Watching the Cal/Hawaii game...

[Daniel Seahorn]

I'm sure I'm not the only one catching this late night season opener down in Sydney.

My takeaways:

Hawaii is bad. REALLY bad. Put the ball on the ground four times and lost two of them. Also threw a pick. No Bueno.

Cal put up a bunch of points, but despite that their offense doesn't scare me nearly as much as they did last year. Goff and that bunch last would have had 40+ before half without breaking a sweat.

The Muhammad kid at RB for Cal can scoot, so Texas is going to have to be sure to wrap up and rally to him. He made several plays and also dropped a wide open touchdown.

Cal's defense is going to give up plenty of points again this year. Chris Warren and D'Onta Foreman should clear 100 yards apiece and I can see them give up some big chunk plays out wide. With just under 6 mins left Hawaii's leading rusher has 117 yards on 14 carries.

Cal's offense rolled up 630 yards of offense (they kept the starters in the entire game), but their defense gave up almost 500 yards and 31 points. I feel confident Texas will have success offensively.

I feel confident in saying that Texas will put up much more of a fight than Hawaii did tonight. Heard absolutely ripped this Cal team last year in Austin and they won't be better on defense IMO.

Cal will rack up some yards and score some points, but there will be much more resistance in the secondary.

I think this game will turn into a nice confidence booster for the offense and nice challenge for the defense.

 

[java]

I thought this game looked like a post season track meet rather than an early season football game. Were they playing seven man defense? What the heck?

 

[Bear19]

I thought Webb looked very, very good.

Very accurate. I think our defense will have it's hands full.

 

[TeamMayhall]

I thought Webb looked very, very good.

Very accurate. I think our defense will have it's hands full.

Like you, I agree Webb did look Bigger and Better, but I think our DBs size and length can jam their small Wr's at the line. Our pass rush should benefit and the D-line and LB's should be able toTee Off on Webb all day long

 

[Bear19]

Like you, I agree Webb did look Bigger and Better, but I think our DBs size and length can jam their small Wr's at the line. Our pass rush should benefit and the D-line and LB's should be able toTee Off on Webb all day long

I agree on all except I am not yet sold on our pass rush. I'm thinking we will have to send LBs to get one.

 

[utisdabomb12]

We scored 44 last year on Cal. They lost their 2 best defensive players. Nickerson transferred and Kragen graduated. Cal's defense is probably worse than they were last year and that's really saying something. 

Texas will score on Cal, I have no doubt about that. 

It's pretty much the same Cal team as last year in the sense that Cal will have to outscore everyone. Probably going to be tough losing the #1 overall pick at QB and their top 6 WRs. 

Cal will score some points but they are gonna need to be scoring 50 a game to win games. The big key for Texas in this game is we now have Hill/Davis at CB. They weren't entrenched in starting positions yet when we played at Cal. Having a couple elite CBs is important against a team like Cal. They abused Bonney last year. 

That Hawaii team finished 104th in total defense and 120th in total offense last year, to give you perspective. The fact the were able to put up over 400 yards on Cal is pretty telling. Maybe Hawaii has drastically improved but I would put it more on Cal's defense just being really bad. 

This isn't the same Cal team as last year. I can see why some of their beat writers said they might struggle to win 5 games this year. 

 

[dillohorn]

Now I 'm sure we don't want to join the pac 12. Us old people can't stay awake that late.

 

[Daniel Seahorn]

I thought Webb looked very, very good.

Very accurate. I think our defense will have it's hands full.

He did look good and completed 70% of his passes. I just think there is going to be much more resistance defensively from Texas than there was with Hawaii. Even with the youth upfront and everywhere else, there is much more talent on that Texas defense than Hawaii could even dream of.

 

[Bear19]

He did look good and completed 70% of his passes. I just think there is going to be much more resistance defensively from Texas than there was with Hawaii. Even with the youth upfront and everywhere else, there is much more talent on that Texas defense than Hawaii could even dream of.

I don't doubt that for a minute. I'm just saying if he has time to throw he's going to complete some passes against anybody. We need to put some heat on him.

 

[Sirhornsalot]

Cal looked worse on both sides of the ball. Yes, even defensively. I had thought this would be a tough game for us. It shouldn't be.

Great confidence builder for our offense. Good game for a defense to face the spread. Cal's young WRs aren't bad and the one back they have should give us some problems.

And yes, Hawaii was just awful.

 

[MBHORNSFAN]

Cal is awful if we lose this game Strong should be fired asap. 

 

[texasdalton]

Well i see a bunch of people already giving our team a W against Cal.

We havent earned or shown anything yet. While i believe we are better im not counting on anything until i see GameDay improvement

 

[Sirhornsalot]

Well i see a bunch of people already giving our team a W against Cal.

We havent earned or shown anything yet. While i believe we are better im not counting on anything until i see GameDay improvement

Uh, Dalton. I think that's the point. If there is no improvement and we're no better than last year – we beat Cal this year. Thats how bad Cal looked.

 

[noonan05]

I went to the game, being the only football game I'll probably ever get to see in my home country i felt obliged too.

The game was even worse in person. Both teams looked terrible.

On a side note both teams had several players experiencing the Sydney night life. Guys taking advantage of the drinkng age being 18 in Australia