No. 21 SMU at Cal
For SMU, if they could win they would be facing No. 18 Virginia in the ACC Conference Championship game at 5:00pm on ABC, Saturday December 6th with a chance to make it into this year’s CFP. But with less than a minute left and trailing 35-31, Cal’s Junior RB Kendrick Raphael would run it into the end zone to take a 38-35 lead—a lead that would hold up after the Mustangs’ Freshman Place Kicker Sam Keltner would miss from 52 yards out, failing to send the game into overtime. Justin Wilcox, who was fired last week as Cal’s head coach after the Golden Bear’s loss to Stanford, must have been scratching his head in amazement at Freshman QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele who completed 77% of his passes for 330 yards, 4 TD’s, and no interceptions in the win. It was 50+ more yards than he’d ever thrown in his life along with the highest completion percentage and most TD’s of his young career—with a passer rating of 179.9! I guess the folks in charge weren’t the only ones happy to see Wilcox gone.
Cal trailed 7-3 after the first quarter but shut the Mustangs out in the second quarter while scoring on back-to-back TD’s to take a 17-7 lead into the locker room at the half. Both teams scored a TD in the third quarter leaving Cal still up by ten, 24-14. Cal would extend that lead at the end of their first possession of the fourth quarter on a 9 play, 75 yard, five minute drive and 32 yard TD pass from Sagapolutele to Junior WR Quaron Adams to go up 31-14. The Mustangs would score on back-to-back TD’s while holding the Golden Bears to a three-and-out on their next possession to get within three points, 31-28. And then, after forcing Cal to punt sitting 4th and 11 at their own 35 yard line, would take a 35-31 lead with 2:24 remaining. After that you know what happened although it’s ironic the way it ended seeing as how last year SMU made it to the ACC conference championship but came up a field goal short there as well—losing to Clemson.
For Cal, Sagapolutele connected with five different players multiple times for those 330 yards and four TD’s. Senior WR Jacob de Jesus, Sophomore Jaiven Plummer, and Junior WR’s Quaron Adams and Cole Bascia combined for 246 of those yards and a touchdown each on 22 receptions. After averaging 67 yards rushing through eleven games, Junior RB Kendrick Raphael not only provided the winning TD run but led the team in yards as well, with 111 of the team’s 122 on 33 carries. For SMU, Junior QB Kevin Jennings connected on 24-of-36 for 250 yards, 2 TD’s—1 each to Senior TE Matthew Hibner and Senior WR Jordan Hudson–and 1 interception while also rushing 6 times for 23 yards and another TD. One the ground, Sophomore RB Chris Johnson Jr. did the heavy lifting while gaining 128 of the team’s 227 yard rushing total and 1 TD on ten carries. To go along with the rushing TD’s by Jennings and Johnson, Senior RB TJ Harden also picked one up while rushing ten times for 44 yards. Cal led by four first downs, had 25 fewer total yards of offense, had possession of the ball fourteen more minutes and had no turnovers. The win for Cal was their sixth making them bowl eligible on the last day of the regular season.
No. 9 Notre Dame at Stanford
Not surprisingly Notre Dame had this game won by the half, 35-3, and although scored seven more points in each of the final two quarters did so with a lot of starters on the bench by the start of the fourth. Stanford scored back-to-back TD’s in the 4th Qtr but by then they were trailing 42-6 and it was too little too late, especially with the Fighting Irish also adding another seven points to the scoreboard in between making it a 49-20 beatdown. The loss leaves the Cardinal with a 4-8 record under Interim Head Coach Frank Reich—just one game better than last year under Troy Taylor.
Regarding Reich, he won’t be promoted into the full time position since on Friday before the game Andrew Luck—General Manager of Stanford Football—has hired the Washington Commander’s QB Coach, Tavita Pritchard, as the next head football coach of the Stanford Cardinal. The two played together at Stanford with Luck eventually taking over under center. Pritchard got his first start as QB for Stanford in 2007 against USC after their regular starter, T. C. Ostrander, suffered a seizure. They were a 41-point underdogs to a Trojan team that was expected to vie for the national title. Pritchard led them to a 24-23 victory—in an upset victory that is still remembered and talked about today. Interestingly enough, the last time Stanford made it to a bowl game Pritchard was working as the Offensive Coordinator for David Shaw. They were 9-4 that year and beat Pitt in the Sun Bowl. Pritchard had this to say about his hire; “I have a clear vision of the hard work, brotherhood, and tenacity it will take to build a championship Stanford football program. I cannot wait to partner with Andrew and begin working with the best student-athletes in the world to achieve excellence on and off the field.”
Regarding this game—for Notre Dame, Freshman QB CJ Carr was 17-of-27 for 205 yards, 2 TD’s—one each to Junior WR Jordan Faison and Junior RB Jadarian Price–and no interceptions. In a play they’ve been working on, Junior DL Joshua Burnam also threw for a TD to Junior Safety Luke Talich. Sophomore RB Aneyas Williams and Junior RB Jeremiyah Love led the ground game with a combined 149 of the team’s 187 yard total and a TD each on 24 carries with Junior RB Jadarian Price also finding the end zone. For Stanford, Freshman QB Elijah Brown connected on 18-of-37 for 204 yards, 1 TD to Senior WR Bryce Farrell, and 1 interception. Backup Senior QB Charlie Mirer was 2-of-3 for 22 yards and 1 TD to Freshman WR Marcus Brown and no interceptions while also rushing 2 times for 23 yards. On the ground, Stanford collectively rushed 30 times for 86 yards but never found their way into the end zone. Notre Dame led in first downs, 24-16; total yards of offense, 524-to-312; they converted their third downs 61% of the time compared to 32% for Stanford and were successful on all three of their fourth down attempts and had no turnovers.