On ESPN radio last night they had an official stating that the way the play is to be called is with the QB's shoulder first, then the arm. If the shoulder has gone full forward (which it had) and the arm is eith at the halfway point (which replays show it clearly was), then it's a forward pass. He stated officials blew the call. That's also the way I was trained. Maybe if you took of your Cal tinted glasses...
I just got done re-watching it again, and my suspicions are somewhat confirmed. Their DT's were bull rushing nearly every time and badly beating Center Jordan Holmes. He was just either beat or he had to hold. They also shutdown our cutback lanes by simply stuffing our lineman back into the hole. There were also a couple of times where their DE just went right by our tackle. They did blitz and we picked it up fairly well, but their interior lineman were just getting such a huge push up front that it was hard to do anything. Cal has a really good D-line, that's what I came away saying from the game.
Cal was undefeated at home against very bad teams. They have been thoroughly dominated by teams that we have beaten or are far superior to them. I'll take the victory with some concern.
Getting over the fact that we're not going to blow everyone out, it was impressive to see such a long sustained drive in the 4th.
Which is concerning, because if we play Auburn we're going to have the same problem. Their D line is just as impressive, if not better. The reason Cal lost that game is because they have a stiff for a QB. Their passing game was completely unreliable, so they had to rely on their running game on every possession. If Cal had a decent QB playing, we would have lost. Hell, if Cal's kicker hadn't missed, we might have lost. Auburn won't have that problem. Cam Newton will eat us alive if we give them the chance.
