Golden Nuggets: The Calgorithm, Nobel Prize Speeches and Lectures, and BALLOONS

UC Berkeley posted a photo of a really cool sticker on a Nobel Prize sign. Wonder how that got there!

Hello and welcome to Golden Nuggets, our weekly recap article where we try to highlight all the fun, funny, or interesting things you might have missed roughly over the last week across Bear Territory (the whole damn world of course). Think of it like a primer for water cooler talk. It’ll give you something not work related to talk about at your holiday party!

O-SK1000

Learning about the Calgorithm

We start this week with a feature hot off the presses from California Magazine, the official magazine of the Cal Alumni Association looking at The Calgorithm Jason Turbow embedded with some fans at a few football games this past season to learn more about the group, the fanbase, and attempt to explain it to the wider world. Read the feature here.

UC Berkeley Faculty and Alumni Receive Nobel Prizes

This past week, Professors John Clarke and Omar Yaghi travelled to Stockholm, Sweden to receive their Nobel Prizes. Prof. Yaghi’s speech clocks in at just over 5 minutes and is worth listening to. Or if you can’t, give it a read here.

Or you can listen to Prof. Clarke’s nearly 2 hour presentation here.

Of course you can also catch them on campus.

hey that is a cool sticker.

Hot Links

College Football’s Toughest Jobs

Surely there’s reason to celebrate when Cal Football is mentioned in the same breath as Ohio State, and Alabama, right? The Athletic recently held a coaches vote of the toughest jobs in College Football with Cal ranking at #8. Read the article here.

People’s Park

UC Berkeley’s Affordable Housing Project at People’s Park has a develop and KQED has you covered. Give it a read here.

Have you ever wondered how much our balloon budget is?

Special thanks to FOIABall for getting to the bottom of this question plaguing fans. Read more and check out FOIAball here!

Small Bites

• Hey look! Cal replaced at BYU with a home contest against Pitt! The H will be ours!

• UC Berkeley will soon launch an experiment to the dark side of the moon

• Fresh off Fernando Mendoza’s Heisman Win, ESPN published the 2026 “Way to Early” Heisman Odds and it features a familiar name

• Cal Basketball Recruit Quincy Wadley put together a video on his recent visit to Cal. Interesting to take a peak at how these recruiting visits go! Also he makes a 6-7 joke in the first minute.

• Pick up the Phone, Cal Football Alumni are calling.

• Alex Mack was officially inducted into the National Football Federation College Football Hall of Fame

• Women’s Water Polo dropped their schedule

Golden Bear Honors

• Berta Passola Folch (Tennis) was named November Gatorade Student of the Month

• Hezekiah Masses (Football) is having a good week

  • He was named to the AP All-American Second Team

  • And to the Walter Camp All-American Second Team

  • And the Sports Illustrated All-American Second Team

  • And the American Football Coaches Association All-American Second Team

  • And got invited and accepted to the Senior Bowl

• Liz Klompmaker (Field Hockey) was named to the NFHCA All-American 3rd Team!

• Cam Wilkerson (Men’s Soccer) was named a CSC Academic All-American

• Peyton Dejardin and Sophia Johnson (Volleyball) were named to the College Sports Communicators All-District Academic Team

• Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele (Football) was a finalist for Kirk Herbstreit’s Newcomer of the Year. And the PFF Best Freshman Quarterback

• Luke Ferrelli (Football) was named to The Athletic’s College Football Freshman All-American Second Team

Cal Athletics Recap

• Women’s Basketball beat Idaho (68-61) but lost to Stanford (69-78)

• Men’s Basketball beat Northwestern State (79-70)

Cal Pros Recap

Football

ESPN wrote about the untold stories of Jared Goff. Jared also threw 338 yards and 3 TDs in a close loss to the Rams. Aaron Rodgers threw for 224 yards and 2 TDs in a win over the Dolphins. Watch it all here.

Table Tennis

Our own Ruey Yen went to watch a Major League Table Tennis down in Los Angeles and saw Lily Zhang win 3 games to put the Bay Area Blasters over the New York Slice.

Gymnastics

Mya Lauzon is back and coaching! At Cal!

Basketball

Jaylen Brown averaged 32 points across two losses to Detroit and Milwaukee. Jaylon Tyson has a double double (Rebounds/Pts) in a loss to Charlotte.

Next Week in Bear Territory

• Men’s Basketball takes on Morgan State (12/19) and Columbia (12/21)

• Women’s Basketball plays against USC in the Invisalign Bay Area Women’s Classic (12/24)

• Cal Football takes on Hawaii in the Hawaii Bowl (12/24)

And so we find ourselves again at the end of Golden Nuggets. I appreciate you all reading this, and I have a ton of fun writing it. Last week’s most clicked link was the Battle of the C’s. Read it again!

This will likely be the last Golden Nuggets of the year. Enjoy the time with family, or the peace of the Holiday season. See you in the new year! Go Bears!