Cal’s deflating loss to UCLA: 3 things that doomed Bears, and 3 that provide hope

BERKELEY — What Tosh Lupoi took away from his first game as head coach at Cal was “the sting” of being tied with UCLA midway through the fourth quarter, only to lose 45-24.

“I couldn’t ask for anything better as far as the sting of having a competitive loss early,” he said, striking a calm and mostly positive mood following a game that was there for the taking.

“When you have a sting like this, it ignites the desire to improve. I’ve got to improve, we’ve got to improve.”

The Bears, playing in front of a capacity crowd of 54,283 fans at Memorial Stadium and an ESPN national audience on Saturday night, showed themselves to be pretty much the unfinished product you’d expect from a team with a new head coach, first-time coordinators and 32 incoming transfer players.

Against a UCLA team under new coach Bob Chesney, the Bears led early, fell behind 24-17 at halftime, pulled even, then came apart, coughing up two turnovers and surrendering three touchdowns in the final nine minutes.

Here are three things that went wrong for the Bears:

JKS GIVEAWAYS

Sophomore quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele passed for 271 yards and two touchdowns, but also had three turnovers.

The first of his two interceptions, with the score tied 24-all and 8:53 left in the game, snapped his program-record streak of 212 consecutive passes without a pick. Both interceptions set up UCLA touchdowns.

“Definitely didn’t play to the standard,” Sagapolutele said. “I’ve got to put the offense in a better position and I’ve got to do better myself.”

BOTCHED FOURTH DOWN

Even before the two picks, Cal fouled up a fourth-and-3 play from the UCLA 47 early in the fourth quarter. Ashton Rivera had taken over at center after an injury to starter Bastian Swinney, and he and Sagapolutele did not connect on the snap, giving UCLA the ball on downs.

Sagapolutele took the heat for the misplay. “That’s definitely not on him; it was on me,” he said. “The communication was all over the place.”

Lupoi called the play “a momentum killer,” but didn’t second-guess the call. “I would go for that 10 out of 10 times with the amount of time left and where we were at and how our defense was playing at the time,” he said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t execute.”

COULDN’T STOP THE RUN

There were some encouraging numbers for Cal, which ran 87 plays to 54 for the Bruins and, as a result, enjoyed nearly a 10-minute time-of-possession edge.

But UCLA ran through the Cal defense, rolling up 277 rushing yards at 8.7 yards per attempt. The Bruins didn’t attempt a single pass on the final three scoring drives that gave them a 21-point margin, piling up 130 rushing yards on 10 attempts — a 13.0 per-carry clip.

It wasn’t all bad:

THE ATMOSPHERE

Cal wanted a sellout and got it, its first since the 2024 Big Game vs. Stanford.

“Shout out to our fans,” said linebacker Kamar Mothudi a transfer from Oregon. “It was amazing. It was electric. I was truly honored and blessed to play in that environment. It was so much fun.”

SECOND-HALF START

After allowing 302 yards and 24 points in the first half, the Cal defense forced UCLA to punt on its first three possessions of the second half.

“The defense coming out in the third quarter on fire was just awesome,” Lupoi said.

NEWCOMERS SHOW UP

Running back Adam Mohammed, a transfer from Washington, racked up a career-high 120 rushing yards with a touchdown and caught seven passes for 46 yards. Transfer receivers Chase Hendricks (six catches, 66 yards and a touchdown) and Strong (five catches, 94 yards) were productive.

“Thankful to have those guys,” Lupoi said. “They rip it every day, work their butts off. Leaving that locker room and seeing the hunger in those guys fires me up.”

NEXT UP

Cal visits Syracuse, which opened with a 63-3 rout of overmatched New Hampshire. The Orange has a 2-1 all-time edge vs. Cal, including a 33-25 victory at Berkeley in 2024 in their most recent matchup.