By Morris Phillips
Think Shaq Thompson’s big play just seven minutes into Saturday’s Washington-Cal matchup wasn’t a game changer?
Simply look at the before and after UW’s star linebacker scooped up a Jared Goff fumble, broke a tackle just outside Cal’s goal line and raced a total of 100 yards for the game’s first score.
Before, the normally-challenged Cal defense opened with a three-and-out on Washington’s offense, still smarting from getting shut out in the second half at home against Stanford in their previous contest. Meanwhile, Jared Goff shook off a shaky opening series to direct the Bears down the field on their second possession and had them poised for the game’s initial score with second-and-goal at the one yard line.
After, the Bears–averaging exactly 50 points a game–managed no more than face-saving, meaningless, late third quarter touchdown after trailing 28-0 at halftime. The Huskies settled down, and methodically picked the Bears apart in an easy 31-7 victory.
So, once again, how did that start? Well with Thompson the headliner in the game-within-the-game type story, you have to go all the way back to the beginning. In this case, that means all the way back to January 2012.
Back then, the Bears were looking to bounce back from a so-so 7-6 campaign in 2011 and they appeared to have a plan in place. Led by ace recruiter, defensive line coach and former Cal player Tosh Lupoi, the Bears and Coach Jeff Tedford were poised to sign one of the nation’s best recruiting classes, and undeniably the best class brought in by Tedford in his decade as head coach. Lupoi was the star of the show, securing commitments from Richmond’s Freddy Tagaloa, Sacramento’s Viliama Moala and others to give Cal an extremely-rare nationally top-ten recruiting class.
But with a week to go before national signing day, Lupoi bolted to Washington at the behest of then head coach Steve Sarkisian and Cal’s potential recruiting class was left swinging in the wind. Lupoi had spent 12 years at Cal as a coach and a player after attending Concord’s powerhouse De La Salle H.S., and in what he described as a gut-wrenching decision left Cal for the greater potential of winning big at Washington and a salary more than double what he was making at Cal.
While Moala and Tagaloa stayed in place, other big-time recruits like Thompson and defensive end Ellis McCarthy were swayed. McCarthy eventually signed with Oregon and Thompson, whose brother Syd’Quan played at Cal, followed Lupoi to Seattle.
The rest of the story is well-known: Cal faltered terribly in 2012, their first in remodeled Memorial Stadium, and Tedford was shown the door by then Athletic Director Sandy Barbour. In Cal’s final season under Tedford and their first under Sonny Dykes, the Bears were a combined 4-20.
And instead of matriculating at Berkeley, Thompson went on to become a heck of football player at Washington, first as a safety, and now as a junior, a hard-hitting, playmaking linebacker, generally acknowledged as the Huskies’ best player on that side of the ball. So when Goff fumbled trying to reach his arms and hands over the goal line, the football quite naturally bounced right to Thompson, who raced to the other end of the field for a Washington touchdown.
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