By Morris Phillips

Whatever Michael Lowe’s intentions were with his swooping, head first tackle on Stanford’s Austin Hooper, the result was Cal’s senior leader was ejected on the game’s first play from scrimmage and his final Big Game was over before it got started.

Needing a big start, near immediate impact on the scoreboard and a physical effort for 60 minutes, Lowe’s ejection for targeting was none of the above.  Instead, the Bears’ Big Game aspirations disappeared soon after Lowe was ejected.

Remound Wright’s first of four rushing touchdowns came six plays later—less than three minutes into the 117^th Big Game–and Stanford went on to smash Cal, 38-17 on Saturday.

“In 20 years, I have never seen something like that happen during the first play of the game,” California coach Sonny Dykes said.  “That is a tough call for the first play of the ball game.  I wish that something like that wouldn’t affect us as much as it did.  It affected me and I think it affected our players.”

Lowe’s departure robbed the beleaguered Bears of a playmaker, one of the few Cal’s defense possesses, and someone who understood what it would take to topple Stanford and prevent a fifth-consecutive loss to the Bears’ biggest rival.

From the Cardinal’s perspective, the ejection simply accelerated what they had been slow-cooking all week: a game plan bent on slowing Jared Goff, sprinkled with an extra helping of physicality for the Cal quarterback and his targets.  Offensively, Stanford needed to break out of its malaise, and it did, courtesy of five Cal turnovers.  Afterwards, Stanford’s David Shaw expressed his pleasure with his team’s effort.

“I thought our defense played really well,” Shaw said.  “We’ve been talking all year about trying to get turnovers and to come away with a bunch today is huge.  For our offense to make something of those turnovers is big, as well.”

As always, for teams that know each other all too well, details were crucial.  Fifth-year senior David Parry described how tipped balls and rushed throws by Goff were precipitated by film study that showed how quickly Cal’s offensive line retreats in their shotgun sets, and how that tactic gave Parry and defensive linemates opportunities to get their hands up in the passing lanes.

One of those tipped Goff passes wound up in the hands of linebacker Blake Martinez with Stanford up 17-7 in the second quarter as Cal was driving to tighten the game.  Instead, Cal came up empty, part of a stretch between their initial, first quarter touchdown and a third quarter field goal where Goff was picked off three times and the Bears punted twice.

“They did a nice job tipping a couple of passes, so you have to give them credit for that,” Dykes said.  “We have to make sure we move in the pocket and make space.  A lot of times, tipped passes are on the quarterback, if we are not finding a throwing lane.”

For a team dependent on creating pace and offensive rhythm, the turnovers were killers.  Against Stanford and all their opponents, the Bears want to run at least 100 offensive plays.   That many plays run, contributes to the fatigue of the Bears’ opponents, and creates the possibility of mistakes, both physical and mental.

Instead, Stanford saw Cal run just 76 offensive plays and punt four times in addition to the damaging turnovers.