Looks like the 4th quarter was a comedy of errors. What was the most baffling thing you saw the Bears did in the 4th?

Ruey Yen: Clock management is easily the most baffling aspect of the Cal 4th quarter. While I understand that the speed up pace is a part of the Bear Raid DNA, we just didn't run the clock down enough to allow the game to turn into a shoot out. Even when the offense finally tried to run more clock, Goff looked as uncomfortable as that final kneel down victory formation snap at the end of the Northwestern game. We just need to learn to win games. There will hopefully be plenty more opportunities for the Bears to redeem themselves and successful close out a win.

Reef: Easily the most baffling moment for me was when our hands team backed off the onside kick that was identical to the one Arizona had just run. They literally backed away from a football that had already traveled 10 yards. I'm also not sure why our DBs were trailing their WRs in a Hail Mary situation. Other than that, I attribute much of the 4th quarter to Zona playing really well and us not having the personnel to counter.

Berkelium97: Where do I start? Cal gives up the most points in a quarter in school history. Maurice Harris successfully recovers the onside kick and then decides to play hot potato with the ball. Sonny Dykes forgot about the ten-second runoff rule on the Arizona offensive PI. Our hail mary strategy starts with our DBs somewhere besides the end zone. We keep getting only 25 seconds to run off instead of 40.

This all adds up to one of the most colossal comedies of errors I have ever seen on the football field.



atomsareenough: Yeah, the Hail Mary defense was questionable. It's also a shame we didn't play the first two onside kicks well (though we did on Arizona's final onside kick). There's always some possibility of losing the football an onside kick though. That's why teams try it. We didn't play the second one well, and our guys weren't up on the ball like they should have been, but the ball bounced right to Bondurant and he made a solid play. The really baffling thing to me was the sequence on our last offensive drive. REALLY baffling.

There are so many questionable aspects of that last drive. First of all, on 3rd and 6.... That's the most important play of the game and you take Goff out? That's my first question. Yes, I understand that putting Rubenzer in there makes the defense have to account for another player... but then if you're going to put Luke in there, why would you have him run, pretty much exactly what you had him do every other snap he was in there? Once Arizona saw him in there, they knew EXACTLY what to expect and they had the play snuffed out from the start. If you wanted to use Luke as a wrinkle, why not have him run an option play or throw a pass? I get wanting to run the football and milk the clock, but if we got the first down we could have just knelt, as Arizona was out of timeouts. The first down was the most crucial thing. Even if we wanted to run the football, why not have Enwere in there as a fresh back who can churn and get you tough yards after contact? Arizona's defense was almost as worn down as ours, so I'm baffled as to why we didn't rotate our freshmen in there to continue to wear them out. If you want to run the football on 3rd and 6, then you have 2 downs to get 6 yards. Give it to a running back and get the yards.

Which brings me to my next point. When the Rubenzer play didn't work on 3rd and 6, why did we kick a field goal on 4th and 7? Put Goff in there and throw a high percentage pass. Or give it to Muhammad and see if he can't find an edge or something. Again, the first down wins the game. Period. A field goal is not guaranteed (and we did end up missing it), and even if we had made it, Arizona still gets the football back with a chance to win. The way our defense was playing after 100+ snaps on a hot desert night, the Wildcats had a non-trivial chance to win, at that.

Our offense works best when we are playing aggressively and going full throttle. We can't let up.