Cal treks to Tucson seeking a rebound
The Oregon football team promptly welcomed Cal to being a ranked team by kicking them back out.
The now-No. 18 Ducks handled the then-No. 24 Golden Bears 42-24 on Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley — building a 28-10 halftime lead and stifling Cal’s rally attempts in the second half.
Now, Cal is ready for its first Pacific-12 Conference road game, trekking to Tucson to take on Arizona on Saturday. The Wildcats missed out on an upset bid against USC in a 24-20 loss last Saturday.
Cal (3-1, 0-1 Pac-12) could not contain Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert, an NFL prospect who threw two touchdown passes without an interception. That’s understandable. This was not: coughing up five turnovers against a ranked team at home.
That included Oregon’s Drayton Carlberg sacking Cal quarterback Brandon McIlwain and forcing a fumble, leading to a 61-yard recovery and return for a touchdown.
“Everybody feels awful,” said Golden Bears coach Justin Wilcox. “You invest so much time and energy and when it doesn’t go like you want it to go, it stings. You only get so many opportunities to go out and play, so it hurts and it should hurt.
“We’ll learn from it.”
The Golden Bears are using a two-quarterback system, including the fleet-footed McIlwain and more traditional pocket quarterback Chase Garbers. Wilcox said Tuesday that Cal will continue to use two quarterbacks against Arizona.
Against Oregon, McIlwain was 11 for 21 passing for 128 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions; along with 15 carries for a game-high 123 rushing yards and a TD. Garbers was 4 of 9 passing for 44 yards with no TDs and two picks.
“When you do certain things in the quarterback run game, the defense has to make decisions on how they want to defend you,” Wilcox said. “It’s math. So if they want to defend the quarterback, that stresses the coverage in different ways.
“And so we felt that having those things available, the quarterback runs and all that, that’s what undresses the coverage, and those are the reasons you get those opportunities.”
Arizona (2-3, 1-1 Pac-12) saw a two-game winning streak snapped against USC, after winning its Pac-12 opener at Oregon State the week before. The Wildcats are in their first season under Kevin Sumlin, who rose to prominence at Texas A&M during the Johnny Manziel era.
Veteran quarterback Khalil Tate has completed 53 percent of his passes for 1,271 yards, 10 TDs and three picks.
“We just need to play a complete game in all three phases,” Wildcats linebacker Colin Schooler said after the close loss to USC. “If you look at our losses, we haven’t done that.”