No. 5 Utah picks off Goff 5 times, survives Cal
Saturday night presented California quarterback Jared Goff with an opportunity to impress Heisman voters, as the Golden Bears took on a top-five team on the road.
He didn’t take advantage of the stage.
Goff threw five interceptions on the night, as Utah beat Cal 30-24 to improve to 5-0 on the season, and take further control of the Pac-12. Goff entered the game having thrown only four interceptions on the season, but he was under pressure from the Utah defense throughout the night, and it showed in his final numbers, and on the scoreboard.
Of course, despite Goff’s five interceptions, Cal only lost by six points. Why was that? Well, let’s break down what else you need to know, and what we may have learned from this Pac-12 showdown.
There wasn’t much that went right for Jared Goff against Utah. (USATSI)1. So many turnovers: Goff threw five interceptions, but Cal and Utah actually combined for nine turnovers between them. In fact, of the 54 points scored in the game, half of those points — that’s 27 if you’re too lazy to do that math — came off of turnovers (Utah had 17 points off turnovers, Cal had 10).
In other words, turnovers played a major role in this game, and they’re also the reason Cal actually still had a chance to win it at the end.
Cal’s final drive of the night ended on an incomplete pass while the Bears faced a fourth and five from the Utah 21-yard line in the final minute. Cal kept giving the ball away, but Utah just couldn’t put Cal away until the very end.
2. Devontae Booker is a bad, bad man: The Utah running back had a huge night. He finished with 222 yards rushing on 34 carries with two touchdowns. Just in case that wasn’t enough, he also led Utah in receiving, finishing with four receptions for 45 yards.
There are a lot of really good running backs across the country this season, and because of that, Booker really doesn’t get the attention he deserves. Should Utah keep winning, that will likely change because he’s really the engine for this offense.
3. Utah is still in the driver’s seat in the Pac-12 South, if not the entire conference: Not only are the Utes now 2-0 in conference play, but they’re the only Pac-12 South team without a conference loss.
The schedule still has plenty of possible roadblocks remaining, though, as the Utes move on to face Arizona State next week in Salt Lake City, with games against USC, Arizona and UCLA still looming down the road. Still, given what we’ve seen from those teams in recent weeks, those squads seem to have more question marks surrounding them than the Utes do.
Utah hasn’t been a perfect team — each week proves that team just does not exist anywhere this year — but it’s been the most consistent team in the Pac-12 this season. That just might be enough.
4. On the flip side, let’s not write off Cal yet: It would have been nice for Cal to win this game, but the Bears are still 2-1 in conference play. That being said, they’ve now entered a critical portion of their schedule.
It does not get any easier from her for the Bears. They’ll have a bye next week, but after that it’s UCLA, USC, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford and Arizona State. That’s quite the gauntlet to get through to finish out the season.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
