By Daniel Dullum
Saturday, November 20, 2021

California benefitted from a strong defensive effort, along with the offense hitting on all cylanders as the Bears won the 124th annual Big Gane 41-11.

The Bears (4-6 overall, 3-4 Pac-12) stopped the home team twice on downs inside their own 5-yard line. The Csl offense, was back to making big plays – three of them for 75 yards or more,

The second time Stanford failed to score from inside the Cal 5 early in the second quarte, the game remained scoreless until four plays later, when Chase Garbers fired an 84-yard scoring pass to Trevon Clark for Cal’s first touchdown. It was also the longest scoring pass play in Big Game history.

Altogether, the Bears rolled up a Big Game-record 636 yards of total offense, breaking the old Big Game record of 603 yards that the Cardinal accumulated in 2013. And, the 41 points was the most Cal has scored in the annual rivalry game since 2009.

It’s difficult to select a single player of the game, but you could split this one five ways and give it to the Cal offensive line.

Garbers, back after missing two weeks due to COVID-19 protocol, had plenty of time to in the pocket, and was not sacked. He completed 17-of-26 passes for 246 yards, two touchdowns and was picked off once. Garbers also ran for 59 yards and tossed a 1-yard TD pass to Christopher Brooks to make it 14-0 with 5:38 to play in the first half, and the rout was on.

Cal had its running game going as well. Brooks rushed for 131 yards and Marcel Dancy added 92 more – 76 of them on a third-quarter touchdown run – as the Bears gained 352 yards rushing.

The Bears even used a little razzle-dazzle in the third quarter when wide reciever Kikoa Crawford took a lateral from Garbers and connected with Clark on a 34-yard gain, putting the ball on the Cardinal 6, setting up a Dario Longhetto 24-yard field goal. Clark finished the game with 135 recieving yards on three catches.

With the win, the Golden Bears still have a slim chance of playing in a bowl game, but have to win out against UCLA and USC to do it.