Film Friday: Cam Ward vs. Cal

If you start poking around the draft community, asking for the best Cam Ward game to watch to get an adequate taste of the true Cam Ward experience, one of the more prominent answers is “the Cal game.” It’s odd how differently draft nerds can view the same game - I fear I might’ve been too critical of it, looking at it as “they should’ve lost that game and were lucky to win it.” The flip side of that is “Cam Ward put on his Superman cape and willed the team to victory.” I don’t know how you guys felt about that game, or will feel about it if you get the chance to go back and watch it, but it’s an interesting observation nonetheless. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder come draft season.

I knew Cal was a better team than their record would indicate. I knew Justin Wilcox had that program competing in the ACC. But, I don’t think I truly understood how good that defense was until I started doing my 2025 NFL Draft prep. I mean, they had four guys that ended up getting drafted - Teddye Buchanan, Marcus Harris, Nohl Williams, and Craig Woodson. They play a similar brand of defense to what the Titans seem to want to do when healthy. They keep you guessing who’s rushing vs. who’s dropping. They overload gaps with stunts and a linebacker trailing the movement to pulverize a gap and pressure the quarterback. It’s interior pressure. It’s man coverage with zone sprinkled in on the back end of a pass rush that freezes quarterbacks. It’s a little bit of everything - one of the more versatile defenses I watched at the college level last season.