Five red zone trips and 16 points to show for it. That, in a nutshell, is why the Bears lost. Not surprisingly, one of the major topics at the post-game press conference was the Bears' series of plays from first-and-goal.
Will you take me through the last few plays?
"We got down to the two there and we tried to punch it in a couple of times and actually tried to throw a pass and they stiffened up, and then (on the) last play tried to put it in the end zone for Keenan Allen. Just over thrown and didn't give him a chance to catch it."
How did you feel about settling for field goals?
"We had to settle for field goals. No doubt. You get to the red zone and you like to come home with touchdowns. We had some opportunities down there and it comes down to making plays. In tight games against good opponents in conference you have to come up with more touchdowns than field goals. We didn't today. And penalties, as far as letting them out of their territory, and penalties on special teams that pushed them deep even though we did a really nice job of getting back out of there, but we started a couple times. Those are things that come back to bite you."
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How concerned are you about giving up big chunks of yards?"Well very concerned. You have to give them a lot of credit number one. Keith Price does a really nice job of keeping things going with his legs and he has a lot of weapons out there. But you have to play better. You have to be able to corral him. We got him a couple of times, but he slipped away. You have to tackle him. You have to wrap him up. Same with the back, you have to wrap them up. So, they made great plays. They made more plays than we did. It was a great football game, but if you don't do the things you need to do, then that's what happens."
The fourth down play on the goal line, has that been good to you guys?
"We scored against Colorado and it was open again. We have just got to give Kennan Allen a chance to catch the ball. You give your best player a chance to go out and make a play in the end zone and so that was the reason for that."
After the jump the Bears are still on track for a bowl at AT&T and the women's volleyball team endures a tough pair of losses in LA.
Football
- After coming back from nagging toe injuries in 2010, Jahvid Best is making a big impact on the Detroit Lions' offense.
- SBN Bay Area recaps a game that look eerily similar to the Cal-Colorado game.
- CalSportsDigest recaps the game.
- Maynard takes responsibility for missing the final pass of the game.
- Tedford reflects on the decision to run Sofele on the Bears' final trip to the end zone. He also talks about a more important issue: that five red zone trips left the Bears with only 16 points. If one or two more of those field goals had been converted to TDs, it would have been a completely different game.
- JO reports from the post-game press box. While Pendergast is concerned about the defense, he says the issues stem more from execution than poor scheme or a personnel deficiency. Fun fact: the Maynard-to-Allen 90 TD pass was the longest in Cal history.
- JO recaps the game. It sounds like the Bears will put some extra work into the defense during the bye week.
- CalBears.com has a photo gallery from yesterday's game.
- CalBears.com has more stats than you know what to do with, in case you're interested in perusing all the stats in which Cal outperformed Washington (though the one that counts, the scoreboard, was in favor UW).
- Keenan Allen joined Marvin Jones as a member of the Biletnikoff Award watch list.
- Keenan Allen earns one of Ted Miller's helmet stickers.
- For the second week in a row Uncle Ted predicts a Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl for the Bears. I cannot wait until that bowl gets a new sponsor.
- The Bears lost three competitive sets against no. 12 USC. I can't remember the last time they were swept...
- After dropping the first two sets, the Bears dominated the third set but could not finish the comeback against no. 7 UCLA.