Cal’s trip to SMU landed squarely in the worst neighborhood of The Bad.
That part was never really in doubt once the game got away from them. The article’s weekly grading system usually leaves room for all sorts of outcomes, but this season keeps pushing Cal back into the same column: the ugly one. This week, the evidence was everywhere.
Offensively, the Bears were stuck in the middle. Their overall Game Rating and Efficiency, along with Points per Drive and Available Yards, all sat in that mediocre range.
But the sharper warning signs came in Yards per Play and Success Rate, which were only around the 25th percentile. In other words, Cal could score when drives got long enough, but they had a hard time creating those kinds of drives in the first place.
Defensively, there wasn’t much to debate. SMU moved the ball far, moved it efficiently, and finished drives. The numbers were blunt, and the on-field result was even blunter: nothing pleasant showed up in those defensive stats.
Special teams gave Cal a little more to chew on. The Bears made two medium-range field goals, from 37 and 41 yards, while SMU’s lone field goal came from 29 yards.
Punting was another story. SMU only punted twice, but those kicks averaged 47.5 yards and yielded 9.5 yards per return.
Cal averaged 40.2 yards per punt, and SMU’s returns came back for 26 yards and then -2 yards. The kickoff number also dipped, though not because of Cal’s usual habit of returning kicks out to the 15.
This time the damage came from SMU’s 35-yard kickoff return, which set up the first score of the game.
The cluster analysis fit the same theme. By this point in the year, the goal is less about figuring out whether Cal played well and more about determining which flavor of bad it was. This one belonged alongside blowout losses built on long scoring droughts for Cal and huge runs from the opponent.
That led to the most brutal comparison of all. The game most similar to this one was Cal’s 13-63 Big Game loss in 2013, a result that qualifies as one of the most demoralizing in program memory.
In that game, a competitive first quarter gave way to an LSJU surge of 42-3. Jared Goff’s injury made matters worse, but Cal was already down 22 and Andy Buh’s defense had no answer.
The drive data lines up in unsettling fashion: SMU scored touchdowns on 8 of 11 possessions, though only once on its first four drives, while LSJU had 9 touchdowns on 13 possessions in 2013. Cal’s own offensive stretches were similarly bleak in both games.
Against SMU, the Bears scored on four of their first five possessions, with two touchdowns and two field goals, then went scoreless on the next seven. In 2013, Cal opened with one touchdown and then failed to score another one on the next 12 possessions.
It’s the kind of comparison that leaves a fanbase asking the same hard question all over again.
In Other News...
Cal Heads To NC State With Key Lineup Questions Mounting
Cals trip to North Carolina State arrives with the kind of injury report that forces a staff to keep one eye on the depth chart and the other on the available bodies. The initial availability list has multiple names in doubt across several spots, with question marks at running back, wide receiver, inside linebacker and along the offensive line, which leaves the Bears sorting through a week of uncertainty before they even get to Raleigh.
Among the most notable names, starting inside linebacker AJ Tuitele and starting wide receiver Ian Strong are listed as questionable, while Adam Mohammed is also in question after missing the past four games. Carter Vargas has been ruled out, adding to the pressure on a lineup that already has Jordan King, Carter Vargas, Dorian Thomas and Nate Burrell marked unavailable for the matchup. [Read more 🡒]
Tosh Lupoi Contract Details Raise A Bigger Question For Cal
Cals new five-year agreement with Tosh Lupoi gives the program a clearer financial picture, and it also says plenty about how the football operation is being run now. The University of California finalized the deal with a structure that includes a fixed salary and a talent fee, plus performance bonuses, while Chancellor Lyons and General Manager Ron Rivera signed on for the Regents, a sign that the administrative setup around the program has changed in a meaningful way.
What stands out, though, is how much of the contracts detail is tied to the bigger architecture of the department rather than just wins and losses. The buyout clause is set to shrink as the deal moves forward, and it is also tied to Riveras status with the university, which makes the coaching arrangement feel unusually connected to the front office structure Cal has built around Lupoi. For a program trying to stabilize itself, that kind of linkage could matter just as much as the headline numbers. [Read more 🡒]
Cal's Collapse Has Tosh Lupoi Searching For Fixes Fast
Cals latest stretch has left Tosh Lupoi juggling problems on multiple fronts, with penalties, injuries and uneven play all piling up at the wrong time. The Bears have had to search for answers in practice as much as on game day, and that has meant leaning on an offense that has been hit hard while still trying to clean up the kind of mistakes that keep drives alive for opponents.
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele has emerged as one of the steadier voices in the middle of it all, showing leadership even as the unit around him has struggled to find consistency. But the roster churn has been impossible to ignore, and it has forced Cal to get creative just to keep the operation moving. The bigger question now is whether those fixes can actually translate into something sturdier before the season slips further away. [Read more 🡒]