When I think about the University of California, Berkeley I picture their stadium in the hills, earthquakes, hippies, Marshawn Lynch, Aaron Rodgers, 1950’s era cheerleader uniforms, and their mascot Oski the Bear. Truth is this Cal program hasn’t been on Notre Dame’s radar pretty much at all since Vietnam. The Irish faced the Golden Bears 4 times between 1959 and 1967 then decided that was enough.

Notre Dame fans may remember current Cal head coach Justin Wilcox. He was the defensive coordinator at USC (2014-15) and has coordinated defenses at a bunch of big schools (Boise State, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin) before taking the job in Berkeley back in 2017.

Wilcox sputtered a bit out of the gate before putting together a strong 2019 finishing 2nd in the Pac-12 North thanks to big road victories over Washington and Stanford, the latter the first victory in The Big Game in a decade. Things have gone back to the usual results since the 2020 Covid year but Cal typically has played strong defense throughout the Wilcox era and is still searching for an offense that can compete with the upper two-thirds of their schedule.

California (+11) at Notre Dame

Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, September 17, 2022
Time: 2:30 PM ET
TV: NBC/Peacock
Series: 4-0-0 Notre Dame

The Irish come in licking serious wounds after last week’s debacle against Marshall. The public found out on Monday afternoon that starting quarterback Tyler Buchner is out for the season following his shoulder surgery and in his place the offense will turn to Drew Pyne now desperate for a win at all costs.

California Offense

We have a pattern with this Cal program–whenever their offense shows improvement their defense regresses and whenever the defense gets better the offense regresses. They can’t put it all together.

Former offensive coordinator Beau Baldwin left to take the Cal-Poly job after 3 seasons in Berkeley and the Golden Bears brought in Bill Musgrave prior to 2020 to run the offense after he spent nearly all of the past 20 years in the NFL.

The results have largely remained the same across the Wilcox era, the Cal offense is either below average or pretty bad. So far in 2022, the offense is averaging 5.6 yards per play with a combined 54 points and 6 touchdowns against a FCS team and lower-tier Mountain West team.

YEAR Offense FEI Defense FEI
2022 95 33
2021 86 41
2020 109 31
2019 63 43
2018 116 11
2017 76 56

Offensive line definitely looks like a weak spot and has to be exploited by Notre Dame. Redshirt junior Ben Coleman (6-4, 330) has moved to left tackle after making his first year of starting last year at left guard. New left guard Brian Driscoll (6-4, 315) was in a backup role and missed the last third of 2021 with an injury. 5th-year center Matthew Cindric (6-4, 295) is a veteran with 29 career starts. Cal brought in Arizona State transfer 5th-year veteran right guard Spencer Lovell (6-6, 335) this off-season while redshirt junior Brayden Rohm (6-6, 285) has some left tackle starts under his belt prior to 2022 and is now at right tackle.

The big off-season acquisition was Purdue transfer Jack Plummer at quarterback. He started the game against Notre Dame last year and has good size at 6-5 with steady production throughout his career. He’s good a good arm but the Irish will need to take advantage of his lack of mobility behind the Golden Bear’s line.

Plummer to Hunter has been fruitful so far in 2022.

The Golden Bears do have some weapons for Plummer to distribute the ball. Junior running back Damien Moore was efficient in a backup role during his first 2 years and was looking to move up to the starting role in 2022. However, Cal really likes true freshman Jaydn Ott (their top 2022 recruit) so we’ll see him a lot in addition to redshirt junior DeCarlos Brooks.

Through the air, California is led by 2 wideouts both over 100 receiving yards so far in 2022. Redshirt freshman J. Michael Sturdivant is one of the program’s top recruits in recent years. He’ll team up with junior Jeremiah Hunter who leads the team in catches and yardage. In general, Cal fans are really high on these 2 wideouts but they aren’t very experienced.

California’s Defense

Prior to the 2019 season, linebacker coach Peter Sirmon moved into the co-defensive coordinator role with Tim DeRuyter and last year DeRuyter was lured away to run the Oregon defense which bumped Sirmon up to the full-time job for California.

They hit the Portal this off-season to bolster their defense, including bringing in Washington linebacker Jackson Sirmon (son of the DC) who led the Huskies in tackles for 2021 and came into this fall as a 1st-team all-Pac 12 selection. Additionally, Cal brought in linebackers Odua Isibor (UCLA) and Xavier Carlton (Utah) and they’re making a solid impact so far.

In name, they run a 3-4 scheme and rely on a lot of linebackers. Quite often they keep only 2 players down in 3-point stances while 2 linebackers are standing on the edge. One of those linebackers is basically a defensive end though, for example the aforementioned Carlton comes in at 6’6″ and 270 pounds.

Lots of different fronts and a high-energy defense. 

Their linemen are tough and provide pretty good size. However, the program really misses veteran tackle Brett Johnson who was lost for the season for the second straight year. So far in 2022, their defensive linemen have zero tackles for loss.

The Golden Bears lost tremendous safety Elijah Hicks to the NFL (7th round pick to Chicago) and bring back pre-season all-Pac 12 talent Daniel Scott. The secondary is a good group, but there will be opportunities to make plays for Notre Dame.

This is an aggressive defense that you can tell is well-coached. It’s been a hallmark of the Wilcox era. I don’t see a ton of playmaking or big time difference makers that Notre Dame would normally worry about. However, these are not normal times in South Bend. This Cal defense is smart and runs hard to the ball with a ton of energy. If they come up with even a half-decent gameplan against Drew Pyne it could be really tough to move the ball.

Prediction

With all due respect to California, I don’t think many Irish fans care all that much about the intricate details of this matchup. With Notre Dame in full-on CRISIS MODE preparing to play their backup quarterback this is largely all about how the Irish respond to adversity.

I have zeroed in on 3 keys for this matchup on Saturday:

Full-Scale Buy-In

In the modern era of Notre Dame under Brian Kelly (outside of 2016) this would be an easy call for me to predict a solid bounce back for the Irish. The problem is Brian Kelly is no longer around, and well, this could be a 2016-type of season unfolding before our eyes.

We’ve been typing away both here and in our writers room all week asking what happened to this team and program this season and it’s quite possible that there’s been a mixture of tiredness, overconfidence, and coaching mistakes mixed with natural roster turnover that has led to a deadly early September showing.

There’s a natural worry about what that means for Marcus Freeman or how he could let this happen but it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a mutiny afoot, players think Freeman is a fraud, or even that Freeman let things deteriorate by being too nice.

I’m guessing there’s an awful lot of pride in that locker room and there will be a motivated bunch of players ready for Saturday. That doesn’t solve everything of course. There are still plenty of personnel and gameplan worries but I don’t expect a flat and/or disinterested Notre Dame against California.

Lines Have to Win

The Irish lines have been blasted for their performance over the past couple weeks and need to re-group quickly. The offensive side of the ball needs to get serviceable immediately while the defense needs to come back to a reality where they can dominate opponents, especially perceived weaker opponents.

This is a stark reminder of the improvement needed by Notre Dame: Through 2 games, the defense has allowed 48 successful runs and the Irish offense has only provided 27 successful runs. Remove the now-injured Buchner from the equation and that dips down to just 16 successful runs, including just 14 from the running backs.

With a less mobile quarterback coming in you’d like to lean on some heavier packages, take some pressure off Pyne, and run the ball well. That won’t work if there’s a dreadful 7 successful runs from the backs in the game.

Don’t Mess it Up, Drew

Drew Pyne may be the smallest package to start a game at Notre Dame since Harry Stuhldreher coordinated the Four Horsemen backfield at a lean, mean 5’7″ and 151 pounds. Pyne isn’t much of a running threat (major red flags for the Irish run game, will they now have a less mobile QB and suddenly improve running the ball?) and you don’t want to risk too many hits in the pocket, either.

So, Pyne has to get rid of the ball quickly which means A) smart decision-making B) not many chances for deeper routes to develop and C) California’s defense can load the box, play tight on receivers, and crash down-hill after the snap.

I wouldn’t want to be Tommy Rees right now. The mob is out for blood and even a great gameplan executed really well may lead to fewer than 30 points for the Irish. The over/under is 40.5 for a reason!

My brain says Notre Dame loses, my heart says they’ll come through with an inspired performance (especially defensively) and pull this out to avoid more embarrassment.

California 16

Notre Dame 20