With a three-game win streak heading into the Independence Bowl against Texas Tech Saturday, Cal was hoping to use its regular-season momentum to secure a seventh win and finish above .500 for the first time since 2019. Instead, the Bears were handed a 34-14 loss after struggling in all three phases.
“After the first quarter, we really were out of rhythm offensively and then we weren’t punting or kicking the ball very well and so the field position for the rest of the game was not good,” said Cal head coach Justin Wilcox in the postgame press conference. “Everything after that didn’t go very well.”
Cal jumped out to an extremely strong start, as a Texas Tech fumble on the kickoff — recovered by kicker Michael Luckhurst — led to a 25-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Fernando Mendoza to Monroe Young in the first 15 seconds of the game. The Bears’ only other score of the night came at the end of the first quarter, a 1-yard rush by running back Jaydn Ott to put the Bears up 14-7.
A 15-yard touchdown pass from Texas Tech early in the second quarter would even the game at 14-14, and the Bears would not see a lead for the rest of the game. In fact, Cal was held scoreless through the final three quarters as the Red Raiders put up 27 unanswered points.
Offensively, the team looked like a shell of itself after the first quarter. Arguably, the loss of momentum came after Mendoza was injured — albeit briefly — midway through the first quarter on a rush attempt and the Bears failed to convert on fourth-and-short from the Texas Tech 5-yard line. This would be the Bears’ first of two failed fourth-down conversions of the night as the offense continued to unravel.
“We had been moving the ball effectively I thought, and we wanted to be aggressive. And yeah, when you don’t get a fourth down play, then it’s very easy to look back and say ‘Well, we should have kicked it,’” Wilcox said. “To play winning football, there’s times when you’ve got to make a fourth and short and we did not do that. So, yeah, knowing what I know now, I would have kicked it.”
Mendoza was a perfect 7 for 7 in the first quarter, throwing for 183 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions. Through the latter three quarters, though, Mendoza would throw for just 170 yards, accounting for three interceptions and no touchdowns.
Up front, Mendoza’s protection broke down completely. While the Bears’ offensive line had been looking much more solid this year under first-year offensive line coach Mike Bloesch, it appeared to revert back to old habits against the Red Raiders, allowing Mendoza to get sacked a whopping six times throughout the game.
“Plain and simple, (I) didn’t perform (at) the level that I’m capable of. Not a great performance, unfortunately. A lot of the missed tries on the offense were on myself, and the output today … it wasn’t there,” Fernando said. “There’s no rhyme or specific reason for it, to be quite honest, but promise is that I'll be so much better next year and I’ll be the hardest worker that I can be in the spring and show that to my teammates, and I hope they know that as well.”
Cal struggled on the ground as well, as the Texas Tech defense completely stuffed any attempt for the Bears to get momentum through their run game. Ott tallied just 42 yards on the night, on 15 carries with just a 2.8 yard average, his lowest total rushing yards per game all season. In total, the Bears amassed just 69 rushing yards.
Defensively, the Bears had a tough time stopping some key Texas Tech playmakers; running back Tahj Brooks and wide receiver Coy Eakin accounted for a combined 202 net yards of the Red Raiders’ total 384. Cal allowed 128 yards on the ground and missed some key defensive plays that gave the opposition momentum.
Texas Tech responded to Cal’s early touchdown with a score of its own in the first quarter, and continued to put points up on the board. Three more touchdowns and field goals that went unanswered saw the Red Raiders score 17 points in the third quarter, 7 in the third and 3 in the fourth. Cal allowed Texas Tech to convert on third down nine out of 18 attempts, and the Red Raiders were 5 for 5 on red zone chances.
“Defensively, we didn’t tackle real well. We had a hard time getting the running back on the ground. The receiver, number eight (Eakin) was targeted, I don’t know how many times, but he caught most all of them, so we had trouble covering him,” Wilcox said.
As the Bears head into the offseason, they will focus on returning to the levels of consistency they saw late in the regular season, as well as addressing some key issues that were exposed Saturday, both offensively and defensively.
