Cal Bears beat turn-over prone Cougars 37 to 3

The eighth-ranked Washington State Cougars ( 6-1 overall, 3-1 Pac-12) six-game win streak came to a screeching halt Friday night at Berkeley California. The Cougars coughed the ball up seven times to the Californian Golden Bears ( 4-3, 1-3) who were in a receiving mood.  The Bears were also in a giving mood. As in giving out some pain. The Bears sacked Cougar quarterback Luke Falk nine times.

The tone for the game was set early when Falk was intercepted on his first attempt of the game which was the third play from scrimmage for the  Cougars. Things never got better for the Cougars who were playing in the backdrop of a Friday the 13th game. Curse or  no curse the Cougars offense never found its rhythm against the hyped up Justin Wilcox coached Cal defense.

“They did a really great job during the week. We practiced hard all week on a bit of a different schedule. They came in and prepared well, the coaches did an unbelievable job. They did a fantastic job of playing together and implementing it with those guys.” Wilcox said after the game. The level of details those guys played with. It wasn’t perfect, but they competed really hard, ran to the ball, obviously got our hands on the ball and that was obviously huge in the game and I am very proud of them.”

“The level of details those guys played with. It wasn’t perfect, but they competed really hard, ran to the ball, obviously got our hands on the ball and that was obviously huge in the game and I am very proud of them.”

Cal Quarterback Ross Bower, who led Bothell High to the Class 4 state title in 2014 out dueled Falk as he completed 21 of 38 passes for 259 yards with two touchdowns one running one passing and one interception. Luke completed 28 of  43 passes for 286 yards and five interceptions. While Falk had one of his worst days at quarterback WSU coach Mike Leach was quick to point in his post-game conference that the loss was a team loos.

“We weren’t good in any aspect of the game. Cal outcoached and outplayed us at every position that I saw. There may be an exception but I don’t think there is. Every position I saw, Cal outplayed us, they wanted to win more than we did, they tried harder than we did and tried more consistently than we did.”

Team Statistics

Team Statistics
Game Stats WSU CAL
Total Yards 337 365
Pass Yards 314 259
Rushing Yards 23 106
Penalty Yards 5-50 8-75
1st Downs 16 18
3rd Downs 4-16 7-17
4th Downs 2-3 0-0
TOP 32:50 27:10
Scoring Summary
1ST QUARTER
CAL
11:12 – CAL – Anderson, Matt 26 yd field goal 7 plays, 11 yards, TOP 2:22
0 3
CAL
04:34 – CAL – Enwere, Vic 6 yd run (Anderson, Matt kick ), 3 plays, 23 yards, TOP 0:57
0 10
2ND QUARTER
WSU
11:27 – WSU – Powell, Erik 52 yd field goal 15 plays, 40 yards, TOP 8:07
3 10
CAL
00:00 – CAL – Wells, Kyle 2 yd pass from Bowers, Ross (Anderson, Matt kick ) 8 plays, 45 yards, TOP 0:52
3 17
3RD QUARTER
CAL
05:13 – CAL – Anderson, Matt 48 yd field goal 4 plays, 7 yards, TOP 0:47
3 20
4TH QUARTER
CAL
13:10 – CAL – Bowers, Ross 7 yd run (Anderson, Matt kick ), 10 plays, 77 yards, TOP 4:39
3 27
CAL
07:13 – CAL – Anderson, Matt 41 yd field goal 9 plays, 29 yards, TOP 4:34
3 30
CAL
05:26 – CAL – Brown, Gerran 26 yd fumble recovery (Anderson, Matt kick )
3 37

 

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