San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bears stop Ducks to keep bowl hopes alive
Cal had nothing to lose. A year that started with the most promise in nearly a decade had spiraled into a winless abyss of irrelevance. So, when facing 4thand3 from the Oregon 35yard line with about four minutes left on Saturday night, of course, the Bears went for it.
Nikko Remigio beat defensive back Deommodore Lenoir on a quick slant for a firstdown reception that all but sealed Cal’s 2117 victory over No. 21 Oregon at Memorial Stadium and kept alive the Bears’ longshot bowl chances.
“He’s super competitive. He does it every week,” Cal head coach Justin Wilcox said of Remigio, who had just four catches for 9 yards in the previous three weeks. “In the past couple of weeks, he hasn’t gotten the ball as much as we would have liked to get it to him, but he keeps practicing really hard. It shows up in the way he plays.”
Oregon (32) did eventually get the ball back at its own 25yard line with 2:01 on the clock, but linebacker Kuony Deng forced a fumble by Johnny Johnson III, and Muelu Iosefa recovered with 52 seconds remaining to allow Cal to kneel out the rest of the clock.
Cal (13) will likely have to win its final two games to make a third straight bowl trip. While the NCAA is making all teams eligible for bowl games this season, the Pac12 has said that its teams must be at least .500 to qualify.
The Bears close the regular season at Washington State on Saturday and play an opponent yet to be announced the next weekend. Winning both would be quite a turnaround for a season that started with a positive coronavirus test and contact tracing costing Cal its first game and a second outbreak limiting depth in losses to Oregon State and Stanford.
“There’s been so much stuff that’s gotten in the way and so many circumstances that had made things tough, but I think we’ve understood that we have a really good football team,” said Deng, who forced two fumbles. “Circumstances are going to come, but we can’t fall victim to them. We can’t complain. We can’t make excuses. We’ve just got to bounce back.”
Cal had to bounce back after blowing a 143 lead in a 1minute, 45second span at the end of the second quarter. The Bears went into the locker room trailing by three after Tyler Shough completed two passes of at least 20 yards on one drive, including a 39yard scoring strike to Johnson, and took advantage of a terrible twominute drill by the Cal offense.
Oregon needed only 20 seconds and three plays to take a 1714 lead before the break. Travis Dye, who is faster than most of the Cal defensive backs, was matched up with Deng on the first play and outraced him for a 67yard reception that set up Cyrus HabibiLikio’s 1yard touchdown run.
“Believe me, there’s frustration,” Wilcox said. “We all get frustrated when we make critical errors. I think the guys do a great job of compartmentalizing and saying: ‘OK, why did that happen?’ We can identify it and say how to fix it so it doesn’t happen again, and I think that makes them really confident to go out there and play it better next time.”
The Cal defense didn’t make many mistakes in the second half, shutting out the highpowered Oregon offense and tallying numbers from a variety of players.
After allowing 236 yards on 9.1 yards per play in the first half, the Bears allowed 132 on 3.9 in the second. They forced two turnovers and forced Shough to start the second half 1of7 for 11 yards.
On top of the clinching forced fumble, Deng had a teambest eight tackles. Elijah Hicks added seven tackles, and Cameron Goode had seven tackles, including 1.5 sacks and 3.5 tackles for loss.
Offensively, Cal took advantage of an Oregon defense that had yielded 536 rushing yards in its past two games by possessing the ball 12 minutes longer than the Ducks. Maybe more importantly, Cal rediscovered Remigio.
After making four catches for just 9 yards in the first three games, Remigio had six receptions for 81 yards, including a goahead 28yard score in the third quarter.
On a 1stand10 from the Oregon 28yard line, Remigio was supposed to come across the pattern and run a fade. Seeing an opening, he simply sprinted up the sideline and created a target that quarterback Chase Garbers couldn’t miss for the touchdown.
“All I ever want to do is go out there and contribute and be part of big wins like we had today,” Remigio said. “I wanted to come back and regain the trust of coaches and teammates. It was a great feeling.”
Said Garbers of Remigio: “He’s an explosive playmaker. … He’s a true playmaker.”