Head Coaches and One-Sided Specialties

When things aren't going terribly right on the football field, fans have a way of finding topics to complain about. I guess that's just human nature and sports are usually a great avenue for people to inflect their grievances from their personal lives onto the athletic teams that they root for. The majority of the time, most of these complaints are petty, childish, and downright ill-informed.

I even saw a post from a fan on a message board last Saturday that said he/she missed Jeff Tedford because that person was convinced that Cal had hired the wrong coach. Not surprisingly, the fan came to this conclusion after roughly six quarters of football. In general, fans are way over-emotional and it often can and does get irritating to read and observe.

One of the silliest comments I've heard about Sonny Dykes is that he doesn't care about defense and that that is why Cal's defense has been so poor to start the season. Some fans even go as far to say that Dykes only cares about putting up points and making himself look good. Of course, all of that is crap.
Dykes is obviously an offensive coach and like many other head coaches he leaves one side of the ball to his fellow coordinator. Trust me when I say that I was oddly satisfied to read Urban Meyer's comments from Monday's press conference, which in not so many words pretty much showed that Meyer himself doesn't fully pay attention to the defensive side of the ball either.

Defense? What defense? Ask the defensive coaches about defense. (AP)

From the Cal Rivals site:

Q. Just wanted to ask, going back to the California game from a year ago, the two long runs, did your defensive staff use those as maybe teaching moments or was that game maybe a moment where your defense began to evolve into what they are and what they are trying to be?

COACH MEYER: Well, I think and those are great questions for our defensive staff. What I saw, I probably saw a lot like you, because I was so immersed in the offense and kicking game and just trying to develop a team that I just saw very poor tackling and very poor leverage. Those are two fundamentals, like blocking and protecting the quarterback on offense. Those are two fundamentals and you get exposed.

If you ask me, I can't tell you the defense, I can't tell you the play, but I'll just tell you it was very, very poor tackling and very poor leverage on the football. Those teams, if you watch our teams play right now, I think Luke and Everett have done a really admirable job teaching that and you can see a big difference.

Q. Your team has changed since a year ago, and Cal has had some changes of coaches. How much would you watch last year's game as you prepare for this one?

COACH MEYER: Really defensively a completely different story, that's when they came out in that brand new defense they worked on all year, and the guy's name, Clancy Pendergast, did a heck of a job, but a defense that we had not prepared for.

This right now, obviously, I would say it's a new staff, they shot their gun Northwestern is a big game, so they are not going to have a new defense had some injury issues at safety, too.

So I think last year's game will be no impact at all.

Q. Run 50 more plays than you have in two games how do they do that and what is the biggest challenge for your defense?

COACH MEYER: The defense would be the ball comes out so fast, the screens, it's quick passes, you don't really have a chance to get to the quarterback, you know, how do you disrupt passing is you disrupt the quarterback's flow and all that.

So I have not studied them at all on offense yet. I will, usually that's later in the week, because I spend all my time on kicking and offense. I talk to my defensive staff and rotation of defensive linemen to keep them fresh, because they will wear you out. After a while pass rushing, other than running pursuit, where sideline to sideline, pass rush is the most exhausting thing for a defensive lineman.

Besides the fact that Meyer's quotes pretty much dispels the notion that a head coach needs to somehow coach defense as well as offense to be successful, I also found very interesting that Meyer admitted his offense wasn't ready for Cal's D last year because they didn't see it on film study leading up to game day.

Maybe Buh's inability to adjust quickly against Portland State wasn't so bad after all considering Cal allowed only 120 yards after halftime?

We'll see how Cal comes out of the gate come Saturday.

GO BEARS!

Q. Just wanted to ask, going back to the California game from a year ago, the two long runs, did your defensive staff use those as maybe teaching moments or was that game maybe a moment where your defense began to evolve into what they are and what they are trying to be?

COACH MEYER: Well, I think and those are great questions for our defensive staff. What I saw, I probably saw a lot like you, because I was so immersed in the offense and kicking game and just trying to develop a team that I just saw very poor tackling and very poor leverage. Those are two fundamentals, like blocking and protecting the quarterback on offense. Those are two fundamentals and you get exposed.

If you ask me, I can't tell you the defense, I can't tell you the play, but I'll just tell you it was very, very poor tackling and very poor leverage on the football. Those teams, if you watch our teams play right now, I think Luke and Everett have done a really admirable job teaching that and you can see a big difference. - See more at: http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1547278#sthash.okUTghCr.dpuf

Q. Just wanted to ask, going back to the California game from a year ago, the two long runs, did your defensive staff use those as maybe teaching moments or was that game maybe a moment where your defense began to evolve into what they are and what they are trying to be?

COACH MEYER: Well, I think and those are great questions for our defensive staff. What I saw, I probably saw a lot like you, because I was so immersed in the offense and kicking game and just trying to develop a team that I just saw very poor tackling and very poor leverage. Those are two fundamentals, like blocking and protecting the quarterback on offense. Those are two fundamentals and you get exposed.

If you ask me, I can't tell you the defense, I can't tell you the play, but I'll just tell you it was very, very poor tackling and very poor leverage on the football. Those teams, if you watch our teams play right now, I think Luke and Everett have done a really admirable job teaching that and you can see a big difference. - See more at: http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1547278#sthash.okUTghCr.dpuf

Q. Just wanted to ask, going back to the California game from a year ago, the two long runs, did your defensive staff use those as maybe teaching moments or was that game maybe a moment where your defense began to evolve into what they are and what they are trying to be?

COACH MEYER: Well, I think and those are great questions for our defensive staff. What I saw, I probably saw a lot like you, because I was so immersed in the offense and kicking game and just trying to develop a team that I just saw very poor tackling and very poor leverage. Those are two fundamentals, like blocking and protecting the quarterback on offense. Those are two fundamentals and you get exposed.

If you ask me, I can't tell you the defense, I can't tell you the play, but I'll just tell you it was very, very poor tackling and very poor leverage on the football. Those teams, if you watch our teams play right now, I think Luke and Everett have done a really admirable job teaching that and you can see a big difference. - See more at: http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1547278#sthash.okUTghCr.dpuf