CORVALLIS, Ore.-Two weeks ago, it was a different story. Or part of it, anyway.

Rain soaked Memorial Stadium, the Cal football team's defense blanketed Oregon's spread, and Zack Follett pumped up a struggling offense with an impromptu visit to the huddle.

And the Bears won.

"Offense is moving slow, you don't want to get down on them," linebacker Worrell Williams said after that game. "Try and encourage them. Let them know, 'Hey, you make mistakes here and there, we're ready.'"

Last weekend, the story was similar, but with a different ending: Ten points given up to USC until the final minutes of the fourth quarter, and nothing but a line in the loss column to show for it.

"Obviously it wasn't good enough," Williams said post-game at the Coliseum. "We've got to hold them to zero. Otherwise you won't win a game like this."

And on Saturday at Reser Stadium, the story read like an old fable, something that followers of Cal football might be getting to know a little better than they would like.

"Our defense played a hell of a game," Follett said. "In my eyes, I think we gave up 13 points.

"But it's a three-phases game, and we've got to put them all together to win."

What has remained the same over the past three games has been the defense rising above its expectations, defying its past performances, and holding three of the top scoring offenses in the Pac-10 to under 20 points.

Over the past three games, that defense has played well enough to win.

The difference is that, two weeks ago, the other two phases that Follett alluded to did the same. And for the past two games, that hasn't been the case.

On Saturday, the Bears' defensive performance was squandered as a result of faulty kick coverage and an offense that fell short in key opportunities.

With its back against the wall for most of the afternoon, Cal's defense tightened up in its own territory, allowing two Justin Kahut field goals and an 18-yard James Rodgers touchdown on a fly sweep-on a drive that began at the Beavers' 43-yard line.

In fact, of the 70 offensive plays that Oregon State ran on Saturday, an astounding 48 of them-or 69 percent-came on the Bears' half of the field.

In other words, the Cal defense performed when it mattered most.

Perhaps the best example of that came with the Beavers running down the clock with a six-point lead in the fourth quarter and pushing into field-goal range. On third down and five, Bears cornerback Chris Conte tackled Rodgers for a five-yard loss, forcing a punt and giving the offense one last gasp at a game-winning drive.

Most of the time, all you can ask of a defense is to leave you in a position to win at the end of the day.

But left in that position until the final minute, Cal's offense couldn't get itself on track.

When quarterback Kevin Riley was off, he missed receivers. And multiple times, when he was on, the ball was dropped-such as with his beautiful deep ball to Verran Tucker in the second quarter and the short pass to Jahvid Best on third down in the fourth quarter that hit off Best's hands and fell to the ground, nullifying a sure first down and the possibility for more.

"I thought that was going to be a touchdown," Best said.

Instead, it killed a drive, becoming one of 11 third-down opportunities that the Bears failed to convert.

Somebody asked Follett after the game if Cal will be more motivated with Stanford coming up next weekend.

"It doesn't matter who we play next," he said. "I'm so frustrated at this point, I just want to go out there and win."

Follett hasn't had that opportunity since a rainy day two weeks ago.

But that doesn't fall on him, or the rest of the defense, at all.

Tags: CAL FOOTBALL