Post-Game Thoughts: 127th Big Game Cal v. Stanford Football

The book of Fernando Mendoza folklore gains another chapter.

Photo credit: Rob Hwang

The Big Game is special because we make it special.

I say “we” very broadly. The students make it special by bringing energy. Spirit groups make it special by maintaining traditions. Alums make it special by making a point to be here every year. Your friends and family make it special by maintaining whatever traditions matter to you.

The players make it special by going out there and making winning plays.

I realize that “The Big Game is special because we make it special” sounds pretty damned trite. But it was something that I’ve worried about from time to time over the last few years as college football radically changed as Cal and Stanford struggled to keep up, or actively put their heads in the sand.

But I don’t think anything can kill what makes the Big Game special. A 5-5 team took on a 3-7 team and everybody came. And everybody wearing blue and gold was better for the experience, even (especially?) the newcomers.

Jonathan Brady was at New Mexico State last year, and this year is one of many transfer portal players who have been in Berkeley for a very short time. He caught each of Cal’s 4th quarter touchdowns that turned the game on its head. After the game, he stuck around on the field a long time amidst the mob of fans. I know this in part because when I was walking off the field out of North Tunnel, he happened to be next to me, finally trying to get to the locker room. I told him he shouldn’t ever have to pay for a drink in Berkeley again, before my wife pulled me out of the way so that he could get around me and celebrate with his teammates.

I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember our brief conversation, since Brady was asked about what he remembered about the post game field storm in the post-game press conference:

No . . . I just, I don’t remember a lot. It was just exciting to be a part of that, man.

But just prior to that, he gave the following quote:

It was just crazy. I’ve never experienced anything like that. And you know, it’s a blessing, and it’s exciting to be a part of. You have rival games, but nothing like this. I’ve never been a part of a field where they just storm it and they’re just so excited about the team winning.

When a guy can be in Berkeley for a year, experience Big Game once, and get what it means immediately, you understand that the Big Game will survive whatever the modern world of college football throws at it. It doesn’t matter which stupid conference logo is on the field. It matters because WE care, and WE will keep making it special.

Offense

Efficiency Report

9 drives: 3 touchdowns, 2 field goal attempts (1-2), 3 punts, 1 turnover (downs), 2.7 points/drive

Cal ran exactly 34 plays in their first 6 drives, for a paltry 148 yards. That’s just 4.4 yards/play, and more than a 3rd of those yards came on one Mendoza scramble that was largely responsible for Cal’s only points of the game. For 2/3rds of the game, Cal’s offense did next to nothing.

And then suddenly, for no discernable reason, Cal produced 223 yards in 34 plays across their final three (non-clock killing) drives of the game, averaging 6.6 yards/play and scoring 17 points. I don’t recall many other games where an offense flipped the switch so suddenly and so successfully.

A 98 yard synopsis of the entire season

You had everything. Fernando taking a bad sack when he needed to get a pass off. A nails play from Jack Endries. Jaydn gets stoned on a run up the middle that gets blown up. Nyziah coming up with plays that you’d expect from a three year vet. Fernando taking a sack where he gets smashed before he can even survey the field. An offensive line penalty.

And finally, Fernando, standing in the pocket with poise against a second seven man suicide Stanford blitz, delivering a perfect ball right as he gets leveled, finishing off a 98 yard journey with his boys.

In 11 plays, Cal showed off every problem that plagued the offense all season long, and every piece of talent that made you think that this offense was just a few pieces away from being special. And in this case, they good outweighed the bad just enough to scratch out a game winning touchdown.

I don’t know if it’s the greatest drive in Big Game history. It seems unlikely that there is a ninety-nine yard drive for a touchdown that flips a game from a loss into a win, but there are 126 prior editions of this game and I’ve only watched 31 of ‘em.

Big Game Hero: Offense edition

Fernando Mendoza, for finding his passing touch and leading three drives to win the game. Jonathan Brady, who scored two 4th quarter touchdowns to turn defeat into victory. Nyziah Hunter, with multiple clutch grabs and a critical PI drawn.

Defense

Efficiency Report

10 drives: 3 touchdowns, 2 field goal attempts (0-2), 4 punts, 1 turnover (downs), 2.1 points/drive

Again, a tale of two segments. Stanford put up an impressive 6.45 yards/play on the first two drives of the game and then did next to nothing the rest of the game, averaging 2.7 yards/play the rest of the way. Even Stanford’s only 2nd half score required 11 plays just to go 52 yards. Absolutely nothing was easy after those first two drives.

Zero explosives

Stanford had exactly one play that went for 20 or more yards. It came on the 3rd play of the game, on 3rd and 3, when both of Cal’s middle linebackers bit on the possibility that Ashton Daniels would scramble, leaving a receiver wide open for a short pass and then a run after the catch.

Stanford is woefully lacking in athletes. They have a handful of solid possession wide receivers, and basically nothing at running back. And so they are absolutely reliant on consistent short gains, to the point where they’re almost service-academy-lite. Stanford completed three passes more than 10 yards downfield across the entire game!

The question was when Cal would get Stanford off schedule. For two drives, Stanford churned their way down the field and it gave them a 14-0 lead. But as the game wore on, Cal increasingly got stuffs on 1st down, or forced incompletions that forced Stanford into obvious passing downs. Daniels would occasionally make a play scrambling but Stanford got nothing downfield.

And when the defense had to play perfect, when they couldn’t allow any more points and when they needed to get the ball back to the offense quickly, they got four stops in a row to close out the game, allowing exactly one first down.

Big Game Hero: Defense edition

David Reese, Cal’s most consistently disruptive presence on the defensive line, with two sacks and multiple run play stuffs. Nohl Williams, for winning the battle against Elic Ayomanor. Craig Woodson, for leading the team in tackles and going out on top as the longest tenured player on the roster.

Special Teams

High impact in both directions

Plays that nearly won Stanford the game

• Tiger Bachmeier returns a punt 35 yards to set up Stanford in plus territory, which they cash in for a 14 point lead.

• Ryan Coe just barely misses from 50 yards, preserving Stanford’s 7 point lead into halftime.

• Nohl Williams makes the wrong decision to return a kickoff, and compounds that problem by fumbling when he’s hit hard at the 18.

• Stanford downs a punt at the 2 yard line with just 7:45 left in the game and a 5 point lead, and SURELY Fernando and his boys wouldn’t drive 98 yards to win the game?!

Plays that won Cal the game

• Ryan Coe nails a 46 yard field goal that I was unhappy with at the time (still a two score game!) but ended up being the winning margin.

• Emmet Kenney misses a 53 yard field goal that could have extended Stanford’s lead to 10 late in the 2nd quarter

• Stanford botches the hold on a field goal that would have almost certainly extended their lead to 17 with about 20 minutes left in the game.

On balance I think Stanford got a bit more value out of special teams than Cal did, but so much of special teams swings on making your field goals, and Cal did more of that than Stanford.

Big Picture

There will be time for sober analysis later. Now is the time to bask in the joy of victory.

If you haven’t already, take a listen to Justin Wilcox’s press conference after the game and enjoy his emotionally honest thoughts about what Big Game means.

When you’re a fan of a team like Cal that doesn’t even regularly compete for conference titles, let alone national titles, you do it because moments like this will live with you forever.

10, 20, 30 years from now, nobody outside of Cal fandom will remember “98 yards with my boys.” Just like nobody outside of Cal fandom remembers ‘win one for the zipper’ in 1986, or Geoff McArthur in 2003, or The Chase in 2019.

But to us, those moments mean everything. They’re the bedrock to our fandom. The reason so many of us travel from far and wide on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

I’ve already said that Fernando Mendoza is a Cal folk hero. That designation had less to do with his play on the field, and more to do with his personality, and the way he has embraced Cal fans in an era when it’s harder and harder to make any kind of emotional connection to the players on the field.

We had that kind of special emotional attachment to Fernando BEFORE he led a comeback from down 14 points, BEFORE he led the greatest drive in Big Game history, BEFORE he poured his guts out moments after the game ended.

From folk hero to legend. Go Bears Forever.