Saturday's Cal v. UCLA game was going to be notable regardless of the outcome, because it was on television on the Pac-12 Network.

While that was a positive step for the game, the contest was, of course, notable for another reason ... Cal entered halftime down 10-0.

Cal being behind would be news enough, but shut out? In fact, it could have been much worse for the Bears. UCLA had chances for a couple more tries, and only some impatience on the side of the Bruins and some dogged defense from Cal kept it that close.

"They put us under a lot of pressure," said Cal captain Seamus Kelly, who is normally used to putting teams under pressure himself. "We made a lot of mistakes."

It was more than that. Cal got flustered. They are usually so patient with the ball, but this time it looked as if they felt they needed to score right now to exorcise UCLA's strong start.

And when that didn't happen, and the Bruins scored (horrors) a try, they looked even more flustered. Impatience begat mistakes on offense. Defensively, they held firm, and that was huge for them.

Notable, also, was this. UCLA is one of the better teams in the country, but once they got their act together, Cal scored 32 points on them, in 40 minutes.

As Seb Sharpe said in his post-game interview with RUGBYMag, the Bruins showed that Cal can be beaten, and that should give several teams reason to be confident.

But Cal also was able to completely put aside a pretty upsetting first 40 minutes, re-attach the blinkers that kept away the band and the cheerleaders and the cameras, and put the game away.

The message, then, from the past two weekends is that BYU and Cal are both vulnerable. There are college teams, St. Mary's being one, and Life being another, who are in the conversation as the best college teams in the country. But we all know how dangerous a wounded cougar or a wounded bear can be.