BERKELEY — Turns out there is still a big gulf in the Big Game.
Cal and Stanford arrived at the 117th edition on Saturday with identical 5-5 records, but the Bears must grapple with the reality they still aren’t on par with their Bay Area rivals after a 38-17 loss stretched their Big Game drought to five games.
“We certainly don’t feel the gap is as big as the score is,” Cal quarterback Jared Goff said. “We just didn’t play up to our potential. We made too many mistakes, had too many turnovers.”
Five turnovers and 113 yards of penalties made the job tougher for the Bears as did losing senior safety Michael Lowe to an ejection after a targeting penalty on the game’s first play from scrimmage.
The proceedings, in front of 56,483 fans at Memorial Stadium, became fairly bizarre late in the third quarter when Cal, already trailing 31-7, had three touchdowns overturned by official video replays in a span of 40 seconds. Cal ultimately settled for a field goal.
“It was a bit of a strange football game,” Cal coach Sonny Dykes said. “I don’t even know what to say about some of the stuff that happened out there.”
Asked specifically about the three overturned TDs, Dykes said, “I thought it was shameful myself.”
Dykes also conceded the Bears simply didn’t play well enough.
“I was disappointed,” he said.
Cal, outscored 201-75 in the past five Big Games, could not consistently win the line of scrimmage. Stanford’s pass rush often collapsed the pocket on Goff and the Cal defense allowed the Cardinal to score 17 more points than their season average in conference games.
A fifth loss in their past six games after a 4-1 start leaves the Bears (5-6, 3-6 Pac-12) on thin postseason ice. Cal must beat BYU in Berkeley next Saturday to become bowl eligible.
“We’ll see what we’re made of,” Dykes said.
They weren’t made of the right stuff Saturday. Stanford scored on the game’s first possession and led 10-0 when running back Daniel Lasco fumbled the ball away while trying to score from the 4-yard line.
Goff got the Bears on the board with a 10-yard touchdown strike to Stephen Anderson, tying Pat Barnes’ 18-year-old single-season school record of 31 TDs.
But Goff twice had tipped passes intercepted by Stanford linebacker Blake Martinez in the second quarter and Cal faced a 24-7 hole by halftime.
“They’ve got a lot of big, strong guys over there. They did a pretty good job of getting pressure,” Goff said.
Cal trailed by 24 points when video replay took center stage. Freshman quarterback Luke Rubenzer, who came on to give the Bears another run option, apparently scored on runs of 12 and 1 yards, only to have both wiped out after review.
Goff then threw what looked like a 16-yard TD pass to Kenny Lawler, but that also was overturned.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Rubenzer said “I guess the cameras don’t lie.”
“I wish something like that wouldn’t affect us as much as it did,” Dykes said. “It affected me and I think it affected our players.”
For more on Cal sports, see the Bear Talk blog at ibabuzz.com/beartalk. Follow Jeff Faraudo on Twitter at twitter.com/Jeff Faraudo.
