California stops Arizona State

BERKELEY -- When quarterback Rudy Carpenter taunted Zack Follett during Arizona State’s win over California last season, the Golden Bears linebacker held his tongue and hung on to the memory.

“He was calling me by my first name, like we’re best friends or something,” Follett said, still fuming at the thought.

A year later, Follett replied to Carpenter’s big words with perhaps the most vicious sack his teammates had ever seen. The Bears saw that crushing hit and the resulting fumble, which killed a fourth-quarter drive, as an appropriate punctuation on a 24-14 victory full of shining moments for Cal’s defense.

“I almost stopped playing when I saw that,” defensive lineman Cameron Jordan said. “If you had seen the pain on his face when that quarterback got hit. . . . “

Nate Longshore passed for 198 yards and three touchdowns in his return to Cal’s starting lineup Saturday, but the Bears (4-1, 2-0 Pacific 10) won by turning Arizona State’s experienced offense into a mess. Carpenter passed for only 165 yards and had two passes intercepted, while Keegan Herring didn’t do much to help the Sun Devils (2-3, 1-1), who ran for just 37 yards in their third straight loss.

“With the defense playing like that, we just have to go out there and make sure we don’t waste what they’re doing,” Longshore said. “As an offense, we need to do better, but every win in a Pac-10 game is special.”

LaReylle Cunningham, Cameron Morrah and Nyan Boateng caught scoring passes from Longshore, the senior two-year starter who lost his job in training camp to Kevin Riley. Cal reopened its quarterback competition this week after the offense made slow starts in its last two games, and Coach Jeff Tedford kept the winner’s identity secret until Longshore ran onto the Memorial Stadium field.

The Sun Devils were last season’s conference co-champions who averaged 32.3 points per game, but this Arizona State squad has managed just 44 total points during its first three-game losing streak of Coach Dennis Erickson’s short tenure.

“It’s our problem, and we need to fix it internally,” said Kyle Williams, who caught Carpenter’s only touchdown pass.

Carpenter left the stadium on crutches with an injury to his left leg. Carpenter, who wasn’t specific about the injury, played the entire game but appeared to be limping in the final minutes.