(Written by kencraw)

After the news broke that Longshore was out for the season, the big question was whether Ayoob would get the start as the number two quarterback on the depth chart or would Steve Levy, who had by far the better game of the two against Sac State, leap-frog Ayoob. Tedford pretty quickly ended the controversy by naming Ayoob the starter mid-week. People were not that surprised.

Nevertheless, Cal fans were very nervous for game two, particularly with having to travel to the ever challenging Husky stadium to face Washington. Would Ayoob be able to recover from his week one disaster?

It didn’t look that way after the first play as Ayoob lofts up a well under-thrown ball down the sideline to Lavelle Hawkins that bounced off the defender’s helmit for a first-play interception. To add injury to insult, the Husky’s ran just about the same play on their first snap and instead completed a 56 yard touchdown pass, putting the Bears in a 0-7 hole less than 30 seconds into the game.

Cal kept the ball away from Ayoob on their next possession, handing the ball off 3 times. Unfortunately for the Bears, the Huskies were expecting such a move. Although the Bears managed a 3rd and 1, they were unable to convert and the Bears had to punt.

Washington found a similar lack of success on their 2nd possession, giving the ball right back to the Bears. Ayoob threw two incompletes to start the drive, raising his incomplete streak on the season to 13. On 3rd and 10, just about all Cal fans expected the worst when Ayoob completed his first D-I pass to Robert Jordon on an underneath pattern that got the Bears their first 1st down of the game. Sadly the series died on a holding penalty and two consecutive coverage sacks where the Huskies were able to pin their ears back and blitz on 2nd and 3rd and long.

On the Huskies next possession, the Bears got what should have been their first break of the game when an overthrown screen pass was tipped and intercepted by the Bears. Unfortunately Tafisi marginally roughed Stanback and the interception was undone. After the Huskies got a couple more 1st downs they had to punt giving the ball to Cal on their own 20 yard-line after the punt bounced into the endzone.

Lynch proved his mettle and broke a big 25 yard run busting two tackles along the way to the 45 yard-line. Ayoob then busted off 4 consecutive passes of his own. The first was an underneath pass to Craig Stevens. The second was an easy swing-out pass to Manderino that went for 12 yards. The third was a great deep fade to Robert Jordan for 31 yards down to the Washington 9 yard-line. The fourth finished off the touchdown drive on a slant to Jordan again. All of a sudden, it seemed that Ayoob had found his rhythm and the game was tied at 7-7.

The Bears special teams showed their first sign of weakness on the kickoff, allowing the Huskies to run the ball out to their own 45 yard-line. Luckily the Bear defense remained stout and forced a 3-and-out.

Ayoob completed his first pass on the next drive, growing his completion streak to 6. Although the next pass fell incomplete, it was the right idea, trying to get the ball to a streaking DeSean Jackson deep down the seam to start the 2nd quarter. On 3rd and 13, Ayoob showed off his ability to run with the ball, getting not only the 1st down on a busted play, but ran for 26 yards. A sack and a recovered fumble later, Lynch ran a shovel pass for a 25 to get the 1st down on 3rd and 24. Ayoob again tried to get the ball to DeSean deep down the field, but he dropped the ball in the endzone. DeSean was showing that despite his talents, he was still a true Freshman. After a 10 yard rush by Justin Forsett, Ayoob was able to find Jordan down the field who was able to squeeze inside the pylon for his 2nd passing touchdown of the game, giving the Bears a 14-7 lead.

The Huskies rebounded on their next possession, completing a 45 yard pass play on a tipped jump-ball that the receiver was able to come down with. However, 3 plays later the Bears forced a 46-yard field goal attempt that split the uprights with just yards to spare, closing Cal’s lead to 14-10.

The Bears and Huskies traded 3-and-outs, giving the Bears the ball back on their own 6 yard-line. A 1st down later, Ayoob lofted a beautiful long deep ball down the sideline to Lavelle Hawkins. Although slightly over-thrown, Hawkins was able to dive for the ball, bringing it into his hands, but was unable to hold on. Despite the incompletion, it was a good read and fairly good touch. Ayoob continued to look strong by completing his next pass for a 1st down. Another 1st down later, Ayoob took his next shot down the field. While it wasn’t nearly as good a pass nor as good a read, a misplay by the safety gave Jordan the ball with a free path to the endzone, extending Cal’s lead to 21-10.

The Huskies had yet another 3-and-out, their 2nd in a row, but matters get far worse for the Huskies as the pressure up the middle on the punt forces the punter to pull the ball down and try to run, and to no avail at that. The Bears got the ball at the Washington 14. Ayoob didn’t waste any time, throwing a 14-yard post route to David Gray for another touchdown, their 4th in 5 possessions to take a commanding 28-10 lead with just under 2 minutes left in the half.

The Huskies showed some sign of life in their next possession, probably because the Bears were playing a soft defense. Nevertheless they were forced to punt before getting to midfield and the Bears were content to take a knee to end the half.

Summing up the first half, Ayoob was able to find his groove and after going 0-3 to start the game, went 13-17 with 4 touchdowns after that. At the same time, Ayoob’s tendency to go for the long play, even when the receiver is fairly well covered, which was his bread-and-butter in junior college, was evident. Luckily for the Bears, they were able to recover from these incompletions both through the power running of Lynch and through Ayoob’s generally good reads and passes, even when buying time by avoiding the rush.

As strong as the offense was, the defense was even stronger after their first-play brain-freeze. Minus one lucky play on a jump-ball, the Huskies never saw the Cal side of the field again in the first half. Particularly strong was the Cal run defense forcing the Huskies to pass the ball far more than they would have liked.

To start the second half, the Huskies were able to find some offensive rhythm. After getting two 1st downs, with a string of 5 complete passes. The 6th complete pass, a deep slant splitting the Cal defense, turned into a 39 yard catch-and-run for a touchdown, narrowing the lead to 28-17.

The Bears returned to the run game, picking up 8 yards on two run plays. Unfortunately, the quick slant to David Gray fell incomplete on what was a bad read by Ayoob, forcing the Bears to punt. Luckily for the Bears, the defense corrected their errors, particularly bringing more pressure on Stanback, and forced a punt after one 1st down on a scrambling completion by Stanback.

On the Bears next possession, Ayoob showed some of his bad form from the Sac State game, not setting his feet and making bad reads. Also with Lynch in the locker room with a broken finger/hand, Forsett was unable to carry the same load. A lucky roughing the passer penalty, bailed the Bears out of a long-distance series at which point Ayoob went back to his favorite receiver on this day, Robert Jordan, for two successive plays to get the Bears down to the Washington 17. After a quarterback draw by Ayoob caught the Huskies off balance and got the ball down to the Washington 3 yard, Marcus O’Keith was able to pound the ball in for the first rushing touchdown of the game to re-extend the lead to 18 points, now 35-17.

The Huskies were able to chip away at the Bears on their next drive, over coming a couple penalties along the way. After driving the ball into Cal territory just after the beginning of the fourth quarter, they were able to get the ball down to the Cal 38 yard-line. 2 incompletes, a holding penalty and a busted up screen play later, the Huskies were forced to punt. Adding injury to insult, the ineffective drive took 5:36 off the clock, significantly worsening the Huskies situation.

On the upside for the Huskies, they were able to down the punt at the Cal 4 yard-line. The Bears responded with a heavy dose of the running game. Forsett and Manderino combined for 21 yards to get the ball out to the 25 yard-line. A handful of plays later that were mostly washed out by a holding penalty, O’Keith sprinted up a small seam in the middle of the defense and sprinted away from the secondary for a 71 yard touchdown run, to mostly put the game away, 42-17.

If the dagger was not already in the Huskies, it was put in on the first play of the ensuring possession. Stanback tried to force a ball where he shouldn’t have. A maturing Damien Hughes sat waiting to return the ball for his second of many interceptions for touchdowns to come, extending the lead to 49-17.

Clearly in a prevent style defense, the Bears let Washington slowly march down the field to the Cal 25 yard-line, where they turned the ball over on downs as the Bear defense stiffened. The Bears then put Terrell Williams, their fourth string running-back, to run out the clock, with 3:47 remaining. Despite the conservative play calling, the Bears marched down the field and with time expiring, Forsett ran a 35 yard running play, bouncing the ball outside when the hole collapsed inside, for the final score of the game, 56-17.

Summarizing the game, the Bears were definitely running on all their cylinders. Just about every criticism one could have about the performance of the team could be rebutted by an equally strong play by the same unit in a different part of the game. Winning a game 56-17, particularly when the team spots the opponent 7 points at the beginning, is mighty impressive. At this point, the Bears looked to be in full fighting form and Ayoob looked to be another Tedford quarterback ready to jump into the lime-light.

Would the trend continue against Illinois? You’ll have to wait until Friday to find out.