California tries to focus on the present

BERKELEY —  Their winning streak is more than two months now, not that the California Golden Bears are checking their calendars, but they surely know what’s on the schedule in just two weeks.

That would be a showdown at the Coliseum with the USC Trojans, who just happened to be in the Bay Area on Saturday for a full-scale blowout at Stanford while Cal was administering a mini-blowout of UCLA.

California plays at 4-5 Arizona before showing up at the Coliseum to play the Trojans, and all that’s on the line would be Cal’s first trip to the Rose Bowl since 1959.

Cal Coach Jeff Tedford said his team isn’t getting ahead of itself.

“Our guys are mature enough to understand,” he said.

This is not the time to start planning anything to do with USC ... or maybe it’s all right after all.

“We know they have been playing good football, but when the time comes, we’ll be ready for them too,” said cornerback Daymeion Hughes, from Crenshaw High.

As a sellout crowd of 72,516 filled chilly Memorial Stadium, it was warmed by a 38-24 smackdown of the Bruins, who moved steadily in the opposite direction of the Bears, losing their fourth straight game and falling to 4-5.

It has been tough going for UCLA. In their four-game losing streak, the Bruins have given up an average of 31.2 points.

Meanwhile, the mood on the other sideline is downright cheery. Cal won its eighth in a row, improved to 8-1 after opening with a disappointing 17-point defeat at Tennessee on Sept. 2, and remains the only undefeated team in the Pacific 10 Conference at 6-0.

Cal’s lead was 21-10 in the third quarter when DeSean Jackson returned a punt 72 yards for a touchdown. Jackson, a sophomore from Long Beach Poly, caught the football, thought about going left, but turned right instead and said that not one would-be UCLA tackler touched him.

“A little crazy,” Jackson said. “I love to make all the plays I can make.”

Jackson said he gets a thrill out of playing against UCLA, Oregon and USC, three schools that tried to recruit him. Jackson was a UCLA fan as a youngster, “watching DeShaun Foster run around in the backfield.”

And on Saturday, UCLA was watching Jackson run around. Jackson said he wouldn’t mind if the same thing happened against USC in two weeks at the Coliseum.

“That’s a big game, of course, get to go back home, see my friends,” Jackson said. “Hopefully I can put on a show for them.

“I’ve been waiting a year to play that game. And now we only have two weeks to go.”

Nate Longshore’s performance at quarterback -- 20 completions in 24 attempts for 266 yards and three touchdowns -- was enough to impress Tedford. What Longshore said afterward, when asked what he was thinking about, probably meant more.

“Tucson, Tucson, Tucson,” he said. “Nothing but Arizona.”

Wide receiver Robert Jordan, who caught a 44-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter with Cal leading by four points, said Tedford’s mission to keep the team focused is working.

“It’s not week by week or even game by game, it’s play by play, that’s what is on our minds,” Jordan said. “He said if we can do that, we’ll be successful.”

thomas.bonk@latimes.com