‘Little miscues,’ McCaffrey decide the Big Game

By Art Spander

STANFORD, Calif. — One of the stars almost certainly is done. Jared Goff has one more year of eligibility, but the thinking is he’ll leave Cal, enter the NFL draft and be selected very high and thus become very rich. The other star, Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey, is not going anywhere, except through the other team’s defense.

As Saturday night he went through the Cal defense. For 389 yards, rushing, receiving and on kickoff returns.  Dashing, rumbling, bashing, bouncing, scoring. “He’s a physical runner,” said Cal coach Sonny Dykes, in affirmation. “That’s not hard to see.”

What Dykes and everyone else at Stanford Stadium for the 118^th Big Game saw were bravura performances by Goff, the junior, who threw 54 times, completing 37 for 286 yards and two touchdowns, and McCaffrey, the sophomore, who leads the nation in all-purpose offense. What they also saw was another Stanford victory, defeating the Golden Bears, 35-22, the sixth in a row for the Cardinal in what loosely might be termed a rivalry.

“I have not seen anybody like this kid,” Stanford coach David Shaw said of McCaffrey.

It was a bit better of a game than the last few of these. Cal only trailed 21-16 with some five minutes to go in the third quarter. Still, Stanford wasn’t going to lose, not the way it was tackling, or failing to tackle, or being penalized.

Stanford (9-2) is the better team, which meant if the Bears were going to win they had to be effective and alert. Which they weren’t. “Penalties killed us,” said Dykes of drives that got to to the two and the eight and the 11 and got nothing more than field goals. And that sloppy defense was no less critical.

That’s bully-ball played by Stanford, blockers crushing defenders so the running back or the returner — McCaffrey in most of the cases — often was unhindered. That 98-yard kickoff return for a TD by McCaffrey just before halftime, and just after a Cal field goal, was perfect. If anybody touched McCaffrey it was one of his teammates in the end zone, joyfully offering congratulations.

“I thought that was a momentum-breaker,” said McCaffrey. The Bears had moved to within 14-6 and, whoosh, it was 21-6. “We tried to tackle him,” said Dykes, in his third year as Cal coach. “We got guys in position. We just couldn’t tackle.”

This was the sort of game that would confuse those obsessed with statistics. Cal had 495 yards total offense to Stanford’s 356. Cal had the ball 31 minutes, 16 seconds to Stanford’s 28:44. But Stanford kept Cal from touchdowns — more on that later — and Cal couldn’t stop Stanford.

Maybe when the ball was inside the Stanford 10, or just outside, the Bears should have gone for the end zone on fourth down. Settling for three points when you’re behind is not very advantageous.

“If we had scored on third down,” said Goff, who just missed on a couple of those chances, “we wouldn’t have to ask about going for field goals.”

Or as Dykes glumly confirmed, after Cal dropped to 6-5, “Dropped the ball the first series, missed a pass when Kenny (Lawler) was open in the end zone. Just little miscues. That was kind of the difference for us.”

Little miscues in the Big Game, which because of a TV delay — the Arkansas game preceded it on ESPN — began at 7:41 p.m. PST, the latest ever for a Cal-Stanford meeting. It ended before 11, which isn’t bad, if you’re fortunate to live in the Pacific time zone.

Not that people in New York or Philly have much interest in anything west of the Sierra Nevada, other than the Warriors.

The Cal-Stanford series has been very streaky of late. Before the current stretch of six in a row by Stanford, it was Cal taking seven out of eight.

Before they left the pre-game locker room, the Bears heard Dykes tell them, “Do whatever it takes to make tonight a special night.” What it took was the kind of sharp play, especially on defense, that Cal still seems incapable of executing.

“When you have almost 500 yards of offense against a good defense,” said Dykes, “it’s a little bit frustrating when you score 22 points and don’t win the game. But as I said, penalties really, really hurt us.”

So did Christian McCaffrey, and he’ll be back, whether Jared Goff will or not.

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.

Stanford makes points, Cal makes promises

By Art Spander

STANFORD, Calif. — The figurative laundry list for Cal was as as big as Stanford’s point total, the largest by either team in the history of the Big Game, which has been held 116 times.

The Cardinal won this one, destroyed Cal in this one, embarrassed Cal in this one, 63-13, on a sparkling Saturday afternoon in late November.

Attendance was announced as a sellout of 50,424 at Stanford Stadium, although there were plenty of empty seats, perhaps tickets held by Cal fans who couldn’t bring themselves to view a mismatch greater than anybody imagined.

Sure, Stanford, 9-2 and headed for a bowl, whether it be Rose or Fiesta or something else, was a 32½-point favorite. But the eventual spread was 50 — OMG, 50 — and the Golden Bears, after losing starting quarterback Jared Goff with a shoulder separation, couldn’t score a single point after halftime.

It was understood Cal had no defense. The Bears were last in the Pac-12 in that category and then Saturday allowed Ty Montgomery to catch five touchdown passes and Stanford to gain 603 yards.

But supposedly Cal had an offense.

That supposition was disproved, Cal gaining only 383 yards and after the opening four minutes getting only two field goals.

After Cal (1-11) finished with an 11-loss season for the first time in a football history that goes back to the 19th century — yes, teams didn’t play 11 or 12 games until the last few years — head coach Sonny Dykes took the blame and then took a stand.

“My job is to get the team ready,” said Dykes, who was hired last December from Louisiana Tech, “and I clearly didn’t do a very good job.”

Someone tried to get Dykes to allude to the many injuries to Cal players during the season. He made an acknowledgement, then took the high road.

“Yeah,” he conceded, “I can find a bunch of excuses. It is what it is. You guys can look at the depth chart. That’s up to you guys (the media) to draw your own conclusion.

“I think we got a bright future. There’s some things we got to fix. But yeah, we’re going to work tomorrow and get them fixed. Actually we’re going to go to work (Saturday) night.”

After having been worked over by a Stanford team that even with a mammoth lead in the closing two minutes was throwing, backup quarterback Evan Crower hitting Francis Owusu for 14 yards and a touchdown with 1:51 remaining.

Asked if he thought Stanford, which was running up the score, was indeed running up the score, Dykes answered, “Not at all. That’s part of football. Our job is to stop it.”

They couldn’t. They couldn’t stop anything or anyone. In any game, other than one against Portland State, which Cal won 37-30.

Cal gave up 63 points to Stanford, 62 to USC, 55 to Oregon, 52 to Ohio State. 580 points overall in 12 games. Ridiculous.

When somebody wondered what Dykes would say to Cal partisans, he responded, “I don’t have much to say. I wish it was better. It’s on me. That’s all I can say.”

Not all. Visibly dismayed, Dykes promised improvement. Everywhere.

“Blocking,” he began, then halted. “Well, no, we’re going to learn to pick up our locker room. We’re going to learn how to go to class. We’re going to fix our graduation rates.”

Cal, it was disclosed earlier this month, had the worst graduation rate for football players of any school in the Pac-12 — maybe, for the highest-ranked public university in America by several polls, a greater shame than a 1-11 season.

“We’re going to appreciate being a Cal student,” continued Dykes, “be supportive of other Cal students.

“We’re going to get faster, stronger in the weight room. We’re going to get bigger and improve our diet. We’re going to be more committed to getting sleep, rest and recovery.”  

And then the two that actually might make a difference.

“We’re going to learn to play on offense and defense.”

Dykes pointed out he had been coaching for years, been “lucky to be successful,” at every level. Until this year, until a year that terminated with a rout by Cal’s cross-bay rival.

“Never seen anything like this,” said Dykes. He was referring generally to the season, but neither Cal nor Stanford fans had seen anything like Saturday. No team in the Big Game ever had scored more than 48 points. Now one has scored 63.

“I haven’t been a part of it,” sighed Dykes. “Obviously haven’t done a very good job dealing with it. It’s on me to figure out how to deal with it, and go from there.”

He knows the problem. The solution will not come quickly.

In the Big Game, not just another loss for Cal

By Art Spander

BERKELEY, Calif. – Just another loss. The Cal safety Josh Hill said it. He was wrong.

This was a loss to Stanford, a loss when Cal couldn’t cross the goal line, a loss when Jeff Tedford’s future again was called into question, although much like the Golden Bears offense Saturday he isn’t going anywhere.

The Big Game came at the wrong time, smacked off its traditional late-November date to mid-October because of disdainful planning by the Pac-12 Conference.

We don’t care how it’s been done for 114 years, was the unwritten word from the Pac-12; you’ll hold it when we tell you. Even when the baseball season hasn’t ended.
   
For Cal, maybe, anytime would be the wrong time.
  
Stanford beat the Bears, 21-3. It could have been worse. The Cardinal threw only three passes in the fourth quarter, had no completions. Stanford coach David Shaw was kind and satisfied.
   
“Dominating, suffocating defense,’’ advised Shaw.
    
His school kept the trophy, The Axe, earned for a third straight year. His players gleefully marched The Axe to the south end zone of rebuilt Memorial Stadium where the Stanford partisans from the crowd of 61,024, including that intentionally ditsy pep band, cheered and chanted and rocked.

There they were, the enemy, symbolically speaking, the conquerors, lording it up while the Cal players walked slowly to their quarters, whipped. Just another loss? Hardly.
 
“Offensively, that was just a poor performance,” Tedford said, reaffirming what everyone had seen, what everyone already knew.
  
Offensively, Cal had a pathetic 217 yards – Stepfan Taylor of Stanford had run for 189 by his ownself – and, of course, for the first time in 15 years in a Big Game, and only the second in 36 years, no touchdowns.
   
“We couldn’t block them,” said Tedford. “There was too much pressure on the passer, and we couldn’t convert on third downs. Give them credit. They played hard and were better than we were today.”
   
Much better. The Cardinal, 5-2, are headed toward a bowl. Cal, 3-5, with Washington, Oregon and Oregon State among the teams left on its schedule, is headed for a losing season. And Tedford, in his 11th year, is headed for more criticism.
  
“We need to do a better job as coaches putting (Cal players) into places to be successful,’’ conceded Tedford.
   
The Old Blues and some newer Blues wonder if Tedford has stayed too long at the fair. Sure, Cal has tough academic standards. It was recently judged America’s No. 1 public institution of higher learning, with UCLA, another part of the great university, coming in second.

Not everybody is admitted, no matter how fast they run or far they throw. Cal isn’t LSU or Alabama.
   
But Cal people admit, gritting their teeth, neither is Stanford, and the Cardinal play physical, beat-your-face-in football.
   
Those smarties are toughies. Those toughies are smarties. And they took it to Cal in Cal’s new house.
  
It’s unlikely Tedford will be dismissed. He raised Cal from the depths of 1-11, and made the Bears successful and respectable. His players graduate.

Athletic director Sandy Barbour is not one to make rash decisions. On Saturday afternoon, along with members of the media, she took a seat and listened to Tedford explain but never try to justify.
  
In the previous two weeks, the Bears had crushed UCLA, crushed Washington State, improved an awful 1-4 record to a mediocre 3-4. There was optimism before Stanford. There is depression after Stanford.
 
“Those were the last two weeks,” said Tedford when asked for comparison. “This team (Stanford) is a different team. They are very stout to run the ball against. We need to get better to play a group like that.”

They need to have more than three net yards on the ground. They need to have the ball in their possession more than 23 minutes and 2 seconds out of the 60 (Stanford had it 36:58). They need to be more efficient near the end zone, the Bears throwing a fourth-down interception from the Stanford 12 after they had a first down at the Stanford 10.

“It’s always frustrating when you don’t score,” said Tedford. He sat behind a microphone in his familiar white coaching jacket, sunglasses pushed up on his cap. He spoke clearly and honestly. But he spoke as a defeated coach.

"We had the opportunity down deep and couldn’t score.” 

Then repeating himself, understandable because there wasn’t much else to say, he added, “It was a very frustrating day offensively, without a doubt. We have to go back to the drawing board . . . Their defense is as good as any defense we have played. We knew going in it was going to be a dogfight. You know they are going to get theirs. We didn’t have enough on our side to keep it going.”

Keep it going? They couldn’t even get it going.

RealClearSports: Luck 'Phenomenal' in Stanford's Victory

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

STANFORD, Calif. — He was wet and weary. But on this rainy Saturday night, Andrew Luck also was a winner. Of a football game, a traditional game that means as much to him as — maybe more than — the Heisman Trophy he might not win.

Whether Luck helped or hurt his chances for that individual prize is up to the observers and then the voters, but the only thing that concerned him was Stanford beating Cal in the 114th Big Game, if only 31-28, which might be considered a negative for a 17½-point favorite.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011