Cal Football: Bears' Defense Once Again Works Its Magic Against Washington State

High-scoring Cougars have just 42 points against the Bears the past 3 years

Evan Weaver tried his best to sound disappointed.

No one was buying it.

“I think we played horrible tonight,” he said from the interview podium Saturday night. “We just couldn’t pull it out there at the end.”

Then he broke into a big smile while leaning back in his chair with a look of great satisfaction.

“But, no, honestly it’s awesome,” he said. ‘It’s awesome to get a win.”

The Bears’ 33-20 victory over Washington State, ending a four-game losing skid, was notable for the team’s most prolific offensive performance of the season. After scoring just 24 points during the entire month of October, the Bears put a season-high point total on the board.

The flip side is that Cal’s defense, the team’s anchor for two seasons, rebounded with a big-time effort two weeks after being physically dominated in a 35-0 loss at Utah.

Washington State arrived in Berkeley with one of the nation’s most prolific offenses. Here’s where the Cougars ranked in FBS:

— 1st in passing at 436.4 yards

— 5th in total offense at 521.9 yards

— 8th in scoring at 41.8 points

Yep, nearly 42 points per game this season. Yet over the past three seasons, coach Mike Leach’s Air Raid offense has totaled 42 points against the Bears.

The Cougars only got to 20 on Saturday night by scoring a meaningless touchdown with five seconds left.

Cal has been very good defensively under Justin Wilcox and D-coordinator Tim DeRuyter. But what they’ve done against WSU exceeds what any other team has been able to accomplish.

The Cougars have played 35 games since the start of the 2017 season.

They have scored 50 points or more in seven of those.

They have been held to 20 points or fewer in seven others.

And three of those seven were against Cal.

Is it just possible that Cal’s defensive approach is a problem for the finesse-oriented Cougars?

Weaver suggested as much.

“It kind of corralates very well with our defense,” he said. “We’ve got a bunch of dudes that can cover and we’ve got a D-line that can rush.”

WSU quarterback Anthony Gordon dropped back to pass 64 times against Cal (he attempted 58 passes, ran for his life on six other plays) while the Cougars handed the ball to Max Borghi just eight times.

WSU always heavily favors the pass, but typically Borghi is a successful counter-punch. He entered the game averaging 7.3 yards per rush. Against Cal, he averaged 2.4 yards on his eight tries.

Others besides Weaver, the nation's leading tackler, contributed to Cal's defensive performance. Senior Josh Drayden delivered perhaps his best career game, subbing for injured nickel back Traveon Beck. He collected six solo tackles, many of them in the open field.

"It was a good performance by him, no doubt," Wilcox said. 

The Bears struggled to get off the field against Utah, which converted six of its first seven third-down opportunities and ran up 28 first-half points to chase the Bears out of Salt Lake City.

WSU was 3 for 12 on third downs, 1 for 3 on fourth downs.

While acknowledging they were facing two entirely different offenses, Wilcox said being able to get off the field defensively was a key against the Cougars.

“Wazzu is a very, very good offense. They’re tough to stop,” he said. “We competed hard and tried to show them some different looks. Sometimes you rush him with four or five, sometimes you rush him with three, just trying to change up the picture.

“I thought the guys stepped on up those big downs and got off the field, which was huge.”