Put your post-game thoughts here.
This game came down to Cal's offense versus USC's defense. Our defense kept the game winnable for 3.75 quarters. Our offense just needed to score.
As back breaking as the ineligible receiver penalty was - I think it was the right call. It looked like Boateng and Ross messed up their alignment. Boateng covered up Ross, and when Ross went down field, well, that was that.
On the other hand, the phantom penalty was obviously an incorrect call. Perhaps USC would have scored later on, perhaps not. We'll never know.
But what we did do, was help ourselves lose the game. We had 8 penalties for 50 yards. Many of those penalties were on offense. False start. Holding. False start. Holding. The list goes on. We shot ourselves in the foot with a machine gun tonight. We were fighting with one foot on offense. It was ugly.
Longshore was just okay. He had a good completion percentage (11/15) but he threw 2 would-be INTs.
Riley on the other hand, well, he didn't do any better. He certainly gave more life to the offense and made USC's defense watch out for his running ability but he went into overthrow-athon mode tonight. Quite a few throws were over thrown. A few were dropped, a few were off target. In general, neither QB was great.
Our OL played pretty poorly. We had no running game. The QBs were pressured...
Ugly all around on offense.
Well, let's stay sane. This wasn't wholly unexpected. This game was closer than Vegas thought it would be - we all knew that it would be.
But the game really came down to Cal's offense versus USC's defense. USC's defense won.
ADDENDUM
Apparently the "ineligible receiver downfield" was really an "illegal formation" penalty. I concur.
Cal only had 6 men on the LOS. Boateng and Ross were off the LOS (one of them should have been on the LOS), and thus Cal only had 6 men on the LOS.
Although it looked like Boateng got up on the LOS - he didn't do so prior to the snap.