Cal Offense AWOL in Loss to Cougars

Its offense in disarray for much of the afternoon, Cal lost a game it couldn’t afford to on Saturday, falling to Washington State, 21-6.

The Bears (1-4, 0-2 Pac-12) face an uphill climb to respectability in 2021, let alone any bowl game. 

With road trips to Oregon, Stanford and UCLA along with home games against USC and revitalized Oregon State remaining on the schedule, finding five wins is extremely difficult.

Even one more win will be impossible if the Bears don’t get things figured out, particularly on offense. After scoring a TD on its first drive, Cal was stuck in neutral much of the rest of the afternoon. Even when they did manage to gain some yardage late in the second half, the Bears stalled out in Cougars territory. They turned the ball over on downs at the WSU 28 and at the 8 on their best drives of the half.

“It didn’t look good, we didn’t have any consistency throughout the game, running the ball, blocking the pass rush, throwing it.” head coach Justin Wilcox said afterward. “We expected to play much better than that.”

The crowd of 40,286 had little cause to cheer the home team, and many of them didn’t stick around until the bitter end. By late in the third quarter, the number of students lingering in teh rooting section probably would not fill Wheeler Auditorium.

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Garbers under duress 

And who could blame anyone for an early exit? You want dismal stats, the Bears have a bundle. How about 14 completions in 30 attempts for 151 yards, no touchdowns and an interception? That was Chase Garbers passing line. He was under considerable pressure and sacked four times for 29 yards.  The Bears were three for 15 on third downs, and one for five on fourth. That is not going to get it done.

“They gave us some different looks,” center Matthew Cindric said. “ We’ve just got to do a better job with our techniques and picking it up. They brought a lot of pressure, but we’ve got to a better job picking things up as an offensive line.”

On defense, the Bears leaked two first-quarter touchdowns and that was more than enough for WSU to prevail. With the help of a pair of interceptions, including Daniel Scott’s third of the year, Cal kept WSU off the scoreboard again until late in the third period. But the damage was done.

The Bears wound up with just 273 total offensive yards, considerably below their season average. 

WSU quarterback Jayden de Laura completed 25-of-42 for 219 yards.

The way the Cougars started it was obvious they did not get the memo that the Cal pass defense had improved. De Lauara found receivers that the Bears defense had lost and completed five passes, the last to Jackson for 22 yards and the touchdown.

The Bears offense clicked initially, and Garbers drove his team 75 yards in seven plays for a touchdown. The biggest of the plays was Garbers’ 44-yard pass to Kekoa Crawford, who was well-covered and made an outstanding catch along the sidelines.

Christopher Brooks carried for the final nine yards, bouncing off numerous tacklers until he got into the end zone.

However, in what has become an ongoing problem, the Bears made a mess of the PAT. Holder Jamieson Sheahan couldn’t handle the low snap from Slater Jenkins. The ball went through his hands and all he could do was chase it down and fall on it.

“The guys that are involved in that play have been consistent for quite a long time,” Wilcox said. “Obviously they are struggling right now., We have to help those guys with repetition and just playing calm, doing what they’ve always done. Sometimes you can get in a spot when you are thinking too much.”

The second Cougar TD drive required a bit of luck, good for WSU, bad for Cal.

The Bears had forced a punt and when WSU punter Nick Haberer, an Australian who was playing in just his fifth game of American footbal,  took his sweet time getting the kick off, Cal’s Nick Alftin was there to block it. However, he was the only Bear in the vicinity and could not locate the ball. Washington State’s Ron Stone picked it up and advanced it 7 yards and the Cougs had a first down.

From there De Lauren marched his team to the Bears’ 5. From there he hit  Jackson in the corner of the end zone. The Cal withstood a replay review and after the PAT the Cougars led 14-6.

After using Damien Moore almost exclusively to carry the ball last week. the Bears spread trhe carries around on Saturday. Chris Street, who had barely touched the ball (one carry) coming in, led the Bears with 51 yards on eight tries. Brooks also had eight carries good for 40 yards.

Overall this one will go down as one of the worst of the Wilcox era, and he is willing to take the blame.

“Too many negative plays throughout the day,” Wilcox said “We didn’t really do much of anything all that well. That is on me. My job is to help our team..prepare our team to be successful and I failed. “

The Bears have a bye next week and travel to Oregon for a Friday night game Oct. 15.

“We are still confident, first and foremost,” Scott said. “We’re 1 and 4, that’s what the numbers say, but we still have to put our good faith out, We still have to show the type of energy that Cal, .. the standard we play at every week. Not look at the record now, that's behind us. It’s in the past. We’ve just got to keep improving.

“I think we practice well, we practice much better than we played. I didn’t see that coming at all.