Golden Nuggets: Yes, Friday Night Still Happened

Football

Postgame Videos

Videos and quotes from Cal’s website and Youtube channel.

Justin Wilcox

General comments:

"Tremendous job by all the guys on our team tonight. I thought they played extremely hard to the end. I am really proud of everyone in or program. Not only the guys that played, but all the scout team guys that helped us prepare, the coaching staff for preparing the guys and everyone else involved. It was a really big win. We got to build on it and continue to grow. Its obviously a great feeling in the locker room tonight but we have to use it as fuel and keep building. I think when you look at the game, defensively getting some takeaways was critical in the game and the offense capitalized on them. We were able to create some pressure up front with different people. And offensively I felt we played much cleaning in our run game and how we were able to establish positive yardage. Ross did a really nice job in the pass game and the other big thing that showed up was the field position. Even with special team the time when we had to punt, we were able to flip the field position. It was a total team win and those are the best kinds because everyone had a hand in it. You look to build on that, it feels good but we have to come ready to work and prepare ourselves for Arizona next week."

What else can you say about what the defense was able to do tonight?

"They did a really great job during the week. We practiced hard all week on a bit of a different schedule. They came in and prepared well, the coaches did an unbelievable job. They did a fantastic job of playing together and implementing it with those guys. The level of details those guys played with. It wasn't perfect, but they competed really hard, ran to the ball, obviously got our hands on the ball and that was obviously huge in the game and I am very proud of them."

Camryn Bynum

On preparation heading into the Washington State game:

"It was like any other week. It was about being ready to use our techniques and knowing that they were going to throw the ball to every single one of us and so we had to be ready to make the play. It was a new coverage because we normally don't run cover two to the field. We did that because they would do a lot of out routes."

On Cal's mood after game:

"We were obviously super excited because we got a win against one of the top teams in the nation. It gives us a lot of confidence and lets us know that we can play with anybody. It's a good story for us, knowing that we were on a losing streak and that we can bounce back. We are not going to stay in our feelings about losing and we know we can bounce back from anything."

Ross Bowers & Vic Enwere

[Both quotes are from Bowers]

On what it took to win:

"It's a simple formula, but it's hard to do. Preparation during the week, taking the right steps, working smarter and just focusing on doing our job. Those are what we put a premium on and it showed off this week. It was really good for us."

On his flip into the end zone:

"I didn't have time to think at that moment, but after for sure [I thought about the state championship where I did that]. You just never thought you'd do that twice in a lifetime. I was just happy that it put us up four possessions. That's puts a lot of pressure on the Washington State offense and special teams to make a big play. I was fired up that we can end the drive the way we did –with a touchdown. All the extra stuff is great, but I'm just really happy we executed in crunch time. My mom [who is a gymnastics coach] did say to me after the game, 'why didn't you do a double?' It was like déjà vu."

Jordan Kunaszyk

Postgame Articles

• Cal’s win over Wazzu “by the numbers” plus some social media reaction.
• Ryan Gorcey’s roundup of social media reaction.
• Trace Travers’s takeaways from the game.
• Did the Pac-12 do itself no favors with UW and WSU’s schedules? Not Cal’s problem, but an interesting question.
• Washington State didn’t just lose, they were dominated.
• Post-game notes from Cal.

Ross Bowers has now thrown 104 consecutive passes without an interception.

Tonight's game was the first game this season, and the first time since UCLA in 2016, that Cal did not give up any turnovers.

Cal outscored Washington State, 17-0, in the fourth quarter. The Bears have outscored their opponents in the fourth quarter this season, 74-51.

Jordan Kunaszyk led the Bears with a career-high 11 tackles, the first 2.5 sacks of his career and his third career interception, second this season.

Pre-game articles

• The Cal/WSU game had a reunion as former Heritage High School teammates Darius Allensworth and Jamal Morrow faced each other.
• Evan Weaver has “made it look easy” this season.
• The Daily Cal put the spotlight on our favorite Piesman winner Malik McMorris.
• More updates on the Cal players affected by the North Bay Fires. Our thoughts continue to go to the entire community. A moment of silence was held before the game.
• Written before the season, Cal Sports Quarterly’s article on Justin Wilcox is now available online after being published in the Fall issue two months ago.

Misc.

• Cal Sports Quarterly’s article on Abi Kim is now up, published about a week or two into the women’s soccer season.
• A recap of Men’s Basketball on Pac-12 Media Day. The team looks to “exceed expectations.”

The grind continues. Thank you for reading.