Cal football snaps 14-game losing streak against USC

LOS ANGELES — This isn’t supposed to happen here. It’s not supposed to happen against this opponent.

But on Saturday night in front of a homecoming crowd of 56,721 on Saturday, Cal overcome a history of bad results at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum and pulled off a 15-14 victory over USC.

Cal trailed 14-0 at halftime and had shown no reason to believe that its offense could score one touchdown, let alone the two it would take to complete the comeback. But sparked by a safety on the first possession of the second half, the Bears finally got their act together and did just enough to break a 15-game losing streak against the Trojans.

With two games left in the regular season, the Bears (6-4, 3-4 Pac-12) earned bowl eligibility for just the second time in seven seasons. The Trojans (5-5, 4-4), who started the day in a three-way tie atop the Pac-12 South, are now behind Utah, Arizona State and Arizona in the division race.

Cal’s last win in the series was a 34-31, triple-overtime victory in 2003. The Bears last won at the Coliseum in 2000, 28-16.

All early indications were that the drought would continue as Cal saw Chase Garbers’ 83-yard run in the first quarter nullified by a Jake Curhan holding penalty. Four plays later, the Bears punted to midfield, and on USC’s first snap, Aca’Cedric Ware popped a 44-yard run.

On 3rd-and-goal from the 2-yard line, USC quarterback JT Daniels found Tyler Vaughns for the game’s first touchdown. The Trojans went ahead 14-0 on a touchdown pass from Daniels to Vaughns, a 23-yard strike that beat Elijah Hicks and came one play after USC converted a 4th-and-6.

Cal finally got on the board with an odd play early in the third quarter. Toa Lobendahn snapped the ball well over Daniels’ head with such velocity that it bounded from the USC 22 to the goal line. Alex Funches hit Daniels as he bobbled the recovery, Jordan Kunaszyk and Luc Bequette smacked Ware on his attempt to get the recovered ball out of the end zone, and Funches finally touched down Daniels, who covered the ball in the end zone, for a safety.

On the Bears’ ensuing drive, Garbers just about doubled his passing output, finding Vic Wharton III for a 29-yard touchdown that trimmed their deficit to 14-9 with 12:51 remaining. At that point, Garbers was 7-of-14 for 59 yards.

Garbers’ 5-yard touchdown run then gave the Bears their first lead, 15-14 with 6:13 on the third-quarter clock. The two-point conversion try failed when Garbers’ pass was intercepted in the end zone.

USC limited Cal running back Patrick Laird to 71 yards on 19 carries.

Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rsimmons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron