Cal Poly

[Obzerver]

That was interesting...in the post game interview with Rolfsness he mentioned first football game he has played in ..in over two years as he didn't play his senior year in high school due to injury...wow.

 

[LDopaPDX]

Really poor effort today. Honestly, the scoreline was closer to the game. We didn't have any consistent success on offense and seemed to completely disregard the things that worked over the last couple of games. I was stunned that the D mailed it in after giving a good effort last week. There were a handful of plays where the secondary just got completely lost.

Interesting stat, all of our RBs combined totaled barely more than 500 yards rushing this season... less than 50 per game on average. You can't win many games putting RBs on the field that can't compile yards. For a team that has 3 of 4 QBs that run a read option offense, to get that poor of production is a death sentence. Allen was our leading RB with a whopping 23.5 ypg average. All the RBs combined were 200 yards short of what Nate Bell generated in 10 games total, 3 of which he came off the bench.

 

[Zornes65]

I think you need to look at the O line instead of the RBs. That was our weakest link. Need to use any NIL on that group

 

[LDopaPDX]

I think you need to look at the O line instead of the RBs. That was our weakest link. Need to use any NIL on that group

There’s some truth in that statement, but there were times I thought our OL looked pretty good. We moved the ball on the ground in some games pretty well. But it was never our RBs that could do it. Jared Taylor was a better runner than any RB we put on the field.

I can’t remember a good RB that could be a potential all-conference guy since McPherson.. I can’t remember a great RB since Taiwan Jones. Maybe I’m forgetting someone in there, but off the top of my head, I’m drawing blanks. If you go back through the decades, we’ve had some good RBs. For whatever reason, none of them lately have been productive.

 

[ES2X]

Word on the street is coach Wulff was fired.

 

[Hambone]

Word on the street is coach Wulff was fired.

I just saw that. Unfortunate, as I thought he should have been given more time to turn that program around.

 

[EagSpectator]

There’s some truth in that statement, but there were times I thought our OL looked pretty good. We moved the ball on the ground in some games pretty well. But it was never our RBs that could do it. Jared Taylor was a better runner than any RB we put on the field.

I can’t remember a good RB that could be a potential all-conference guy since McPherson.. I can’t remember a great RB since Taiwan Jones. Maybe I’m forgetting someone in there, but off the top of my head, I’m drawing blanks. If you go back through the decades, we’ve had some good RBs. For whatever reason, none of them lately have been productive.

There were a couple other backs you could throw into the mix over the years, but nothing close to Taiwan or McPherson. McPherson especially exploded his senior year. Before him, Quincy Forte had his run, and then Merritt had a big final season. Since then we’ve had some serviceable backs, but nobody that really stressed a defense.


I’m hoping Malik Dotson gets the medical redshirt he applied for. He only played a few snaps against IW while trying to push through a broken foot and didn’t return the rest of the season. He would have been the featured back this year and absolutely would have helped in the run game.

Last season he put up 505 yards on 85 touches, almost 6 yards per carry. Good size too at 6'0", 212 lbs.

To me, the run-game issues came from a mix of OL inconsistency, QB execution on RPOs, and a lack of creativity from the OC, but the biggest factor was starting four different quarterbacks. All four had different styles, and that makes it nearly impossible to build and commit to one offensive identity.


Taylor was a power run first guy but struggled in the passing game. Bell ran a similar scheme but was a bit more capable through the air, though a good portion of his yards were from scrambling for his life. Defenses could scheme around both. Schakel isn’t a running threat, but he clearly commands the passing offense. In my opinion, it’s harder to defend a competent passing QB than a one dimensional run first approach. Rolfsness has mobility, but he’s raw, understandable when he hasn’t played in two years and was thrown into action with basically a week to prepare. There were several RPO misreads on Saturday, but you can’t blame the kid.

My early take for next year: Schakel as QB1, Dotson as the featured back, and Bell used similarly to how Montana used Wortham. We’ll have to replace a few WRs with this senior class leaving. The entire OL is back next year, mix in some better JR Transfers there and the O will be improved.

And don’t forget, Bell’s little brother is coming in next year. He had a great season and was named First Team All-Conference at RB. At one point he had over 200 all purpose yards in 4 straight games. Curious to see how he transitions at 5'6", 170 lbs. He's obviously a runner like big brother.

Honestly, this could probably be its own thread.