In Reply to: Rewatch part 2 posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on September 11, 2026 at 09:15:27
I wonder if that's why Leland Smith doesn't play, because he doesn't want to block. He was one of the transfers I was most looking forward to seeing. In contrast, Shane Rosenthal plays a lot because he's willing to block.
Of the backs, I think Chesney prefers Woods and Knight over Thomas because the former two are hard to tackle, whereas Thomas is fast but goes down much easier. There were two runs where if he'd gotten past his tackler he may well have scored. I think Chensey talked this week about not letting one guy tackle you.
The OL guys in the middle are very physical, almost bully-like. I think Chris Smith is going to be a great developer of OL for us.
Omosigho was everywhere, and I was impressed at how they moved him around and made him a pass rusher off the edge. He looked like a natural doing that, and even forced a fumble from JKS.
Last year Nico did a lot of his best work scrambling, but this year it seems pretty clear they don't want him taking off too often. I wish he would throw the ball away more, but he holds onto it to the last second, often taking a hit and/or throwing under duress. For example, on that INT in the first half the right move was to just throw the ball away. I think Chesney said as much this week.
Throw it away and you still have a makeable 3rd down, with 3 points pretty much in the bank. Instead, cal turned it into 7 points the other way. If we get a bigger lead right then, I think the whole second half looks like what the 4th quarter looked like for cal's offense, with JKS running a lot and taking hits.