With the win, 12th-ranked California's record improved to 5-0 (2-0 in Pac-10 play), and
with losses to Florida and Michigan State this past Saturday, could find itself in the top
10 going into next Saturday's game against UCLA.
"The defense did great," said head coach Jeff Tedford of a defense that limited Arizona to 206 yards and held Arizona quarterback Richard Kovalcheck to 19-of-36 passing for 169 yards to go with three interceptions. "It's been 10
quarters since they've given up an offensive touchdown. We had a great pass rush tonight.
I don't think we had that many sacks, but we really hurried him. Overall I'm very, very
happy."
While Arizona's offense rarely threatened the Cal defense, preserving the shutout
helped energize the defense to the end of the game.
"That's the benefit of playing hard every down," said cornerback Donte Hughes. "We were able to get the shutout. Now that we're getting into the conference
play we're going to have to step it up."
"We've got a lot of young guys," said cornerback Tim Mixon, who had one of
his finest games as a Bear. Strong on coverage, he had one interception and with a little
bit better luck could have had two or three more. "They're getting a lot of
experience. Put that together with the veterans we have and games like this are making us
better."
Tedford was very happy with Mixon's performance on Saturday.
"Timmy was everywhere," said Tedford. "Not just his special teams plays,
he had an interception, he deflected a lot of balls and on the one play they called pass
interference, I thought that was a great play."
Saturday's game marked the return of tailback Marshawn Lynch to the starting lineup.
Although he did lose a fumble, Lynch otherwise showed that he's still the same ol'
Marshawn, with 20 carries for 107 yards and one touchdown, he's still as hard to
bring down as usual, and he's still capable throwing in a couple of Tivo moments along the
way. Although now in a reserve role, Justin Forsett still saw plenty of playing time and
was a factor, running 13 times for 74 yards.
The Bears opened the scoring in the first quarter after a 27-yard punt return by Mixon
put the ball on the Arizona 45-yard line. Following a series of Lynch runs and a key
3rd-and-3 completion from Ayoob to Craig Stevens for 7 yards, Lynch scored from
one-yard out to give Cal a 7-0 lead.
Later in the first half, the Bears took a 14-0 lead after deciding to go for it on
4th-and-goal from the Arizona 1-yard-line.
From a two-back set, Cal sent Chris Manderino in motion wide to the left, taking a
defender with him. Quarterback Joe Ayoob ran the option play to the left side with Lynch
acting as the trailing back. With the Arizona defense uncertain about which player
to commit to, Ayoob ducked inside a defender for an easy score.
With Arizona's anemic offense, there was a prevailing sense that with Cal up 14-0 that
the game was almost out of reach. The Wildcats rarely sustained any sort o offensive
attack in the first half. Four of their first possessions where three-and-outs, and the
fifth ended up in an interception by Tim Mixon. Although Arizona took the second half
kickoff and drove to the Cal 30, Kovalcheck, after being flushed from the pocket, attempted
to force a pass to Syndric Steptoe.
Hughes ran in front of Steptoe for the first of his two interceptions, returning the
ball 20 yards to the Cal 38.
His returns of 20 and 21 yards gave the Bear offense shorter fields to work with, and
both subsequently resulted in Cal touchdowns. Not one of those players whose likely to
immediately go down or run out of bounds after making an interception, Hughes is averaging
37.8 yards per return on his four interceptions this year.
"After an interception, I start thinking like I'm on offense," said Hughes.
"Once I get the ball, I try to get to the outside. Once I get to the outside, I see
if I can hit the end zone."
Five plays later, Cal pushed the lead up to 21 with a 39-yard touchdown pass from Joe
Ayoob to Robert Jordan.
Ayoob initially rolled right, then chose to reverse his field. Offensive lineman
Scott Smith delivered a crunching block to a fast-pursuing Wildcat defender, giving Ayoob
a precious few seconds to make visual contact with Jordan.
"It was designed as a rollout," said Ayoob. "There was nothing there and
I felt pressure. I then saw Rob and gave him the 'go deep' sign."
This prompted one reporter to ask Ayoob what the 'go deep' sign was.
Ayoob gave a little nod of his head - something that's probaby isn't perceptible from
40 yards away even with the vision of an eagle, but the play worked.
"I was running a deep curl route," said Jordan, who finished the game with
three catches for 55 yards. "I turned around and then saw Joe scrambling, so I
started running back to make the defender think I was going short, then I took off. In
practice we always work on the scramble drill, if the play looks like it might be going
short, then I go deep."
Ayoob, who was 14-of-20 for 137 yards with two touchdowns, including a 10-yard pass to Chris Manderino for the game's final score.
Although the Bears managed just 331 yards against Arizona, both Ayoob and Tedford
credited the Wildcat defense.
"Arizona did a good job," said Ayoob. "[Tonight] wasn't as easy as the
past couple of games. Their defensive backs did a good job, but our team rose to the
occasion."
"They were stacking the box," said Tedford. "They've also got one of the
best tackling secondaries around. They've got big physical safeties. In other games we were
able to break past the safeties for big plays but we couldn't break past them today."
In shutting out the Wildcats for the second consecutive year, the Bear defense limited
Arizona's offense to just 206 yards and harassed Kovalcheck into a 19-of-36
performance for just 169 yards along with three interceptions.
Arizona chose to challenge the Bears secondary repeatedly, but cornerbacks Donte Hughes
and Tim Mixon were more than up to the challenge.
"I didn't expect them to test us," said Hughes whose two interceptions led
directly to Cal touchdowns. "I thought they'd test our run defense. For them to try
to pass actually helped us a lot."
Perhaps the biggest of the many defensive highlights was Cal's goal-line stand in the
fourth quarter when the Wildcats were unable to score after a questionable pass
interference call on Hughes gave them a 1st-and-goal from the Cal 2. A questionable .
Arizona's Gilbert Harris was tackled by Ryan Foltz for a two-yard loss, pushing Arizona
back to the four. A run by Mike Bell was stuffed at the line of scrimmage by Matthew Malele. Kovalcheck then attempted a corner pattern to Anthony Johnson, that was
sensationally deflected by Hughes, who was leaping backward and fully extended to tip away
the pass with his right arm.
With much of the Memorial Stadium throng of 55,944 exhorting the Bears for one final
play, an attempted slant pass from Kovalcheck to Johnson was broken up with the assistance
of Mixon.
"It was big that the kids didn't get deflated after that pass interference
call," said defensive coordinator Bob Gregory. "They kept playing hard and they
kept 'em out."
"The whole defense was in a zone," said Hughes. "We tried to stop
everything they were throwing at us. Everybody was flying around. To hold them on fourth
down, that's huge."
"It was a great feeling," said Mixon, who in addition to his interception,
also returned three punts for 45 yards. "We've been practicing hard all week on
tackling drills."
Late in the game the Bears offense sputtered as Ayoob was sacked four times within
seven plays; an oddity considering that Ayoob is fairly mobile for a quarterback and the
stout play of Cal's offensive line.
"There were a couple of things there that weren't line's faul and weren't the
backs' fault," said Tedford. "We're going to have to go back and look at what
happened.. They ran some blitzes and there were a couple of wrong play calls which caused
some confusion."
Generally Tedford was happy with Ayoob's play.
"To beat great teams, he's going to have to make more plays," Tedford said.
"But each week he's getting more comfortable and each week he learns something
different. I thought that play he made when he broke out of the pocket after the play
broke down was great."
One area of concern is the deep pass. The Bears have receivers fast enough to get
open downfield, but problems with timing prevented long completions.
Tedford thought that perhaps having just one field to practice on might have limited
Cal's ability to work on the long passing game.
"We're missing on long balls," Tedford said. "Because the offense can
practice on only one side of the field, we can't throw more than 45 yards. We're going to
have to find a way to turn [Ayoob] loose."
"We don't get to practice those as often," Ayoob said. "That's something
we can work on, but other than that we played well, we executed and we were able to get
the ball downfield."
Another cause for consternation was special teams play. Arizona had a 34-yard
punt return, a 30-yard kickoff return, and would have had an 85-yard punt return for a
touchdown if it weren't for a holding call.
"We're going to evaluate that unit," said Tedford, referring to both the
kicking and punting teams. "We're giving up too many yards and we have to evaluate if
he've got the right guys in the right positions."
Notes...Abu Ma'afala, Marshawn Lynch, and Tim Mixon all hobbled off
the field at one point or another on Saturday but should be fine for next week...Andrew Cameron who had to be helped off the field will be examined further on Sunday to determine
his condition...Cal's shutout of Arizona marks the first time that the Bears have shut out
an opponent in back-to-back years since they shutout Washington State in 1969 and
1970...Desmond Bishop led the team with 6 tackles, Mixon, Hughes, Mbakogu and Tafisi each
had five. Ryan Foltz had 2 1/2 tackles-for-losses, while Tafisi had two...Lynch's 100-yard
game means that Cal's streak of 100-yard rushers goes to 17...Tedford won his 30th game at
Cal. With a career record of 30-13, the only other Cal coaches to reach 30 games faster
were Pappy Waldorf (33 games) and Stub Allison (37 games).
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