Cal Football: Bears Give Away Another Winnable Game Against Washington State

The Cal football team had a chance to upset the eighth-ranked Washington State Cougars team, but late mistakes doomed them again.

The Cal football team had a chance. The Bears had a chance against the eighth-ranked Washington State Cougars. Actually, they had multiple chances. They had two chances in the final 10 minutes alone. But as they’ve done so many times in the past, Cal gave those chances away, and with them, an opportunity to upset the team at the top of the Pac-12.

The Bears went into the locker room trailing 13-10 at halftime, and kicker Greg Thomas erased the deficit by nailing 46-yard field goal, the longest of his college career. That 13-13 score stood into the fourth quarter.

Cal had the ball at their own 12-yard line to start their first drive of the fourth quarter, and they put together their best offensive drive of the day. They were helped by two defensive penalties that resulted in first downs, but moved the ball into the redzone about halfway through the fourth quarter. They were poised to take some kind of lead, all they had to do was play smart.

That’s what they didn’t do. On first-and-10 from the Wazzu 12-yard line, Brandon McIlwain was the quarterback. He took the snap and rolled right, keeping his eyes downfield as he looked for something. He finally pulled up and made a throw, and it was the worst possible throw he could have made.

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McIlwain was looking for his running back Patrick Laird, who had a defender in front of him. The quarterback tried to float it up, but threw it well over his receiver’s head. Waiting in the endzone was Cougars’ defensive back Skyler Thomas, who came down with it in bounds for an interception and a touchback.

That’s become McIlwain’s calling card during his time at Cal. The one thing he couldn’t do with the Bears in that spot is turn the ball over. He could have run out of bounds, or taken a sack, or thrown it out of the back of the endzone where no one could make the catch. Instead, he threw his eighth interception in just 128 pass attempts on the season.

For all of McIlwain’s explosiveness with the ball in his hands, for his playmaking abilities as a runner, he continues to cost the Bears with his arm. He’s thrown costly interceptions in the past, but Saturday’s was his most damning yet.

Washington State, however, gave the Bears another opportunity. They drove down the field with an 11-play drive, getting them down to the Cal 13. The Bear defense made a stop in the redzone and forced the Cougars to go for three, but Blake Mazza missed the kick wide.

The next drive for Cal was terrible. They started with a handoff to Laird, who gained three yards, and then went back to Chase Garbers as the quarterback. He threw a pair of deep balls that fell incomplete, forcing Cal to punt back to the Cougars with 2:39 left on the clock and all three timeouts.

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Unlike Cal quarterbacks, Washington State signal caller Gardner Minshew came up big when it mattered most. Starting at their own 31-yard line, the Cougars were marched down the field with Minshew at the helm. He completed five of his six pass attempts on the drive, eating up 59 yards and finishing with a 10-yard touchdown to Easop Winston, his first scoring strike of the afternoon. Mazza missed the extra point, but it wouldn’t matter. Cal had already given the game away earlier.

The Cal defense, again, was stout. They gave up more yardage than they’re used to, especially through the air, but they limited one of the best passing offenses in the country and gave the offense countless opportunities. Before that final drive, Minshew, the nation’s leading passer, was under 300 yards for the game. Their 19 points scored became a season-low.

But the Cal offense, again, came up short. They gained 291 total yards, their fifth game under 400 yards this season. They didn’t lose the turnover battle, like they’d done five times before this week, giving the ball away twice and taking it away twice. But their final turnover came at the worst possible time.

The Bears were within yards of possibly winning their sixth game with three games left to play, and if they beat the Cougars, they would have been right there at the top of the Pac-12 North. Instead, their insistence on a two-quarterback timeshare hurt them again, and they are at a crossroads.

Their defense is good enough to play with anyone in the conference, but they can’t take advantage of that offensively. They have three more tries to gain bowl eligibility, but can they take advantage of winnable games? With the way their offense has played, there’s a lot of work to be done.