Cal Should Have Won Saturday's Game Against Florida State

Missed opportunities, missed field goals, pre-snap penalties doom the Bears in their first ACC game

Cal running back Jaydn Ott rushed for 73 yards Saturday / Melina Myers-Imagn Images

Simply put, Cal should have beaten Florida State Saturday night in Tallahassee, Florida.

The scoreboard at Doak Campbell said the Seminoles won the game 14-9, but it’s hard to figure out how Cal let this game – which would have sent the Bears’ hopes soaring – get away.

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---Cal guard Sioape Vatikani had to be strapped onto a stretcher and taken off the field on a cart after suffering an injury in the second half. “He is being evaluated at a local hospital and he’s got movement in his extremities, which is good news, but that’s all I know right now,” Justin Wilcox said after the game.---

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Do the Cal players think they should have won?

“Yeah,” said Cal linebacker Cade Uluave. “I think straight up we should have. Just looking at the stat sheet right here, there’s a lot of things that we did better on.”

Let’s take a look at that stat sheet:

---Cal had 126 more yards of total offense, 410 yards to 284 for the Seminoles, and Cal outgained FSU 222-76 in the second half.

---Cal had 23 first downs to 17 for FSU, and the Bears had a 14-5 advantage in first downs in the second half.

---Cal averaged 5.5 yards per play; Florida State averaged 4.2 yards. And Cal ran 74 offensive plays to 68 for Florida State.

---Florida State was penalized for 72 yards; Cal was hit with 55 yards in penalties.

---Cal’s offense reached the red zone five times; Florida State got there just twice.

---Both teams committed one turnover, and the time of possessions was virtually even.

The one stat that favored Florida State was tackles for loss. The Seminoles recorded 12 tackles for loss, including seven sacks, while Cal had just seven tackles for loss, including three sacks.

---Click here for a summary of the Cal-Florida State game---

But the numbers clearly favored Cal.

So what happened?

Three things: The most frustrating was the pre-snap penalties. The most obvious was the two missed field goals of less than 40 yards. The most telling was the inability finish off drives with touchdowns.

Let’s start with the pre-snap penalties, which had to have Cal fans groaning.

The Bears committed seven pre-snap penalties, and that does not include an illegal motion penalty that was declined. That kind of penalty puts a crimp in any drive, physcially and emotionally, and clearly annoyed coach Justin Wilcox most of all.

“Offensively we have to start the play without getting penalized,” he said. “That’s bad football.”

He noted that Cal had practiced playing in a loud setting, much to the dismay of folks living close to Cal's Memorial Stadium this past week.

“We practiced it,” Wilcox said. “We used crowd noise; the neighbors hate it.”

Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza blamed a lot of it on miscommunication.

“They have a great crowd, but that shouldn’t be able to affect our plays,” he said.

Then there was Ryan Coe’s missed field goals of 36 and 38 yards, the latter possibly being slightly blocked.  He did make a 51-yarder, but he is 5-for-11 on field goals for the season, and Wilcox hinted that Cal may consider changing kickers during this week’s bye week before hosting Miami on October 5.

“Yeah, we’ll discuss every position and who’s doing what,” said Wilcox, who in the past had expressed completed confidence in Coe. “He’s got a lot of talent and he’s been impressive in practice, and he hit that 52-yarder like it was nothing, and then we missed the two 38s.”

When it comes right down to it, though, it was Cal’s inability to convert opportunities that ruined the Bears’ chance to pull off a big victory.

Cal drove inside the Florida State 15-yard line on five different occasions, and those five possessions netted the Bears just six points.

Here are those five opportunities:

---Cal reached the Florida State 12-yard line. That resulted in a field goal.

---Cal had a first down at the Florida State 11-yard line. That resulted in a field goal.

---The Bears had first down at the Florida State 13-yard line. Cal got nothing on that possession.

---Cal got a first down at the FSU 12-yard line.  Cal again got no points.

---Cal reached the Florida State 12-yard line late in the game, trailing by five points.  Again Cal came away with nothing, as Mendoza took a sack on the fourth-down play.

It’s hard to churn out 410 yards of offense and not score a single touchdown, but Cal did it. So the Bears are 3-1 overall and 0-1 in the ACC.

If nothing else, Cal demonstrated that it is very capable of beating a team that was projected to win the ACC championship.

The ever-optimistic Mendoza suggested maybe, “this could be a blessing in disguise,” to get the Bears refocused as it heads into the October 5 game against undefeated, eighth-ranked Miami.

He noted Cal could “still accomplish our goal of an ACC championship.”

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