There's not much good to say about Cal's trip to Utah.

Cal gained 27 yards on the first drive. They gained 56 the rest of the way

Utah scored on five consecutive drives, breaking Cal's streak of under 24 points allowed at 14 games.

The Bears started Erick Nisich on the offensive line at left guard. Ben Skinner started at the slot receiver position. Both got their first action.

At the end of the day, Cal got blown out in Rice-Eccles Stadium 35-0, taking the Bears down to 4-4, sending Cal back home with a ton of questions that they need to find answers to in the next bye week.

1. What can Cal do on offense?

Spencer Brasch made his first start, and although there were some nice moments here and there, nothing came of it. The gameplan admittedly wasn't bad, with rollouts designed to mitigate pressure, a couple screens to mitigate Utah's pressure, and some Wildcat stuff. It didn't work. Cal barely outdid their worst yards per play output of the Justin Wilcox era (2017 at Washington was worse), as they had only one drive that crossed the 50. Jordan Duncan was the leading receiver with 16 yards.

Admittedly, they played one of the best defenses in the conference against Utah, and have multiple injuries among the offensive line, at wide receiver, and quarterback. The question of how the Bears are going to move the ball has to be asked over the bye week.

2. Defense broke at the wrong time

Cal's defense, usually a bend but don't break scheme, saw the proverbial levee break in the first half. The Bears tried a handful of things in attempting to corral Zach Moss, but bring extra men to stop the run left them in one on one situations against the pass. That led to multiple third down conversions on crossing routes, who had one on one coverage against a linebacker. That led to one on one coverage on the outside on a play action pass, and Cam Bynum didn't jam Bryan Thompson, leading to the Utes' second score.

Things cascaded from there. Utah, even with a gimpy Tyler Huntley, marched down the field on five consecutive drives and scored on all of them. Cal didn't have a negative play on defense until an Elijah Hicks sack in the third quarter. Tim DeRuyter's unti will have to take a long look at what they're doing in the run game and pass game on defense, as this unit hasn't forced enough turnovers (9 in 8 games) nor produced enough negative plays in the run game to be successful.

3. The effect of the injuries

Let's take a look at who played more/started due to injury

LG Erick Nisich (in for Mike Saffell, who traveled but didn't play)

QB Spencer Brasch

QB Robby Rowell (Got reps late)

WR Ben Skinner (Nikko Remigio was limited, Jeremiah Hawkins was out)

Cal is down to third (and fourth string) QBs, 3rd string wide receivers (though Skinner has done well with the scout team this year, and guys who were on defense at the outset of the season. Here's a list of the injured guys who couldn't play (who are week to week):

QB Devon Modster

C Mike Saffell

WR Kekoa Crawford

WR Jeremiah Hawkins

It's not the biggest list, but Saffell is more important to the Cal offense than a lot of people are cognizant of, Crawford is Cal's 3rd leading receiver despite missing the last four games, and Modster had starting experience. Either way, this was not a pretty performance for either the Cal offense or defense.

4. The Good?

There wasn't any good, other than Steven Coutts looking like himself for the most part in the punting game. Evan Weaver will break the Cal tackles record at this pace, as he sits at 127 tackles through 8 games, with 22 on the evening.

Other than that, there's nothing good to take away from this for the Bears. Cal got beat in every phase of the game.

5. The Next Week

Cal has a bye before a home contest with Washington State. They have time to correct thing. That said, Justin Wilcox's teams are 1-3 coming off byes. Whether the Bears can figure things out in enough time to salvage the season, make a bowl, and get some momentum going into 2020 remains to be seen.