Cal Sports Report

Oregon State Halts Pac-12's Bowl Losing Streak

But ex-Cal coach Jeff Tedford leads Fresno State past Washington State in LA Bowl

Jake Curtis

A Pac-12 team won a bowl game on Saturday, which is a bigger accomplishment than you might think. A Pac-12 team also lost a bowl game Saturday as Washington State put on an embarrassing offensive performance.

But let's start with the conference's good news.

Oregon State’s dominant 30-3 victory over Florida in the Las Vegas Bowl ended a run of seven straight bowl losses by Pac-12 teams. The conference hadn’t won a postseason game since the 2019 season, having gone 0-2 in bowl games in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and 0-5 last year. The Pac-12’s most recent postseason win was Oregon’s one-point victory over Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl following the 2019 season.

The Beavers' win was also a big deal for the Oregon State football program. The Beavers end the season with a 10-4 record, the first time they have won at least 10 games since 2006 and only the third time in Oregon State history that the Beavers had double-digit wins. The other time was 2000, when Jonathan Smith was the starting quarterback for an Oregon State team that finished 11-1, including a 41-9 victory over Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.

On Saturday, Smith was the head coach of a Beavers team that nearly ended Florida's streak of 435 consecutive games without being shut out.  But the Gators extended it to 436 with an otherwise meaninless 40-yard field goal by Adam Mihalik with 37 seconds left in the game.

The team Florida put on the field Saturday would not be compared with some of the SEC’s powerful squads, though. The Gators finished 6-7 for the second straight year, the first time since 1978-79 Florida had consecutive losing seasons. These Gators went just 3-5 in the SEC this season, and they played the Las Vegas Bowl without quarterback Anthony Richardson, who is projected to be an early NFL draft pick and opted out of the bowl game.

Instead Florida’s starting quarterback was Jack Miller III, which had not taken a single snap during the regular season and looked inexperienced while completing 13-of-22 passes for 180 yards.

Meanwhile, Ben Gulbranson was the Beavers’ starting quarterback, but Smith gave backup Tristan Gebbia significant playing time in the second quarter. Gebbia complete 5-of-6 passes and Gulberson was 12-for-19 for 165 yards and a touchdown.

Standout Oregon State freshman running back Damien Martinez had to leave the game in the first quarter with apparent shoulder injury, but Deshaun Fenwick rushed for 107 yards in his absence.

Fresno State tops Washington State in LA Bowl

Pac-12 teams are not supposed to Mountain West teams, but this situation was a little different.  Mountain West champ Fresno State had won eight games in a row entering the LA Bowl, and the Bulldogs made it nine straight with a 29-6 victory over Washington State, which finished seventh in the Pac-12.

Former Cal head coach Jeff Tedford, in his first year in his second stint as the Bulldogs head coach, helped Fresno State rebound from a 1-4 start to finish with a 10-4 record.

Jeff Tedford takes a victory bath. Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA TODAY Sports
Jeff Tedford takes a victory bath. Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA TODAY Sports

Fresno State quarterback Jake Haener passed for 233 yards and a touchdown, but it was the Bulldogs' defense against Washington State that was the difference.

WSU quarterback Cameron Ward had passed for at least 172 yards in every game this season, but against Fresno State he passed for just 43 yards.

Nakia Watson, WSU's leading rusher who had run for more than 100 yards this times this season, was limited to 23 yards on 10 carries.

The Cougars (7-6) had their lowest scoring total of the season and had just 182 yards of total offense. WSU's previous low in total offense this season was 253 yards, and it had piled up 514 yards against Stanford. But the Cougars did virtually nothing offensively against Fresno State.

Wide receiver Nikko Remigio, who transferred from Cal to Fresno State after the 2021 season, had two catches for 56 yards on Saturday.

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Cover photo by Lucas Peltier, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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