Maligned after three games and backpedaling toward humiliation 59 minutes into a fourth, the Huskies defense chose an improbable time to find itself Saturday.
First-and-goal at the 2, an eight-point lead in peril, the defense that hadn’t stopped anybody in September stopped California four times in 48 seconds.
Yes, there remain issues to fix. Cal scored five times in its first six possessions, including a 90-yard touchdown that put the Bears ahead before the fans settled into their seats. A 31-23 victory that finds the winners surrendering 457 yards cannot be mistaken for a defensive clinic.
And yet a defense seemingly incapable of making a momentum-swinging play made four of them, back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Amid an emergency, a porous defense turned stout.
So maybe it was a clinic.
“Were we perfect?” asked Huskies coach Steve Sarkisian. “No. But what a great win for our guys. There were a lot of great moments within the game, a lot of tough moments. But at the end of the day, something we have preached all along here is about finishing. Our ability to finish was evident.”
An incomplete Zach Maynard pass on first down set up a Cal power-running play on second down, but Isi Sofele was stopped short of the goal line by reserve defensive end Andrew Hudson and reserve linebacker Jamaal Kearse.
Third down, a mere yard of separation between the Huskies and their end zone, and what were they thinking?
Linebacker Garrett Gilliland, for one, was thinking that Cal’s body language lacked confidence.
“I felt like they weren’t pumped up,” Gilliland said. “Their faces were looking dead. That’s when I knew it was time to stop ‘em, stand up, be physical.”
Or as fellow linebacker Cort Dennison put it: “When your backs are against the wall, you don’t want to get hit. You want to hit them.”
The handoff went to Sofele, who never had a chance once free safety Justin Glenn shot through a gap and smothered the running back for a 1-yard loss.
While the crowd was in fever-pitch mode, and the defense deciding it rather enjoyed the urgency of a 59th-minute goal-line stand, Sarkisian made one of those pragmatic coaching decisions that consider the big picture.
With 25 seconds remaining, he called a time out. The idea wasn’t to organize the defense for the fourth-down play, or to give his guys a breather, or to inspire them with an impassioned pep talk. The time out was called in case Cal tied the score with a touchdown and two-point conversion.
“I wanted,” Sarkisian explained, “to give us a chance to kick a field goal to win the ballgame.”
No Huskies field-goal attempt was necessary after Maynard overthrew a fade-route pass to Keenan Allen in the left corner of the end zone. The play-calling of Cal coach Jeff Tedford, steeped in misdirection, had kept the Huskies on their heels all afternoon. But a fourth-down fade route – a low-percentage play inside the 5-yard line – was the equivalent of a gift.
“I felt like I gave him a good ball,” said Maynard, “and it just aired on me all the way to the sideline. I tried to give him a chance to get the ball. It’s on me.”
Actually, it’s on a play call that was destined to fail, but let’s not discount how Washington contained off-tackle plunges on second and third down.
“It was so much fun,” said Glenn. “First down and goal to go at the two? Situations like that are why you sign up for Division-I football.”
The Huskies could’ve made it easier on themselves by requiring Cal to occasionally punt in the first half. With quarterback Keith Price enjoying another sensational day, the game had the look of a potential runaway after Washington took a 21-10 lead.
Then again, while a runaway might’ve been easier on the heart and softer on the stomach, it wouldn’t have provided the last-minute sequence that nourished the soul of a defense groping to gain an identity.
“Big plays had to be made,” said Dennison, “and big players stood up. This is one of those wins you look back on the rest of your life. It’s what makes college football so fun. You can look back when you’re 40 or 50 years old, and say, ‘wow, we did it.’”
They did it against all odds: in four plays, over two yards of turf, they saved a victory and found a pulse.
Wow.
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