Cal Football: Ben Finley Delivers When Sam Jackson V is Injured vs. North Texas
We don’t know who will start at quarterback when Cal plays Auburn next Saturday in its home opener.
Ben Finley says whoever gets the call has a built-in advantage.
“Having Jaydn Ott back there makes a back-up quarterback’s life a lot easier,” Finley said after the Bears disposed of North Texas 58-21 at Denton, Texas on Saturday afternoon.
A transfer this summer from North Carolina State, Finley was the backup against the Mean Green, but he wasn’t on the sidelines for long.
Starter Sam Jackson V suffered an injury to his left arm or shoulder on a designed run one minute into the second quarter and did not return.
Coach Justin Wilcox, when asked the nature of the injury, would say only that it was an upper-body injury. Jackson had his arm in a sling while watching the second half from the bench.
“I have a little bit of information. Not going to share that quite yet,” Wilcox said. “I expect Sam to come back quickly. He was ready, if needed, to come back in. We’ll talk about what’s best for him.”
Jackson played well for as long as he was on the field, completing 3 of 4 pass attempts for 33 yards, including the first touchdown of the game — and the first of his career — a 23-yarder to Jeremiah Hunter.
The TCU transfer also ran the ball three times for 18 yards.
Finley was excellent off the bench, completing 24 of 34 passes for 279 yards, including a 4-yard touchdown to Washington transfer Taj Davis.
“I thought he did a great job, and it’s not surprising,” Wilcox said. “He’s very confident. Ben’s a good quarterback. He commanded the offense.”
“I had full confidence (in him) coming into the game,” offensive coordinator Jake Spavital said.
Finley started two games for NC State late last season, including a double-overtime win over rival North Carolina. He appears to have no concerns about his ability to play.
“Obviously, I hope Sam is OK. He’s going to bounce back from that, I know he will. We’ll both be prepared,” Finley said. “All you can do is prepare and be ready and act like you’re the starter.”
Auburn opened its season with a 59-14 win over UMass.
Everyone had a hand in Cal’s highest-scoring game since a 73-14 win over Grambling State in the 2015 opener. The Bears totaled 669 yards and they spread it around, gaining 312 through the air and 357 on the ground.
Wilcox applauded the offense, led by Spavital in his second Cal debut as coordinator. He previously worked at Berkeley in Sonny Dykes’ final season of 2016.
“We expected to come out and play well,” Wilcox said. “If you’re on the headsets on offense during the game, this is not one of those situations where Spav and everybody on offense are patting each other on the back. This was, `We gave up this, we need to do that better, here’s a penalty.’ This needs to be the floor.’
“Spav and all those coaches and all those players who contributed today, just awesome. It was a big day for them.”
Spavital was pleased but hardly satisfied.
“It felt good. I really thought these kids flipped the switch around practice 10. This was a really good game for them to get some confidence going into next week,” Spavital said. “But we left a lot out there with the two turnovers, a few false starts, a couple dropped balls, some mis-execution on some things.”
One of those fumbles was by Ott, leading to a North Texas touchdown that closed the scoring gap to 27-21 early in the second quarter.
He more than made up for it, rushing for 188 yards — 166 of them in the first half — and two of the six touchdowns scored by Cal’s running backs.
Ott gave a preview of his performance, dashing 41 yards on Cal’s first snap of the afternoon.
“It was good to finally let loose,” said Ott, who praised the efforts of Cal's offensive line. “That first one got me energized and got the whole offense hyped.”
Ott also had runs of 38 and 66 yards, the latter going the distance for one of his two touchdowns.
Spavital had limited Ott’s touches during Cal’s fall-camp scrimmages, determined to keep him healthy and ready . . . for Saturday.
“For all the times he was upset with me for not letting him go live in those scrimmages, I think that play kind of summarized it,” Spavital said. "He’s an elite running back.”
Senior Isaiah Ifanse, who transferred to Cal after setting the career rushing record at FCS-level Montana State, rushed for 54 yards and three touchdowns.
One of them was a 26-yarder in which he barreled through at least six would-be tacklers — possibly as many as eight or nine.
Ifanse said he had no idea how many defenders he left behind on his TD run. “It’s a great feeling,” he said of his performance. “Going into this week, I was just head down, grinding. I thought it went extremely well.”.
It pretty much went that way across the board for Cal on Saturday.
Cover photo of quarterback Ben Finley during practice by Al Sermeno, KLC fotos
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
