November 22, 2009

Chris Nguon
BearTerritory.net Senior Writer

Senior linebacker Mike Mohamed tallied arguably the most memorable defensive play of the Jeff Tedford era Saturday evening, when his game-saving interception in the waning minutes of the Big Game preserved an exciting and hard-earned victory for the Bears, marking the seventh win over the Cardinal in the last eight years and keeping the Axe in Berkeley for yet another season.

Mohamed's pick personified Cal's attitude throughout the contest, which was best described as resilient, tough and confident for an entire 60 minutes, putting an exclamation point on a yet another thrilling ending to this long and rich rivalry.

Is there another defensive play in the Tedford era that matches Mohamed's interception in both significance and sheer joy?

Brian Tremblay's hit on Hershel Dennis is up there. So was Wendell Hunter's sack in Illinois. Along with those two equally jump-out-of-your-seat defensive plays, Mohamed's pick of Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck with 1:34 left to go in the fourth quarter will forever go down as one of the best moments in Cal's long and storied rivalry against Stanford.

Holding a precarious 34-28 lead that looked as if it was going to dwindle in a matter of seconds, Mohamed - who is statistically and knowingly the leading linebacker interception master since he's been on campus - dropped back and read the eyes of Luck as the young Cardinal quarterback dropped back to pass.

Mohamed initially faded to the right of the line when the ball was snapped, before jumping over to the left, putting in a perfect position to snag the ball to seal the Cal victory.

"My guy ended up staying and blocking," described Mohamed. "I just looked at to the number one receiver and we had the safety and corner out so I just tried to provide a little bit of help. I looked back at the quarterback and he took me to the ball. I just ended up grabbing the thing."

Up until that point, few people in the stadium - outside of the Bears on the field - didn't believe that the Cardinal had momentum on its side for a possible winning score.

After Cal nailed a short field goal with 2:42 left on the clock to go up 34-28, the ensuing short kick-off gave Stanford the ball at its own 42-yard line. From there, a pair of Luck scrambles and a long catch-and-run by Toby Gerhart put the ball at Cal's 13-yard line with plenty of time left on the clock.

On the pass to Gerhart, the tough and talented Cardinal running back caught the ball in the flat, sprinted down the left sideline and dragged five Bears along with him well into the red zone to put the ball close to the goal-line.

From there, Stanford had a lot of options and a lot of different things it could do with the ball. Cardinal head coach Jim Harbaugh decided to keep the ball in the air and in the hands of his freshman quarterback, which ultimately was a mistake.

After the Gerhart catch, Luck looked as if he had an open man in the end zone but a great knock away by cornerback Bryant Nnabuife saved Cal, for at least one more play, as the proceeding down marked second-and-10.

Luck dropped back and looked over the middle for a receiver coming from the left side. However, Luck's down-field vision skipped the initial level and the freshman quarterback never saw Mohamed sprinting towards the middle of the field and eventually picking the ball off.

"You can't ask for anything more," Mohamed said. "To be honest I didn't even hear the crowd. It was silent. It was weird. I just wanted to make sure that I caught the ball and got a few extra yards so we wouldn't be back in the end zone."

After Cal received the ball back on the Mohamed pick, all couple of kneels and the rest was history.

"It's huge," Mohamed said. "The pass two weeks with Arizona and Stanford, we heard a lot of talk about how they were going to go to the Rose Bowl and things like that and we felt like they were overlooking us."

Interestingly, the defensive stand marked the second time in two weeks that the Cal defense has had to make one final stop to seal a game. Last week, the Bears looked to be on their way to closing out a victory, before a botched extra point meant the defense had to go on the field one more time against Arizona. Just like against the Wildcats, the defense came up big once again.

"Every week we work on that situation against our offense," Mohamed said. "We know that the game could potentially come down to us making a big stop at the end of the game. We were prepared for that. We didn't want to give up as many yards as we did to make it that close, but that's football."

Stanford's Heisman Trophy candidate Gerhart certainly put up statistics, rushed for 136 yards and 4 touchdowns on 20 carries.

But, it was Cal's defense on the young Luck that made the big difference, as Luck completed 10-of-30 passes for 157 yards and no interceptions.

"He was scrambling a lot. That could've had something to do with it," Mohamed said. "A freshman quarterback having to scramble a lot might've bothered him."

"For us to come out and prove all these guys wrong, it feels good," Mohamed concluded. "We also get to keep the Axe in Berkeley. It doesn't get much better than that."

Chris Nguon is the lead football writer for BearTerritory. He's well known for his recruiting and game coverage in the star-studded Oakland Athletic League, plus his numerous contributions with The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley's only independent, student-run newspaper. Nguon is also a correspondent with the Oakland Tribune, and will cover Cal football and men's and women's basketball in 2009.