Cal can't keep composure — or the football
By Art Spander
BERKELEY — So this was the year Cal had a chance against Stanford, the year the Golden Bears had a defense and had tenacity. What they didn’t have one play into the game was their starting strong safety.
What they often didn’t have after that was discipline. Or, more critically, the football.
The air shooshed out Saturday virtually as the balloon was inflated. All the excitement, the hopes, the possibilities, disappeared in moments.
An ejection. A rapid 10-point deficit. Dejection.
The sun came out above Memorial Stadium after a morning rain, but the day metaphorically was dreary for most of the less-than-capacity crowd of 56,483.
The Cardinal was too much for Cal, maybe not as much as 2013 when the score was 67-13, the most one-sided in the history of a series that now has reached 117 games, but plenty nevertheless.
The final this time was 38-17, and the way the Golden Bears played defense, made penalties and threw interceptions, you never felt Cal had a chance. Both teams entered with 5-5 records, but there was no question one was superior.
“Frustrating” was the primary word tossed around in the Cal post-game comments, followed by “disappointing.” No one expected the Cal people to be pleased. Yet the remarks are becoming litany, and for the faithful, the Old Blues as Cal alumni designate themselves, agony.
The game overall was a bewildering mix of mistakes and official video reviews. In the third quarter alone, Cal had three touchdowns overruled on three consecutive plays. But good teams overcome all that incidental stuff. Bad teams don’t.
Was it a shock that on the first play from scrimmage Cal strong safety Michael Lowe was penalized and ejected for what the official believed was “targeting,” driving his helmet into Stanford tight end Austin Hooper? Of course.
“In 20 years,” said Cal coach Sonny Dykes, “I have never seen something like that happen the first play of the game. I wish that something like that wouldn’t affect us as much as it did. It affected me, and I think it affected our players.”
Which tells you perhaps as much you need to know about Cal. It is an improving team but also a fragile team, working its way back from a 1-11 record in Dykes’ first season. One blow knocked it off kilter.
Not that Stanford’s defense and a Cal offense, which lost four turnovers — against a team that only had nine takeaways all season — weren’t major factors.
“They are a physical team,” Dykes, painfully honest about his program and other programs, said about Stanford. “And they laid some pretty good hits on us. They did a nice job tipping a couple of passes, and you have to give them credit for that. We have to make sure we move the pocket and make space.
Starting quarterback Jared Goff threw a couple of those, which were tipped and picked. His alternate Luke Rubenzer also threw two interceptions. Running back Daniel Lasco fumbled near the goal line, Stanford recovering. And there you have part of the tale of self-destruction.
“Our kids really wanted to play well,” said Dykes. “We really wanted to play well as a coaching staff. Our fans wanted us to play well. We didn’t make a very good showing today, and I am really disappointed about that.”
Goff, the sophomore, broke his own single-season record for passing yards. He had 182 Saturday on a so-so 16-for-31 completion mark and now has totaled 3,580 for the season with a game left to play against Brigham Young.
“They’re playing Savannah State,” quipped Dykes. “Probably winning 120-0, getting their confidence.” (It was only 64-0, but his point was understood. BYU gets a lot of points. And the Bears give up a lot of points.)
Goff, said Dykes, didn’t have one of his better games. “When you face a good defense,” reminded Dykes, “you have a small margin for error. Five turnovers are pretty significant errors.”
And 113 yards in penalties (Stanford had 21) are no less significant.
“I am disappointed in the way we played,” said Dykes. “I anticipated us playing better football. It was a bit of a strange football game, and it certainly didn’t start the way we wanted it to start.”
It didn’t end the way they wanted either. Stanford has won the last five years, half a decade. Somehow, Cal has to find a way to keep the other team out of the end zone — Stanford’s Remound Wright tied a Big Game record with five touchdowns — and, no less importantly, find a way to keep its composure.