Cal holds on for huge upset win over Washington
Cal’s Patrick Laird is tackled by Tevis Bartlett #17 of the Washington Huskies at California Memorial Stadium on Saturday. BERKELEY >> Most of the afternoon belonged to the Cal defense, so it was appropriate that linebacker Evan Weaver made the biggest play of the game.
Weaver picked off Washington backup quarterback Jake Haener’s pass on the second-to-last play of the third quarter and returned it 37 yards for a touchdown and the Bears held on to pull a stunner, upsetting the No. 15 Huskies 12-10 in front of 39,128 fans at Memorial Stadium.
“I dropped back. He threw me the ball. I caught it,” Weaver said. “I just didn’t want to fall down. Maybe two or three more yards and I would have run out of steam. But they didn’t get me this time.”
Fellow linebacker Jordan Kunaszyk, eager to try to help Weaver complete the play, had no doubt how it would end.
“I just started running. ‘Who can I block? Who can I block?,’ “Kunaszyk recalled thinking. “He didn’t need anybody to block for him. He was a man on a mission. He knew what he wanted. He’s a bad man.”
The victory was the first over a Top-25 team for Cal (5-3, 2-3 Pac-12) since a 37-3 win over No. 8 Washington State last season and just the Bears’ second win in their past 10 tries vs. the Huskies (6-3, 4-2).
And it was their first win in a game where they failed to score an offensive touchdown since a 24-21 victory over Washington State in 1998 in which the defense had two pick-sixes and returned a fumble for a touchdown.
The Bears now need just one victory in their final four games to become bowl eligible for the first time since 2015. They play next Saturday at Washing- ton State.
“I think everyone is really excited and it’s a great environment in the locker room, as you would expect,” coach Justin Wilcox said against the backdrop of commotion leaking from the locker room. “But I also don’t think anyone is surprised.”
Washington climbed with two points after a field goal with 4:51 left, and the Bears hoped to run out the clock at that point. That was hardly was a sure thing considering they had gone three-and-out on their two previous possessions.
But the offense kept the ball for the final eight plays, moving 30 yards and earning two first downs to force UW to burn its final timeouts. Quarterback Chase Garbers, who led a turnover-free performance by the offense, converted a third down with a fouryard completion to Patrick Laird, and Laird powered six yards for another first down.
“Running the ball and winning the game that was, that was huge and there were a lot of guys that contributed to that,” Wilcox said.
Weaver called the offensive sequence his favorite part of the game. “Nothing better than that, watching them punch the ball, punch the ball, punch the ball right down at them, and they couldn’t do anything to stop them,” he said.
If everyone had a hand in the win, it was the defense that carried the day. Washington scored on its first possession for a 7-0 lead and had 122 yards and seven first downs by the end of the first quarter.
Over the final three quarters, the Huskies totaled 128 yards on 3.4 yards per play and managed just six more first downs.
The Bears took advantage a surprising move by UW coach Petersen, who pulled four-year starting quarterback Jake Browning midway through the third quarter in favor of Haener, a redshirt freshman from Danville. Heaner had played in just one game this season (FCS foe North Dakota), but Petersen wanted to jumpstart his struggling offense.
The Huskies were playing without senior running back Myles Gaskin (shoulder), their career rushing leader, and Browning only sporadically effective against the Bears.
“Pulling Jake out had more do to with me trying to do something to help this offense, way more than it did with Jake,” said Browning, acknowledging that Browning mad afterward.
The Bears, who opened the Pac-12 with three straight losses, have now won twice since a playersonly meeting the night before last week’s game at Oregon State.
“Sometimes teams, players and organizations just say things and don’t follow through,” Laird said. “I think we proved to ourselves that we can follow through with what we were saying among our team.”