Before the season, there was one particular weak spot in the 2009 California Golden Bears, and it has been exploited repeatedly in the Oregon and USC defeats: Linebackers. The loss of Zack Follett (perhaps the best pure pass rusher the Bears have had in the Tedford era), Worrell Williams (solid all-around linebacker, even if undersized) and Anthony Felder (great in inside run defense and reading the running back motion) has forced Cal's defensive coordinator Bob Gregory to mix and match. There've been some breakdowns on both fronts by both coaches and players. Our linebackers this season, with the exceptions of Mike Mohamed and Eddie Young, have either been undersized or inexperienced, and there hasn't been consistent play from them either in tackling form or pass coverage. It's placed disproportionate weight on the defensive line and the secondary to come up with stops.
This is one of those plays that exhibits that weakness: The first touchdown that put USC ahead to stay. A crucial linebacking error lets loose Joe McKnight into the backfield. It also highlights the simplicity and ruthlessness of the Trojan offense in full effect.
This is standard I-formation. The majority of the time the Trojans go into standard I, their usual tendencies are to run the ball or play-action bootleg.
Tight end Anthony McCoy goes in motion; his job is to pull from the backside, and block out the rushing strong outside linebacker (in this case, Mychal Kendricks). He executes it to perfection.
The Trojans are going to go into zone blocking mode, at first double-teaming on the defensive ends, before blocking at the second level. This play, the linemen do an exceptionally good at sealing off Cal's powerful ends in Tyson Alualu and Cameron Jordan from the play before moving onto block the smaller linebackers. This gives Joe McKnight to run right behind his lead fullback Havili.
It's hard to see him, but look at the inside linebacker, #10 Devin Bishop in the middle of the scrum (yellow dot) tries to evade the Havili block by cutting INSIDE of his gap assignment. This is a pretty big gamble taken by Bishop, because if McKnight decides to cut inside behind Havili, Bishop has a terribly awkward angle, and it leaves Joe with plenty of open space to evade nose tackle Derrick Hill (who had a fine game against Kristofer O'Dowd, and as you can see on this play was pushed back) instead of being funneled back into the line.
Bishop compounds the error by slipping and taking himself out of the play. Take a look at how big that hole is now for McKnight to hit and break to daylight.
Poor Devin is caught staring, getting up only to watch Joe race right past him.
With McKnight able to burst straight through, Eddie Young on the edge is now left in the unenviable position of chasing down #4. If Follett is chasing McKnight down he probably gets to tackling distance within at least ten-twelve yards, but Young is no Pain Train. He does not have the quickness to chase McKnight down in the open field.
Syd'Quan Thompson also makes an error in not trying to wrap-up his man instead of trying to undercut him and save the 1st down. Might be worth the risk if it's 3rd down, not 1st down, but in that case you've got to at least wrap him up and slow him down and hope help comes in time.
No one stands between McKnight in the end zone after that, and Young does not have the speed to chase him down from behind.
Here is a nice stadium view which shows how impressive USC's O-line was at pushing Cal's front seven around on this run, and you get a pretty good view of the Bishop slip up:
While the Bears defense played soundly for much of the rest of the game (only giving up another 16 points, include three red zone stands leading to 3 field goals), expect linebacker play to be key to the fortunes of this team the rest of the season. Although the linebackers played okay the rest of the game, it'll be crucial for them to play smart in their gap assignments or they could be privvy to other gaffes of this sort.
As for the Trojans, it's very likely they've gotten the ball rolling to another Pac-10 title. Even with Stafon Johnson out for the season, Joe McKnight seems to be moving into the primary back position, and if he can cure his fumble problems the USC offense might be humming soundly as it did in October and November of last season. The Trojan offensive line's biggest test will be at Autzen when they play Oregon's young but talented front seven, and Oregon State and Stanford could give them formidable fights at home, but if that offense unleashes as well as they did against Cal, it'll be very tough for anyone to score enough on their monster defense to keep up with them.
***Make sure to stay tuned to Buster as Pac-10 Expert Terry Donahue will have more on the X's and O's broken down above.
Avinash, blogger extrordinar repping the California Golden Blogs on SB Nation, breaks down Pac-10 football, special to Buster Sports.
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