Has Cal Arrived?

As we eagerly await the start of the 2006 football season and the opportunity to try out our recently-acquired Top-10 preseason rankings against the storied Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville, let's look at whether Cal football is deserving of the attention it's getting.

Is Cal just a flash-in-the-pan or really building a program that can compete at the upper levels of college football on a yearly basis? We'll have a good grasp of the answers to these questions once the 2006 season gets underway, but why wait when we can make educated speculations right now?

Every year one or more teams rises up from mediocrity to the level of the top teams only to fall back into mediocrity the next year. Usually, most analysts look to what a team did the previous year and what they think they'll do this year based on the number of starters returning - and to a large extent Cal's preseason rankings for 2006 are directly related to these two factors.

However, for the elite programs, their recent history is also considered. So, let's take a look at how Cal football compares over the past two seasons to other programs (namely, all of our Div-1A opponents for 2006) and also how we and our opponents rank among the 117 Div-1A teams for each statistical category shown. I've focused on comparing Cal to our 2006 opponents rather than other top-ranked teams for one reason. You can only beat the opponents you actually play. Do that and top rankings will follow.

Let's look first at scoring. Cal ranks #9 in the NCAA in scoring offense over the last two years. Of our 2006 opponents, only USC has scored more ppg than Cal, though by the considerable margin of 8.8 ppg. On defense, again only USC has been better but by only 0.7 ppg. Surprisingly, our defense has even outperformed the vaunted Tennessee defense by surrendering 2.2 fewer ppg.

POINTS/GAME 2004-05

OFFENSE			DEFENSE
#2	USC	43.6	#11	USC	17.9
#9	California	34.8	#13	California	18.6
#10	UCLA	34.6	#26	Tennessee	20.8
#15	Arizona St.	33.3	#47	Oregon	24.3
#17	Minnesota	32.9	#56	Arizona	25.7
#30	Oregon	30.3	#59	Minnesota	25.9
#37	Washington St.	29.2	#60	Stanford	25.9
#55	Oregon St.	26.7	#68	Arizona St.	27.2
#68	Tennessee	24.3	#79	Oregon St.	28.7
#82	Stanford	23.2	#88	Washington St.	29.7
#107	Arizona	18.9	#89	UCLA	30.0
#111	Washington	17.8	#91	Washington	30.5

Moving to rushing yards/game, Cal ranks #7 in the country on offense and #5 on defense. Of our 2006 opponents, only Minnesota rushed for more yards/game than Cal and none had a better defense against the run.

For some of our Tennessee friends who might be prone to play the tiresome "The Pac-10 doesn't play defense" card, I should point out that Pac-10 offenses rushed for an average of only 0.7 yards/game less than SEC offenses over the past two years (153.3 vs 154.0) so the rushing offenses faced by Cal on balance were equal to those faced by Tennessee.

Also, USC's running back tandem of Reggie Bush and LenDale White are considered among the best tandems in the history of college football. While this tandem rushed for an average of 194.3 yards/game and 6.8 ypc during 2004-05, in its last two games against USC Cal's defense held them to only 123.5 yards/game and 4.8 ypc.


RUSHING YARDS/GAME 2004-05

OFFENSE			DEFENSE
#4	Minnesota	265.0	#5	California	100.8
#7	California	246.0	#7	Tennessee	102.8
#12	USC	218.7	#11	USC	105.0
#35	UCLA	172.8	#19	Oregon St.	112.9
#38	Washington St.	170.0	#32	Oregon	128.3
#47	Tennessee	159.5	#46	Minnesota	143.1
#59	Oregon	146.0	#47	Washington St.	143.5
#77	Arizona St.	131.9	#55	Stanford	149.7
#85	Washington	127.7	#57	Arizona St.	151.3
#95	Arizona	120.2	#61	Arizona	153.8
#115	Oregon St.	95.5	#74	Washington	163.5
#117	Stanford	86.7	#115	UCLA	221.4

Amazingly, Cal is #1 in rushing ypc on offense and #9 on defense and better than all of our 2006 opponents for both categories. Also of note is the spread or difference between ypc gained on offense and ypc allowed on defense. At 2.91, Cal has the highest spread in ypc in the nation. 2nd best is Texas with a spread of 2.42 (5.87 - 3.45).

RUSHING YPC 2004-05

OFFENSE			DEFENSE
#1	California	5.95	#9	California	3.04
#3	USC	5.59	#12	Tennessee	3.06
#4	Minnesota	5.38	#19	Oregon St.	3.22
#22	UCLA	4.60	#22	USC	3.26
#29	Washington St.	4.40	#34	Washington St.	3.50
#44	Tennessee	4.17	#40	Oregon	3.63
#58	Oregon	3.92	#51	Stanford	3.79
#79	Arizona St.	3.59	#63	Arizona	3.96
#81	Washington	3.54	#64	Arizona St.	3.99
#90	Arizona	3.44	#65	Minnesota	4.03
#115	Oregon St.	2.77	#73	Washington	4.11
#117	Stanford	2.58	#117	UCLA	5.26

It's in the offensive passing game where Cal has slipped somewhat, particularly during 2005. As shown in a previous article on Key Football Stats published on The Bear Insider, passing yards/game is not a very reliable stat in determining who wins a football game. The team with the most passing yards/game wins about 63% of the time. So, I have not shown that stat in this article.

However, in that same article it was discovered that the team with the highest Pass Eff Rating (PER) in a game wins the game about 85% of the time, which is higher than any stat, including turnover margin (except for the actual score of the game, of course).

Moreover, the greater the difference in PER between any two teams in a game, the greater the likelihood that the team with the higher PER in the game will win. To illustrate, there were 28 bowl games played following both the 2004 and 2005 seasons for a total of 56 bowl games. The 14 teams with the highest Pass Eff Differential (PED) in their bowl games each year went 27-1-0 (0.964) while the 14 teams with the lowest PED in their bowl games each year were 16-12-0 (0.571). So, it's really the 2nd table which shows the PED for each team that's the more important of the two tables to consider.

PASS EFFICIENCY RATING 2004-05

OFFENSE			DEFENSE
#3	USC	156.3	#13	USC	110.0
#7	Arizona St.	150.4	#33	California	114.8
#9	UCLA	146.9	#38	Oregon	117.3
#16	California	142.6	#46	Oregon St.	122.0
#30	Oregon	136.1	#53	UCLA	123.4
#31	Minnesota	135.7	#56	Tennessee	124.3
#52	Washington St.	127.5	#65	Arizona St.	127.4
#67	Stanford	121.8	#73	Minnesota	128.9
#69	Oregon St.	120.9	#76	Arizona	129.1
#71	Tennessee	120.4	#83	Washington St.	132.5
#85	Arizona	115.6	#86	Stanford	132.7
#112	Washington	98.6	#106	Washington	138.3

As you can see from the following table, Cal has a better PED than any team on its 2006 schedule except for USC. Interestingly, the only instance in the table where the PED doesn't exactly track with W/L Record is for Tennessee.

PASS EFFICIENCY RATING DIFFERENTIAL (PED) 2004-05

PED 2004-05			W/L Record
#2	USC	46.3	0.962
#17	California	27.8	0.750
#21	UCLA	23.5	0.667
#22	Arizona St.	23.0	0.667
#26	Oregon	18.8	0.652
#42	Minnesota	6.8	0.583
#57	Oregon St.	-1.1	0.522
#65	Tennessee	-3.9	0.625
#69	Washington St.	-5.0	0.409
#82	Stanford	-10.9	0.409
#89	Arizona	-13.5	0.273
#114	Washington	-39.7	0.136

While Cal is #10 in total offense behind three of our upcoming opponents and #30 in total defense behind two opponents, again it's the difference that really counts and in that regard we're better than any of the teams shown except for USC.

TOTAL YARDS/GAME 2004-05

OFFENSE			DEFENSE
#1	USC	514.4	#17	USC	320.1
#7	Arizona St.	477.3	#23	Tennessee	329.7
#9	Minnesota	466.5	#30	California	340.3
#10	California	460.2	#36	Oregon	348.7
#20	Washington St.	429.0	#44	Oregon St.	358.0
#23	UCLA	420.5	#72	Arizona	394.1
#24	Oregon	418.8	#74	Washington	394.3
#39	Oregon St.	398.4	#87	Washington St.	404.6
#62	Tennessee	365.9	#88	Minnesota	404.7
#96	Washington	334.5	#95	Arizona St.	413.8
#102	Stanford	322.3	#97	Stanford	417.1
#105	Arizona	320.1	#113	UCLA	450.5

Total yards/play is the stat that shows the overall explosiveness of an offense and the relative ability of a defense to avoid big plays. On offense, Cal ranks #3 in the nation in offensive explosiveness but needs to improve on the defensive side despite being better than all of its 2006 opponents except for USC.

TOTAL YARDS/PLAY 2004-05

OFFENSE			DEFENSE
#2	USC	6.93	#22	USC	4.76
#3	California	6.72	#28	California	4.87
#11	Minnesota	6.31	#33	Tennessee	4.98
#16	UCLA	6.12	#36	Oregon	5.01
#17	Arizona St.	6.10	#44	Oregon St.	5.10
#23	Washington St.	5.83	#52	Washington St.	5.24
#37	Oregon	5.58	#73	Arizona	5.53
#56	Tennessee	5.32	#75	Washington	5.55
#68	Oregon St.	5.14	#83	Stanford	5.64
#93	Arizona	4.86	#84	Arizona St.	5.64
#95	Washington	4.84	#90	Minnesota	5.67
#99	Stanford	4.77	#101	UCLA	5.91

So, what does all this mean?

First, with Cal ranking so well in nearly every key statistical category over the past two seasons, it means Jeff Tedford has built a football program that has and will compete well against the other top football programs in the country.

Second, with 15 returning starters, Cal will be better in 2006 than it was in 2005.

Third, we have the starting talent, depth, and coaching to beat every team on our 2006 schedule. But, Cal will also need some luck - make that good luck - to fulfill its promise. It's rare for a team to go undefeated or only have one loss without being the beneficiary of some good luck and we'll need some too. I just hope God apportions luck on a per-team basis rather than by college systems - because our little brother from Westwood had more than their share of good luck last year.

Has Cal Arrived?

Yes, we've knocked, and the door into the upper echelon of college football has opened. We only need to walk through that door. Standing guard at the door, however, is a long-time member of college football's upper echelon - Tennessee. The rules are simple. No new team is allowed in unless a current member leaves - and Tennessee is refusing to go.

So before we can get in, we must cast Tennessee out.

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