Cal Football: Big Game is Up Next After Bears Suffer 6th Consecutive Loss
Cal freshman cornerback Jeremiah Earby, who grew up near Stanford and attended Menlo-Atherton High School, has attended a couple of Big Games as a spectator.
He is looking forward to playing in his first one Saturday at Memorial Stadium.
“It’s a blessing,” he said.
The 125th Big Game is more than that — it’s pretty much all the Bears have to look forward to after a gruesome 38-10 loss at Oregon State on Saturday that officially extinguished their bowl hopes.
“It's obviously very disappointing,” quarterback Jack Plummer said. "Quite frankly, the way we’ve played we haven’t earned to play in a bowl game.”
Cal (3-7, 1-6 Pac-12) will carry a six-game losing streak into its matchup vs. the Cardinal (3-7, 1-7), which is coming off a 42-7 loss at No. 13 Utah.
This will be the second year in a row the rivals enter the Big Game with just three wins apiece.
The Bears are saying the only thing they can say . . . that they’ll be ready to go on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
“We’ve still got two games on our schedule I know for damned sure I’m coming to play,” said Plummer, the Purdue transfer who will be playing his first Big Game. “Try to get that message to the guys on the team. We’ve got good guys on the team and they’re not going to down and fold.”
“We recognize the importance of the Big Game to the university and our alumni and our student body,” coach Justin Wilcox said. “We need to make the most out of next week’s opportunity.”
Wilcox is sure about a couple things — the Bears haven’t made the most of their opportunities this season or on Saturday in Corvallis.
They began this season 3-1 and were possibly just one botched officiating call at Notre Dame away from an unbeaten first month. But they haven’t won since Sept. 24, when they ran all over Arizona 49-31.
“We haven’t played up to the standard the we’ve set as a team. We haven’t coached well enough, we haven’t played well enough,” he said. “It’s just totally unacceptable. I don’t know what else to say.”
He had plenty more to say about the Oregon State game, citing his unhappiness with all three phases of the game. “Really bad football by Cal tonight — all of us.”
— The offense didn’t score a touchdown and managed just 160 total yards. In the first half, aside from a 40-yard completion by Plummer to J.Michael Sturdivant, the Bears had 13 yards on 23 plays — an average of 20 inches per snap. “We have to do better than 9 yards rushing, absolutely,” Wilcox confirmed.
— The defense could not off the field. OSU ran 22 more plays than Cal (72-50), held the ball for nearly 37 minutes and was 3-for-3 converting fourth downs. All this, despite losing two offensive line starters, a key running back and versatile all-purpose Jack Colletto to injuries during the game. The defense did account for Cal's only touchdown in the game -- Earby's scoop-and-score 33-yard return of a fumble, which he describes in the video above.
— OSU’s Anthony Gould broke the game open with a 55-yard punt return that pushed the margin to 21-0 just 3 minutes into the second quarter.
“I could list 15 plays off the top of my head in the first half where we could have performed better and that game is totally different coming into the second half,” Wilcox said. “But that’s a bunch of talk.”
Asked how much the outcome was influenced by Cal injuries that have decimated the offensive line and defensive secondary, Wilcox refused to go down that road.
“Everybody out there, maybe other than special teams, those guys are on scholarship and that’s what we brought them here to do,” he said. “They signed up and we need them to step up and perform.”
Plummer, who passed for just 151 yards a week after going for a season-best 406 at USC, was sacked twice more behind a line that was without ailing starter Ben Coleman and had three freshman see significant time against the Beavers.
But Plummer wouldn’t throw his guys under the bus. “That wasn’t the deciding factor with the offense, I’ll tell you that. Those guys held their own,” he said. “It comes down to us executing and we did not do that today.”
Or for quite some time.
Cover photo of Cal receiver Mavin Anderson by Soobum Im, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
