophomore, playing with the pressures of being at his hometown school, has made leaps in leadership, celebrating with teammates and even cracking a joke during Saturday’s postgame news conference.
“He has CBL: championship body language,” Roth said. “That’s something you have to develop, and we’re watching somebody, in real time, becoming a star.”
Up next is Washington’s Jake Browning, who had to be told to stop working because the coaching staff wanted to go home after a camp at Boise State during his high school years and again when he arrived at Washington as a mid-year enrollee in 2015.
“He defines football junkie and the competitive temperament necessary,” Roth said. “He gets the full picture of the defense. He can layer the defense over a pure-progression system. He knows the third read is open immediately, but he doesn’t screw up the timing in his progression of getting there. That is a special skill set that is different than most players in college football.”
Finally, the Bears will face Washington State’s Luke Falk, who has risen from a walk-on to a potential first-round pick. He has the measurables of an NFL quarterback and is already the school’s all-time leader in total offense, passing yards and passing touchdowns.
“If you’re a walk-on, you have to have a belief that is so deep inside you that no one and nothing can shake it. This kid has a chip so deep,” Roth said. “He’s the toughest guy in the conference at the position. He has gotten smoked, but he bounces back and displays a no-flinch mentality.”
That ought to be enough to catch the attention of a Cal defense that allowed FCS opponent Weber State to rack up 431 passing yards, including breakdowns that yielded eight plays that went for at least 20 yards apiece Saturday.
The Bears are allowing 326 passing yards and 25 points per game, but they’re giving up just 142.5 passing yards and 6.5 points per game in the second half.
“It’s hard to find a common thread on the explosive plays,” Moore said. “I don’t think it was, ‘Hey, they’re better than us.’ I think they are correctable issues. They’re not consistently getting beat by guys who are faster and more athletic.”
If the Bears can discover a way to eliminate their defensive lapses, they’ll want to rewind those performances and replay them during each of the next five weeks.