A procedure penalty on Oregon’s offense with a third-and one on Cal’s nine-yard line early in the fourth quarter turned out to be the key play in the Ducks’s 26-16 loss to the Bears in the middle of a deluge in Berkeley Saturday. After the ensuing five-yard penalty, the Ducks could not covert a third down and chose the chip shot field goal attempt by Matt Evensen to tie the game at 19-19. Unfortunately, the ball was wide of the pipes to the right and the Ducks were on the downhill side of the game.
The Bear’s offense took over on the 20 and gained some ground, but was forced to punt to Jairus Byrd inside his own ten-yard line. Normally, the rule for the return man is to let the ball go inside the ten, but Byrd attempted a fair catch, fumbled, and Cal recovered on the six-yard line. The fumble was the only one lost on the day for the Ducks. The Bears scored to go ahead, 26-16 and that was the game. The loss puts the Ducks out of the conference title race and the win gives the Bears a shot at a showdown with USC in Los Angeles next week.
Oregon is not a team that can pass the ball very well: Masoli was only 7-for-21 with two interceptions and a measly 44 yards, just over two yards per attempt. Both interceptions were the results of telegraphed throws that were thrown late, allowing a safety in one instance, and a linebacker in the other, to make the interceptions. Cal’s defense played like real Bears against the Oregon rush, holding the Ducks to only 206 yards, nearly 100 under their Pac-10 leading average. The Bears, whose defense is coordinated by former Oregon assistant Bob Gregory, moved their big-play linebacker, Zack Follett around in several different positions to take advantage of his great speed and he made key stops, including a sack, several run-down-from-behind tackles and a pass breakup.
After a first-possession interception set up a 46-yard touchdown drive in only four plays, the Duck’s offense went missing in action. Jeremiah Masoli hit his first two passes and following, he scored the Ducks’ first touchdown on a 17-yard run that was successful, due primarily to great blocking downfield by the two Oregon split receivers.
The defense played very well, except on third down. The Ducks allowed Cal to convert on 7 of 13 attempts in the first half and one very big 4th-and-14 when Walter Thurmond III was beat on a post pattern for a 22-yard touchdown thrown by starter Kevin Riley of Beaverton. Riley was dazed in a pile-up tackle with three defenders and had to leave the game, replaced by senior Nate Longshore who completed 13-of-27 for 136 yards and a score. And, with the Oregon offense converting none of their seven attempts, the defense had to play too much of the first half: Cal enjoyed an eight minute advantage in possession time.
Often, Masoli resorted to a previous bad habit of scrambling sideways when Duck receivers couldn’t get open. Several times, the protection was just fine, but the quarterback put himself into bad throwing positions by leaving the pocket prematurely. Oregon’s receivers did not help much when Masoli started scrambling; in several instances they just stood where they were, looking for the quarterback to make something happen. What the receivers should have done is move away from the defenders: those short receivers should go deeper, and the long receivers should come back towards the quarterback. The worst thing that could happen is to just stand there, watching Masoli run for his life.
The defense missed several critical tackles, but they made several outstanding hits that caused fumbles, including two by safety T J Ward. The Bears gave up four fumbles and an interception in the first half and the Ducks gave up the ball twice on interceptions. The last was absolutely crucial, as it set the Bears up with their second touchdown with only 19 seconds left in the half. With Masoli not being sharp in the first two quarters, it probably is arguable whether the Ducks should have been throwing the ball so late in the second quarter anyway.
There were several key foul ups in the kicking games. Oregon was actually lucky to be only behind 16-7 at halftime. Oregon bobbled the snap on their first extra point and the snapper put the ball back high over punter Josh Syria’s head for a safety after Cal had gone back in front, 7-6. The Bear’s place kicker mushed a field goal attempt right of the posts and their holder bobbled a snap on another field goal attempt which the Ducks stuffed. For the day, Syria punted beautifully despite the terrible weather conditions: six punts for a 47.7 average.
The Duck offensive coaches made a couple of locker room adjustments and they immediately paid off as Masoli took the Ducks for a touchdown on their first possession in the third quarter. The Ducks started blocking their zone running plays differently, having an offensive tackle and guard block down on the onside of the play and pulling a guard, and sometimes center, to form a convoy for the running back. Oregon actually used that scheme to protect Masoli on option keepers also, and the results were immediate: the Ducks gained 112 yards in the third quarter after being held to under 100 in the entire first half.
Coach Mike Bellotti also had Masoli settle his feet down in the pocket, but dropped passes by Duck receivers, including three straight by Jaison Williams, and good pressure by California’s secondary, prevented Oregon from making any headway. Bellotti brought on Justin Roper the last series and Roper hit four passes, but it was too little, too late. Roper was sacked once and was obviously rusty, if not cold-chilled, from a game-long ride on the bench.
The defense played well in the second half, giving up the one touchdown on a six-yard drive, but there were too many third down conversions allowed. For the game, Cal converted 7-of-19 opportunities while the Ducks could squeeze out only 4-of-18. At least four long yardage situations were converted by Bear receivers who made sure handed catches despite the constant rain showers.
A former offensive coordinator for Mike Bellotti, Bear coach Jeff Tedford has seemed to always have success against the two-deep Duck secondaries and this game was no exception. Cal would line two receivers to one side of the formation with the outside receiver running a post corner behind a corner who was playing the slot receiver running a route to the flat. It appeared that the Ducks’ safeties were a step slow in getting to the play, while the corners did a pretty good job of jamming the receivers coming off the line of scrimmage.
The Ducks were held to only two touchdowns and 290 yards on 82 plays, while Cal was able to get 348 yards and three touchdowns, two of them on drives of six yards and three yards. In this game, the defense played well enough to win, except on third downs. Oregon’s pass statistics were painful to survey in the end (11-32-2 interceptions, 84 yards total), and the reality is that the Ducks find themselves kind of stuck in a quack mire: if the kicking game does not yield a big play or break (which it didn’t), then the offense has to be good enough to win just by running the ball. They could do that against some of the weaker teams they’ve defeated this year, but Cal is too good a team to beat one-dimensionally. So too, are Arizona and Oregon State.
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