Was Cal's Second Half at SMU the Worst in Program History?

Two days later, a few more takeaways from Cal’s 59-20 defeat at SMU on Saturday:

That gruesome second half

Cal began playing football in 1882 and not once since then has Cal experienced a second half quite like the Bears endured at SMU.

Being shut out 42-0 after halftime was bad enough — possibly the worst second-half margin Cal has suffered since the 1973 season opener, when Bear Bryant’s Alabama team outscored the Bears 45-0 over the final two quarters on the way to a 66-0 win on a hot and humid night in Birmingham, Ala.

We’ll acknowledge not having access to the score by quarters of Cal’s 60-7 road loss to a 1980 USC team that featured Marcus Allen and Ronnie Lott. Cal quarterback Rich Campbell was gone with a knee injury before the end of the first quarter and this one was never competitive.

By comparison, Cal held a 20-17 halftime lead on Saturday against the Mustangs, playing its best 30 minutes of the season.

That served to set up this unprecedented outcome: Cal’s 59-20 defeat marked the biggest second-half collapse the Bears have experienced in a game where they held the lead at halftime.

Cal (3-5, 2-3 ACC) will seek a different result Saturday when it faces NC State (3-4, 1-3) at Raleigh, NC. Kickoff is 9 a.m. PT.

No defensive takeaways, again

The Cal offense has not turned the ball over for three consecutive games, which is obviously commendable.

The flip side is that the Bears’ defense has failed to secure a takeaway in either of the past two games, where they allowed a combined 100 points in losses to Wake Forest and SMU.

Cal forced 10 turnovers in its first six games, with at least two in three outings. This has been a strength of the defense in recent years but for the first time since 2024 the Bears have gone as many as two straight games without a takeaway.

It happened in the final four games of the ‘24 season and, guess what? Cal lost three of those four.

The flags keep coming

While good teams often are heavily penalized and it doesn’t seem to derail them, teams playing with smaller margins for success cannot afford to continually draw flags from game officials.

The Bears were called for 11 penalties totaling 107 yards in the loss at SMU. That’s their fifth game in eight with at least 80 yards in infractions.

The Bears have been penalized 73 times for 683 yards — last in the nation in both categories. That’s an average of 85 yards per game — 20 yards more than Cal accumulated last season.

Coach Tosh Lupoi says Bears have repeatedly addressed the issue in practice. But at this point there is no getting around the fact that this is not a disciplined football team.

Running on empty

The Bears’ long-struggling running attack reached a season low at SMU, gaining just 40 yards on 28 attempts — an average of 1.4 yards per rush. It was the fifth straight game they’ve failed to reach 100 yards on the ground and in their past six games against FBS opponents are averaging just 69.8 yards.

Their season average of 84.0 rushing yards per outing is last in the ACC and 137th among 138 FBS team (ahead of Sam Houston by 1 yard per game).

Cal’s run game came to a screeching half after Adam Mohammed was injured in Week 4 against Clemson. Mohammed totaled 336 rushing yards through four-plus games and although he has not been declared out for the season, his status going forward remains unclear.

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