The California Golden Bears had a much better time of it in their opener against UC Davis compared to the only other PAC-12 team to join the ACC—Stanford, who suffered their 10th straight home loss. Regarding the move, after fourteen straight years of losing conference records in the PAC-12 let’s hope they have a successful fresh start. Although this one started out as a grind with Cal only leading by one point at the end of both the 1st and 2nd Qtr, going into the break up 14-13, the Golden Bears held the Aggies scoreless in the second half while putting up seventeen of their own—coasting to an easy 31-13 season opener.
After holding Cal to a three-and-out on the opening possession of the game UC Davis missed their chance to go up on a failed field goal attempt from 46 yards out. Cal would come back to take a 7-0 lead on an 8 play 71 yard drive and RB Jaydn Ott rushing TD. But on Cal’s next possession on the first play from their own 2 yard line, after an Aggie punt, Junior Linebacker Porter Connors would pick up a Golden Bear fumble and take it into the end zone. After a missed PAT the score was 7-6 at the end of the 1st Qtr and stayed that way until both teams scored a TD each before the break leaving Cal up 14-13 at the half with the Golden Bears’ score coming on an 80 yard kickoff return for TD by Senior Defensive Back Noel Williams. Cal Head Coach Justin Wilcox, best known for building great defenses, either laid down the law or make some great adjustments at half-time as Cal shut down the Aggies the rest of the way while putting up two more TD’s and a field goal to win it going away.
UC Davis Senior QB Miles Hastings, who over the last two seasons has an average completion percentage of 66% for 5,000+ yards and 34 TD’s, had a tough outing connecting on just 24-of-48 for 221 yards, no TD’s and worse yet three interceptions. On the ground the Aggies rushed 25 times for 83 yards with Senior RB Lan Larison picking up 62 of those as well as the lone TD on the ground. For Cal, Sophomore QB Fernando Mendoza connected on a respectable 68% of his passes for 158 yards, 1 TD, and no interceptions while Senior QB Chandler Rogers went three-for-six for 21 yards without getting into the end zone or throwing a pick. On the ground the Golden Bears rushed 38 times for 102 yards with their star Junior RB Jaydn Ott picking up about half of those as well as their only two rushing TD’s. But after averaging over 90+ yards a game last year was held to only 11 yards on six carriers in the first half while also leaving with an injury late in the game.
The Golden Bears jump from an opener against the Big Sky Conference to a road game against SEC’s Auburn and although the Tigers had the worst passing offense in the SEC last season they completely retooled the WR corp in addition to bringing back the entire RB group that averaged 189 yards on the ground last year—4th in the SEC. If Ott is healthy and they can correct their errors on the offensive line they could stand a chance in this one as I think the Golden Bear defense is up to the task of stopping the Auburn ground game.