The similarities between two defeats at the hands of Mountain West Conference teams were eerie: Cal trailed by almost identical scores in the third quarter (21-7 vs. Utah, 20-7 vs. CSU), the Bears rallied to take a slim fourth-quarter lead (24-21 vs. Utah, 21-20 vs. CSU), the defense surrendered the decisive score with under two minutes remaining (1:06 vs. Utah, 1:57 vs. CSU), and the offense's last-gasp drive ended in a turnover (fumble at 0:47 vs. Utah, interception at 1:50 vs. CSU). In both games, the teams were evenly matched on paper, with Utah being a 2-point favorite over Cal and Cal being a 3-point favorite over CSU, likely due to home-field advantage in each case. And though both contests went down to the wire, the Utes were able to protect their turf while we were not.
Like last week, Cal committed a series of miscues that led to our defeat. Unlike last week's unguarded CSU TE converting a critical fourth-down-and-3 situation, however, there was no single dramatic point of failure without which we likely would have won. Against Utah, we sprinkled mistakes throughout the game: 1) a fumble at our 19 that led to a short Ute TD drive; 2) a punting-team breakdown at our 27 that led to another short Ute TD drive; 3) a fumble at the UT 29 that squelched a foray into UT territory and resulted in another Ute TD off a turnover; 4) two missed field goals by beleaguered placekicker Tyler Fredrickson; 5) a fumble that ended our comeback attempt; and 6) the defense's general inability to make a stop during crunch time. While nobody expects perfection, the Bears are simply not talented enough to win against quality opponents without better execution, and right now we are not getting it.
The Bears fell behind out the gate with mistakes keying the Utah scoring. The Utes drove to the Cal 17 on their first possession only to see the drive end when safety Matt Giordano recovered a fumble by RB Brandon Warfield, who entered the game as the fourth leading rusher in the nation. Robertson gave the ball right back, though, when a defender bumped his elbow as he stepped up in the pocket, the ball came loose, and Utah recovered the fumble at the Cal 19. Three Warfield rushes resulted in a touchdown, and the Utes drew first blood with 8:29 remaining in Q1.
Our next possession also ended badly, with a special-teams breakdown leading to a punting disaster. An unblocked Ute rushed Fredrickson, who had no chance to get the kick off. Fredrickson ate the ball and was tackled at the Cal 27 for what showed up in the box score as a 9-yard rushing loss. Utah then took a cue from the Colorado State game film and ran the QB draw play, which we never did stop; QB Alex Smith ran 19 yards to our 5, and Warfield punched the ball in on a sweep. With 4:05 left, the Utes took a 14-0 lead.
At that point, we had only 9 yards of total offense to show for our first three possessions. Coach Tedford had seen enough and inserted Rodgers, a move to which the offense immediately responded. RB Adimchinobe Echemandu broke free on a 23-yard run, followed by 17- and 15-yard passes to WR Geoff McArthur (who had another huge day with 8 receptions for 129 yards and 2 TDs). The drive stalled at the UT 15 when a misdirection pass to seemingly open TE Garrett Cross was too low and fell incomplete. The Bears settled for a 32-yard FG attempt, but Fredrickson's kick bounced off the left crossbar, and Cal came away empty-handed after a 65-yard drive.
The Bears next possession started with good field position at the 45 after a 15-yard punt return by Tim Mixon. A 23-yard pass to WR Burt Toler moved Cal near the red zone, and Rodgers followed with a perfect 21-yard TD pass to McArthur. Just over three minutes into the second quarter, the Bears trailed 14-7.
The teams then traded fumbles. At the end of a reception by Paris Warren, the Utah WR was lying on his back on top of a pile of players and he stretched out with the football to try to gain an extra yard. DL Lorenzo Alexander knocked the ball loose, and Mixon recovered. The Bears drove to the UT 29 before RB Marcus O'Keith coughed up the football and the Utes returned the fumble 10 yards. From the 39, Utah drove 61 yards and scored on a 1-yard TD plunge by Smith. The drive included a gutsy call by the Utes, who converted a fourth and 1 from midfield on a Smith QB sneak. With the second quarter winding down, Utah restored the lead to two touchdowns.
Cal had 1:28 with which to work before halftime. We needed 1:29. A 32-yard reception by Toler put us in theoretical field-goal range at the UT 35, and we sputtered a bit. With 8 seconds remaining in the half, Rodgers completed a short pass to RB J.J. Arrington, who could not get out of bounds and was tackled at the UT 25. Cal players frantically signaled for a timeout but the refs did not award us one in time, and the half expired. ESPN showed a slow-motion replay that signified the Bears should have had less than one second left to attempt a field goal or take a shot at the end zone, but there is no instant replay in college football. Given our kicking game's struggles, a 42-yarder would not have been automatic by any means.
Utah punted to start the second half, and the Bears began their comeback. A 15-play, 74-yard drive culminated in a 21-yard Fredrickson field goal to pull Cal within 21-10. The featured plays were a 27-yard Rodgers-to-McArthur pass over the middle, a 6-yard run by Echemandu on fourth and 2 at the UT 43, and a 1-yard run by Arrington on third and 1 at the UT 28.
Back-to-back botched Utah punts soon enabled Cal to take the lead. First, Matt Kovacevich shanked a 19-yarder that gave the Bears the ball at the UT 28, and Cal capitalized on a 1-yard TD plunge by Echemandu. We tried for a 2-point conversion to get within a field goal but Rodgers's pass to Vincent Strang fell incomplete. Then, another terrible Kovacevich effort, this one for 24 yards, put Cal at the UT 34, and Rodgers quickly hit McArthur on a 21-yard scoring strike. This time, the 2-point conversion pass to Strang succeeded after Rodgers bought time by scrambling until Cal's smurf WR got open. The Bears had reeled off 17 straight points for a 24-21 lead with 1:28 remaining in the third quarter.
With the offense's rejuvenation under Rodgers, and the defense's recovery from a shaky first half (which admittedly was not helped by the fumble and punt miscues giving the Utes short fields with which to work), Cal looked to be well positioned to pull off the road upset. However, the first sign of trouble occurred when the TV cameras caught a Bear holding up four fingers on the sidelines in Mariucci's old "The Fourth Quarter is Ours" sign. Older Cal fans know that the display of that gesture was usually followed by a Bear Q4 collapse, and once again, it happened.
Utah answered Cal's go-ahead score with a painful 16-play, 6 ½-minute drive that culminated in a tying field goal. The Bear defense had several chances to stop the bleeding but could not, as Utah converted a third and 7 with an 11-yard pass over the middle, a third and 10 with another 11-yard pass over the middle, and a fourth and 1 with a 2-yard Smith sneak. In addition, CB Harrison Smith cut in front of a Ute wideout and had a good shot at an interception inside the Cal 30, but he dropped the ball. On the next play, a 29-yard run by Paris Warren put the Utes in field-goal range at the Cal 15. The Bear defense held from there, and Utah knotted the score at 24 on a 35-yard Bryan Borreson field goal with nine minutes left.
Cal received a break when the ensuing kickoff sailed out of bounds; every other kickoff went into the end zone, perhaps due to the altitude, and that possession was the only one where we started with better field position than the 20. Toler made a nice leaping catch along the sidelines for a 20-yard gain that took us to the UT 41, but we could only advance to the 37 before facing fourth and 6. Expecting a punt, we were surprised when Fredrickson lined up for a 54-yard FG attempt. His kick had plenty of distance but sailed wide left.
Then came the frustrating decisive drive in which seemingly every Utah play picked up a chunk of yardage. Sensing that the defense was tired, the Utes played smashmouth football and kept the ball mostly on the ground. Despite the fact that he had rushed for two TDs, Warfield had been generally held in check by the Cal defense, as manifested by his 2.1-yard average with 23 carries for 48 yards. But during crunch time, Warfield would not be denied. On the final drive, the Utah RB rushed 7 times for 46 yards and capped the 63-yard drive with a 14-yard TD run on an option pitch. Cal trailed, 31-24, with 1:06 remaining.
When Warfield scored the go-ahead touchdown, I thought it may not have been the worst thing in the world. Utah was already within easy field-goal range, we only had one timeout left, and a few more offensive plays would have run out substantially all of the remaining time. At least we had a minute, and Rodgers had been moving the team very well. But unfortunately, he ran out of gas. Rodgers could only muster a 3-yard scramble on first down before getting sacked, fumbling, and turning the ball over on third down. The Utes ran out the last 47 seconds and actually doused head coach Urban Meyer in Gatorade after the final gun.
Other than the outcome, the story of the day from the Cal perspective was the emergence of Aaron Rodgers. The sophomore QB, who did not play against Colorado State after logging garbage-time snaps in both the Kansas State and Southern Mississippi games, replaced an ineffective Reggie Robertson with four minutes left in the first quarter. Until our final desperation drive, Rodgers impressively drove the Bears into scoring position on each of his first eight possessions. Though our scoring efficiency needed improvement (see the aforementioned summary of miscues), Rodgers's statistics (15-25, 224 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, 0 sacks) and ability to move the team suggest that he may deserve the starting role. Nevertheless, Robertson's one poor quarter should not eliminate him from consideration either, since he is still having a good season overall (61% completion percentage, 669 yards, 8 TDs, 3 INTs). The good news is that either quarterback provides us with hope, a far cry from a time during the Holmoe era when our choices were a green Kyle Boller, the not-so-famous Samuel Clemons, and walk-on Wesley Dalton.
On the Utah side, backup QB Smith, a replacement for injured starter Brent Elliott, performed very admirably as well. His passing statistics (18-27, 136 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs) weren't fancy, but he effectively moved the team with his arm and feet (12 rushes, 71 yards, 1 TD, 0 sacks). If Elliott beat out this guy in practice, he must be quite a quarterback in his own right.
I had circled the Utah game as one I felt we needed to win if we were to go bowling this season. Lindy's picked the Utes to finish seventh in the MWC, and Utah was one of only two 2003 opponents that the magazine rated lower than us nationally (Cal #66, Arizona #70, Utah #76). I began to worry when I read that the Utes came within a failed two-point conversion of taking Texas A&M to overtime at College Station last Saturday. Then, on Wednesday, a buddy who used to play on Notre Dame's offensive line warned me that Meyer (formerly the Fighting Irish receivers coach) is a very smart, intense guy who worked wonders with Bowling Green (9-3 in 2002 and 8-3 in 2001, including an aggregate 5-0 record against BCS conference teams). I still thought/hoped we would pull off the upset, partly because of Elliott's wrist injury on the last play of the game against A&M and also since Coach Tedford had the Bears playing so well on the road last season. On the latter point, though, we definitely miss our grizzled seniors who had the toughness to win close games in hostile environments.
Cal's record is now 1-3, meaning the Bears must win at least six of their remaining nine games to qualify for the postseason. With a tough game at Illinois followed by the Pac-10 slate, in which six of our eight opponents played in bowl games last season, that will be a tall order. My guess is that the football team will follow a similar track as the basketball team has under Braun since he took over in 1996-97: Ben's first senior-laden squad surprised everyone with a run to the Sweet 16, his depleted second team fell back with a losing record while the team regrouped, and the program has slowly been getting stronger since then. That is not to say that 2003 is already lost, but obviously the road to a postseason berth will be difficult, and right now it does not look favorable.
Any serious rally by the Bears must be accompanied by an improvement in the placekicking. We simply cannot afford to keep missing every field goal beyond 26 yards. The word on the street is that Fredrickson is performing very well in practice, and he definitely has the leg strength, but that is not translating into converted field goals in key situations. Lucas Everett lost the punting job after the fumbled snap/safety against Southern Mississippi, and he is an unknown quantity as a PK. Mark Jensen spoiled us the past few years, but now he has graduated, and I hope one of those two guys steps up ASAP.
We also need to start winning the turnover battle again. The 2002 ballhawking defense had 36 takeaways, vs. 18 turnovers by the offense, and the +18 margin was the third-best in the country. So far this season, we are a sub-par -2, and our record reflects that statistic. There is probably a strong correlation with our lack of pressure on opposing quarterbacks; for the second straight week, our defensive line did not record a sack (our only two last week came on blitzes by rover McCleskey). Somehow, we need to replicate the pass rush that allowed us to record 44 sacks last season despite the fact that players who accounted for 37.5 of that total have departed. That Mixon sprained his knee during the third quarter, further thinning our secondary corps, will not help matters.
Our next opponent, Illinois, is a hard team to figure. When we first played the Fighting Illini in 2000, they were ranked #19, and yet they only beat us by 2 points at home and needed miscommunication on our 2-point conversion attempt with a minute to go to avoid overtime. When we played the Illini in 2001, they were unranked, and proceeded to pummel us by 27 en route to a storybook season. I haven't paid much attention to them since then, but I do know that WR Brandon Lloyd (8 catches, 178 yards, 2 TDs in the 2001 game) left early and is now wreaking havoc on the 49ers' special teams rather than on college defensive backs. Hopefully, the telecast will be available, as it's unclear to me which ESPN channel will carry the game.
Go Bears! Beat the Illini!
Please feel free to contact me at calvinbear@yahoo.com if you have any comments.
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