MEMORIAL STADIUM - The Bears came into Saturday night’s nationally televised game in desperate need of a win after back-to-back losses and winless since their last game in Memorial Stadium a month ago.
A generously-estimated crowd of 34,601 saw the Bears sleepwalk through a first half where they only managed a handful of first downs and no points before seeing their second half rally fall short in a 28-21 loss to 6-2/3-2 Washington.
Following their worst offensive performance of the season in last week’s 20-13 overtime loss to Colorado, the Bears followed up with their worst offensive half of the season, generating just 83 yards of total offense at the break, with just 5 net yards on the ground and just 80 passing yards against a Husky defense averaging surrendering 258 yards per game through the air.
It could have easily been worse than the 6-0 margin that more closely resembled the score at a 7th inning stretch of a baseball game than halftime of a football game as the bend but not break Cal defense managed to hold the Huskies to just a pair of first half field goals while giving up 245 yards of total offense.
In a touch of irony, two of the Bears’ most prolific offensive players in recent history -former Cal and NFL running backs Marshawn Lynch and Justin Forsett- were inducted into Cal’s Hall of Fame at halftime, begging the question of if either retained any collegiate eligibility for the offensively-challenged Cal offense.
“I thought our players gave us everything they had,” said head coach Justin Wilcox. “In the first half, we didn’t get enough going on offense. And in the second half, we needed one more stop somewhere.
“We didn’t get it done. They’re a good team. So that’s the bottom line. I thought our guys competed really hard. We made some plays in the second half. Big catches, catch and runs. Jack stood in there under some pressure and delivered the ball.
“The story is going to be the missed opportunities on both sides of the ball.”
Perhaps inspired by the dynamic duo, the Bears’ somnambulant offense woke up to start the second half, methodically driving 75 yards in 13 plays to take a 7-6 lead on a J.Michael Sturdivant 8-yard TD reception from QB Jack Plummer. The Bears’ longest play on the drive was just 13 yards on a Mason Starling reception at the Husky 19 before Sturdivant found paydirt.
The lead didn’t last long, as the Huskies put together a quick response, driving 70 yards in 11 plays, with running back Cameron Davis strolling into the end zone untouched for the score for the 6-yard TD run. The UW successful 2-point conversion stretched the Huskies’ lead to 14-7 on a corner pass from QB Michael Penix to receiver Ja’Lynn Polk.
Penix had his usual efficient game, going 36-for-51 (71%) for 374 yards and 2 TDs with no interceptions.
The Bears came right back with a drive of their own. Six plays got the Bears to midfield when speedy receiver J.Michael Sturdivant struck again, this time taking a Plummer pass down the sideline and outrunning the Huskey D to the end zone for a 48-yard TD reception. The catch and run was of the variety the Cal offense hasn’t often displayed in recent years and a taste of what Cal fans had hoped to see much more of this season with a speedy and athletic receiving and running backs corps. The Dario Longhetto extra point knotted the score at 14 with 2:10 left in the third quarter.
Sturdivant’s pair of TDs with the Bears’ first multi-TD reception game for a Cal receiver since Kekoa Crawford’s pair vs. UC Davis in 2019. The redshirt frosh led the Bears with 8 receptions for 104 yards in the Bears’ loss. Junior JC transfer Mason Starling, who saw his first action of the season after coming back from a lower-body injury late in the Bears’ loss to Colorado last week, hauled in 4 catches for 49 yards before departing the game in the third quarter with another that had the look of another extended absence, joining starting receiver Jeremiah Hunter on the injured list again.
“We were just starting to put the pieces together in the second half,” said Sturdivant. “We got into our groove. That’s just something we have to figure out how to get into earlier in the game so we don’t have to depend on such a good second half to win a ballgame.
“You saw a glimpse of what we can do (as an offense) today. You saw what we did to Arizona a few weeks ago. We’ve just got to go back to practice and figure out how to start faster and put more points on the board.”
Plummer shook off a pair of rough outings to play a solid overall game after the slow start, completing 21-of-35 passes and 3 TDs with no interceptions despite the Bears missing starting OG Matt Cindric on a line that’s already struggled before the veteran starter went down after last week’s loss in Boulder, not to mention the 5 sacks and numerous hits he sustained.
Plummer was asked about talented young receivers J.Michael Sturdivant and Mavin Anderson after the game.
“Two very dynamic receivers,” said Plummer of the duo. “JMike, kind of his first year being in the staring role and he’s just been getting better every week and I think he’s going to be a problem for teams to match up against. He’s really quick. He’s got track speed and he can go up and get the ball.
“Mavin played really well today, too. Just a huge catch on fourth down. I still don’t know how he caught that. He’s a good player for us, too, and those guys will be key for our offense if we want to score points.”
Not to be outdone, the Huskies went on the move again, methodically driving the field in a 10-play, 75-yard drive to retake the lead, with the final blow coming on an inexplicably uncovered Jalen McMillan hauling in a 13-yard pass on a critical 3rd-and-10 play with 13:49 left in the game to go up 21-14.
The Bears weren’t able to generate anything beyond negative yardage on the next possession, giving Washington good field position after the Jamieson Sheahan punt to the Husky 33.
Washington went on the move again on the possession. Facing 3rd-and-2 on the Cal 36, Penix hit a poorly-covered running back Richard Newton, with linebacker Muelu Iosefa badly whiffing on the tackle attempt as Newton shook on the Cal LB for the 36-yard TD to push the Husky lead to a dangerous 14 points at 28-14 with 10:19 left in the game.
The Bears weren’t ready to roll over quite yet, going on a methodical 12-play, 80-yard drive, keyed by redshirt frosh receiver Mavin Anderson, who hauled in a 35-yard reception to the UW 35 and an acrobatic 8-yard TD grab with 6:11 left in the game to narrow the deficit to 7 after the PAT.
The Bears’ defense twice held the potent Husky offense off the scoreboard in their next two possessions but ran out of steam on the offensive end as time ran out on the Bears’ comeback attempt.
“The defense is really grinding and battling and holding a team who averaged 42 points a game to 28, 6 in the first half,” Plummer said. “Gotta give credit to them. We as an offense, starting with myself, we gotta pick it up for them because they’re keeping us in the games and we’ve gotta close it out on our side of the ball.”
MLB Jackson Sirmon again led the Bears with 11 tackles in the loss. Safety Daniel Scott had 8 tackles and a pass breakup to lead the secondary.
The loss drops the Bears to 3-4/1-3 on the season. The schedule doesn’t get any easier as the 1st place Oregon Ducks come to town for next Saturday’s 12;30 showdown.
A CEO once told me, "You always know the right thing to do…And you almost always wait too long to do it."
I really like Wilcox. I wish he was much more decisive and tough minded. He has to change if he is to be a successful HC, IMO. Musgrave's failings must have been obvious to Wilcox last season. By waiting for a "Musgrave miracle," the entire program is in a tough place.
I really like Wilcox. I wish he was much more decisive and tough minded. He has to change if he is to be a successful HC, IMO. Musgrave's failings must have been obvious to Wilcox last season. By waiting for a "Musgrave miracle," the entire program is in a tough place.
Fixing the OL is not going to be quick, but with the transfer portal anything is possible, not sure if Wilcox is a guy who can pull that off.
A CEO once told me, "You always know the right thing to do…And you almost always wait too long to do it."
I really like Wilcox. I wish he was much more decisive and tough minded. He has to change if he is to be a successful HC, IMO. Musgrave's failings must have been obvious to Wilcox last season. By waiting for a "Musgrave miracle," the entire program is in a tough place.
Musgrave was awful the year before too. I know "he didn't have time to install his offense" but even within that context, his poor use of personnel and predictable playcalling put our offense at the bottom of the nation. COVID doesn't stop you from reviewing film of the players and finding their strengths. His forcing Garbers to be a deep drop back passer made zero sense given our issues with pass protection. It was actually a mercy that the season got cut short or Wilcox's record would be even worse than it is. That a year later Musgrave came back and do the same with Garbers was infuriating. And all our new 4 star talent? Don't play them. We went 1-8 against FBS competition in Musgrave's first 9 games. 1-8. He proved his was a dolt. Why he was brought back for a third year is insane. We may finally let him go but not until risking losing the talent that we have.
A CEO once told me, "You always know the right thing to do…And you almost always wait too long to do it."
I really like Wilcox. I wish he was much more decisive and tough minded. He has to change if he is to be a successful HC, IMO. Musgrave's failings must have been obvious to Wilcox last season. By waiting for a "Musgrave miracle," the entire program is in a tough place.
Musgrave was awful the year before too. I know "he didn't have time to install his offense" but even within that context, his poor use of personnel and predictable playcalling put our offense at the bottom of the nation. COVID doesn't stop you from reviewing film of the players and finding their strengths. His forcing Garbers to be a deep drop back passer made zero sense given our issues with pass protection. It was actually a mercy that the season got cut short or Wilcox's record would be even worse than it is. That a year later Musgrave came back and do the same with Garbers was infuriating. And all our new 4 star talent? Don't play them. We went 1-8 against FBS competition in Musgrave's first 9 games. 1-8. He proved his was a dolt. Why he was brought back for a third year is insane. We may finally let him go but not until risking losing the talent that we have.
Well stated. I believe Wilcox is sincere when he says he takes responsibility. I also believe he truly cares and wants to win. The issue is whether he has the ability to figure out what is wrong and take the steps necessary to correct the problem. He stayed with Baldwin too long and has repeated that error with Musgave and McClure. Even if he takes decisive action the day after the season ends (with what is likely to be a bloodbath the day after Thanksgiving) the problem is that he waited years to do it. How can an experienced defensive coordinator not see the obvious weaknesses and flaws in our own offense?
Fire Knowlton!
Fire Fox!
Put Wilcox in a hot seat!
I don't get this Wilcox doesn't take responsibility narrative. The first thing out of his mouth yesterday was exactly that. Someone here even quoted him taking responsibility and then called him out for not taking responsibility. Like what, his quote is literally in your post?
Perhaps we should define what "taking responsibility" means?
Saying you are taking responsibility becomes the boy who cried wolf when its said after every loss and nothing changes. It's boring and it becomes meaningless and everyone gets irritated.
The problem is that the status quo isn't working and we're not seeing anything new to suggest that there's an attempt to try different things.
Besides Vatikani and Session moved to starter for Arizona and after and Coleman moved back to OG vs. UW and Greatwood brought in to help with the OL and offense last week and another offensive consultant whose ideas helped change the formations vs UW and finally started to be paying dividends on the 2nd half?
Bottom line, this season has been a major failure so far but it's hard to say he's not trying anything new and just going with the status quo.
Too little, too late. This discussion should have taken place at the end of last season, with remedies proposed then and tested in the Spring. JW is so timid, in apparently every way.
Wilcox--I don't buy the rhetoric and the image. He comes off as responsible, caring, hard working and committed. But he doesn't take responsibility for poor coaching and he is more committed to poor coaching than he is to his players. It makes me angry that I ever bought into his hypocrisy.
I completely agree with you. Wilcox has so many on this site completely bamboozled. They seem to think he is the second coming of JC. That's complete nonsense. He is a very bad head coach who doesn't really take responsibility for the many failings of his football team. He clearly can't recruit; he obviously knows very little about offense; he can't even field a top defense, in spite of his alleged expertise in this area. He just sits back and gladly accepts the gift of some $5 million annually to totally screw the players on his team and disappoint fans who are loyal to the program. After 6 years as head coach, he delivers a team that is dead last in the P-12 conference with a likely 3-9 record. The sooner he is gone, the better if our football program is to be salvaged.
The story with Musgrave was an easy one to sell. Didn't get to install his offense in 2020 due to COVID limitations. Started off 2021 horribly (in part due to poor defensive/special teams issues losing 34-32 to TCU, giving up 30 in a win over sacramento state, 31-24 OT loss to Washington with a fumble on the goal line to lose).
Other than the very first game of the year, we didn't hit "rock bottom" offensively until the Washington State game where we lost 21-6. We lost the following week 24-17 to a number 9 ranked Oregon team.
After that we proceeded to go 4-2, with one loss being down ~20 team members, while blowing out our opponents in most of the wins with final scores of:
26-3 39-25 41-11 24-14
The only really bad loss was @UCLA. There were reasons to believe Musgrave had figured it out and was making things work based on how last season ended.
It is so odd with Musgrave. He puts together an occasional quarter or game that looks great. Shakes things up, has misdirection. Vs Oregon State and Stanford last year were great examples of his offense looking actually good. Similar vs Arizona this year. We mixed in outside runs and quick passes over the middle and we had the defense on their heals, and our third quarter was amazing. I remember after the Oregon State game saying I didn't even recognize the offense, it was like it was a completely new team.
Hell, even vs Washington we had a really good 3rd quarter offensively, again passing over the middle more, running outside which ended up opening up holes inside scoring TD's on 2 of our 3 possessions in the quarter. Our OL was more effective in the second half despite no substitutions the entire game and the OL being more tired/worn out. That was a result of scheme changes made in the third quarter.
The problem is, I fully expect Musgrave to revert back to his former tendencies. He doesn't seem to stick with what works and goes back continuously, predictably, to things that don't. And now Wilcox has held on to two lame duck OC's for 3 years each, and given us zero reason to believe that he knows how to hire a good OC, or what to look for in one, or how to correct when things are going wrong.
There is a universe where he nails this next OC hire and goes on to be really good, just like there is a universe where Dykes is undefeated and ranked in the top 10. The problem is we haven't been given enough reason to believe why that will be the case.
I do fully expect that if we fire him, he will end up at another school in 5-6 years and do really well there (possibly with very different institutional support / help hiring an OC that is effective). Then we will get to enjoy threads all over the board about how Wilcox is undefeated at X school every week.
It is so odd with Musgrave. He puts together an occasional quarter or game that looks great. Shakes things up, has misdirection. Vs Oregon State and Stanford last year were great examples of his offense looking actually good. Similar vs Arizona this year. We mixed in outside runs and quick passes over the middle and we had the defense on their heals, and our third quarter was amazing. I remember after the Oregon State game saying I didn't even recognize the offense, it was like it was a completely new team.
Hell, even vs Washington we had a really good 3rd quarter offensively, again passing over the middle more, running outside which ended up opening up holes inside scoring TD's on 2 of our 3 possessions in the quarter. Our OL was more effective in the second half despite no substitutions the entire game and the OL being more tired/worn out. That was a result of scheme changes made in the third quarter.
The problem is, I fully expect Musgrave to revert back to his former tendencies. He doesn't seem to stick with what works and goes back continuously, predictably, to things that don't.
Remember the famous "two Kirks" episode in the original Star Trek? Wilcox is like the nice Kirk. And the nice Kirk had some serious deficiencies when it came to leadership. Gotta have both.
I really like Wilcox. I wish he was much more decisive and tough minded. He has to change if he is to be a successful HC, IMO. Musgrave's failings must have been obvious to Wilcox last season. By waiting for a "Musgrave miracle," the entire program is in a tough place.
Fixing the OL is not going to be quick, but with the transfer portal anything is possible, not sure if Wilcox is a guy who can pull that off.
We lost our best returning OL to the transfer portal this off-season. We need a boatload of cash to retain our top players and even more to add impact players like UCLA, USC, Oregon, Utah, and UW did.
I really like Wilcox. I wish he was much more decisive and tough minded. He has to change if he is to be a successful HC, IMO. Musgrave's failings must have been obvious to Wilcox last season. By waiting for a "Musgrave miracle," the entire program is in a tough place.
Fixing the OL is not going to be quick, but with the transfer portal anything is possible, not sure if Wilcox is a guy who can pull that off.
We lost our best returning OL to the transfer portal this off-season. We need a boatload of cash to retain our top players and even more to add impact players like UCLA, USC, Oregon, Utah, and UW did.
Mettauer wasn't graded higher than either Coleman or Cindric but he was a big loss
I really like Wilcox. I wish he was much more decisive and tough minded. He has to change if he is to be a successful HC, IMO. Musgrave's failings must have been obvious to Wilcox last season. By waiting for a "Musgrave miracle," the entire program is in a tough place.
Fixing the OL is not going to be quick, but with the transfer portal anything is possible, not sure if Wilcox is a guy who can pull that off.
We lost our best returning OL to the transfer portal this off-season. We need a boatload of cash to retain our top players and even more to add impact players like UCLA, USC, Oregon, Utah, and UW did.
Mettauer wasn't graded higher than either Coleman or Cindric but he was a big loss
Transfer portal going to hurt us more than it helps. If we can't find a way to get to decent bowl games on a consistent basis, giving talented players a chance to showcase their talents on a bigger stage, they're going elsewhere. With the immediate $$$ available to high performance players...that "40 Year Decision" I keep hearing about isn't going to resonate with highly recruited talent.
Lastly, we've become a reactive vs. proactive program. As soon as we start seeing cracks in the foundation of the of the program, we wait till the entire house comes crashing down, and even then, will look for band-aids when a tourniquet is needed.
Like I said before.....I'll still keep following CAL football, HOPING, some day that we get it right.
