Turf Wars: How Much Does the Surface Affect Cal?

Posted by: Avinash on Friday, March 28th, 2008

natefurd

I conclude this week by talking about grass. No, I’m not talking about the bums on Telegraph, although that would make for great interviewing. Is there something in the grass fields of college football stadiums that slows our players down and eventually knocks our team out?

I bring this up because Cal football is a mysterious and painful 0-6 on grass the past two years during the regular season. I repeat: WE HAVEN’T WON A SINGLE GAME ON GRASS THE PAST TWO REGULAR SEASONS. Arizona, Tennessee, USC, UCLA, ASU, Stanford. Three of these teams were good, one was so-so, the other two flat-out stunk. We’ve managed to win our last two bowl games on grass, but it was not typical Cal football in those two games–we utilized a great power run game to throttle A&M and needed a miraculous comeback speared by Kevin Riley to take down Air Force. Neither of those games was decided until the 4th quarter (and yes, Cal won the Holiday Bowl by 35). So it’s safe to say we’ve been struggling on turf.

At least we’re partly able to explain two stats that must continually bite at Coach Tedford:
Rose Bowl: 0-3
LA Memorial Coliseum: 0-3

Perhaps this LA curse now has a partial explanation. Both the Rose Bowl and Coliseum are grass surfaces.

The 2006 season looks a little disconcerting in retrospect. Cal on turf? 9-0. Cal on grass? 0-3. The terrible Oregon State loss was compounded more by the fact that we had to go to the Rose Bowl and Sun Devil Stadium and lose two more–both grass fields. The Bears this season on the natural stuff were 0-3, stagnating on offense late in each of the three games. Since Tedford arrived at Cal, in the Pac-10, here are his records on turf and grass.

2002: 6-4 on turf, 0-2 on grass
2003: 5-5 on turf, 3-1 on grass
2004: 8-0 on turf, 2-2 on grass
2005: 6-3 on turf, 2-1 on grass
2006: 9-0 on turf, 1-3 on grass
2007: 6-3 on turf, 1-3 on grass

Note that in 2003 and 2005 (offensively sluggish, defensively solid years for the Bears) were the only years Cal football teams finished with winning records.

After the jump, a possible explanation of the disparity between the two surfaces.

The Cal offenses of the earlier stage did not rely so much on their speed but instead drew on a more physical presence that battered. A turf is a fast track, and the advantage was not utilized until 2004 when faster athletes like Lynch, Arrington and McArthur carried the burden of the snaps. Our defenses were also much stronger at the beginning of the Tedford era, so they were suited for trench warfare on the grass plains.

When Cal reformed itself after Rodgers, we had one more physical year of defense before turning into the explosive speed unit that brought so much talent to the table in the Pac-10. In other words, let the defense force punts and let the offense take care of the rest. Fine strategy which has worked fairly well at home (13-2 doesn’t lie, and one of those losses was in pouring rain) and on the fast tracks of the Pac-10 (wins at Oregon, Oregon State and Wazzu the past two years, places we don’t usually win).

On grass though? The players can’t cut as well, the field is tougher, and you have to absorb hits. And to be honest, the Bears offense outside of Forsett and Hawkins was…vulnerable to hits. Lynch got hurt, Jackson and Jordan got hurt, and their lack of production was noticeable.

And I must get to Nate Longshore, because I think everyone’s been waiting for weeks and given up all hope that I’ll ever mention his name again.

Nate Longshore Field Stats Games Comp. % Yds/Game Yds/Att TD INT Record
2006 on Turf 9 62.9 252.8 8.8 21 6 9-0
2006 on Grass 4 54.2 186.5 6.3 3 7 1-3
2007 on Turf 8 62.9 223.1 6.9 11 6 6-2
2007 on Grass 4 53.6 195.3 6.2 5 7 1-3
Overall Turf Stats 17 62.9 238.8 7.8 32 12 15-2
Overall Grass Stats 8 53.9 190.9 6.3 8 14 2-6

It’s important to note that Longshore did not participate after the second quarter in Cal’s only grass win this year.

You can see that Longshore struggles on grass, whether it’s due to decreased offensive production or inability of receivers to adjust to the turf. It’s hard for me to believe that Nate changes much on grass; it seems more like a sluggish run game also cost us in these games (Forsett’s numbers are way down on grass). And while you might think a more appropriate measure is to examine home and road splits, Nate has actually performed about the same at home and on the road this year.

We’ll know pretty early how much the field surface impacts Longshore’s playing, and it’s not just the “at Arizona”, “at USC” dates in late October/early November. Because guess what type of field Maryland plays on.

(Numbers are from the otherwordly CFBStats.com)

NOTE: We’re going to try and upgrade the site again, so this weekend there’ll be no posts. I’ll be back on Monday, upgrade or no upgrade. Should be near the end of this.



Topics: Analysis, Cal Football, offense, Players

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Slims's avatar

Slims · 887 weeks ago

Very interesting. I hadn't seen this before and it explains a lot, but the question becomes - how can one coach around this? Tedford has to be able to adjust his game for this kind of problem.

A better question - what does it take to get a practice facility with real grass? Something for the players to get used to?

It boggles my mind that these players can play on grass for the entirety of their high school careers and then get worked over in college.
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Avinash · 887 weeks ago

You just have to be flexible with your personnel and have multiple options on where to go offensively.
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ass · 887 weeks ago

You have to realize that part of those numbers is that Memorial Stadium has turf. So it isn't as big of a deal as you think.
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Avinash · 887 weeks ago

It's not a huge concern, but it's something to note. Every year, we have to play at least two to three games on grass, and we've noticeably underperformed the past two years.
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HydroTech · 887 weeks ago

The numbers do suggest Cal has trouble on grass, but honestly I think it's just more coincidence that (1) Cal has dropped a few winnable games that were played on grass, and (2) we play USC on grass for away games. And as post #3 points out, Cal plays on turf twice as much as grass because of our home games. And then you have to consider that of course a team is more likely to win at home due to the home field advantage. So in reality, it really only seems fair to look at how Cal does on grass, instead of comparing how Cal does on grass versus turf. So just looking at Cal's record on grass, it's very inconclusive. Now, Avinash, you do provide great Longshore stats for grass versus turf, but I think those stats are again skewed and mere coincidence that (1) we sucked hard on grass for a few games we should have won, and (2) we play USC on grass. So while this is interesting, I personally am not ready to yet buy the argument that grass is somehow significantly affecting the Cal Football team.
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Avinash · 887 weeks ago

I disagree that playing USC on grass for away game skews the data. We also play Stanford and Arizona for away games, and their teams are near the bottom rung. Tennessee, UCLA, ASU are all around the middle.

And besides, we've also played Tennessee and USC at home as well during this stretch. These stats should be skewed two-way, cancelling out the disparities.

Perhaps a better measure would be separating road turf, road grass, and home stats. I will consider it in a future post.
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Turf Wars Part II: Bears Slowfooted on Grass | Bears Necessity

[...] Hydrotech pointed out on my first post on turf performance that looking solely at turf versus grass because we have six games at home on turf, and it’s easier to win at home than on the road. Upon further review, I completely agree. I’m guessing a Cal victory achieved at Memorial Stadium is significantly less difficult than winning at Autzen or Pullman. So I decided to appropriately separate the two. Interestingly, the turf-grass performance disparity remains highly significant. [...]

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