Cal athletic director Jim Knowlton woke up Friday feeling uncertain.
The Bears' season opener six days earlier against Washington had already been canceled. Their upcoming game against Arizona State appeared headed for the same outcome. The Bears had been cleared to open their season, but whether they could play, who they would face and where the game would kick off were unknown. Cal could end up in Tempe, Arizona, as scheduled, or at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, or in Seattle, to face Washington after all.
Or, the Bears could be home in Berkeley, playing a Pac-12 opponent -- or no one, yet again.
UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond woke up Friday feeling good. He worked out and then stopped by football practice.
Great practice this am, love the energy! 💙🐻💛 pic.twitter.com/3441Lk4d2e
— Martin Jarmond (@MartinJarmond) November 13, 2020
Jarmond had spoken daily with Utah athletic director Mark Harlan about the Utes' COVID-19 situation. Harlan told Jarmond on Thursday night that Utah remained on track to face UCLA on Saturday at the Rose Bowl.
Around 10:30 a.m., Jarmond received a text message: Utah had more coronavirus issues. He tried Harlan but got no answer. Harlan would call 25 minutes later, and Jarmond immediately knew from the tone of his voice. The Utes, who had already canceled their opener against Arizona, would be sidelined again.
"My mind starts going into overload," Jarmond said. "The only thing I'm thinking while I'm watching these [UCLA players] at practice, 'They're practicing hard, they're sacrificing, they're doing everything that we asked them to do. I better do my damnedest to give them a chance to compete this weekend, if I can.'"
Harlan's call was the first in a series of dominoes to fall over the next few hours in the Pac-12. Two games were canceled, and another briefly appeared in jeopardy. One COVID-19 outbreak didn't abate in time, while another surged. Half the league was impacted. Announcements streamed out of the Pac-12 office. Administrators worked the phones or hopped on Zoom calls, hammering out logistics usually finalized months, if not years, in advance.
The whirlwind ended with Cal and UCLA, who had squared off every year since 1933 but were left off the pandemic-shortened schedules of 2020, finalizing an agreement to play Sunday. UCLA started fast against Cal, which not surprisingly looked rusty, and won 34-10.
"We're just grateful that we get an opportunity to play," UCLA coach Chip Kelly said after the game. "What's going on with COVID in this country right now is kind of crazy, and I don't know what the future holds."
UCLA's win capped the wildest Pac-12 game week in memory, featuring more than 96 hours of phone calls, Zooms, ever-changing hotel and flight reservations and more.
The buildup
After the Pac-12 reversed course Sept. 24 and announced it would play this fall, there were no illusions the season would come without major obstacles. However, Cal's athletic department was confident that the safety protocols it developed with local and university health officials would provide a safe atmosphere for the football team and still allow adequate preparation each week.
When Cal opened training camp in October, weeks after other FBS teams had been playing games, it took one of the most cautious approaches in the country. Knowing the virus spreads more easily indoors, the Bears abandoned their locker room altogether. Meetings took place over Zoom or outdoors with chairs placed 6 feet apart. When they entered and exited the tunnel into the stadium for practice, they did so in lanes drawn on the ground to promote proper spacing. Cal used a bare-bones support staff, limited practice time, and took other safety measures.
It wasn't enough. The week of the season opener began with a defensive lineman testing positive for COVID-19. The related contact tracing process from the City of Berkeley Public Health Department determined all the defensive linemen, along with an unknown number of players at other positions, needed to enter a 14-day quarantine, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Research indicates the virus can lay dormant for up to 14 days before it triggers a positive test, so federal guidelines Berkeley uses don't permit negative tests for COVID-19 to allow someone to exit the mandated quarantine period early.
Cal had to cancel the Washington game, and the Arizona State game also was in doubt.
Cal had zero margin for error, and if it expected to get through the season, it needed to start making contingency plans.
Wednesday: 'What do you think about playing on Sunday?'
After operating without much clarity early in the week, Cal knew by Wednesday the quarantined players would be able to play on Sunday. There had been some confusion within the program about when the players' 14-day quarantine would end, but according to Berkeley Public Health, the two-week period never changed.
It was encouraging news, but coach Justin Wilcox wasn't content. Games were being canceled all over the country at an alarming rate -- including four of the seven scheduled games in the SEC -- and he knew a potential Sunday game at Arizona State wasn't a guarantee. If, for whatever reason, Arizona State couldn't play, Wilcox wanted the Bears to be able to react quickly, so he called Kelly.
The Bruins were originally scheduled to play Utah on Friday, but the game had been moved back a day after Utah's opener was canceled. COVID-19 cases and contract tracing dropped the Utes below the threshold of 53 scholarship players available needed to play. As Wilcox assessed the landscape, UCLA was the team most likely to be without an opponent.
"Justin had called Chip before any of this really became a reality and just said, 'Hey, what do you think about playing [on Sunday?]" Knowlton said. "Just the fact that football coaches are talking to each other during a game week and looking at, 'How do we allow our kids to have a chance to play safely?' -- it's just a testament to how this is different than business as usual."
At 5:24 p.m., Cal canceled an evening news conference with Wilcox. There would be no official updates until a final determination was made on if or when a game would be played.
Thursday: Equipment trucks on hold
Cal's primary concerns on Thursday were its own testing results and working with Arizona State and the Pac-12 to reschedule the game for Sunday. But that changed in the morning when word circulated that Arizona State canceled its morning practice because several players and coaches had tested positive for COVID-19. News of the Sun Devils' coronavirus issues quickly made its way around the conference. The consensus emerged that if Cal-ASU was canceled, it would be because of the Sun Devils' inability to field a team, and nothing to do with Cal.
Knowlton gathered his senior staff virtually and worked on some predictive analysis. What was possible? What was likely? What situations did they have to prepare for?
"We basically put everyone on notice that we could host a game," Knowlton said. "So our entire facility staff and community engagement staff went to work, and my goal was to know on Friday morning what would be showstoppers to host a game after not thinking we would be hosting a game."
In addition to the positive cases at ASU, Oregon State also had a positive COVID-19 test and put three other players in quarantine. As Cal had learned the previous week, one case can be enough to sideline an entire team, so Knowlton had to consider that Washington might also be without an opponent. If both ASU and Oregon State couldn't play, the league's priority would have been to pair Washington and Cal, a week after their initial meeting was called off. But where would it be played?
By early Thursday evening, a crew of three drivers from Mayflower Moving had traveled from Sacramento to Berkeley. Cal's equipment truck was being packed, just like it would for a normal road game. But given the uncertainty about the Arizona State game, Cal director of football administration Andrew McGraw went to the crew.
"You guys aren't going anywhere," he told them. "Hang tight until we have a clearer picture of where you guys are going to be going."
McGraw, who oversees Cal's football operations, put the drivers in a hotel for the night. Since the Bears would only play on Sunday, McGraw knew that as long as the bus could depart before Friday night, it could reach its destination on time.
Friday: 'We're just gonna roll a ball out and see what happens?' 'Yeah, pretty much.'
After sleeping 2-3 hours for the second straight night, McGraw made four calls Friday morning, mindful that the Arizona State game might soon be off. The first was to the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue, Washington, where Cal stays when it faces Washington. Oregon State was staying there, and McGraw asked if Cal could take the Beavers' rooms if they couldn't play.
"Yep, we can absolutely take you guys," McGraw was told. "We'll put the Beavers' food in the freezer and bring it out for you guys 24 hours later."
McGraw's second call went to the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, where Cal stays the night before home games. The hotel confirmed it could accommodate both Cal and Washington if the game was on for Sunday. Since McGraw thought UCLA might need an opponent, his third call went to the Hilton Pasadena, where Cal stays for games at the Rose Bowl. The Hilton told him a Utah operations staffer had just checked in, ahead of the team's anticipated arrival. (The Utes' equipment truck was already parked at the Rose Bowl.) But if Utah couldn't play, the Hilton confirmed it could take Cal one night later. McGraw put a soft hold on 130 rooms.
Good sign at the Rose Bowl, courtesy of Eric Sondheimer. pic.twitter.com/PaHXOXl4ml
— Ben Bolch (@latbbolch) November 13, 2020
His final call went to Alaska Airlines, which handles Cal's charter flights. They reviewed three potential itineraries: Phoenix, Seattle and Burbank, California. He learned that Cal's plane would be coming from Seattle, so the possibility of transporting Washington for a game in Berkeley -- Washington uses the same charter -- also emerged.
"Alaska said, 'Yes, we could absolutely bring the Huskies down,'" McGraw said. "There's quite a bit to booking a charter. You don't just call somebody and the plane shows up. A ton of legal work has to be done on the university's end. I was thinking Washington was going to come our way if Oregon State had to back out. That's really where our heads were, come Friday, as we awaited the final decision from ASU."
Sometime that morning, Wilcox called a staff meeting at Cal.
"He said, 'Look, within three hours, we're going to find out if we're either playing Washington, who we had a game plan established for from the previous week, or UCLA,'" McGraw said. "Everybody just shook their head, like, 'Really? We're just going to roll a ball out and see what happens?'
"Yeah, pretty much."
Knowlton's day started around 6 a.m. Throughout the morning, he remained in contact with Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott and Merton Hanks, the senior associate commissioner for football operations, waiting for the first domino to fall. As expected, it was ASU.
Sun Devils athletic director Ray Anderson called Scott to confirm ASU would not have 53 scholarship players available to play against Cal. Head coach Herm Edwards was among those who tested positive for COVID-19.
The conference announced the game was canceled at 9 a.m., local time.
"I got on the phone with Washington and started talking to them about a possible game," Knowlton said. "What we would have to do differently, whether it was a home game and away game for each of us. Those conversations started to heat up because Oregon State wasn't going to [get its final testing results] until around noon."
The results arrived and Oregon State got the green light to play. At around the same time, Utah learned of an additional positive test, which took the Utes below the minimum threshold to play at UCLA.
At 12:07 p.m., the Pac-12 announced its second cancellation of the day.
Kelly had already told Jarmond about the COVID-19 issues at Arizona State, and Jarmond knew Cal-ASU would have taken place on Sunday. So as soon as Harlan called him with the bad news, he started working the phones. He called Darryl Dunn, CEO and general manager of the Rose Bowl, checking on whether the stadium would be available Sunday.
"We don't own our stadium," Jarmond notes. "We're a tenant there."
About 15 minutes before UCLA announced the Utah game cancellation, Jarmond called Kelly.
"I just said, 'Look, we're not going to play Utah,'" Jarmond said. "And he just laughed and said, 'I get it.' So I said, 'I'm trying to figure out a game to play on Sunday,' and he said, 'We'll play whoever, whenever.' But he probably had [Cal] in his mind with the Arizona State thing."
After hanging up with Kelly, Jarmond made another round of calls: the Rose Bowl, SafeSite (the third-party administrator of game-day antigen testing), administrators, medical personnel who would inform the city of Pasadena and Los Angeles County about the potential changes. Then, he went for a run.
"I was just stressed," Jarmond said. "I was like, 'I need to sweat.' I'm literally running and I'll stop when somebody calls me, and then I start back running again. It's just crazy. I had to do something, you know?"
All parties agreed a potential Cal-UCLA game made the most sense at the Rose Bowl, rather than in Berkeley. The Bears already had a charter flight booked, their equipment truck was ready to roll and they had the block of rooms.
A Zoom call took place between Scott, Hanks, Jarmond and Knowlton. Scott asked Jarmond to confirm that the Rose Bowl could host the game. Jarmond, while on the Zoom, called Dunn to double-check.
"Larry was just going down checklist-wise, like, to do this, who would need to change a shift?" Jarmond said.
After securing all of the necessary assurances to green-light the game, Jarmond needed one from Scott. UCLA was scheduled to visit Oregon this coming Friday. Jarmond would not sign off on the Sunday game against Cal unless the Oregon game could be pushed back to Saturday, Nov. 21. "That's a nonstarter for me," he told Scott. Jarmond also wanted both scheduling announcements -- Sunday's game with Cal and the adjusted date for UCLA-Oregon -- to be made together.
The four men also discussed kickoff times for Sunday's game. Both morning and evening kickoffs were considered, but Jarmond and Knowlton agreed the morning made the most sense. The game operations crew could finish earlier, and both teams would have a bit more time before their next games, six days later. About 40 minutes after the call, Scott texted the group, confirming the UCLA-Oregon game could move to Saturday, and that FS1 could broadcast Cal-UCLA.
FS1 was scheduled to broadcast the UCLA-Utah game on Saturday, so it was a relatively clean process for the network to pivot to UCLA-Cal, keeping the broadcast crew in place.
"Their response to us was, 'Oh, this is great, let's do it. Let's move forward," Hanks said. "A natural lead-in to their NFL programming. A unique circumstance, you get Pac-12 football leading into NFL programming, battling the Masters on [CBS]. It was, I dare say, a win for Fox in that respect."
At 1:36 p.m., the conference announced Cal and UCLA would kick off at 9 a.m. on Sunday. The teams had roughly 43 hours to prepare. Cal's equipment truck departed Berkeley for Pasadena at 3 p.m. McGraw called the Hilton to tell them the hungry Bears were coming.
"They kept on telling me how happy and relieved they were to have somebody come in and fill that vacancy," McGraw said. "I said, 'We'll eat whatever [Utah was] scheduled to eat. Same menu. Don't change it up.'"
Cal's coaching staff reviewed UCLA's opening-game film against Colorado, revisited their own game against UCLA from last season and went to work trying to come up with a game plan on unprecedented short notice.
"We just kind of had to roll with what we were game-planning for Arizona State because we had multiple reps of that in practice," Cal quarterback Chase Garbers said. "We cut some things out that were ASU-specific and took that into [the game]."
The Bears' preparation also carried on without their quarantined players. While the defensive linemen were permitted to workout separately from the team as a group during the week, the offensive line had to get creative. For two weeks, players with experience on the defensive line worked on both sides of the ball in an attempt to provide the necessary physical element to prepare to play. Full 11-on-11 scrimmaging was off the table.
The Bruins held a walk-through practice Friday night and planned another one for the following morning.
"Not only were we playing in 43 hours, but we were also playing in a 9 o'clock kickoff," Kelly said.
Jarmond forgot to eat all day. After several media interviews, he sat down for dinner and a glass of wine around 7 p.m.
"One of the most fascinating, unprecedented days that I've ever had in my 40 years of life," he said.
Saturday: 'Unique circumstances that allowed this to happen this way'
By 6 a.m., Cal's coaches were meeting.
After a light practice, the team left Memorial Stadium around noon in several buses bound for Oakland Airport. The City of Berkeley had approved the quarantined players to travel, as long as they were kept separate from the rest of the team. Or as separate as possible.
The quarantined players, who had repeatedly tested negative for COVID-19 over the previous 13 days, including Saturday morning, boarded on the plane first. They sat in the back with a buffer of several rows between them and the rest of the travel party.
"First and foremost, the AD doesn't get people to do anything when it comes to public health and when it comes to anything medical," Knowlton said. "So Berkeley Public Health and our medical officials at the university level said that they were cleared to play on Sunday and were cleared to travel on Saturday."
Cal arrived at the Hilton Pasadena by late afternoon and would eat the meal originally prepared for Utah. Despite all the logistical changes, Cal didn't incur much extra cost.
"We're going to lose about $20,000 in food costs that we owe the Airport Marriott in Phoenix," McGraw said. "But Alaska [Airlines] was such a great partner that they redid the trip, so the savings that we realized in flying to Burbank over Phoenix ended up being $20,000. So it was a wash."
When Cal and UCLA finalized a game 43 hours before kickoff, Jarmond knew there would be jokes about how many years ahead (decades, even) college football games are typically scheduled. He also knows the game doesn't come together without several factors. The natural connection between Cal and UCLA, located in the same state and part of the same university system, helped ease any public health concerns about the fast-tracked game.
The impact of the pandemic also made things easier.
"Because no fans, you have more flexibility to play," he said. "If it was a normal time, you may not be able to get a plane for the next day. Hotel doesn't have anybody, so whether they stay in Utah's hotel or they reserve somewhere else, that's easier to do. So you've got to remember there's some things in this crazy pandemic year that are in place. If they weren't, it would have been much harder. People are going to say, 'Oh, why do we have to schedule 10 years out?'
"I get it, but there were some unique circumstances that allowed this to happen this way."
Sunday: 'Who knows what happens next week, but this weekend, dammit, we're playing.'
Cal and UCLA cleared their final testing hurdles Saturday night and arrived at the Rose Bowl early Sunday.
1st time🌹...on a Sunday...let's gooooo!!!! 💙🐻💛 pic.twitter.com/UU8qYbhWOu
— Martin Jarmond (@MartinJarmond) November 15, 2020
At 9:05 a.m., Cal's Tommy Christakos kicked off a game that wasn't on anyone's radar three days earlier. Three hours and 12 minutes later, the Bruins walked off the field with their first win.
"We're lucky, we've gotten two games in so far," Kelly said. "I feel for Kyle Whittingham and Utah. He's missed two games. I feel for [Herm Edwards] and his group, they missed a game. That's tough. I felt for Justin last week and talked to him about when they were told they couldn't play. It's hitting everybody. It's obviously a worldwide pandemic, so we're just really grateful [to play].
"For us to lament, to complain about, 'Hey we've got to go on two days and play an early morning game,' I think Justin felt the same way. Just tell us where and when and we'll play."
Less than an hour after Kelly finished speaking, the Pac-12 announced that the Arizona State-Colorado game, scheduled for Nov. 21, would be canceled because of the Sun Devils' COVID-19 outbreak. Colorado athletic director Rick George, in a statement announcing the cancellation, noted the Cal-UCLA scheduling process and said, "We will look at any and all options about us being able to play this weekend."
As of Sunday afternoon, the Pac-12 had not revisited its rule that limits teams to playing in-conference opposition this season, but as it tries to remain flexible in order to get in the maximum games between now and bowl season, it stands to reason that could change.
"I certainly don't want to get ahead of any such deliberation within the Pac-12 and its leadership," Hanks said. "I have to work with the rules that we have currently have, as I like to say, 'On the books.' And we'll certainly take a look, I'd imagine."
In 2020, there are no guarantees. Shortly after Sunday's game, Jarmond tweeted a picture of himself smiling in front of the Rose Bowl, with the caption, "Stayed ready."
"It took hustle on my part, on Jim's part, on the conference's part," Jarmond said. "It was full-speed ahead, thinking through everything, writing things down, calling people, bartering, all because we want to give these kids a chance. I take pride in, they're not going to miss a game this weekend.
"Now who knows what happens next week, but this weekend, dammit, we're playing."