Month: December 2019

Chase Garbers threw four touchdown passes and ran for another score, leading California to a 35-20 win over Illinois on Monday in the Redbox Bowl.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Chase Garbers threw four touchdown passes and ran for another score, leading California to a 35-20 win over Illinois on Monday in the Redbox Bowl.

Christopher Brown Jr. ran for 120 yards on 20 carries, and Makai Polk caught five passes for a season-high 105 yards as Cal (8-5) won its first bowl game since 2015.

Brandon Peters passed for 273 yards and one touchdown for Illinois (6-7) in his return after sitting out the regular-season finale with a concussion. Peters, who was shaken up again after diving out of bounds following a scramble late in the fourth quarter, completed 22 of 37 passes and added a team-high 68 rushing yards.

Garbers, who had been in and out of the lineup all season because of a shoulder injury, got going after being sacked on the first play from scrimmage and throwing an incomplete pass on the second. The offensive MVP of the game, Garbers completed 22 of 31 passes for 272 yards with TD passes of 4, 3, 2 and 6 yards. He also scored on quarterback sneak from the 1 early in the second quarter while helping the Bears set a season-high for scoring.

The strong showing by Garbers offset an uneven day by California’s defense.

The Bears allowed a field goal and touchdown on the Fighting Illini’s first two drives, then surrendered a late field goal before halftime.

Illinois’ offense was mostly stagnant after that, while California pulled away.

The Bears had lost three of their previous four bowl games.

California led 14-10 late in the second quarter before the two teams combined for 10 points in the final 25 seconds.

After Bears coach Justin Wilcox made the decision to go for it on a 4th-and-goal, Garbers threw a short swing pass to Brown who stiff-armed Illinois linebacker Tolson Khalan before reaching the end zone.

Peters helped the Illini answer quickly. He completed three consecutive passes for 58 yards, setting up a 30-yard field goal by James McCourt.

THE TAKEAWAY

California: The Bears put a nice ending on their roller-coaster season with their third consecutive win. Linebacker Evan Weaver was stopped short in his bid to set the NCAA single-season record for tackles, but that was one of the few things that didn’t go Cal’s way. Garbers might have needed this game as much as anybody and it bodes well for the entire offense heading into next year.

Illinois: There was never much consistency to the offense and the secondary was repeatedly beaten for big gains, a bad combination on a day when California’s quarterback had a career game. Lovie Smith acknowledged before the game that he felt the Illini were already a year ahead of schedule, so in a way, they were playing with house money. But with three consecutive losses to end the year, much of that progress will be overshadowed.

UP NEXT

California: The Bears will lose Weaver to graduation but return 18 other starters on offense and defense. They open the 2020 season against UNLV at Allegiant Stadium, the future home of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders.

Illinois: With almost the entire starting unit on both sides of the ball expected back next season, Smith’s team has high expectations heading into 2020. The Illini will host Illinois State in the season opener on Sept. 4.

The Cardinals rallied from a 14-point deficit by scoring 31 straight to beat the Bulldogs, 38-28.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Micale Cunningham threw for 279 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 81 more, and Louisville capped coach Scott Satterfield’s debut season by beating Mississippi State 38-28 Monday in the Music City Bowl.

The Cardinals (8-5) rallied from a 14-point deficit by scoring 31 straight to finish their big turnaround from 2-10 last season. Louisville also finally beat Mississippi State on the field for the first time in six tries, though the series now is tied 3-3 thanks to a pair of forfeits by the Bulldogs in the 1970s.

Mississippi State (6-7) had been trying to finish the season with a three-game winning streak for the first time since 2013 and only the third time since the end of World War II. Instead, the Bulldogs go home having lost a bowl game in each of coach Joe Moorhead’s two seasons.

The Cardinals had four sacks and recovered two fumbles, one returned 31 yards for a TD by safety Khane Pass.

Javian Hawkins led Louisville with 105 yards rushing, and he ran for a TD late. The Cardinals outgained Mississippi State 510-366.

Louisville was poised to take control on its opening drive, going from the Cardinals 3 down the field. Cunningham hit Dez Fitzpatrick on a 19-yard pass only to be stripped of the ball by linebacker Willie Gay Jr., with linebacker Tim Washington recovering for the Bulldogs just short of the end zone.

Tommy Stevens led Mississippi State on a 99-yard drive, and he put the Bulldogs up 7-0 with a 3-yard TD run. Mississippi State added an 80-yard drive and went up 14-0 on a 3-yard TD run by Nick Gibson with 10:19 left in the second quarter.

Louisville finally got on the board with a bit of trickery. Micale Cunningham lateraled left to wide receiver Tutu Atwell, who threw back across the field to a wide-open Marshon Ford, who then ran in for a 33-yard TD midway through the second. Ryan Chalifoux added a 31-yard field goal as the first half expired to pull Louisville within 14-10.

Cunningham put Louisville ahead to stay with a 24-yard TD pass to Devante Peete with 5:01 left in the third. Pass scored when he recovered the ball after Gary McCrae chopped it out of Stevens’ arms. Cunningham added an 8-yard TD pass to Ford early in the fourth for a 31-14 lead.

THE TAKEAWAYS

Mississippi State: Junior running back Kylin Hill, the Southeastern Conference’s leading rusher with 1,347 yards, stuck around for this bowl despite his plans to enter the NFL draft. Hill came in needing 45 yards to break the Bulldogs’ single-season rushing record held by Anthony Dixon, but he finished with 3 yards on seven carries.

Louisville: The Cardinals lost their starting middle linebacker Dorian Etheridge early in the second quarter. The linebacker’s left leg was under Bulldogs tight end Geor’quarius Spivey, and Etheridge tried to jerk his leg free and then kicked at Spivey trying to get free. It didn’t matter, not with an offense filled with so many playmakers. Atwell caught nine passes for 147 yards, setting the single-season record with 1,276 yards receiving.

UP NEXT

Mississippi State: Moorhead does have quarterback Garrett Shrader for next season after an upper-body injury kept the freshman out of this game.

Louisville: The future is very bright for Satterfield’s second season with much of his starting offense back led by Cunningham, Hawkins and Atwell.

If you were a potential NFL head coach looking for your next place of employment, how would you pick between the situations that are currently vacant?

For the third time since 2016, Giants owner John Mara has stepped to the lectern and answered questions about the future of the franchise at a major decision point.

The team’s divorce with Tom Coughlin was followed by the in-season dismissal of Ben McAdoo and long-time general manager Jerry Reese. Then came Monday, when Mara announced that he would be letting head coach Pat Shurmur go and retaining general manager Dave Gettleman.

It has been a turbulent finale to a decade that began with such promise (and a stunning victory over the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI that seemed to breathe new life into the Coughlin regime). At each turn, there seems to be a special kind of animus reserved for Mara, as if he has willed the team to this moment. On Monday especially, he continued to combat the negative effects of his notorious loyalty to the bones of the staff he inherited years ago.

But after taking a quick look around the NFL at the other job openings, it’s hard not to wonder if we’re all not suffering from a lack of perspective. Assuming that Dallas tests the coaching market, joining Washington, Carolina, the Giants and Cleveland, how many situations actually seem better than what the Giants have to offer right now?

How bad—again, in perspective—is Mara’s desire to keep the franchise somewhat tethered to its glory years compared to the pitfalls that accompany the other openings?

Here’s an unofficial ranking of the best jobs of 2019, including Dallas. We’ll update the list should any surprise vacancies surface. The goal is to explore what a coach interviewing for a job might be thinking and how they might compare one landscape to the next…

1. N.Y. Giants

A coach’s biggest issue with coming to the Giants will be working with a general manager that seems proudly dated in his thinking, who isn’t necessarily fleet of foot on draft day and who allows some aged scouting tropes to impact his decision-making in free agency.

The counter to that? The Giants have typically been a forward-thinking franchise despite the dusty perception. While Tom Coughlin had the reputation as a temperamental old boomer, the Giants were one of the first teams publicly tied with the analytics produced by Pro Fotball Focus in the early 2010s. Coughlin was one of the first coaches to test GPS monitoring at practice. The team revamped their diet, nutrition and exercise programs several times in that span. All of those people did not disappear organizationally and could potentially counterweight Gettleman’s instinctual style.

I also wonder whether a coach could make something of the roster in their first season and, given that Gettleman will soon turn 69, slowly earn a slice of the pie in terms of the roster building process. Mara said on Monday that he was open to various non-traditional power structures depending on the coach (which, again, he may have to promise at the outset anyway). Adam Schefter also reported Monday that if a new head coach was that passionate about front office changes, they don’t seem entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Here are the pros: A stable franchise with a young, ascending player at quarterback. A star at running back. A few cost-controlled assets that can produce at skill positions on offense. And … about $70 million to spend in free agency next year.

2. Carolina

The obvious detractor to taking this job is uncertainty at the quarterback position and a very, very competitive division with three other established head coaches. Will Cam Newton be back and healthy? Otherwise, Carolina returns a decent supporting cast and will have a navigable amount of cap space (while it’s in the bottom third of the league, it’s theoretically enough to chase one or two free agents that could be central to a coach’s scheme).

The benefits? A new owner who wants to empower and legitimize his first hire, which tends to lead to more patience. The Carolina market isn’t daunting for a first-time football coach and an in-house push for a more fundamental understanding and implementation of analytics will only help the kind of coach who is willing to delegate.

3. Dallas

I’m slightly less bullish on this job than others but could be talked into moving them up a spot. Here’s the fear: if Jerry Jones is this smitten with Jason Garrett, will that impact the lens with which he views his next head coach? It could go one of two ways: Either Jones’s compassion for Garrett is a draw, signaling that the Cowboys simply treat all of their coaches this way … or it’s akin to being the dreaded rebound prospect for someone who just got out of a very serious long-term relationship.

From a roster standpoint, the Cowboys were built to win in 2019. A new head coach might find that the Ezekiel Elliott contract becomes more difficult to grapple with by the season. A resurgent Robert Quinn, Amari Cooper, Sean Lee and Byron Jones will all hit the open market and, theoretically, most of the team’s cap space will either be tied up on the franchise tag with Dak Prescott or a long-term deal to secure the quarterback.

With that in mind, there is immediate pressure on a new coach to win for an owner who will grow increasingly impatient with each season that passes.

4. Cleveland

They would be in last place in almost any other circumstance, though the one thing saving the Browns is a less-recent example of ownership meddling in draft decisions.

Cleveland has not had a coach for longer than two-and-a-half seasons since the Haslam family arrived in 2012. They have a top-heavy roster full of in-prime veterans who carry with them the expectation of winning right away (or, they’ll make it known their preference to play elsewhere). The offensive line needs serious repair. The success or failure of the franchise quarterback going into his pivotal third year will have a serious impact on job security.

I’ll be careful here not to label Baker Mayfield, Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry with a broad brush, but this is a nucleolus of extremely talented people who will require someone with cachet and the ability to have immediate success. Someone who can get them the ball. Someone who can wrangle them during difficult times in a way that Tom Coughlin, Adam Gase, Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Hue Jackson were not in the past.

There have also been reported instances of opinion clashes between the team’s director of strategy and director of personnel as to the direction of the franchise. The job will be unattractive until someone makes it as much, which could be a draw for a big-name head coach with Super Bowl credentials who believes they can spearhead a legendary turnaround.

5. Washington

While all indications are that Daniel Snyder is doing the right things this time around, there is no track record of sustained harmony that he can point to. He was reportedly involved in the drafting of Dwayne Haskins. He recently told him not to play after an injury. Any candidate is going to need to possess a certain amount of trust that Snyder will ultimately recede into the owner’s box and let he or she run the team as they see fit.

But again, there is really no sustained track record of this.

Question or comment? Email us at talkback@themmqb.com.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, son Stephen Jones, the team’s executive vice president, and coach Jason Garrett will meet again Tuesday to discuss Garrett’s future, a source confirmed to ESPN. The Dallas Morning News first reported Tuesday’s meeting.

J.K. Dobbins announced Monday that he’s entering the NFL draft. Dobbins leaves Ohio State after setting the school record for rushing yards in a season with 2,003.

One day after Jameis Winston became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for at least 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions in a season, Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians said little to inspire confidence that Winston will be back next year.