By Morris Phillips

Well into the second half of Cal’s season finale on Saturday night, the game looked much like the previous 11 for the Bears: either a lopsided affair in favor of Cal, or like their previous five losses, a humbling defeat from start to finish.

Down 27-10 to Arizona State, this one was clearly falling into the latter category for the Bears.

But gradually, the Bears were fashioning their most exciting—and unpredictable—finish of the year. The Cal defense found ways to get off the field, and Jared Goff began connecting with his receivers, two major factors in Cal’s brief, 21-point, second quarter deficit. And kicker Matt Anderson was already mentally preparing for the biggest kick of his career.

Goff threw for 542 yards and five touchdowns, the defense played significantly better down the stretch, and Anderson capped Cal’s 38-point rally in the game’s final 26 minutes with a game-winning field goal at the final buzzer in Cal’s heart-stopping 48-46 win.

“We were getting stopped by penalties and bad balls, missing assignments, little things, and that was the reason they really were able to take such a big lead,” Goff said. “But we knew that if we do what we were supposed to do, they wouldn’t be able to stop us, and that sure is what happened.”

“I don’t know how many points we scored in the second half, but it was a lot.”

The Bears successful comeback from a 21-point deficit was their first since 2007, and allowed the team to finish with a 7-5 record and bowl eligibility after 5-7 and 1-11 records in the two previous seasons under Coach Sonny Dykes.

Goff’s big performance in which he was noticeably off his marks early and unstoppable late was his biggest in a list of mammoth, statistical games. The junior completed 30 of 51 passes and broke his own school record for passing yards in a season with 4, 252. If the signal caller who entered Cal with little fanfare three seasons ago decides to forgo his season year for the NFL, where he is projected as a first-round pick, he will do so with great admiration from his teammates and coaches.

“He’s been beaten up a lot this year, but he always finds a way to fight and deliver throws in the pocket,” Bryce Treggs said of Goff. “I don’t know if he’s coming back next year, but if that’s his last game in Memorial Stadium, he sure went out with a bang.”

Cal’s dramatic, last-second win was also a dramatic collapse for ASU. The Sun Devils were ranked 15^th in the pre-season, but lost their opener to Texas A&M, and then four of their final six Pac-12 games to finish 6-6. Early on, ASU controlled the pace by running with success on Cal, and getting off the field defensively on third down as the Bears converted only two, third-down opportunities in the first half. But after halftime, the Sun Devils’ front seven couldn’t get to Goff and went the entire evening without a sack, and only three times were they able to tackle Cal Bears for a loss of yardage.

“We tried everything humanly possible,” ASU Coach Wayne Graham said. “They have to be pretty good when we knew exactly what they were going to do and could not stop it. The last play we called timeout and told (our team) exactly what the play was going to be, and they executed it. You have to give them a lot of credit. It’s pretty dang frustrating.”

A look inside the numbers show how impressive Goff’s performance was on Saturday night. He completed touchdowns to five different receivers, and had six completions of 34 yards or longer. Early on Goff struggled to throw the ball where he wanted, accounting for many of the 21 incompletions he had. The junior also had a big 20-yard run late in the first half, and a career-best 31 yards rushing. But in the second half he did everything with his arm, leading Cal to scores on all of their final six possessions.

The Bears have a week before they find out who their bowl opponent will be and where.