{"id":507236,"date":"2026-10-25T05:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T05:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/507236\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T05:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T05:26:19","slug":"no-23-smu-pulls-away-in-second-half-to-defeat-cal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/507236\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 23 SMU Pulls Away In Second Half To Defeat Cal"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALLAS – Buoyed by the return of quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele<\/a>\u00a0as the starter, the California football team played a strong first half Saturday\u00a0before No. 23 SMU took control after halftime and knocked off the Bears, 59-20, at Gerald J. Ford Stadium.<\/p>\n

Cal (3-5, 2-3 ACC) led 20-17 at the break before the Mustangs (6-1, 4-1) scored 42 straight points.<\/p>\n

Sagapolutele had missed most of the previous 2 1\/2 games because\u00a0of a concussion suffered late in the first half of the Bears’ game at UNLV on Oct. 3. On Saturday, the lefty completed 27 of his 37 passes for 265 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a long process, just going through all the procedures to come back,” Sagapolutele said, adding that he’s thankful that Travers Family Head Football Coach Tosh Lupoi<\/a>\u00a0“believed in me to come back and I was able to be back on the field.”<\/p>\n

Cal drove 65 yards in seven plays for a touchdown on its opening possession. The key play was a 36-yard hookup from Sagapolutele to Ian Strong<\/a>, who hurdled a defender to pick up extra yardage. The score came on a wide receiver screen to\u00a0Chase Hendricks<\/a>, who sliced his way to the end zone and the Bears were up 7-0. Hendricks finished with seven receptions for 83 yards.<\/p>\n

The Mustangs scored the next 10 points, but the Bears responded with a 13-play, 75-yard drive that took 7:01 off the clock. On 4th-and-5 at the SMU 31, Cal used a fake field-goal try to keep the drive alive. Backup QB Dominic Ingrassia<\/a> was the holder, and he ran up the middle for 7 yards to the 24.<\/p>\n

Cal again went to its bag of tricks on 2nd-and-goal from the 1. Mason Mini<\/a>, normally a tight end, took the snap and bulled over the goal line. Cal led 14-10 as Mini recorded his first rushing touchdown. He also has caught six TD passes and thrown a scoring pass in his career with the Bears.<\/p>\n

Towns McGough<\/a> connected on a career-long 41-yard field goal to up the Bears’ edge to 17-10 with 5:12 left in the half. The Mustangs answered with a touchdown with 1:57 remaining in the half to make it 17-17.<\/p>\n

The Bears still were able to go to the locker room at halftime with the lead. Sagapolutele engineered a nine-play, 56-yard drive. His 16-yard completion to Strong (5 receptions, 71 yards) on the right sideline gave Cal the ball at the SMU 19 with one tick left. McGough nailed a 37-yard field goal on the final play of the half to make it 20-17.<\/p>\n

Lupoi said, “To be winning at half and then come out the way we did was really disappointing, so \u2026 we’ve got to make every correction possible.”<\/p>\n

Because of injuries, players who normally are defensive backs wound up getting snaps on offense. Niles Davis<\/a> ran four times for 11 yards and Kingston Lopa<\/a> had one reception for 11 yards.<\/p>\n

The Bears are on the road again next Saturday when they face NC State (3-4, 1-3 ACC). at 9 a.m. PT. The game will air on the ACC Network. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS – Buoyed by the return of quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele\u00a0as the starter, the California football team played a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-507236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}