Cal Football Reruns a Horror Movie Against Miami

A phenomenal day to start ends with numbness

Author’s note: We’ll get to the good stuff about “College GameDay” in a separate piece tomorrow.

For three quarters, Cal Football did everything right against a top-10 Miami team. They punched above their weight, strangling Cam Ward and the Hurricanes offense into submission, created explosive plays on offense, and unearthed an atmosphere that had not been seen at California Memorial Stadium arguably in over a decade.

Then in a stunning collapse on all fronts, it was a fourth quarter from hell that gave Miami a lifeline and eventually a chance to complete a herculean come back. In an all too familiar situation, it was the Bears not making the last winning play in front of a raucous crowd that sent fans home in silence, anger, and sadness all at once.

The elephant in the room

I do believe that Miami should have been called for targeting on the hit against Fernando Mendoza. Let me be clear on that.

It should have never gotten to that point.

When you hold a 25 point lead at home late in the third quarter, you have to finish the game, no exceptions. You don’t let incompetent officials make the call in a game that should’ve been over and done with.

Over the eight years of this coaching regime, what’s one of the phrases that comes up consistently when Cal is these types of scenarios?

“Not enough winning plays”

Once again, Cal did not make enough winning plays. As

Piotr Le

stated post game, Cal’s offense turned into “all sizzle no steak” and could not generate anything on prolonged drives. These little stalls were the catalyst for not being able to put Miami away but just how bad was it?

Mike Bloesch’s game of his life until it wasn’t

Through the first three quarters, Cal’s offense had found a way to get their playmakers in space, used Miami’s leverage against them, and most importantly asserted themselves as a team that will set the tone aggressively.

It all faded away from the late third quarter onwards. For reasons that still baffle me, Cal’s offense turtled the rest of the way and was one of the primary reasons for giving Miami life. The running game was a struggle all night, and to pivot to it as something to lean on towards the end is confusing at best, maddening at worst.

Jaydn Ott exited the game late with an undisclosed injury and did not return. But in those final drives, it was the same Bears team from games prior that sent running backs into a pile of humanity that stalled them, and kick started the Canes.

Prepare yourselves for this rushing chart.

Bending and bending until it finally broke

Cal’s defense was firing on all cylinders through the first 40 minutes of the game. At that point, there wasn’t a significant drop-off despite losing Ryan McCulloch to injury earlier in the game and they seemed primed to finish what they started.

However, they were out there way too long and that set off the drop off down the stretch. The defense set the tone, expanded the lead, but needed the offense to take them home after their herculean effort to that point.

Craig Woodson, Cade Uluave, Teddye Buchanan, Nohl Williams, and Marcus Harris played 90+ snaps Saturday. That’s completely untenable and unreasonable to expect them to be at their A game for all of those plays.

The Canes ran 86 plays on offense compared to Cal’s 49. They owned the time of possession battle, winning it with 38 minutes of control against the Bears 22. Cal was also 1/10 on 3rd down in the second half on offense and threw for 0 passing yards in the fourth quarter. Mix with that a Miami offense that was heating up and a defense that was out there all night, and it becomes clear where the recipe for disaster was brewing.

Alas, another what if for Cal football

Cal fans showed up and showed the hell out Saturday. It was a euphoric, phenomenal, and fever dream esque day that drew lots of emotion from fans who could only dream of College GameDay coming from the glade. The nation knows its not just a Calgorithim (although they’ve certainly earned their flowers) but a dormant fan base that needed a little pep in their step.

Saturday was unquestionably a net positive in terms of the optics and fuel of the fanbase and I’ll expand on that more in a GameDay retrospective.

However, as I keep mentioning, you still need to win the football game. This was the biggest crowd of significance since Arizona State 2019, and in a circumstance all too familiar, it was the Cal fans that were left in anger, sadness and in the worst cases…..numb.

A game like that can and should fire people up. When you face a sequence of events so maddening and illogical that it feels normal, it can render you emotionally invisible to anything that may come your way.

To me, that’s the most damning characteristic of the loss. The optics of the day will shine bright on the Cal fans but the downtrodden loss of this variety simply made some process it as “Yeah I’ve seen this movie before” or “Of course”, erasing portions of the goodwill.

Taking stock of it all, the fanbase without a shadow of a doubt came out of Saturday with a renewed energy, ready to capitalize on what they want to be a winning football team.

It's now gut check time for this 2024 team. Fred Warner said it best this weekend:

“I don't think you find out exactly who you are until you go through hard times. And I think we're going through the hardest times right now and we'll see how we respond”

Cal is now in their hard times. For better or for worse, everyone is going to see exactly what type of team the Bears are against Pitt next weekend. They may be resilient, they may throw haymakers, they may be emotionally drained and not be able to get up off the mat. It’s all on the table and it will take some time to see that come to fruition over four quarters in Pennsylvania.

But for now its apparent that in this environment against Miami, the moment was too big for Cal to bear.