Idiots Write About Sports

When I say that Saturday’s Cal-Washington match-up was memorable, it reminds me of one of my favorite moments in one of my favorite movies, “This is Spinal Tap.” As the Tap stands at the grave of Elvis, Derek Smalls says, “Well, this puts it all in perspective.” To which David St. Hubbins replies, “Too much f-ing perspective.”

Saturday’s Cal-Washington was memorable. But a bit too damned memorable, if you ask me.

I spent the entire second half with a splitting headache and a sinking feeling deep down in my stomach. The second one was caused entirely by the play on the field. I saw the season pass before my eyes. I saw the Rose Bowl floating out in front of me, moaning in a ghostly voice, “Yoooou’ll neeeever beeeee heeeeeere…” It was that moment when, as a Cal fan, you know that your dream of actually going to the Rose Bowl is about to be shattered for yet another year.

Then something extraordinary happened. Cal drove down the field, a 12-play, 82-yard drive that included more than one do-or-die third-down conversion play. Nate Longshore, inaccurate and out of sync most of the day, made some big passes when it counted. (But let it be noted: his very talented corps of receivers really bailed him out on several occasions.) Marshawn Lynch runs in on a beautiful 17-yard touchdown, Justin Forsett pushes over for the two-point conversion, and all is right with the world. The dream’s not shattered. Cal’s up by seven in a game and the defense, which has already intercepted Husky QB Carl Bonnell four times, will almost certainly put it away on the ensuing Husky drive.

Of course, that’s not quite what happened. Out of the blue comes a 40-yard fling from Bonnell. The clock expires while the ball is in the air. The voice of Tom Jackson from ESPN’s late, lamented NFL Primetime shouts, “KNOCK IT DOWN!” Three Cal defenders tip it but keep it in the air, Marlon Wood makes only his second collegiate reception, and somehow pushes into the end zone to tie the game at 24. Sometimes Hail Marys work. The stadium, ear-splittingly loud not a moment before, goes quiet. We are headed to overtime.

But before we get there, a note about the Huskies’ final drive, which is easy to overlook given how it ended with that crazy touchdown pass. I have to question the play-calling on the drive. The Huskies took a few long, long shots down the field, and alternated those shots with short passes and runs to just barely get first downs. In the end all they could do was chuck it from 40 yards out and hope for a miracle — which they got, I’ll admit. But the play-calling was way too conservative. In that situation, needing a touchdown for a tie, you need to be going down the field in 15-yard chunks, getting into the red zone and giving your team a legitimate set of shots at the end zone. The Huskies didn’t do that, and although it didn’t hurt them, that’s only because of Marlon Wood’s dumb luck.

On to overtime. And basically in OT we got a repeat of Cal’s previous drive — except since they give you the ball on the 25, Cal didn’t need to drive the length of the field. Instead, after a short completion to Robert Jordan, Lynch ran a repeat of his previous touchdown, this time 22 yards through a shredded Husky defense. And then Cal’s defense made the plays. After allowing Bonnell to pass to the six yard line, the defense hardened. First there was a terrible run that went for a five-yard loss. Then Bonnell did what he had been doing all day — force an ill-advised pass into a spot that had no Husky receivers, but three Cal defenders. Desmond Bishop intercepted the ball, essentially ending the game. He tried to run it back for a touchdown, which at the time seemed stupid. Okay, it still seems kind of stupid, but as I read the rules of college overtime, the only way Washington could have stayed alive after Bishop took a step with the ball in his hands would be the unlikely event of that Washington would force a fumble by Bishop and then somehow run that fumble back for a touchdown.

At this point we’d already seen enough unlikely events, thank you very much.

So Bishop didn’t quite make it in to give Cal the first two-touchdown victory in college overtime history, Marshawn Lynch jumped on the medical cart and spun around the north half of the field for a little while, and the fans realized that Cal had finally played a taut, close game — and won it. Won it twice, essentially.

Some final grab-bag thoughts:

• I have incredible respect for Tyrone Willingham. The last few years Washington has been a sad, sad team. In 2003 the Bears beat the Huskies 54-7 at Memorial in one of the lamest Pac-10 showings I have ever seen. It’s rare when you see a whole team just quit trying, but the Huskies did that day. In 2004 the Bears won 42-12, and of course last year I saw them beat the Huskies 56-17. Those were all ugly games. But now Willingham has his team playing well.

Think about it: Willingham took Stanford to the Rose Bowl. Staggering achievement. Then there was his time at Notre Dame — clearly not a good fit. We can argue whether he was ever really given a chance to do his best, whether he failed Notre Dame, they failed him, or a little bit of both. But in his second season at UW he’s got the Huskies on the right track. As much as it’s been great to see Cal beat Washington five years running, the last three of those years were also just sad, seeing one of the great teams of the Pac-10 in such a sorry state. Well, Willingham is bringing the Huskies back, and good for him.

• Longshore didn’t look so hot. As I alluded to above, he was really out of sync — quite literally on the first few possessions, where it felt like he was throwing the ball a second too soon or a second too late, given the routes the receivers were running. His accuracy was spotty, and a lot of the completions he did have were made by the talent of his receivers, who did a whole lot of jumping and diving in order to make plays. I’m not quite sure what’s going on with Longshore — this is two weak performances in a row.

That all said, this was the first game in Longshore’s career where he needed to engineer a drive at the end of the game to save his team from defeat. There was 6:24 to go, the ball was on the Cal 18, and Longshore needed to move Cal into field-goal range at the very least. On that drive Longshore had a second-down completion to Hawkins for 15 and a first, a third-down completion to Jordan for 11 yards and a first, a third-down completion to Lynch for 11 and a first, and a second-down completion to Lynch for 21 and a first. And at that point, as Phil pointed out, Cal was playing with the house’s money, because they were in field-goal range.

So for all my quibbling about Longshore, he engineered a fourth-quarter, game-winning (were it not for that Hail Mary!) drive. Job well done on that score — and hopefully being in that situation and succeeding will pay dividends somewhere down the line.

• The running game, too, wasn’t so impressive. There were 195 yards of rushing, 150 from Lynch. At the end, Lynch just took control of the game. But earlier on, the running game was strangely spotty. Lots of runs for little or no gain. At times, the offensive line appeared to be in complete control of the Huskies, opening up gigantic holes. But then other times, the running game appeared completely muted. I have no real answer here other than to say that the Huskies played really well and that it was almost enough to win them the game, but Lynch came through at the very end.

• I know they gave up 24 points, but let me tell you, Cal’s defense is the entire reason this team hasn’t lost since my lost weekend on Rocky Top. Occasionally they give up the big play — hello 49-yard TD late in the second quarter! — but generally the Bears’ defense bends without breaking and makes big plays at the right times.

Five interceptions. Five! Yes, Bonnell is a former backup pressed into service due to Isaiah Stanback’s injury, and yes, he made some bad decisions. But this Cal defense keeps making those big turnover plays, week in, week out. Unfortunately, the offense was unable to capitalize on those turnovers. Cal would’ve won going away if the offense had managed even two touchdowns off of the four picks in regulation.

• Finally, a really random note. We got to Memorial Stadium early so that I could meet a gentleman from whom I purchased Cal-USC tickets. With a full hour before kickoff, on a gorgeous, warm day, I decided to walk around the stadium. I have been coming to Cal games since I was in elementary school, and yet I’ve never actually walked around the stadium. Today I did it. I walked down by the south tunnel, walked past the UW band, climbed the steps to the very rim of the stadium, and eventually made it all the way back around to our seats on the west side.

It was a lot of fun, although I also learned something a bit sobering: I think Memorial Stadium’s kind of a dump, you see. But today I realized that I’m sitting in the nicest, most modern part of the stadium. Yikes.

• And now, a bye week. And richly deserved.

Great post, and nice photos too.

Jason, great post. Just one question: Could you e-mail me where you're keeping your USC tickets and any security measures I'd have to... er... you're using to keep them safe? :)

I hope you got a good deal. Ebay shows tickets for around $250 a pair... better than I would have expected but still out of my price range.

Mine were a bit less than that, but not a lot less.

The tickets are being kept in an Undisclosed Location. No, not my seats at Memorial Stadium. A different one.

Posted by Jason at October 22, 2006 11:01 PM

I'm astounded that Willingham didn't go for 2 after the Hail Mary touchdown. It's absolutely a canonical case: when you've been getting lucky all day, and you just GOT REALLY LUCKY, you should realize that in overtime your luck will probably run out, and GO FOR THE WIN...

great post. will come here next week.

I think we all can agree that game was a little too close for any sense of comfort. I was at a bar getting drunk and as overtime approached I sobered up. That game was way to close! Thank God for the bye week...

First off, Go Bears. Secondly, I was sitting in QQ for the UW game, relatively close to the Huskies' section. Whenever they made a big play, they would...bark. Bark? Really? I get it, you are "Huskies" and all, but cmon. Do Oregon fans quack? Do OSU fans hit their seats with their tails? Do Stanfurd fans, um.. paint something red? I know Cal has a growl as part of a cheer, but it's in the song. Different story. Just thought it was funny.

I thought the barking was cool. It's a unique thing, you know, like we have "roll on you Bears." Anyone not invested in Cal would think that was a slow, boring cheer, but we love it. I thought overall that Washington has an awesome road representation. The cheerleaders were really well coreographed, their band was playing well all game, and their fans, despite their rep, seemed very classy to me. I have never been to a Cal road game except Stanford, and I hope we represent ourselves as well.

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