Gallery: Cal tops Washington in Pac-12 opener

Messy as it was, it was predictable. The Golden Bears might be the flawless team to open against, though. Junior running back Dwayne Washington rushed for 109 yards.Washington’s 14-yard touchdown run put the Huskies ahead, 7-3, with 1:37 remaining in the opening quarter, but Cal controlled the second quarter. In 2013, the Bears had just five picks.

California stays on the road for a pair of conference games against Arizona and Arizona State next weekend.

And yet, in this rebuilding season, the Huskies can perhaps point to their second-half rally Saturday as something to build upon.

“It’s a team sport”, UW defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski said.

Well, “good” is a tad generous, because a good defense would never allow so many tackles to be broken. He threw for 368 yards last week against Utah State, the most by a Washington freshman, and completed 12 straight passes during the second half including two touchdowns.

California dominated statistically. The Bears outgained Washington 481-259, had nearly 40 minutes of possession and forced Washington into the most turnovers in one game for a Chris Petersen-coached team in his career. “To our guys’ credit, they’ve done that”. That was really disappointing. This team is very competitive and believes in themselves, and I think we will see that manifest in some impressive wins later in the season. Defensively, Cal is allowing 21.7 points and 424 yards per game. Goff, meanwhile, is 14-of-17 this season on passes of at least 20 yards.

STATS THAT MATTER: Quarterback Jared Goff, with 62 touchdown passes, needs three to break Kyle Boller’s Cal career record. “But I don’t anticipate us having any kind of telephone conversations or anything this week, which is pretty typical”. I love how aggressive we are. It’s just wrap the ball carrier, because we definitely had him for no gains, if not (tackles for loss). “(We) created five turnovers, and that was probably the difference in the ball game”.

And that’s where the offensive problems become glaring, because the chances to overcome that deficit were there. A goal line stand by the Huskies kept Cal out of the end zone, but Washington gave the ball back to Cal on the ensuing play when Browning’s pass down the seam was intercepted by the Bears’ Kaleb McGary giving the Cal one more shot in excellent field position.

And the final shot, with 2:51 left trailing 30-21, concluded with an interception under heavy pressure. It was not his second or third or fourth best day, either.

Browning didn’t complete his first pass until 5:39 was left in the first half, which may have been a record slow start in the spread-offense era.

Besides that run, however, Cal’s defense had things under control in the first half. “Again, it’s our youth and our aggressiveness, which in all honesty, I wouldn’t trade for anything, because I love how aggressive we are on defense”. “He was getting flushed a lot more than we anticipated”.

“I think that whole offense has taken the next step, next level. from previous year”, Petersen said.

A reasonable expectation, given the abundant youth. That grit will pay off in the future, and when seeing the post-game interviews with the players you could really tell how pissed-off and angry they were about losing that game.

It certainly offers a splendid emotional moment.