Cal Football: Does Justin Wilcox Believe in Bears' Field Goal Unit?

Washington State’s kicking and punting units will give the Cougars a fairly clearcut special teams advantage over Cal on Saturday.

Here’s a quick comparison between the placekickers:

— WSU junior Blake Mazza was the first-team All-Pac-12 placekicker and one of three Lou Groza Award finalists last season when he made 20 of 21 field goal tries. He’s 4-for-4 this season.

— Cal sophomore Dario Longhetto, in his first season as placekicker, is 4-for-5 on field goals with a 52-yarder against Oregon State. But he has had a field goal and a PAT kick blocked.

And the punters:

— WSU senior Oscar Draguicevich III has averaged 45.2 yards per over three seasons. Twenty-five of his 88 career punts have traveled at least 50 yards and 31 have landed inside the opponent’s 20-yard line.

— Cal junior Jamieson Sheahan, a first-year player from Australia, is averaging 39.9 yards per punt this season after a season-best 42.1-yard average last week vs. Oregon. He had a punt blocked at UCLA. Sheahan has one kick of at least 50 yards and three of his 23 punts have landed inside the 20.

The looming question for the Bears is whether coach Justin Wilcox has confidence in his field-goal unit. Certainly his belief had to be shaken after Stanford blocked a field goal, then a potential game-tying PAT as the Bears suffered a 24-23 loss in the Big Game.

Fast forward to last week when with barely 2 minutes left and leading by four points against Oregon, the Bears had a fourth-and-five play at the Ducks’ 25-yard line. Given the chance to try a 42-yard field goal that could have pushed the lead to seven points, Wilcox opted to go for it on fourth down.

He said this week that the decision to pass rather than kick came down to a number of factors, including his confidence in both the offense to convert the fourth down and the defense to stop the Ducks when they got the ball back.

Wilcox talks in the video below about the analytics the Bears use to help guide them on decision-making:

“Dario’s continued to improve. He’s got a real strong leg,” Wilcox said. “There’s things we have tweaked — personnel and launch points — things that we think give us a better opportunity to be successful.

“I’m not concerned with Dario’s mental makeup at all. He’s a tough guy and I think he wants a chance to go out there and make it.”

Wilcox talks at length in the video at the top of this story about the Bears’ placekicking progress and Longhetto’s mindset.

Wilcox sees improved consistency in Longhetto and acknowledges that getting lift on his kicks is something the Bears have worked on since the Big Game fiasco.

Wilcox said along with other tweaks, the Bears have adjusted the launch point on field goals the past two weeks.

In the video below he explains how that works:

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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