Aggressive and fearless a week earlier, the Cal defense appeared scared of Wake Forest quarterback Gio Lopez on Saturday night.
Lopez is a scary dual-threat guy, no question.
He arrived at Memorial Stadium having produced 19 touchdowns this season — 13 through the air, six more with his legs. Coach Tosh Lupoi called him the best quarterback Cal has seen.
How would the Bears attack him?
It felt like they really didn’t.
On a day when five of the top seven teams in the AP Top-25 suffered defeats — and then-No. 3 Miami needed two overtimes to escape Florida State — Cal didn’t give itself a chance to add another upset to the day’s carnage in a 41-7 loss to the now 17th-ranked Demon Deacons.
No doubt concerned about letting Lopez loose out of the pocket, Cal wasn’t nearly as aggressive with its pass rush or blitzes as we’ve seen in recent weeks.
The Bears never sacked Lopez, rarely pressured him, never made him uncomfortable, never forced a turnover.
Early in the week, Lupoi acknowledged he wasn't comfortable with regularly blitzing a player with so much escapability. “If you see people going all out, the risk-reward of that is very costly,” Lupoi said. “That approach, you see some people do it and it doesn’t look very good. You can’t wholesale anything against this guy. "
Making matters much worse, Cal defenders in the back end quite often were entirely out of position as the Demon Deacons raced up and down the field for touchdowns on their first four possessions.
“They did a nice job putting their offense in a great position versus the calls we were in,” explained Lupoi, whose career resume was largely as a defensive coordinator. “They exposed us there, out-coached us there.”
Just a week earlier, the Bears kept Virginia Tech quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer off balance with a variety of pass-rush strategies. It added up to a 25-20 win over an opponent that was averaging nearly 42 points.
Perhaps the Bears were less confident in their ability to pressure Lopez — far more elusive than Grunkemeyer — without paying a price.
The result was he was free to do whatever he wanted.
Wake Forest wide receiver Carlos Hernandez, who entered the game as the FBS leader with 49 catches, was nursing an injury and played so little that Lopez never directed a pass to him.
It didn’t matter. Lopez wound up throwing four TDs — three of them to freshman tight end Dominick Barry, who previously had caught two passes for 14 yards all season.
Wake’s first four possessions produced touchdown drives of 99, 34, 78 and 75 yards. They covered those 286 yards with shocking ease in just 22 plays.
The second of those scoring drives, the 34-yarder, came after the Bears gambled and failed to convert a fourth-and-1 play. From there, Wake needed just one play to make it 14-0.
Meanwhile, Cal couldn’t give quarterback Jackson Brousseau enough time to look downfield for his targets — he averaged 4.6 yards per completion in the opening half and none of his first 12 completions netted even 10 yards.
Lopez wasn’t dinking around.
His 10 completions on those first four scoring possessions chewed up 261 yards. Easy math: 26.1 yards per completion. Every one of them either a first down or a touchdown.
The middle of the field, in particular, was a feeding ground for the Demon Deacons. Barry was more open than an all-night Seven-11 as he hauled in Lopez’s 39-yard TD pass to open the scoring.
Wide receiver Jack Foley also had no nearby blue and gold company on his 29-yard scoring reception that made it 14-0. And running back Ty Clark III was never touched on his 31-yard run that boosted the margin to 27-0 with nearly nine minutes left in the second quarter.
Lupoi complimented his players for continuing to compete in the second half. But it was feint praise.
By then, fans were headed home and you have to figure Wake’s charter flight was warming up on the tarmac.
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