Cal Uses Different Tactic to Beat Stanford

California used a strange tactic against the Stanford Cardinal and it worked. The Bears came up with a 37-16 victory over the struggling Cardinal football team, who ended losing their third straight game.

The Bears defense held the Cardinal to one field goal in the first half even though they had at least three possessions in the red zone in the first half. A missed field goal for the Cardinal, a fumble by Toby Gerhart, and a chance to score a touch down just before half time were thwarted by Cal.

The only points scored for Stanford was on that drive but it was a field goal even though they had the ball at the 1 yard line.

Not to say Cal's offense was that much better, but they took advantage of a 60 yard run by Jahvid Best which lead to a field goal.

Their first touchdown of the game came on a 59-yard pass from Kevin Riley to Shane Vareen who was wide open. So, Cal came in with a 10-3 lead at the half.

The second half became the Jahvid Best Show. He got credited for a touchdown reception on a lateral from Sean Young. He also had two rushing touchdowns, one of 45 yards and the other of 3 yards.

He almost had a third, but Jim Harbaugh called a timeout before he scored on a 1-yard touchdown run. Instead, Cameron Morrah caught a lob pass from Riley for 1-yard touchdown.

The Cardinal scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter but the game was well out of hand at that point.

So what was the different tactic? Well let's just take a look at the offensive leaders for the Bears.

In rushing it was Jahvid Best who carried the ball 19 times for 204 yards and had two rushing touchdowns. The second leading rusher was Shane Vareen who went for 12 carries and 56 yards.

So that's not new: using Best and Vareen in the backfield. What's new is the receiving leaders in the game. The player that led the team in catches in the game was Jahvid Best, who caught three passes for 36 yards with the touchdown.

The leader in receiving yards in the game was Shane Vareen. As previously mentioned he only caught the one pass for the 59 yards and the touchdown.

The Cal receivers were non-existent in the game. Nyan Boateng had zero catches, Verran Tucker had zero catches, Jeremy Ross had zero catches. So the game plan for Cal was to use their running backs as receivers.

Jeremy Ross did have a 44-yard run for the Bears. Cameron Morrah, the Bears excellent tight end, had one catch for one yard for that one touchdown.

It's an interesting strategy the Bears went with against the Cardinal. It was a good  strategy because so far this season the receivers have been the biggest disappointment.