The Good, the Bad, and the Rock Fights: Cal vs. Miami College Football 2024

The most prototypical Bad loss...an accurate assessment on so many levels

Cal in the 3rd quarter, entirely unprepared for the obliteration waiting in Q4

What comes to mind when thinking of a typically bad Cal loss? Is it a garden variety blowout (so many examples come to mind over the last fifteen years) or is it doused with an extra coat of agony? Perhaps it’s the kind of loss where Cal was on the precipice of making a program-defining statement, especially on a day that has already showcased the unexpected and infectious passion of generations of Cal football fans. And perhaps it’s also one of those losses where Cal wins if one random variable has a slightly different outcome—that near-interception midway through Miami’s furious rally, if Cam Ward held onto the ball a split second longer and crossed the line of scrimmage before throwing on that final drive, having a replay review crew that actually has functioning optic nerves. This is all to say that for many of us, this loss all had the key ingredients to be a classic nightmare scenario for Cal fans. And you know what? Our Good-Bad-Rockfights clustering algorithm seems to agree.