Bear Intelligence - Cal vs. Tennessee

Each week Bear Intelligence consists of a detailed statistical breakdown of the previous weekend's game, including looking at yardage by quarter, yardage by down, an analysis of both team's quarterbacks as well as any other interesting nuggets that can be uncovered. For example, one key to the win was that Cal's defense forced Tennessee's Erik Ainge into a 3-of-11 4th quarter for -6 yards.

Bear Intelligence is back this year - each week it'll consist of a detailed statistical breakdown of the previous weekend's game, including looking at yardage by quarter, yardage by down, an analysis of both team's quarterbacks as well as any other interesting nuggets that can be uncovered.  For example, one key to the win was that Cal's defense forced Tennessee's Erik Ainge into a 3-of-11 4th quarter for -6 yards.

Yardage by quarter

The story here is the large discrepancy difference in the fourth quarter.  At a juncture during a game when one team needed to step up to assert itself and make a case for being a top 10 team, Cal dominated the fourth quarter, outgaining Tennessee by a lopsided 171 yards to 2.  Put another way, the Volunteers averaged a shade over five inches a play in the fourth quarter.  For all that Ainge did during the first three quarters, he was ineffective during the final quarter (see Quarterback Analysis below).

While Tennessee did have a slight yardage advantage after three quarters, the Bears were helped by the Worrell Williams and DeSean Jackson touchdowns.  The Volunteers weren't very committed to the run, and only a 42-yard run by Arian Foster in the third quarter made their rushing numbers look respectable.

The Bears averaged just under 8 yards a play during the final three quarters, which would be impressive against even a bad team, but is quite an accomplishment against a team the caliber the Tennessee.

	Yardage By Quarter
	CAL
	TOTAL			RUN			PASS
	No.	Yds.	Avg.	No.	Yds.	Avg.	No.	Yds.	Avg.
1	14	75	5.3	8	32	4.0	6	43	7.2
2	15	133	8.8	7	54	7.7	8	79	9.9
3	13	92	7.1	7	52	7.4	6	40	6.6
4	22	171	7.7	15	92	6.1	7	79	11.3
Tot	64	471	7.4	37	230	6.2	27	241	8.9
	TENNESSEE
	TOTAL			RUN			PASS
	No.	Yds.	Avg.	No.	Yds.	Avg.	No.	Yds.	Avg.
1	17	99	5.8	9	23	2.6	8	76	9.5
2	18	102	5.7	8	21	2.6	10	81	8.1
3	26	179	6.9	6	57	9.5	20	122	6.1
4	13	2	0.2	2	8	4.0	11	-6	-0.5
Tot	74	382	5.1	25	109	4.4	49	273	5.5

Yardage by Down

The Bears were very successful on first down, averaging an astonishing 10.2 yards a play on first down. Cal averaged 8.1 yards per first down run, and 14.0 yards per first down pass.  Out of their 34 first down plays, the Bears only faced a 2nd down situation 19 times (55.9%). By comparison, Tennessee had 34 first down plays, and faced a 2nd down 25 times (73.5%).

Aside from first down, Tennessee didn't seem very committed to the run. The Volunteers ran on only nine of their 39 second- and third-down plays.

	Yardage By Down
	CAL
	TOTAL			RUN			PASS
	No.	Yds.	Avg.	No.	Yds.	Avg.	No.	Yds.	Avg.
1	34	347	10.2	22	179	8.1	12	168	14.0
2	19	79	4.2	9	35	3.9	10	44	4.4
3	11	45	4.1	6	16	2.6	5	29	5.8
4	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--
2 pt.	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--
Tot	64	471	7.4	37	230	6.2	27	241	8.9
	TENNESSEE
	TOTAL			RUN			PASS
	No.	Yds.	Avg.	No.	Yds.	Avg.	No.	Yds.	Avg.
1	34	194	5.7	16	90	5.6	18	104	5.7
2	25	140	5.6	7	25	3.6	18	115	6.4
3	14	48	3.4	2	-6	-3.0	12	54	4.5
4	1	0	0.0	--	--	--	1	0	0.0
2 pt.	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--
Tot	74	382	5.1	25	109	4.4	49	273	5.5

Quarterback Comparison

For those that are new here, the measuring stick for quarterbacks is the Success Percentage (explained in detail below in blue), which acknowledges quarterbacks efforts in helping the team get first downs and touchdowns while also factoring in the negative impact of sacks. If a quarterback's success percentage is above 35%, that will usually be enough to help his team win, unless the defense is just awful.

Longshore's 42.9% Success Percentage was exceptional, a vast improvement over his 8.7% percentage from last year's Tennessee game. While he didn't have any long touchdown passes, he was able to consistently find his receivers, running backs, and tight ends for first downs.  Credit also has to be given to the offensive line, which kept Longshore from getting sacked, and while Tennessee did pressure him a few times, it was never to the point where he had to throw the ball away to avoid a sack.

Although Ainge had fairly similar numbers to Longshore, it took him 19 more pass attempts to achieve the same number of results.  This is borne out in Ainge's 28.5% Success Percentage which is substantially less than Longshore's numbers on Saturday and is just more than half of the 52.9% that he had against Cal last year.

Looking at the sum of Ainge's numbers, the Bears didn't do that bad of a job defending a quarterback who had 47 pass attempts.  Tennessee opted for a lot of high-percentage, short-yardage passes and the Bears generally did a good job of containing them and not letting them become large gains.  While Tennessee did take advantage of some missed tackles to tack on yardage, they generally had to work hard on their scoring drives.

Quarterback Analysis
	Succ. %	TP	FD+TD	TP	Yds.	Avg.	Att.	Co.	Pct.	Yds.	FD	TD	Int.	Sacks/ Scram
														Pl.	Yds.
Nate Longshore, CAL	42.9%	28	12	28	241	8.6	28	19	67.8	241	10	2	0	--	--
Erik Ainge, T	28.5%	49	14	49	273	5.5	47	32	68.1	271	11	3	0	2	2
Note:   The Success Percentage attempts to measure a QB's effectiveness by looking at how often a quarterback achieves a successful result (a first down (by passing or running) or touchdown) out of all pass plays attempted. Current QB rating methodology does not include either sacks or scrambles  - this rewards QBs taking sacks instead of throwing incompletions. In addition, QB rating formulas reward the eight-yard pass on 3rd-and-12 (i.e., it's a completion, it's not an interception, and there's an above average yardage gain).  Key: Succ.% - Touchdowns + First Downs/Total Plays, TP - pass attempts + sacks + scrambles, FD - first downs, TD - touchdowns, Yds - Yards, Avg - Average, Att. - Attempts, Co. - Completions, Pct. - Completion %, Int - Interceptions, Pl. - Plays)

During the fourth quarter, when the pressure's a little higher than it is earlier in the game, it's not unusual for there to be some fall-off in performance.   Longshore, as did the rest of the team, had a terrific fourth quarter, with a success percentage of 57.1%, completing 5 of 7 passes for 79 yards and four first downs.  

On the other hand, Ainge was successfully contained, with a success % of zero, completing 3 of 11 passes for -6 yards and no first downs. This would be a terrific defensive effort against even a very bad team, against a team the caliber of Tennessee, it was outstanding.

Fourth quarter and third down Quarterback Analysis
	Succ. %	TP	FD+TD	TP	Yds.	Avg.	Att.	Co.	Pct.	Yds.	FD	TD	Int.	Sacks/ Scram
														Pl.	Yds.
FOURTH QUARTER
Longshore	57.1%	7	4	7	79	11.3	7	5	71.4	79	4	0	0	--	--
Ainge	0%	11	0	11	-6	-0.5	11	3	27.3	-6	0	0	0	--	--
THIRD DOWN
Longshore	16.7%	6	1	6	29	4.8	6	4	66.7	29	1	0	0	--	--
Ainge	41.7%	12	5	12	54	4.5	11	8	72.7	44	5	0	0	1	10

For those wondering how last Saturday's performance by the quarterbacks compared with last year's game, here's a look. The diffeences were significant both ways; Longshore was substantially more effectiv while the Bears did a much better job of defensing Ainge.

Cal vs. Tennessee 2006 - Quarterback Analysis
	Succ. %	TP	FD+TD	TP	Yds.	Avg.	Att.	Co.	Pct.	Yds.	FD	TD	Int.	Sacks/ Scram
														Pl.	Yds.
Nate Longshore, CAL	8.7%	23	2	23	71	3.1	20	11	55.0	85	2	0	1	3	-14
Erik Ainge, T	52.9%	17	9	17	292	17.2	17	11	64.7	292	5	4	1	--	--

Forsett Analysis

Forsett was used sparingly in the middle two quarters, doing most of his damage in the fourth quarter. Out of his 12 fourth quarter carries, five were for first downs or touchdowns.  He ran well on first down, averaging a stout seven yards a carry, with six of his carries going for 10 yards or more.

By Quarter				By Down
No.	Yds.	Avg.		No.	Yds.	Avg.
7	30	4.3	1	17	119	7.0
3	4	1.3	2	6	19	3.2
4	30	7.5	3	2	18	9.0
12	92	7.7	4
26	156	6.0	tot	26	156	6.0

Forsett's 100-yard games

Considering that coming into this year he's had a limited number of starts, it's remarkable that Saturday was Forsett's fifth game of 150-yards or more. His 156 yards gave him a career total of 1,830 which is the 10th best in Cal history, pushing out John Tuggle's 1,813.

Yards	Opponent, Year
235	vs. New Mexico State, 2005
187	vs. Illinois, 2005
163	vs. Oregon, 2006
156	vs. Tennessee, 2007
153	vs. UCLA, 2005
124	vs. Texas A&M, 2006
111	vs. Washington State, 2005

Big Plays

Whenever a team puts up large yardage totals, it's curious to see whether they're the by-product of a handful of large plays or whether a team has been consistently hammering away the opposition.  Each team had two plays of 40 yards or more. Although the Bear defense did give up 382 yards, they didn't get burned with any long touchdowns like they did last season.

Nearly 30% of Cal's plays went for 10 yards or more which was close to double what Tennessee was able to manage.  The same applied to plays that went for 20 or more yards.  All eight of Cal's 20+ yard gains came on first down.

	10 yards or more	20 yards or more
California	19/65 (29.2%)	8/65 (12.3%)
Tennessee	12/74 (16.2%)	5/74 (6.8%)

Starting Field Position

Cal's field position advantage came from the 200 yards that came courtesy of the touchdowns by Worrell Williams and DeSean Jackson.  Those two touchdowns also accounted for the oddity of the Bears having a 21-14 lead while having the ball on just two of game's opening six possesions.

	1st half	2nd half	Total
California	52.0	26.3	38.8
Tennesee	39.5	28.2	33.2
Bears advantage/disadvantage	+64	+15	+79

Kickoffs

Kicking off from the 30 yard line meant more returns and a better starting position of close to 10 yards. In previous years, with kickoffs from the 35, the average starting position was generally between the 25 and 30 yard lines.  Tennessee had one long return, the 68-yard return by Arian Foster, and only started once inside their 30. Later in the game, the Bears seemed to shorten their kickoffs to force the up men to return the kickoffs. While this result in starting position between the 35 and 40, it also reduced the Volunteers' chances of breaking a big return to almost nothing. Cal's best starting field position coming out of a kickoff was it's 46. They started twice inside their 30.

	# of kick returns	Avg. Start
California	6	36.0
Tennesee	8	38.3

Punts

After Tennessee decided to stop punting to Jackson, their decision to punt out of bounds or try directional squibbing generally worked.  They were the benificiary of a few good rolls and in each case Jackson wisely let the ball go instead of trying to force a play. There was one kick that was badly shanked.

The Bears generally had good success with their punting game. The one punt that went for a touchback could have been downed with a little luck. 

Cal				Tennessee
Punt	Return	Net		Punt	Return	Net
43	Down	+43		42	77 TD	-35
40	Fair Catch	+40		45	Out of Bounds	+45
49	6	+43		39	Downed	+39
30	Out of Bounds	+30		55	Downed	+55
56	Touchback	+36		51	Downed	+51
				13	Out of Bounds	+13

Inside the 30

Cal and Tennessee's scoring percentages inside the 30 were identical, with four touchdowns and a field goal out of six opportunities.

	TD	FG	Downs	TO	Opp.	Opp. %	Pts/Pos	PtsPos%
California	4	1	0	1	5/6	83.3%	31/42	73.8%
Tennessee	4	1	1	0	5/6	83.3%	31/42	73.8%
Key - TD-touchdown; FG-field goal; FGNG - field goal no good; Opp. - Opportunities; Opp.% - Opportunities possible; Pts/Pos - Points/Points Possible; PtsPos% - % of points possible scored

Completion/incompletion breakdown

Passes to Cal Receivers					Incompletions
Receiver	Att.	Comp.	Yds.
Lavelle Hawkins	9	7	90		Low	3
DeSean Jackson	6	4	45		Behind	2
Cameron Morrah	3	3	27		Drop	1
Robert Jordan	3	2	14		Long	1
Craig Stevens	3	0	0		Batted Away	1
Justin Forsett	1	1	49		High	1
Will Taufoou	1	1	15
James Montgomery	1	1	1
LaReylle Cunningham	1	0	0
Note:   Longshore was 13-of-19 to wide receivers for 149 yards, 3-of-3 to running backs for 65 yards, 3-of-6 for 27 yards to tight ends, and didn't have to throw any passes away to avoid sacks....Of Longshore's nine incompletions, seven were either low, behind, high, or long.

Penalties

For such an emotional game, the game was free of the smattering of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties that find their way into a closely contested game between top teams.   There was one personal foul call on Cal that happened five plays into the game, but otherwise the game was cleanly played.

CAL OFFENSE			TENN DEFENSE
10	Holding		15	Pass interference
10	Holding
5	False start
CAL DEFENSE			TENN OFFENSE
15	Personal Foul		5	False start
5	Illegal Formation
2	Pass Interference
CAL SPECIAL TEAMS			TENN SPECIAL TEAMS
5	Substitution infraction		5	Offsides

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