Should We Just Assume Cal's Defense Will Be Good Again?
Are we taking the Cal defense for granted?
The focus throughout Cal’s preseason camp has been on the offense, with the assumption that the Bears must score more points than they have in past seasons to be a factor in the Pac-12 race. That’s why there is so much attention on the three-man competition to determine a starting quarterback.
However, this presumes that the Bears’ defense will be the stingy unit it has been ever since Justin Wilcox arrived as head coach in 2017.
The Bears have ranked in the top half of the Pac-12 in scoring defense is all but one season under Wilcox. The one exception was last season when the Bears were seventh. Meanwhile, the Bears have ranked 10th or worse in scoring offense in each of the six years.
Cal ranked last in the Pac-12 in both scoring offense and total offense in 2018 and 2019, but those were the only two years Cal went to bowl games under Wilcox because the Bears ranked third in scoring defense in 2018 and fourth in 2019. And those defensive numbers are even more impressive when you consider the Bears offense put the Cal defense in difficult situations time and time again.
With all the uncertainty at the quarterback position, the Bears will need a defensive performance like they got in 2018 and 2019 to be competitive in the final season of Pac-12 football as we know it.
Does defensive coordinator Pete Sirmon believe Cal’s 2023 defense is comparable to the ones of four and five years ago?
“I think we have skill,” he said Wednesday. “Skill for the defensive side of the ball is necessary. You’ve got to have the skill to do it; guys that are slow and don’t have ball skills can’t cover very well. But I think it’s going to be how we come together, how do we fight on critical downs.
“I go back and think about, I think it was four years ago, I think the defense was extremely prideful on sudden change. That was a group of guys that kind of shared some of the same mental outlook on defense. They were resilient. They were tough. They were intrinsically motivated . . . and things on the outside of what they could control didn't impact them."
Does Cal have that this year? We don’t know.
Cal has only one elite defender, and that’s all-conference inside linebacker Jackson Sirmon, who is on the Lombardi Award preseason watchlist for the top lineman in the nation but was not ranked among the top 100 college players in the country by ESPN.
Defensive tackle Brett Johnson (if he is healthy after missing the past two seasons) and defensive backs Patrick McMorris, Craig Woodson and Nohl Williams all could reach the elite level with big seasons in 2023. But are any of them pro prospects in the mold of the four recent Cal defensive backs now in the NFL (not including Daniel Scott, who was drafted but is out for the season)?
The strength again appears to be the secondary where as many as 10 players could get significant playing time. But their success depends on a pass rush, which was the Bears’ defensive shortcoming last season. Cal recorded only 19 sacks in 2022, the fewest in Wilcox’s six seasons, and barely more than half the 36 sacks Cal had in 2019.
A hint of what Cal’s defense might look like in 2023 came in Sunday’s scrimmage. McMorris was disappointed in the defense’s showing in that scrimmage.
“Honestly we didn’t play that good,” he said.
Sirmon was a bit more diplomatic.
“I think we made some progress,” Sirmon said. “I like how we’re playing as a unit on defense. The moment of truth, the one-on-one things that as a play-caller I can’t go two-on-one on everybody, so there's a lot of people taking on single blocks or in single coverage that are going to have make more plays than they give up."
In other words, individual defenders must make plays.
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