California Head Coach Sonny Dykes

General comments:

“We did not respond very well to adversity early on in the ballgame, and it was really disappointing. We didn't do a very good job getting our players ready to play, and that is obviously a fault on me. It is the worst performance, offensively; that I have been a part of in a long time, and again, that is my fault. We put a good drive together early in the ballgame and got down to the goal line, but we fumbled the quarterback sneak. It seemed like our guys did not respond well to that. We turned the ball over and had some penalties on our offensive line that hurt us. We had an overall lack of discipline, and that was my fault. It was not a very great performance. You have to give Washington credit. I thought they played well. They were faster than us and you could tell they were fresh coming off of a bye week. They had a good plan, and we did not respond very well.”

On goal line fumble:

"I couldn't see from where I was exactly what happened. I saw Jared tried to reach the ball across the goal line and then get knocked out of his hands, and then it flew right into his [Shaq Thompson] arms and he returned it. It was a nice play by him. As I said, it just seemed like – for whatever reason – we had a hard time responding after that. We put a good drive together. We knew coming in that Washington was going to make us be patient and drive the ball the length of the field. That is the way they play defense. They aren't going to give up easy touchdowns. We have been getting so many big plays that it was going to be a very different approach for our players. We talked to them about it this week, told them about it, anticipated it, but we just didn't handle it very well."

On the Washington defense:

"They played their safeties real deep. Most of the time the safety is 15 yards and backpedaling, where we have been playing safeties that are more aggressive. We should be able to run the ball better in those situations, but we didn't run the ball as well as we needed to in order to force them to get their safeties involved in the run game. They put a lot of pressure on us, offensively, to force us try to get the ball down the field at times."

On the Lowe and Scarlett injuries:

"We found out later in the week about both of them. We thought they might have an opportunity to play and neither one of them did. We are obviously having some depth problems at safety with Michael [Lowe] and Stefan [McClure] both being out today, and then Griffin Piatt going down in the game. I don't know the extent of his injury. We have some depth issues at safety and we need to get those guys back."

On practice during the week:

"I thought offensively it was probably the best we had practiced all year. Typically, our team has been the team where if we practice well, we normally play well. It certainly didn't carry over from practice to the game. As I said, we have scored so fast and so often that I think our players expected it to be easy. We have to have a better mindset and a different mentality about being able to drive the ball down the field. Just like I told them after the game, it's not easy. Scoring points is not easy. You have to be disciplined. We have been fortunate to have a lot of big plays this season. Our guys have done a nice job of making them. This was going to be a different challenge for us, and we didn't respond well."

On the defense:

"I thought we played well enough defensively to win. Given some of the personnel challenges we had, I thought our guys played hard and responded well. There were a couple of big plays that we gave up – the screen pass was a bad play. We should have gotten him on the ground and made that tackle earlier. I thought we made some steps in the right direction, defensively."

California Players 

Jared Goff, Quarterback

On the play at the goal line and how it affected the momentum:

“I was just trying to make a play. I tried to go over the top and unfortunately it didn't work out the way I wanted it to, and even worse, gave them seven points. But it didn't really affect our momentum, it really shouldn't have. Offensively today, I just don't think we did enough and I don't think I did enough today to get us the win.”

On the offensive scheme today and what Washington did to force underneath routes:

“They did a great job this week of game planning for us. Washington, I just have to tip my hat to them, they did a great job defensively in everything they were doing. They weren't letting us get over the top on them too much and we had to do some underneath stuff and run the ball. Unfortunately, we dug ourselves into a hole early and weren't able to get out of it.”

On whether there was a point when the offense realized things weren't going well:

“We've been moving the ball pretty well all year and today, their defense just did a great job. I don't know if there was a point where we knew what we were doing wasn't working very well. We score seven points the whole game, it wasn't working very well. I've got to be better. Our whole offense has to be better in order to give us a chance to win the game. The defense for us was great. We really gave them 14 points offensively and then they [the Cal defense] gave up 17, which makes the game very winnable. Like I said, I've got to play better.”

Daniel Lasco, Running Back

On the difference today:

“It was us. Absolutely it was us. Throughout the last couple of weeks, we've had so much notoriety; throwing the ball and running the ball and so much success on offense. I think it kind of got to our head. We messed up. Offensively we didn't hold on and we started off rough. The defense was spectacular. They played well enough to win. We had too many turnovers and it is just unacceptable as an offense.

On the team's mindset:

“Everybody was saying we can score 50 points easily. I think a lot of people bought into it and they didn't realize how hard it is to win a football game and how hard it is to be productive on offense. I think in the end, we needed this. It's hard right now, everybody is struggling right now, but we are going to bounce back tomorrow, have a great week of practice and get ready for UCLA. We can't really harp on this one loss, we just have to keep our nose down and keep driving and prepare for the next opponent. We still have a long season ahead of us.”

Hardy Nickerson, Linebacker

On whether this outcome shakes the team's confidence moving forward:

“I feel like we made a lot of adjustments in the second half and held them to three points, so as a defense, our confidence is still there. At the same time, we have to start faster. We started badly against Colorado, we started badly against Washington State and to have to come back out of a hole that is 28-0 is big-time. We have to start stepping up early and making plays early. As a team overall, we know that there needs to be work done. We are going to watch the film and see what happened and correct all the mistakes to get ready for UCLA.”

Washington Head Coach Chris Petersen 

On how big of a play Shaq Thompson's fumble return was:

“Probably as big as you can get. Those kids on D played really well. There wasn't a better play than that all game. They came out and drove the ball down the field. I'm sure they were thinking, 'Here we go again, we'll score a bunch of points.' [Shaq] always seems to make a play when we need one.”

On if he expected the defensive effort:

“You never really know. Cal has thrown it so well and moved the ball so well. To come in here and hold them to seven points, I didn't think that would happen. I'm proud of those guys and how they get turnovers.”

On quarterback Cyler Miles:

“I'm really proud of Cyler. The last two weeks he's studied and worked hard, really all those guys. They come to work every day. If we can just stay even keeled and come to work to get better, we're going to keep improving. That's easier said than done.”

On using the momentum into next week's game:

“Now we have a short week, a regular week. Two weeks is a long time to work hard and improve, which they did. Now the train has left and it doesn't slow down.”

On linebacker Shaq Thompson:

“He just has the football 'it' factor. That's really it. I think we can play him wherever. Running back he can do some things or safety. He just has a really high football IQ.”

On the offense:

“We were a lot more in-sync. I thought we ran the ball decently. I think we can run it better, but 22-for-29 passing is really efficient. If we can continue to run the ball better, that will continue to help the passing game.”

On playing a complete game:

“I thought we would play complete games other times. I think we've practiced hard all along. I don't think we've practiced efficiently all along. I think we're making a little bit of progress there.”

On the amount road wins across the conference this season:

“I have no idea. I just hope it continues for another week.”

Washington Players

Cyler Miles, Quarterback

On the game

"Credit should be given to our offensive line. Our offensive line battled all day. I was pleased with how they showed up today."

On Shaq Thompson

"Shaq is outstanding. He's playing like a beast this year. He needs to just keep it up. He's a game changer."

On media criticism of the offense

"It is easy to ignore. I made a promise to myself before the season that I am not reading anything. No offense to you guys, but I am not reading any articles or anything related to the media. It can't do anything good. All it does it hurt your brain. That's just what I think. It's been a struggle at times, but I'm proud of myself. It's just us. Nothing outside can affect us. I don't have twitter, Instagram or anything."

On Pac-12 Conference games

"We don't really think about it too much, like where we stand. We really try to take it one game at a time and play our best football every Saturday when we go out."

Jaydon Mickens, Wide Receiver

On the game

"There is a lot we need to sharpen up, but I think we can do that and get ready for the next game. There are never doubts when we play. We have been playing with each other for a long time now and we know the potential we have at the receiver position and at the running back position. We can get way better and we will get way better. All we have to do is go home and practice our butts off. We just have to watch a lot of film, and it is going to take off from there."

On Cyler Miles

"I saw a poised quarterback. When things were not going right and he was getting sacked, he stayed poised and focused. He was delivering balls right on the money. He did a phenomenal job today. Cyler is the same old Cyler. He gets his work done the way he always does. He never looks on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. He's not that type of guy. If he ever messes up or does something bad, he always wants to get better." 

John Ross, Wide Receiver

On past games

"It's never on our minds; we just want to continuously get better. It is kind of on our minds, but we have to keep our defense on and keep on executing."

On the long touchdown pass

"Honestly, it was just great blocking. I found a crease, and then I saw it was a foot race so I just wanted to do my job. When I saw that it was just a foot race, I knew that I could do it."