UW's 3 Best Wins and 3 Worst Losses Against Cal

The good, the bad and the ugly from this longstanding series.

Face it, weird and unusual stuff happens in the University of Washington-California football series. We have a few examples. 

Foremost, some of us still have never caught up on our sleep since these two teams played until 1:22 a.m. to finish the infamous, lightning-delayed game of 2019.

Most University District bars were closed down before that football game ended.

On that night, make that Sunday morning, the Golden Bears proved to be the better night owls, winning 20-19 with eight seconds left to play at Husky Stadium. Yes, it was last call.

Then there's this one.

The last time a Cal team has gone unbeaten was 1937, when that group of Golden Bears shut out seven teams including Alabama 13-0 in the Rose Bowl and was singled out as the national champion. The Bears weren't perfect, though. They finished the season 10-0-1. 

Amid all of their greatness, an unsung bunch of Huskies tied Cal 0-0 in Berkeley, just missing on a game-winning field goal at the end.

Of course, the coaching matchup that day paired the Huskies' Jimmy Phelan against Cal's Leonard "Stub" Allison, with the latter fired 17 years earlier as the UW football leader following a 1-5 season, his only one in Montlake. The school kept him around just long enough to open Husky Stadium in 1920 and change the team nickname from Sun Dodgers to Huskies.

Then there was the Dan Berry turnabout. He came to the Huskies in 1962 out of La Jolla, California, as a hotshot left-handed quarterback. He played well enough for the UW freshmen team that was in use back then, but he quit the varsity the next year right before the 1963 season opener when the coaching staff tried to make a running back out of him.

Two years later, Berry quarterbacked Cal to a 16-12 upset of the Huskies in Berkeley. He threw just one pass all game for a 3-yard touchdown, tucked the ball and ran multiple times and was so efficient he was described as "another Bob Schloredt."

Here's a sad but loyal to the end story.

In 1991, the UW and Cal were both unbeaten and ranked among the top seven teams in the country when they met in a must-see showdown in Berkeley. It was a game no one wanted to miss. Certainly not Gary Levine. The chairman and chief executive officer for K & L Distributors liquor distributorship and a leading Husky football donor was on his death bed, literally.

Levine, who had terminal cancer, flew to the game in his private airplane and from a hospice bed, set up low in the stands and near midfield, watched the action unfold. Quarterback Billy Joe Hobert, who had worked for the man during the offseason, came over and greeted him one last time during warmups. Levine died nine days later. 

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3 BEST HUSKY WINS

1991, UW 24, at Cal 17 — This game was huge. One of the biggest in the history of both programs. Two unbeatens going at it. The No. 3 Huskies against the seventh-ranked Golden Bears. A crowd of 74,500 on hand in Berkeley, California. An ABC-TV national audience. This marked the only real difficult game for the UW on the way to a perfect 12-0 season and a co-national championship with Miami. Cal tied things up at 17 with a bare second remaining in the third quarter when running back Lindsey Chapman raced 68 yards for a touchdown. OK, Huskies, your serve. A minute and four seconds into the fourth quarter, or just 65 seconds later, the UW's Beno Bryant went up the middle and ripped off a 65-yard scoring run for the game-winner. And then it was hold-on time, with Husky cornerback Walter Bailey knocking away Cal quarterback Mike Pawlawski's pass at the goal line on the game's final play.

1993, UW 24, at Cal 23 — The 13th-ranked Huskies erased a 23-10 deficit over the final 2:06 of the game to stun the No. 16 Bears in Berkeley. Damon Huard threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to senior D.J. McCarthy for the wide receiver's first career scoring catch. After a successful onside kick, Huard drove the UW for a 7-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mark Bruener, with both of these guys now putting sons on the current Husky football roster (Sam and Carson). Jason Crabbe's extra point completed the comeback. 

1981, UW 27, at Cal 26 — Down 21-0 in the third quarter in Berkeley, the Huskies rushed back to take the lead 24-23 with 9:19 left to play on Sterling Hinds' 16-yard TD run. However, the Bears went back on top with a 49-yard field goal with 6:16 remaining. These Rose Bowl-bound Huskies weren't done. They responded with Chuck Nelson's 21-yard field with just 11 seconds left in the game. 

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3 WORST HUSKY LOSSES

1950, Cal 14, at UW 7 — Few Husky losses have hurt more than this one in program annals. With two superstar players in the backfield in eventual All-Americans Don Heinrich and Hugh McElhenny, the Huskies couldn't take advantage of all that star power and lost a Rose Bowl showdown before a Husky Stadium crowd of 55,245. The Huskies were 12th ranked, Cal was sixth nationally. Running back Pete Schabarum scored both Cal touchdowns on a run and a pass, with the game-winning points coming on his 26-yard catch in the third quarter that held up. The UW had its chances. Heinrich faced fourth-and-goal at the Cal 2 when he fumbled the ball away late in the game. Cal fumbled it back, but Heinrich fumbled again after starting out first-and-goal from the Bears 9.  

2002, Cal 34, at UW 27 — Rick Neuheisel's final Husky team finished a disappointing 7-6 and couldn't beat the Bears at home before a crowd of 71,377. This was noteworthy because the UW entered the matchup with 19 consecutive victories over Cal, dating back to 1977. Streak over. The home team led 10-7 after the first quarter, but wasn't much of a factor after falling behind. Husky quarterback Cody Pickett put the ball in the air 59 times and completed 35 attempts for 399 yards. But typical of this game, he didn't throw a touchdown pass. 

1976, Cal 7, at UW 0 — In Don James' second season as coach, this game was an absolute disaster. And the Husky fans let everyone know about it. The UW had a future Hall of Fame quarterback in Warren Moon, but no discernible offense. The worst of it came right before the first half ended when Moon on fourth-and-1 at the Cal 30 purposely threw the ball out of bounds. He thought it was third down. The crowd of 39,086 thought it was exceedingly stupid. The home fans booed the quarterback so loudly and prolonged that Moon later told how he had to be talked out of quitting and going home. 

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