Reusse: Which version of Cal will greet P.J. Fleck and the Gophers on Saturday?

We did not overwhelm Glen Mason with sympathy during his decade as the Gophers football coach, although in retrospect it can be said that he wasn’t the luckiest leader of athletes in that term from 1997 through 2006.

After he inherited a program that had gone 16-39 in Jim Wacker’s five seasons, Mason had a competitive team by his third season in 1999, and a very good one in 2003. Letting that win over Michigan— on Oct. 10, 2003 — in the Metrodome get away cost “Mase” greatly in the category of public opinion.

The Gophers rushed for 424 yards, with the running back combination of Marion Barber III and Laurence Maroney, and the option ability of quarterback Asad Abdul-Khaliq, but somehow allowed 31 points in the fourth quarter and lost, 38-35.

Second-worst gut punch for a major home football tenant in Metrodome history, trailing only Falcons 30, Vikings 27, in overtime, on Jan. 17, 1999.

I was contemplating Mason’s misfortune in view of the Gophers heading West to play the Cal Bears on Saturday night. This is a California program that has stuck with defensive-minded Justin Wilcox as the head coach since 2017, largely through sub-mediocrity.

The Bears have had four consecutive losing seasons. Worse yet, they were also sold out by their state university brethren.

UCLA moved to the Big Ten with three Pac-12 cohorts, breaking up the major western conference and leaving California (and Stanford) to land in the ACC.

How would you like to be the administrator in charge of paying travel expenses for Cal’s non-revenue sports? For instance, the first conference road games for the Bears’ volleyball team are a weekend in Virginia, Blacksburg and Charlottesville, followed by another trip to Syracuse, N.Y., and Chestnut Hill, Mass.

The aforementioned Coach Mason did not have the advantage of facing a Cal team lost in the win column, representing an athletic program lost in absurd geography.

Mason was taking on Jeff Tedford, a recruiting marvel who wasn’t terribly worried about getting his athletes a degree from this very prestigious academic institution. That was cited in his departure a few seasons later.

The Cal roster that Saturday in 2006 included Marshawn Lynch and Justin Forsett as running backs, and DeSean Jackson as the best of a blazing collection of receivers. The quarterback was Nathan Longshore, a large young fellow with a huge arm.

This was Mason’s 18th nonconference game at the start of Gophers seasons and the first against a team from what was the four other power conferences.

For sure, he was not all-in on the decision by his Gophers bosses to schedule a series with California, particularly when Tedford came in and started recruiting.

I mean, Cal was a place where it often was tough enough to win that Marv Levy went 8-29-3 from 1961 to 1964 and was fired.

He had a bit more success in the NFL, where he took the Buffalo Bills to four Super Bowls and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001.

It now will be noted the Bills’ share an 0-4 record with the Vikings in Super Bowls — although after watching J.J. McCarthy light up an injury-wracked Bears defense for 143 passing yards on Monday night, Purple fandom is now certain the Lombardi Trophy soon will be coming to Eagan, Minn.

As for Coach Mason and his trip to Berkeley, it was a circus — and not in a good way for the Gophers.

Longshore was 22-of-31 for 300 yards. Cal also had 231 yards rushing; 139 of those and two touchdowns for Lynch, who would prove his greatness in the NFL. As would Jackson, who only needed a flip from Longshore to turn it into big yards.

There was a play when Jackson had the ball in the backfield, started around right end, probably had a 7- to 8-yard gain, said the heck with this, went back all the way left and still could be running. On one kickoff return, Lynch took it to the 20, didn’t like what he saw, retreated and was corralled at the 10.

So what? Ten extra yards to get the ball into the opposite end zone didn’t figure to be a problem for Cal that day.

You can look at that beating — at Mason’s Gophers having no chance in a track meet — as creating the momentum for him to be fired at the end of that 6-7 season.

If the Gophers hadn’t seen those Tedford recruits, if they had played a usual nonconference suspect, or even a “usual” Cal team, Mason would’ve gone 7-5, survived, and the Tim Brewster Era never would have been upon us.