With three seconds remaining, Utah snaps the ball at the one-yard line, but Zack Moss is denied right at the goal line, preserving the dramatic victory for Cal. (1:14)

BERKELEY, Calif. -- One by one, the seconds ticked away, dwindling toward zero as Utah, trailing 28-23, approached the California goal line.

Golden Bears coach Sonny Dykes had all three timeouts at his disposal. With the Utes churning forward, Dykes could've used them -- at least as a fail-safe to preserve some time on the clock just in case Utah did score to take the lead. Given Cal's track record of explosive offense and equally porous defense, that might've been the expected strategy.

But the clock just kept ticking.

Dykes, the offensive guru, didn't call timeout. He pushed all of his chips to the middle of the table -- putting the game squarely on the shoulders of the Cal defense.

"[Defensive coordinator] Art [Kaufman] told me, 'We're going to get this. We're going to hold them out. I think we'll put the pressure on them if we play it out this way,'" Dykes said. "He was right."

Cal's James Looney (9) tackles Utah running back Zack Moss short of the goal line on the final play of the game. John Hefti/USA Today Sports

When lineman James Looney drove Utah running back Zack Moss into the turf as time expired just one foot shy of the goal line, the Bears' oft-maligned defense scored a massive breakthrough. It came during a scenario young players dream of growing up in their backyards -- football's equivalent to baseball's down-by-three, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, 3-2 count situation -- and the Bears' big boys up front delivered the clutch hit.

"I loved that coach put faith in us," Looney said. "It was my time to make a play at the end, and I made it."

Thanks to that, the Bears registered more than just a victory. Their goal-line stand was a statement of success outside of their normal comfort zone.

"We didn't want to get into a scoring contest with them," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. "That's their M.O., that's not our M.O."

Despite some early Cal offensive fireworks, Whittingham got the tractor pull of a game that he wanted. Utah ran 97 plays to Cal's 49. The Utes possessed ball for over 42 minutes of game time to the Bears' 17 minutes. They out-gained them by nearly 200 yards while playing keep-away after the first quarter.

In short, this win wasn't played on Cal's high-octane terms, but the Bears won anyway -- and that's what made it particularly significant.

After over three years of "Bear Raid" mania in the Dykes era that saw defensive play take a backseat to the aerial attack, Cal's defenders rewarded their coach for his faith in them. The Bears defense showed that it could crawl into the mud and out-wrestle Utah in that arena -- one the Utes specialize in.

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"[Our defensive] guys have taken a lot of criticism from people," Dykes said. "I'm glad they didn't listen to it. They just kept working and kept getting better."

Quarterback Davis Webb's rapport with true freshmen targets Demetris Robertson and Melquise Stovall is growing, so Cal's offense is becoming increasingly effective in its effort to complement Chad Hansen -- the nation's second-leading receiver. But the most promising supplement to that high-powered passing attack is the way that the Bears have played defense in key junctures of their home wins over Texas and now Utah.

Oregon, Washington, Stanford, and UCLA all still visit Berkeley this season -- and high stakes are expected for all of those games.

"A couple other teams are going to come in here ranked," Hansen said. "And I think we're able to play with an extra fire here [at home]. We'd like to get that on the road, too. Once we get that all together, I think we can be a very dangerous team."

This past win, though, demonstrated that Cal already is menacing -- especially with so many big games coming to Memorial Stadium this year. Road defensive results similar to the ones attained against Utah would indeed elevate the Bears to the next level, but they aren't mandatory in this program's quest to announce itself as a true factor in the Pac-12 race.

That already happened this past Saturday with the clock dwindling to zero, when the Cal defense came through to knock off a previously undefeated team. Utah may not be the last victim to suffer a losing fate at Memorial Stadium this season -- and if that ends up being the case, the Bears will again have their newfound balance to credit for it.