Oregon Rolls Over Cal, 52-30

This time, Oregon made sure California’s comeback wasn’t successful.

Tony Graziani threw three touchdown passes to Josh Wilcox in the second half, and No. 15 Oregon answered Cal’s late rally with one of its own in a 52-30 victory Saturday.

The win was the 11th in 12 league games for Oregon (5-1, 2-1 Pac-10) and ended a three-game losing streak in Berkeley. Included in that skid was the 1993 meeting, when Cal rallied from a 30-point deficit for a 42-41 victory, the third-biggest comeback in NCAA history.

Ricky Whittle ran for 161 yards and two touchdowns, his eighth career 100-yard rushing game and fourth against Cal (1-5, 0-3).

The Ducks held Cal to one yard rushing in the first half and minus-1 yard in the game.

Pat Barnes, who completed 22 of 38 for 272 yards, threw fourth-quarter touchdown passes of 8 and 40 yards to Bobby Shaw to give Oregon a scare. But he was sacked five times and intercepted three times, including Brian Collins’ fourthquarter theft and return to Cal’s 2-yard line.

Whittle followed the interception by scoring his second touchdown with 4:16 left, and Eric Winn added a 3-yard scoring run with 1:27 remaining to make it 52-24. Winn’s score also was set up by a Cal turnover.

Cal finished the scoring on Kerry McGonigal’s 25-yard touchdown pass to Na’il Benjamin with 15 seconds remaining.

Oregon built its lead in the third quarter, dominating possession and scoring twice when Wilcox took screen passes 15 yards for scores. Graziani, who completed 22 of 30 passes for 241 yards, culminated a 65-yard drive with a 1-yard scoring run.

Only 10 seconds into the fourth quarter, Wilcox was open on a pattern down the middle and caught his third touchdown pass from Graziani for a 38-9 lead.

Oregon led 18-9 at halftime, scoring all its first-half points in the second quarter on Whittle’s 13-yard burst up the middle, Graziani’s 10-yard TD pass to Wilcox and Kevin Parker’s 2-point conversion run, and Joshua Smith’s 37-yard field goal.

Cal got field goals of 49, 27 and 46 yards from Ryan Longwell, twice failing to reach the end zone after recovering fumbles deep in Ducks territory.

The Bears recovered Whittle’s fumbled kickoff return at the Oregon 26, but went backwards from there and called on Longwell to kick his third field goal for a 9-7 lead with 8:51 left in the second quarter.