Cal went into Saturday's game at SMU knowing it would be an uphill climb.

In addition to facing one-loss team that entered the day undefeated in conference play, the Bears also played their final regular season contest without their starting quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, because of an illness in addition leading rusher Jaivian Thomas, who missed the game because of an "upper body" injury.

The offense looked disjointed and was mostly ineffective in what ended as a 38-6 loss for the Bears to close out their first season in the ACC.

It was the defense that struggled more out of the gate, however. The Mustangs quickly jumped on the Bears with a pair of first quarter touchdowns that put Cal in a 14-0 hole with 4:04 still to play in the opening frame.

It was the third game in which the Bears had to try and climb out of a double-digit deficit with last week's 14-point comeback against Stanford being the only win in the stretch. In both losses, Cal trailed by at least two scores before the midway point of the second quarter.

"Injuries are a part of the game, it's just the way it goes," Cal head coach Wilcox said. "Nobody feels sorry for us. Obviously, we didn't give ourselves a chance to win. We didn't do enough early in the first quarter, either side. We didn't do much on offense, and defensively, unblocked defenders were missing tackles.

"And, when you're unblocked and you have that type of speed that you're competing against, if the unblocked defenders aren't making tackles they're gonna have explosive plays, which is what happened. ... That was a difficult loss."

Offensively, quarterback Chandler Rogers was tasked with filling in Mendoza's shoes and was never able to get into any kind of rhythm before eventually leaving the game with an apparent hamstring injury following a 7-yard run with 9:19 to play in the third quarter.

That meant third-string quarterback CJ Harris, who has not played this season, was called into action to close out the contest and he led a scoring drive right away as the Bears (6-6, 2-7 ACC) turned to kicker Ryan Coe for a 40-yard field goal to break what had become a 21-0 lead with 5:30 to play in the third quarter.

Coe tacked on another field goal, this time from 53 yards out, to make it a 21-6 lead to give the Bears some life with 14:54 left in the fourth quarter.

Following a field goal that put the Mustangs up 24-6 with 9:25 to play, Harris made a critical error by throwing an interception on the first play of the ensuing Cal drive. It took the Mustangs (11-1, 8-0) just two plays to get in the end zone as quarterback Kevin Jennings found running back Brashard Smith for a 23-yard touchdown with 8:28 to play to put the game on ice.

SMU backup quarterback Preston Stone hit receiver Key'Shawn Smith on a 40-yard connection in the end zone with three Cal defenders unable to make a play on the pass that ultimately put the Mustangs in front 38-6 with 3:38 to go.

Cal finished the game with under 300 yards of total offense as Rogers went 8 for 15 for 84 yards passing and Harris was 6 for 11 and 75 yards through the air. As a team, the Bears were held under 100 yards rushing as a team including Jaydn Ott finishing with just 37 yards on 13 carries.

"All those quarterbacks in there do a great job preparing, so they didn't flinch, neither of them who played," Wilcox said about the late quarterback change, which he said was decided Saturday morning. "Unfortunately, Chandler had an injury later in the game, but he didn't flinch at all.

"He's played a lot of football and was excited to play, and CJ came in and did some good things as well. On offense today we just weren't, at any position, good enough to put points on the board and we've gotta be better there. But, I'm proud of the way that both Chandler and CJ stepped up to the challenge, and I know that they had things that they would have to have liked to have done better but it was an offensive issue today, it wasn't just a quarterback issue."

A 60-yard catch for Nyziah Hunter highlighted the day on offense for Cal, and the second-year receiver ended the day with a team-high 5 catches for 85 yards.

After allowing three straight touchdown drives, the Bears' defense locked down and held SMU to four punts and a turnover on downs over the next five drives though it would not be able to sustain that pace in the fourth quarter. After pitching a shutout in the third quarter, the Cal defense allowed 17 points in the fourth.

"They got out to a hot start, they were up 21-0 at one point, so that just made it tough for us to really get into a groove and really get into things," Cal inside linebacker Teddye Buchanan said. "Defensively, we were really able to settle in there, but it was tough going down early. I think that was really what hurt us in the end."

The Mustangs finished the game with 415 total yards including 300 yards through the air.

The game was marred by penalties as the Mustangs were flagged 17 times for 137 yards in the game while the Bears were hit seven times for 57 yards.

Cal will now await its its bowl selection that will come a week from Sunday following next weekend's conference championship games.