Road woes continue for WSU as California beats the Cougars at their own game
Washington State University trailed the entirety of the game and couldn’t pull off a late comeback against California, losing their fourth consecutive road game, 33-20, to the Golden Bears Saturday night at Memorial Coliseum.
Cal’s explosive plays did the Cougars in all game, and the Golden Bears, whose 33 points were a season-high in Pac-12 play, scored 14 points off two Washington State turnovers.
The Golden Bears’ Devon Modster finished 16-of-24 passing for 230 yards and three touchdowns, connecting with Makai Polk for a 52-yard catch-and-run midway through the fourth quarter, then running in from 14 yards out to put the nail in the coffin and end Cal’s four-game losing streak.
Cal’s offense, statistically the worst in the Pac-12 at just 12.2 points per game, outgunned Washington State’s offense, which has been statistically the best in the conference, at more than 37 ppg. The Golden Bears finished with 426 yards of total offense to the Cougars’ 423.
The Cougars (4-5, 1-5) return home for two games, starting with Stanford (4-5, 3-4) next Saturday at either 1 p.m. or 4:30 p.m. The Golden Bears (5-4, 2-4) play host to USC (6-4, 5-2) in an 8 p.m. game at Memorial Stadium.
The Cougars had the Bears at 20-14 in the fourth quarter, but quarterback Anthony Gordon was stopped short of the first-down marker on fourth-and-3, giving the ball back to Cal with 10:31 to play.
Modster led Cal on a eight-play, 93-yard drive that consumed more than four minutes, connecting with Polk to put the Golden Bears up 26-14. WSU’s offense stalled on the following drive and Modster punched in one more touchdown on a 13-yard option keeper to open up the biggest Cal lead of the game, at 33-14.
The game opened with a bizarre sequence of events. Gordon was intercepted on just the second play, and Cal’s Christopher Brown Jr. went untouched for a 27-yard touchdown on the Golden Bears’ first offensive snap. But WSU’s Misiona Aiolupotea-Pei got a hand on the PAT, deflecting the ball to George Hicks III, who ran it back to the opposite end zone for two points.
WSU’s offense didn’t show much life until the end of the second quarter, when Gordon led a methodical four-minute drive, completing 9-of-10 passes and hitting Brandon Arconado for a 17-yard touchdown. The Cougars’ two-point conversion failed and the Bears went into the halftime break holding a 13-11 lead.
Gordon finished 45-of-58 passing for 407 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. He found Arconado a career-high 12 times for 130 yards and a touchdown. It was the fifth 100-yard receiving game of the season for the senior “Y” receiver. Easop Winston Jr. added another nine catches for 113 yards.
Brown Jr. had 108 all-purpose yards for one rushing touchdown and one receiving touchdown for the Golden Bears.
This story was originally published November 10, 2019 at 8:36 AM with the headline "Road woes continue for WSU as California beats the Cougars at their own game."