Bad timing: right guard Saffell out for season
Starting right guard Michael
Saffell will miss the rest of the season with a lower-body injury, according to Cal head coach Justin Wilcox — an untimely development that comes just before the Bears play the best defense they’ve seen this season.
“I really feel for Mike, because he loves every bit of this,” Wilcox said Monday night.
Saffell, who has been a mainstay on the offensive line since debuting as a true freshman against USC last season, was hurt in practice last week. He didn’t play in Cal’s 49-7 victory over Oregon State on Saturday, but the team didn’t comment on the seriousness of the injury until he watched practice on crutches this week.
To replace the 6-foot-2, 300pound sophomore, the Bears used a committee. Junior Ryan
Gibson started and played about half of the snaps at right guard, and on the other repetitions, true freshman Will
Craig entered at left tackle — moving Patrick Mekari to left guard and Valentino Daltoso to right guard.
Cal (4-3, 1-3 Pac-12) trounced Oregon State, one of the nation’s statistically worst defenses, for a season-best 305 rushing yards, but doing something similar against No. 15 Washington (6-2, 4-1 Pac-12) won’t be easy.
The Huskies are 10th in the country in scoring defense (15.6 points per game) and 16th in total defense (308.6 yards per game). This is exactly the type of game in which Saffell would have thrived.
He won the Clint Evans Award last year as the team’s most intense freshman. Saffell was selected a captain for the Oct. 6 game at Arizona, and this week, he earned the Jonathan and Judy Hoff Scholar-Athlete of the Week.
“Mike’s one of our brothers,” senior center Addison Ooms said. “It’s incredibly sad, especially for him, of all people. He’s such a good personality to have on the offensive line, he’s such a good football player, and he loves football so much. To see his season taken away, it’s a bummer.” Quarterback update: Wilcox didn’t say how he’ll handle the quarterbacks this week, but there’s a good chance that Chase Garbers will get the start.
The redshirt freshman returned to the starting lineup Saturday after two weeks of backup duty. Garbers went 17-for-26 for 234 yards, with three touchdowns and zero interceptions. He also ran eight times for 54 yards.
Garbers consistently made the proper reads on run-passoption plays, converted on 6 of 11 third downs and helped Cal score a season-high 49 points. According to Pro Football Focus, Garbers had the conference’s best passing grade, with his 82.3 edging Utah’s Tyler Huntley (81.4) and Washington State’s Gardner Minshew (77.7).
“We were looking for a little bit of a spark, and I thought Chase did a good job,” Wilcox said. “He had a few things that he could have played better, but he did a nice job of coming back and running the offense. …
“He moved the offense up and down the field, and at that position, that’s really the endall, be-all.”
Coaching ties: Wilcox has known Washington head coach
Chris Petersen since 1995, when Wilcox was being recruited to play at Oregon and Petersen was the Ducks’ receivers coach.
Petersen was the offensive coordinator at Boise State in 2001 when Wilcox broke into the coaching ranks as a graduate assistant, and Petersen hired Wilcox for his first defensive-coordinator position at Boise in 2006.
“I think this is a really dangerous Cal team,” Petersen said. “… I know how Justin runs that program, and we better play at a very high level. … Each week, you see something better out of them.”
Wilcox said he deeply respects Petersen, but the coaches won’t be chatting in the lead up to Saturday’s game.
“During the season, you don’t really talk to anybody,” Wilcox said. “You’ve got to remember to call family back during the season.”
Schedule update: The kickoff time for Cal’s game at Washington State on Nov. 3 still hasn’t been decided, but it’ll be played under the lights. The game will either be at 6 on the Pac-12 Networks or at 7:45 on ESPN.