The Sun Devils' offensive line, the fifth-most experienced in the NCAA with 86 combined career starts, played with an unbalanced line, overloading to the wide side of the field, while fill-in third string tailback Ryan Torain, a JuCo transfer from Shawnee Mission, Kansas, bolted through massive holes as though he were the Heisman Trophy candidate in this game.
"You have to give him credit," said head coach Jeff Tedford. "I don't know how much he weighs, but he's got to be a 235-pound back. He looked really strong out there." Strong enough to amass 24 carries for 191 yards and a touchdown.
Cal's first possession was a 3-and-out, ending with an overthrown fade pattern to Robert Jordan that might have tied the game. "That would
have been a touchdown if I'd thrown it good," quarterback Nate Longshore admitted. "Rob was wide open, I overthrew it a hair. You
miss by a little, it hurts a lot."
The Sun Devils' second drive stalled at the ASU 47, the punt carried
into the end zone, and the Bears took over at their own 20. "I
think we've started down in every game," Longshore said, "So
it was kind of like, we've got to start playing now."
And play they did. Longshore masterminded an 8-play, 80 yard drive
that only consumed 2:50 off the clock, executed with precision worthy of George
Patton. Clocking in with first downs on 5 of the first 6 plays, Longshore completed
5 straight pass attempts ending in a 9-yard TD to Justin Forsett, a play that
began with a play fake to fullback Byron Storer and ended with Storer holding
a down field block to allow the score.
The onslaught had quietly begun, even though none in the crowd of 58,024 had
a clue at the time.
Cal's defense does not usually gamble early in games, but it quickly
became clear they needed to bring pressure to Carpenter. "They just started
blitzing us a lot more," said ASU coach Dirk Koetter. "In the first
half, on something like 22 or 24 first-down plays, they ended up bringing the
pressure on half of them."
ASU's next possession included a big play on second-and-long, and then
Zach Follett got his motor revved. "We had a lot of stunts going
that they couldn't block, and if I just went hard, I was going to get
to the quarterback," Follett said. Follett pressured heavily on
a second down play. "I got too excited and left my feet too early," he
said, "and then on the very next play I went back in. They sent
me again so I could redeem myself." Well, yes, forcing a fumble
is certainly redemptive, even more so when it's recovered by teammate
Desmond Bishop.
The proper move after a big turnover is to strike hard before the defense
can regroup. Longshore and offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar did exactly that,
completing the 12 second drive with a first-down 31-yard TD to Lavelle Hawkins,
who exhibited outstanding body control to one-hand the pass along the left
sideline and stay inbounds for the score.
3-and-out for Carpenter and his Sun Devils, and Jonathan Johnson punted to
DeSean Jackson at the Cal 20.
Last week, Tedford said that he's been anticipating that Jackson was
going to break one "pretty soon." Jackson took the punt,
and with his first step into the hole towards his right, it was clear that
the only person who was going to stop him was DeSean Jackson. He was
clear of the pack within 15 yards. "He's an explosive guy," Tedford
said of Jackson. "On that punt return, when he hit the crease, you've
just got to hold your breath, he flies down the field, it gets you fired up
to see him hit the crease. You look back to see how many guys are back
there, because if it's only one, he's probably going the distance." He
did.
A stunned Sun Devil squad had seen Cal put 21 points on the board in under
5 minutes.
The Golden Bears weren't done yet.
Two incomplete passes led to another 3-and-out for the Bear defense. This
time, Johnson punted out of bounds, probably because the sideline never runs
it back 80 yards.
Faced with 75 yards between his team and pay dirt, Longshore got the ball
into Jackson's hands again over the middle, and the blazing wide receiver
bolted 52 yards, most of it after the catch. When tailback Marshawn Lynch
rushed for no gain, Longshore got him the ball in space, behind linebacker
Robert James' coverage down the right sideline. Knock knock knockin' on
touchdown's door once again, Lynch romped 23 yards for the knockout blow.
The Bears had put 28 points on the board in just over 6 minutes.
At this point, things became a bit desperate for coach Koetter's squad. "There
was a lot of speed on the field," Tedford said. "Big plays make
a football game," ASU cornerback Keno Walter-White said. And a
big play is what Daymeion Hughes turned in. After star tight end Zach Miller dropped a first down pass over the middle, Carpenter went to him again
down the right sideline. Hughes read the play all the way, broke on
the ball as soon as Carpenter released it, and picked Miller's pocket,
returning the interception to the ASU 26.
Longshore milked the clock on this drive, taking 1:55 to gobble the 26 yards,
finishing the 4-play drive with a fade to Jackson in the right end zone. 35-7,
and no mercy for the Devils.
ASU, still game, then put together a 13-play, 74-yard touchdown drive with
Torain packing the mail for 31 yards and also recovering a Carpenter fumble
forced by a Nu'u Tafisi sack. The scoreboard read 35-14. The
Sun Devils would never get closer.
With 1:31 left in the half, Longshore handed off to Lynch at Cal's 25
to run out the clock, but Lynch popped free into the secondary and was pushed
out of bounds 40 yards later. Longshore's slant pass to tight
end Craig Stevens was fumbled.
With 49 ticks left on the clock, ASU decided to try to close the gap a little. A
17-yard draw play gave Carpenter false confidence. He threw on first down from
his own 43, and Hughes reinforced his earlier lesson to Carpenter when he hurdled
over the prone quarterback at the ASU 30 and romped 47 yards for a touchdown,
the fourth of his career. The halftime score was 42-14.
You would not have guessed that score if you looked at the stats, though.
ASU held a 15-11 edge in first downs, a 150-to-68 yard rushing advantage,
and an overwhelming 11:38 gap in time of possession. But yardage was
nearly even, 252 to 266 in Cal's favor. The big key there: it had
taken the Sun Devils 52 plays to rack up their yards, while Cal piled up their
total in only 24 plays from scrimmage.
Carpenter, who entered the game #10 in QB rating with a 169.46, did a lot
of damage to those numbers in the first half, which he finished 11 of 26 for
102 yards with one TD (for his team) and two interceptions, one for a TD (for
Cal).
The second half of the game was much less explosive. "We're
still not where we need to be," Tedford said, "we need to be able
to put four quarters together, and we have not done that yet this year."
Now, that's scary.
ASU maintained a modicum of pride- they came into the game unscored
upon in the third period, and the left town with that record intact. They
also came into town leading the nation with 18 quarterback sacks. They
got to Longshore once, and he lamented even that lapse. "There shouldn't
have even been one sack, I saw the blitz, but I don't know if I got hit
more than two times in the first half. Our offensive line is 12-deep,
and I'm confident they will be solid because of the depth we have."
The game had one more moment of extreme levity- or was it levitation?
With about 8 minutes left in a 42-21 game, Cal decided to go for a fourth-and-1. The
play selected during a timeout was perfect, a play action fake to the right
that attracted 9 Sun Devils, followed by a pitch to a wide open Justin Forsett
alone on the left side of the backfield. Alas, Forsett was not able to
handle it and the ball, loose in the backfield, went over on downs.
No problem.
Mickey Pimentel paid Carpenter a little visit in the backfield on the first
ASU play. "I blitzed," the animated young linebacker said, "and
as soon as he turned toward me, my eyes got big. I just tried to deflect the
ball, but it bounced right into my hands." Pimentel "brought
it to the house", but as he prepared to cross the goal line, he went
airborne. And then landed the most non-balletic jeté in
dance history.
"I was trying to somersault, but I got scared in mid-air thinking of
Coach Gregory and Coach Tedford and how much trouble I was going to get in,
and I tried to stop," Pimentel said after the game. His coaches
and teammates gave him much grief over the play, which the officials penalized
as an excessive celebration. Let's just say that Greg Louganis
has nothing to worry about- his head-splitting Olympic diving miss has
been topped.
Up next: the Oregon State Beavers, a revenge game for Cal if ever there was
one. OSU played a non-conference game Saturday, hosting a bad Idaho Vandal
team.
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