Golden Nuggets: Post-Game Reaction from the Colorado Win

On Cal’s two INT returns for touchdowns to start game: ”I’m not sure I’ve been a part of that. Two huge plays that were the difference in the game. The takeaways in general, the turnover margin was the difference in the game. That was pretty obvious. Elijah really made a great play and it was great disguise on the coverage so everybody was involved. The front, the safeties got the quarterback thinking he had one on one outside and Elijah played it just right, jumped it and scored it. That was big. Ashtyn put in a coverage where he’s the robber and played the second window, we call it, and it was the same route they beat us on last year for three huge plays. We call it 2-3 dagger and Ashtyn played it perfect, caught the ball and scored it. It’s one thing to know what to do and another thing to be able to go do it against some really good players. A lot of people had a hand in it but both those guys made some huge plays.”

On focusing on not looking past Colorado: ”I didn’t even really think about that during the week. It’s really a mentality and a focus and an energy that it takes every day in practice and they’ve done that. It doesn’t mean we always play as well as we want but I don’t feel like there was any lack of want-to or focus. We didn’t play well at times, and we’ll address those things, but we found a way to get a win. Colorado’s got some good players. They’ve got good schemes. Defensively, they’re good up front. Their front seven made things tough on us. We weren’t able to take advantage of some matchups like we wanted to. Offensively, they’ve got some guys with speed. The running back is a real good player, the quarterback we had a real hard time tackling. And then No. 3 and No. 2 with the things those guys can do. We knew it would be a battle but I felt like the guys were ready to play, excited to play and found a way to get a win.”

On the offense’s gritty performance: ”That’s kind of where we are right now. It’s not always going to be pretty but we took care of the ball. We needed to sustain some drives better. I think we all know that. We have some things that we’ve got to continue to address and develop the players on our team, help them as much as we possibly can and hold them accountable. But, we took care of the ball and found a way to make some plays that really were the difference. Moe Ways’ play in the end zone, the drive at the end of the third and start of the fourth, that drive was big. We’ve got to keep working with them. It’s not where we want to be and they know that but we still found a way to play to our strengths and do the things we need to do to find a way to win. We’re going to continue to do that but we’re still a work in progress.”

On next week’s Big Game against Stanford: ”The feeling is we need to go have an unbelievable week of practice. Stanford’s a really good team. We want (The Axe) too. Wanting it and hoping doesn’t make it so. We need to go to work and prepare to play well. There will be a lot of emotion in the game. That’s how it should be. It’s the Big Game. I want our guys to enjoy that but the energy and emotion from the want to is great but you’ve got to put that into practice. How well can we prepare and ultimately how well can we play on play No. 1, kickoff or kickoff return, and then the next play because that will determine the outcome, not wanting or hoping.”

Elijah Hicks, CB

On the Pick-6: ”We needed to make a play. I believe it was the first drive of the game, but in practice, we run that play all the time. I was fortunate enough to have my safety to show and like he was in a post and roll over late and make get an awesome opportunity to make a play.”

Energy after first two plays: ”I agree, even in practice, the secondary whenever we doing we are always encouraging offense, whatever position it is, we try to make our energy contagious and making plays like that is the best way to make the energy high.”

Ashtyn Davis, S

On the Pick-6: ”Anytime we get a defensive score it energizes the whole sideline, not just defense offense too. You could feel the energy around everyone.”

On staying in the moment: ”I think having the right mindset all year no matter what our record has been, we’ve been trying to dominate our opponent no matter who it was and we are prepared to dominate. We left some plays out there, definitely did not play to our standards, but keeping in the right mindset helps.”

On defense scoring twice: ”It’s was very exciting, back to back Pick 6’s is definitely something the whole team wants to see and its funny actually Vic Wharton actually called the first one out on that third down so there was a laugh on the sideline, but it’s great to see the defense make plays like that.”

On rushing: ”They were doing a great job covering up our receivers and seeing lanes in the pass rush and just taking off and doing what I can with my feet.”

On offense identity: ”Throughout the entire season we are still trying to find that identity, but I think we saw in that second half what our offense is capable of doing, just like we saw at SC and we just got to keep executing and keep practicing, and those big plays will come.“

On Moe Ways first CAL touchdown: ”It was awesome. Moe, since Oregon State has been saying he was going to get me back since he dropped in the end zone, so he got me back tonight. It was awesome to see. Since Moe got here this summer, we knew he was something special and the work through fall camp has paid off as we saw.”

• Post-game notes... did you know Moe Ways’ fourth quarter touchdown wasn’t just the first of the season for him, but the first for him in college?
• Cal’s offense was tough to watch, and nearly gave Colorado a tremendous comeback.
• Find out how Vic Wharton III called the Bears’ first pick-six.
• Key takeaways from yesterday’s game from the Daily Cal. Although Colorado killed themselves with 5 turnovers, the Bears themselves had a mind-boggling three first downs in the first half.
• Find out what the Twittersphere was saying yesterday.

• Its Big Game Week... again, find out what you need to know about Stanford (depth chart wise) from Cal Bears Maven.
• On Thursday I posted a few articles about Chase Forrest, but shortly after publication the official Cal website got in on the action.

Swimming

• In this edition of “In the Classroom”, find out about Jenna Campbell’s deCal that teaches kids about STEM. I posted the video last week but there’s an in-depth article now. It sounds really fun!

Beat the Broncos!