A day after Cal’s baffling 59-20 loss to SMU, the same question still hangs in the air: how does a team look this sharp for one half and this lost for the next?
The Bears were the better team for much of the first half on the road against the 23rd-ranked team in the country. Cal (3-5) rolled up 255 yards of offense to SMU’s 186, won the first-down battle 14-11 and carried a 20-17 lead into halftime.
Then the floor fell out.
In the second half, Cal managed just 50 yards while SMU piled up 306. The Bears picked up only two first downs, and both of those came after the Mustangs had already stretched the margin to 38-20. SMU outscored Cal 42-0 after halftime.
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele was a big part of that early success. He went 19-for-23 for 214 yards and a touchdown in the first half, then faded badly after the break, finishing the second half 8-for-14 for 51 yards with no touchdowns.
So what changed? The possibilities all have some logic, but none cleanly explains the collapse.
One theory is that Cal simply ran out of steam. SMU had the better legs, and the Bears were already dealing with injuries. Add in the trip to Dallas and the early kickoff, and maybe the tank emptied.
That idea doesn’t quite hold up, though. Cal got to Dallas in time to adjust, and the Bears practice in the morning, so the early start shouldn’t have been a major issue. The players also don’t appear to be lacking in conditioning.
Another explanation is that SMU started slow, then snapped to attention after halftime and played with the urgency of a team that realized it was in danger. That’s plausible, but it still doesn’t explain the full scale of Cal’s second-half unraveling.
There’s also the simple home-field factor. SMU has been dominant at home, winning every conference home game since joining the ACC in 2024. Once the momentum swung, the Mustangs had enough talent to turn it into a runaway, especially against a Cal team dealing with injuries and inexperience at several spots.
Penalties were another possible culprit, but that doesn’t fit the timeline either. Cal was hit with 108 penalty yards overall, yet 76 of those came in the first half - the same half in which the Bears moved the ball effectively and took the lead.
Could it have been a mental shift? A team playing loose as a road underdog, then tightening up after realizing at halftime that a big upset was suddenly within reach?
That would make sense in the abstract, but the play selection didn’t really point to a sudden retreat. Cal opened the second half with passes on five of its first six plays.
The cleaner answer is probably the one that lives in the middle: Cal had a strong game plan coming in, and it worked early on both sides of the ball. SMU made better halftime adjustments, found Cal’s defensive weakness and took away what had been working for the Bears on offense.
Once the Mustangs scored two touchdowns in the first eight minutes of the second half, the game tilted hard. From there, Cal couldn’t slow the wave, and SMU’s home crowd and superior talent took over.
Even then, the split still feels strange. Cal hasn’t exactly been a first-half team this season. In its six previous games against FBS opponents, the Bears were outscored 118-48 before halftime, then actually outscored those opponents 70-69 in the second half.
Sagapolutele offered his own explanation after the game.
"SMU came out and they adjusted well and had a god game plan for us in the second half," he said, noting a possible way to avoid such a letdown is "not taking your foot off the gas; I think that's one thing we could have done better."
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